十四日十二月二零零七年：金曜日

Today i went to watch the movie Enchanted with my cousins Ben and Ling, it was a really nice movie, humorous, romantic and with a happy ever after ending.. a nice change from those teary dramas that i have been watching lately...

i finally figured out why i like shows like タイヨウのうた、ヘレン子狐、一リットル涙、電池がきれるまで [taiyou no uta, heren ko kitsune, ichi rittoru namida, denchi ga kireru made] (song to the sun, helen the baby fox, one litre of tears, till the battery runs out)

why you may ask, all these shows, are about how precious life is, most of us take living for granted, we think that just because life doesn't go the way we want, it's not worth living, but this shows are different.. terminally ill people, children and animals, all strive to survive... i guess it's human not to appreciate what we have till we lose it, but shows like this, wakes us up, to tell us that, life is precious...

anyway, i totally side tracked.. sigh.. about enchanted.. i went to bandar utama with my cousins to watch, and wow, maybe it's because it's a friday and it's the school holiday, but there was a lot of people, and it was so hard to find parking, in the end we managed to find parking, and the line for the tickets was absurd, but we managed to get the tickets at 9.20pm.. our movie time? 9.20pm haha.. but knowing the advertisements and all, we still made it in time..

after that met, ccy, yoong xiong, leonard, simon and wei hao outside the cinema.. they were going to watch enchanted too... simon has already actually watched enchanted 3 times.. OMG.. well it is a good movie, i don't mind watching it a second time, but not so soon.. anyway, next on my list of movies is the golden compass (though i've been hearing that it isn't good) and i am legend.. watched the trailer in Croatia, and Desmond said that it's a good movie.. and it looked good, so i'm up for it.. and oh, yes also i want to watch Elizabeth, haha i love this costume like movies.. :p

an interesting thing.. usually people buy food BEFORE the movie, but my cousins and i, went against the norm, and bought food AFTER the movie.. haha ...well the three of us were after the corn anyway :p and they dropped by my house for water/milk, and to eat the corn and chat.. it was fun hanging out with them as usual :p

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二十九日十一月二零零七年 - 五日十二月二零零七年

on the above stated date, there was a goodwill camporee organised by the Persatuan pengakap Kuala Lumpur.. i think.. (Kuala Lumpur Scout association)

well i was told it's done by KL, so i will trust my source..

earlier, a few months back to be exact, xian ai was telling me about the camp, and was looking for people to help out with the camp, so since i liked helping out in camps, and well since not much, actually no scouting skill was required (yes, i admit, my scouting skills are crap..), i thought that i would help out, since i had nothing much to do, and it's effective for depression also haha, find something to do ;p

so on the 29th, the start date of the camporee, i went with xian ai, and met up with some juniors.. and we were assigned to contingents... the scouts that came were mainly from Malaysia, those out of state, scouts from Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia..

i volunteered to work as an international service team (IST) with the Singapore group, mainly because i wanted to avoid any communication barriers, and since i speak, English, Malay, mandarin, Cantonese and hakka with varying fluency, i thought that Singapore would be a piece of cake of me..

i mean i don't speak a word of thai actually, and my malay, well... let's say it's not that good anymore haha..

so i was assigned to help the Singapore contingent settle in, when they arrived, there was quite a lot of work, and some small matters arose but were settled.. (getting tents, camp beds, settling inquiries, boundaries...) and the Singapore contingent, had an activity right after arriving.. talk about tiring.. they had to do a gotong royong (community service to clean up an area) in a nearby kampung (village, though it isn't really a village.. we just call it that..)

after a 6 hour bus ride, and setting up camp, now they have to do community service.. must have been really tiring..

anyway the gotong royong, was hideous...well not ugly in that sense, but woah, there was like a heap of rubbish, and it really stank, and oh my god.. i saw a spider almost as big as my fist... ==' freaked me out...

one thing i must say is that, the girl scouts in the Singapore contingent. .(there were 61 scouts including the scout leaders... i think in their contingent.. 5 were girls) really had guts.. they bravely came forward to help with that heap of rubbish...

