iQuest Studios

Hey guys, I am back from my St. John camp. It was surprising fun, and I helped out quite a lot. I pretty much enjoyed myself, even though I had like only 15 hours of sleep for 4 whole days.

Day 0
I went to camp in the afternoon on the first day. Actually, it’s called Day 0, since only the Sec 3 cadets have arrived. Anyway, after I reached there, I setup my laptop and stuff, and begun playing CS:Source. Before I knew it, half of the NCOs there(basically my batchmates), were joining in and waiting for their turn to play the game. But it was really funny, especially how some of the other NCOs play. However, it was also quite pressurising due to the large audience which I am not used to, and I missed many AWP shots that could have been on target.

Anyway, we begun our activities 2 hours after I checked in. The first activity that I took part in (the sec 3 cadets had a talk by our teacher in charge first) was a game where one person is supposed to lead another blindfolded person to a safe area. There are obstacles in the way that cannot be touched. At first, it was quite easy. Very basic, one person led another guy through the “maze”. After 2-3 rounds of such easy navigation, the NCOs got bored, and our sadist side kicked in. Soon, there were 3 entrances, that led to 1 convergence point, and the leader is supposed to lead the 3 other cadets to the safe area without them touching each other. We made about 4 changes in all, and with each change, the maze got more and more sadistic and harder. But basically it was fun for the NCOs.

At night, it was sentry for the Sec 3 cadets. For the uninformed, sentry basically means you stay at a place alone at night for about 2 hours. Of course, before this, there would be ghost stories told by the NCOs to “spice up” the activity. We begun sentry at around 12 midnight. To spice up the sec 3 cadet’s last camp as a cadet (before they become NCOs), another NCO and I decided to wear a poncho to scare the cadets. Why a poncho? Because our standard army poncho is very dark green and we can become almost invisible in the dark, yet with a sinister outline. I managed to scare like 3 cadets only, partly because they all meet up together even though they are supposed to be doing sentry. I was quite dissed off at that, but apparently, our CSM, which is in essence, the highest ranking NCO decided to let the cadets off. I initally planned to let the cadets knock their mess tins, so the cadets were lucky that the CSM decided to let them sleep instead.

After scaring the cadets, I went to bath at the poolside before sleeping. I slept at about 2:30AM, but kept waking up in the middle of the night as the air conditioner was too cold.

Day 1
After a very short nap from day 1, I went to pick up the sec 2s. I conducted the standardisation check, trying to spot as many errors as possible. I also did quite a lot of bunk checks . But after that I went to join the Sec 3s for their leadership activities again as I was part of the organising team and had to facilitate the activites. I shall not elaborate on that since it is really hard to describe what happened during the activity, though I can hint that it was VERY VERY amusing. Seriously.

After lunch, I had quite a slack afternoon, since the cadets were all involved in a first aid mock triage, which does not concern the OT. I tried to sleep for a while, but gave it up as a bad job and went to play Source for a while before watching the film Mindhunters (Very nice, full of gore)

After dinner, it was horror movie screening time, to prepare the cadets for the confidence trail, which in essence means that the cadets walk a set trail in the night around the school ALONE. After the screening, the cadets had a short nap, which I had the honour of waking them up from. =) However, apparently I woke them up too early, and the trail was not set up properly yet. But never mind, I went on and told them ghost stories. Even though I couldn’t reach the standard of the 2004 batch of NCOs, I think I did a good job. I could see that some of the Sec 1s were rather freaked out. Just as we were about to start, I recieve a call from the CSM, forwarding the message the the Teacher In Charge wants the Sec 1 and 2 cadets to walk the trail in a PAIR. In my 4 years in SJAB, I have never seen cadets walk the trail in pairs! And further instructions revealed that the NCOs are not supposed to scare the cadets, which was actually my plan initally. (I intended to drop a poncho from the 2nd floor as the cadets walk by below.) So I was pretty depressed.

Also, during the night trail, 2 other NCOs and I volunteered to keep a watch on stuff (even though my original intention was to use it was an excuse to scare the cadets). However, apparently the other 2 NCOs were too tired after setting the trail that they fell asleep. Also, the trail was not set very well, and the rope that forms the trail broke off at some point from where the 3 of us were stationed. So I had to stay awake throughout the entire night and direct the cadets to the next part of the rope. I slept at near 5AM in the morning.

Day 2
Quite a lot of NCOs were tired from last night’s activity and I was one of the worst case. So, none of the NCOs went to drill the cadets even though they were supposed to. =P Anyway,the cadets had a pretty good morning, no much exertion while the NCOs were watching Battle Royale(Which is also a nice film full of gore).

The afternoon was the most interesting. We had an “Amazing Race” like event. I was a stationmaster. Knowing my personality, (which you probably picked up from this post, if you don’t know me personally) I set a very sadistic task.

“10 objects or surfaces in the room (standard classroom) has a piece of blue tape pasted on them. You are given 3 minutes to find 2 of them. Failing so, you would complete a penalty, which is either 40 pushups done by the team to extend the time by a minute and one hint will be provided or 120 pushups for each missing item done by a person.”

Sounds easy enough? But it isn’t. I have pasted the tapes on surfaces that wouldn’t usually be inspected. Under a chair, behind a locker lock, behind the door lock, on the CPU surface, below the whiteboard etc. In fact, most of the objects requires your sense of touch to actually find the objects. None of the 1st five groups managed to clear the task without doing any pushups (which was my aim anyway), but the last 3 groups managed to clear it, probably because the answer was leaked to them. Oh well.

After dinner, it was War games, which I shall not elaaborate on, since it will just piss me off. After war games, it was sentry for the Sec 1 and Sec 2s, and ECTC(Elite Commando Training Course) for the Sec 3s. I tried to get some sleep, but I woke up at about 1AM to pick up all the cadets and gather them. Went back to sleep at around 3AM.

Day 3
It was the last day of the camp. Nothing much, just packing up. Normally, there would be a hike to some place before packing up, but somehow it got cancelled. So basically it was packing up and stuff and the clearing of pushups. After the entire camp ended, some NCOs and I went to play Counter Strike 1.6 on LAN and this basically concludes my narration of my last SJAB camp.

To other NCOs, let’s go a chalet at the end of the year! =)