PPP begins (overview of 3D2N camp)

Just returned from the 3 days 2 nights camp by my polytechnic. Spamming chocolate into myself. Most delicious way to be emo.

My next few years in poly are either going to be epic win or epic lose.

I've been to many group outings - not so many, because I don't like them, but enough. When the facilitators of whichever activity try to herd the group of more than 8 randoms together, major divides always pop up to make it at best only partially successful, and at the end all you learn is that you should avoid working with assholes and avoid assholes in general.

In 2007, there was a gender divide in the Singaporean delegates that went to India. By 2008, after four years in the same school, two of which we spent in the same class, 2/7 still missed a pissload of people. Even OBS took some crap, if I heard right.

I don't know if it's because people are maturing, or because the number 17 is just right, or because DPA filtered out the noobs and small-voiced faggots, but there was no douchebag drama this time round. Hell, I'm not sure there were many douchebags there, my presence notwithstanding. By the first few activities, which were fairly simple things like running around the whole school, a few people from my group of 17 came out of nowhere and promptly began filling up unofficial leadership roles. No, they weren't asked, not even encouraged. And there was no jostling for attention - remember that there was no previously aforementioned pecking order or state of affairs that predetermined things. Mostly strangers to each other. So these people didn't have the benefit of having the intellectual high ground (come on, how many people in our old school actually want to engage TOFU in an argument?), or were the head of a clique (important for female politics), or anything. They just popped and took charge.

If I'm not wrong, even OBS leads people by the hand and gives them a poopload of restrictions, hammering cheers into the group and all that to ensure idiots are kept in check. Here we were served a steaming pile of open-ended. BBQ? Go buy food yourself. Late? Too bad. Bedtime? Your choice. They specified early on that nobody is obliged to look out for emo kids sitting in the corner and offer them emotional support.

There were very simple tools only - some well-done preaching (even if it was full of bullshit pop psychology, there was good emphasis on choice), a few official group leaders who were only one year older than us, and no gimmicks. The games were simple, yet managed to promote - shall I dare to say it - team work. Spontaneous cohesion. Not much prodding from the assigned leaders or the facilitators.

How well did I do? Well there has to be a reason for eating chocolate antidepressant, right? I fit well into the role of background helper (when I'm not messing up), but at the end of it, I still felt like a big failure compared to everyone else. Quite similar to the India experience in some ways; when your team manages to organize and execute a good barbeque, and all you did in the supermarket was look for cheese slices and accidentally bump into people because you're nervous about looking stupid and all that, man, you can really smell the fail seeping out your ass.

And no, not everyone was the epic headstrong type, but seriously I'm not going to use them as an excuse.

Big failure? Overall yes, but if we're talking about things learned, then no. This was a resounding wake-up call.