after that they came back and rested.. and we sent them off for dinner, and their free time.. unfortunately for the other days of the camp, i had class and wasn't around, but they were sent for their camp activities anyway, where i was not needed.. on the last day, i met up with them again, to ask them how were things, did they enjoy the camp.. (though truth be told i think they were just being polite, cause to me camp sucked. will bitch about it below..)

and they were so nice, they gave me some souvenirs from the Singapore scouts.. a badge and a pin.. so nice of them :)

also i had a very good workout, at the camp walking back and forth, there were some amusing moments.. as we helpers sat down and shared our experiences, and complaints, we laughed together and learned together, i met a scout leader and some rovers from titiwangsa, and one from Sabah(?) who was studying n KL though... and they were a nice bunch, i sure do hope that they keep in contact with me.... :) it was nice hanging out with them...

and now for some pictures which i have just received from the Singapore contingent leader. it was so nice of Mr Supra to send the pictures to me..

they were taken on the last day of the camp, when i came to bid them farewell

from left is xian ai, yong peng, yuen herng, mr supra, and me (sorry if i spelt anyone's name wrong.. ) yuen herng is actually my 2nd cousin from my dad's side.. you guys know pn loh? well, meet her son hehe.. small world..

close up of the picture above.. same people.. lazy to relabel haha

mr Supra and i.. darn should have rolled down my sleeve =='

overall, the camp.. was crap, poor planning, imagine the day before was only when they had asked for portable toilets for the camp.. there was no specific allocated place for the scouts to get drinking water,(worse was they had to pay for drinking water..) and there was not enough lighting in the campsite.. no place for them to charge their cameras..

even the administration was a mess.. imagine only on the second last day did i get my nametag, and well each helper was supposed to get a t-shirt, scarf and badge, and we didn't get it until the last day, and we didn't get a scarf, so it was replaced with a cap.. which i swapped with a singaporean scout..

erghh the planning drove me up the walls.. how could you do that, when scouts from other countries are coming? it was as if there were not enough funds as well, they made the scouts walk around the whole of KL and the only transportation for them is a DBKL truck lined with chairs??? what are they? illegal immigrants?? i mean walking is still fine, as a scout, (but not really for scout leaders... some of them aren't young anymore haha) but get a bus for christ sake...

it crossed my mind a lot of times during the camp, that if i were the one organising it, and if i had enough time and man power this wouldn't happen..

for this camp, i would say they had enough time.. they jsut didn't utilise it, and yes i would say they had enough staff as well.. and the best part? no one wanted to take responsiblity there, they kept pushing it left, right and left again.. when my contingent asked me a query.. for example... for lighting, in their campsite.. i was directed to guy A, who directs me to guy B, who directs me to guy C, who directs me back to guy A.. a nice round circle...

it was like a treasure hunt searching for these people.. call? they either don't answer, or their phone is crap/dead.. and talking on the phone gets you no where, you have to talk to the person.. that made my blood pressure boil... and well i got my real good excercise from my "treasure hunts" lucky i had win han ahha.. if not i don't think that i would be able to manage ;p

i mean if you are some people will look for you, then stay at the station.. if it's that boring and you want to walk.. then answer your bloody phone and go meet the person at the station to settle the problem.. erghh.. you know if i were a foreign scout, i don't think i would like to come again.. thought i might hoping it's better.. but such lousy planning, and time management.. though the singporean scouts told me that they would attend camporees again, cause it was nice to make foregin friends.. note they said camporee, haha whether it's held here again.. is another matter i guess..

and oh the worse part for the camp in overall was the in-fighting.. that was the worse.. as a scout you should finish what you started, how can you be so irresponsible and just leave? i'm not blaming the scouts, but the person that made that decision.. after you see teh job through, then only kick people's ass.. it was horrible.. too horrible to describe.. overall, i was thanking god that i was not a particapant, but a mere helper, who can come and go as i please...

-Oracl3-