5th June - 8th June 2010, effing best 4 days of the year, so far
1. I met people who oozed awesomeness. Screw the fact that I was the oldest in the camp the only one who wasn’t a teenager, these bunch of urchins had an uncanny ability to make me laugh. I must have turned my radio to the right channel before I left for Sarawak coz I had no trouble tuning into their frequency. We fooled around, we snickered at a certain person’s PMS mood swings, we pulled pranks, we guffawed at ‘unintentional’ shots of people’s underwears, we painted the town red. Bless my immaturity. Seriously, where have you guys been in my entire life?
2. I was in an English-speaking heaven. We were all Bananas, or at least believed we were so. Feeling very English, weren’t we, mates? It was like being with Les Sluts; there were no false pretenses on my part, no keeping my tendency to use bombastic words in check, no struggling to brush off the dust on my selves of half-forgotten Chinese language, no forceful, unnecessary usage of ‘lah’ just to fit in and no fear of falling under the ‘insanity-prone’ category. I couldn’t describe my elation and contentment but it felt better than obtaining freedom after finals. And when I greeted people Good Morning, I actually meant it, sincerely.
3. I learnt throughout these four days more than I ever will in my four years of music course, in the sense of knocking down the wall of fear and facing the thorns of life as they were, especially the ones that cause a pain in the ass. A short briefing, during which we were put to practice our skills and got disdain looks and sharp remarks from the facilitators, was all we got before being shoved into the wild to do our field assignments. Thank God for my group members, coz I had never felt so lost in finding an angle to my story and figuring out the gist of what I wanted to write. We had to dig for information, from observing the process and deft movements of the men preparing the Ikan Terubok Masin to interviewing strangers at the Satok Market. Bless the lovely people who were so patient to let us bug them with question after question on their opinion on the market, the famous fish delicacy and the town!
4. The food. Or should I say, the junk food.
“There is a saying that you will never be hungry in a BRATs camp”
And yes, the saying was true. I swear, besides the three main buffet-based meals, the seniors filled the time in-between veraciously fattening us up. We could be burying our heads in the pile of notes that we compiled or typing out our articles feverishly or brainstorming on our video, and Tristan and Sandra would appear at our table to unload a mountain of junk food. Rocky, Mamee Monster, Twisties, Nachos, Love Letter, Jelly and the list went on.
“Are you guys hungry?”
“Who wants more Double Decker?”
“If you guys are hungry, we bought some Maggi cups!”
“You guys can boil water to make some coffee” while Tristan waved a boxed of packet Nescafe in the air.
“Packet Milo, people! Or some of you may prefer the canned of Nescafe!”
“If you guys feel hungry, tell us and we’ll bring in more food for you guys!”
Whoa. We were pampered. See 3G, Sandra wasn’t just being helpful at showing us where the stairs was.
5. I nearly died laughing from the lame/dirty/racist jokes. Not to mention the tormenting mind games imposed upon us by Tristan, Sandra and Niki.
- How many times did the sheep jump over the wall?
- Guess the number of horses
- What grandma likes and doesn’t like
- How many pencils are there?
- Bang, bang, bang. Who died?
- Black magic
- The 3 random things
If you were one of the poor retarded souls, like me, who took almost the whole duration of the camp to decipher the game, IT WAS PURE TORTURE, OKAY? I saw the mad, frustrated glint in Zen’s eyes and the confused look on Jaclyn’s face when they tried to crack the Grandma Game and I doubt I appeared any less inane when I tried to figure out How Many Times Did The Sheep Jump Over The Wall and the number of horses and Who Died. But now, we’ve all graduated from the BRATs mind games and are eligible to bring torture to our juniors and other peasants. Revenge is sweet, baby.
6. The endless stream of games. My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean. Husband and Wife. Aiyo, Ping Piang Po. Drop the Curtain and Call the Name. Honey, I Love You, but I can’t Smile.
I applaud them for finding effective ways to keep us awake to finish up our assignments. And gluing us together (:
The list could go on forever; these are just a few of my favourite things.
All I could say is, THANK YOU Fate, for bringing these nutcase, awesome Bright Roving Annoying Teenagers into my life; THANK YOU BRATs, for giving me an experience of a lifetime; THANK YOU mom, for cello taping my hands to the laptop so that I would try my luck and write a thousand word essay within two hours before the deadline.
Introduction to BRATs
The buffet spread for all of our breakfasts and lunches
Our first dinner at a place near the hotel we were staying at.
O Jian. Yum. With cracker instead of egg.
Fried chicken
A Sarawakian vegetable called Paku Miding
I was busy torturing
V
V
V
Audrey: *Sad face* I don't get it!
Shawn: Gaps like a goldfish.
Zen: The string attached to your tag becomes tasty *Ngom ngom ngom*
On our way to the Semenggoh Nature Reserve to see Orang Utans, aka Utan Man.
My team members (:
Want a smoke?
No idea what William was doing.
Was it Jason or Ivy who pronounced his name as A-Cash? Very British. Haha.
We decided to skip the buffet lunch and go hunting for Sarawak laksa and Mee Kolo
Jia Tong and William
Owayne, Anusha, Shin Yee
Beverlley
Dahlan and Gavin. Jacob and Edward.
Sorry, inside joke.
Fifi, Nadhirah, me, Akash
On the KLIA Express back to Central
We're all suffering from the BRATs Syndrome, though Tristan defined it as BRATs Really Adore Tristan Syndrome. Not in a million years.
Less than three BRATs <3
