Welcome.

PLTC (Patrol Leader's Training Camp) was quite fun in a nutshell. We did many things which would improve our leadership skills but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for some people) because of the rain we did not have footdrill. The rain was especially heavy during the 2nd and 3rd day of the camp, and alot of programmes were shifted.

On the first day of the camp, we were hiking from New Town secondary to Pulau Ubin! Imagine the distance: 40km +++! Well we first hiked around dover area, and everyone was already starting to get a little tired. But well we still strove on and reached buonea vista mrt. Heng sia... we could take mrt to cover more than half the distance, all the way to tampines! After that i took over navigational duties, i.e. i was leading my patrol around tampines. I had to bring them to some ulu part of tampines which i had totally no idea about and they were like blaming me for getting them lost... I got a bit frustrated with them but still, I tyco-ed and led them to the right place. I must sorta thank zhang yao with supporting me through this period, he was one of the few in my patrol who did not blame me whatsoever. Well, we ran out of time once we reached some part of loyang, one or two bus stops after the flyover and took a bus. Along the way we met many patrols still hiking around and we were like laughing at them, just for the jest of it. We took a bumpboat from changi point to Pulau Ubin and started hiking from there to Nordin beach. Wow, for those of you who don't know, Nordin beach was right at the northern part of Ubin and we were at the south. Well, we hiked on but were totally tired out by that time. They even gave us a tent to carry "for fun"! Wah biang! It was really tiring to carry the tent and we kept pushing the job around. Once we reached nordin beach, we set up our bashas and had dinner. Dinner was totally disgusting... maybe you would call it a protein fest.. but there was seriously ALOT of insects jumping into our boiling water which was to cook our noodles. Only around 4 people got properly cooked noodles, and the rest survived on delicious mamee like dry noodles with seasoning. The night was filled with people in kelongs trying to sing techno music.. Can you imagine how horrible that was!? It was even worse than the chalet next door during the class chalet. We of course, had little sleep in peace.

The next day we just hiked back out to take the bumpboat back to Changi Point and had a good breakfest at the hawker centre there. I had carrot cake and warm soya bean. It was really shiok after the day before. We rested a while, discussed the campfire item and then took a bus back. the bus trip was one of the best parts sia, everyone just knocked out for about 40 minutes. When we arrived back at NTSS we had a re-vitalisation period. Thank Twa Pek Gong for that! We were real tired and had some good sleep. We were basically late for fall in after that and kenna pumping. From then on, I think everyone got the idea and started to chiong whenever got fall in. We had some lectures in the AVA room which were quite forgettable. From what I've heard, there was supposed to be teachers instead of service scouts teaching us but the teacher got admitted to a hospital. Hope he recovers soon! Oh ya, it was on this day that I was appointed to become a patrol leader :) Lots of people from the 23 Eagle Scout Group became PLs, though we were much less in strength than ACSI. At the end of the day, it was a really good sleep for all of us.

Waking up revitalised, we had a long day ahead of us. First we had our PT then breakfast, then morning inspection then another lecture. When the patrol leaders were reporting strength during the lectureeveryone was making alot of noise and so they kenna pumping. Well, funnily enough, the instructor didn't ask the PLs to pump along. After lunch was telematch. It was really fun especially the part where we all had to turn around a pole 20 times. Everyone was like dizzy like siao and walking in the wrong direction and even falling down! Even the leaders were laughing like siao, well of course they didn't participate. the rest of the telematches were quite fun too. After that was skill games. My patrol did quite well in this, we set quite a bit of records here and there. After all these fun was dinner, which was really good for a camp considering there were 5 different items which you could eat! The food had been not bad in the past few days too. At night our campfire which was pretty good, but not the best. Some of the events were cut short because of the time limits so it was less... enjoyable. Sleep was as usual, welcomed. However, it was not all that peaceful. We had a total of 4 fire drills including one false burglar alarm! Wah it was quite annoying to keep running up and down, and they were like in the middle of the night! After the last drill at 3 plus in the morning, we had our peace to sleep.

Most people looked forward to this day, because it was the day we could go home. Some of them alreasy started to count down from the day before! The closing ceremony was pretty long, because they had to call out everyone one by one to collect their certificates. on a side note, it was lucky that we only had 80 plus people in the camp. For me it was quite a sad day to leave so many new friends so quickly, and I don't even have their numbers. We had been through thick and thin together for the past 4 days and we still survived. Well, that ends it all for my experience, and I hope to see my patrol some time later, whether is it in scouting or in everyday life!