Pinoeering Course: Petaling District 2008

What do you get when you cross between a pioneering project, a teaching course and more than 10 scout troops?





PIONEERING COURSE!!! WOOO-HOOO!!!




This is Malaysia's very first pioneering course and it happened here, in SMKBU(3)! Schools fromall over the Petaling district were invited to this amazing event of the month! (Why month?Malaysia Jamboree is the one that is the most amazing event of the month. lol)

Date: 22nd to 24th August 2008
Venue: SMK Bandar Utama Damansara 3, Petaling Jaya

Schools participated, (those that have sent representatives)
-SMK Damasara Jaya (DJ)
-SMK Tropicana
-SMK Damansara Utama (DU)
-SMK Bandar Utama Damansara 2 (BU2)
-SMK Bandar Utama Damansara 3 (BU3)
-SMK Bandar Sri Damansara 2 (BSD2)
-SMK Bandar Utama Damansara 4 (BU4)
-SMK Seafield
-SMK(L) Bukit Bintang (BB)
and many more! (I guess... Hee-hee)

Wait! Don't forget about the PKKs! (Pengakap Kanak-kanak)
-SK...
Okay... I dunno the primary schools that were there but let's give them a big hand!

Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap....

Day 1

I was the last in my troop to get to school. (Whoops...) There was a total of 6 people from my school and all of us were seniors. I was disappointed because no juniors or semi-seniors came. We had to register ourselves in troops, one by one. After all the registration and stuff, Mr. Colin divided us into patrols. There were 3 senior patrols and 5 junior patrols. I was separated from my buddies and got stuck with horrible emo CK. I thought I was gonna die.

When I first looked at my patrol, I thought, "Oh, maybe there are some talented people here, everybody looks promising." We got to know each other, and we started with electing our patrol leader, assistant patrol leader and quarter masters. Thanks to CK, I became patrol leader, I thought I was really gonna die. Then my assistant was Leonard from BB, QM for food was Jay from BDU2 and QM for items was CK.

Oh well, next with the patrol name. We had to come up with a patrol name related to "pioneering" and it must be in Malay. So our first choice was Bakau Extreme. Haha, Mr. Colin came up with that at first. Then we had Ular Rafia. We chose Ular Rafia but "rafia" was taken. I then came up with Naga Takal because my troop's mascot is a dragon. (Eh-hek.) We got that instaid. Woopee~

After the opening ceremony, the PL's meet up with Mr. Ekbert and the others go and set up the tent, keep the bags and stuff. In the meeting, Mr. Ekbert gave us some tips, and orders. The seniors had to build a stilt tower while the juniors build up their camp area, putting up gadgets their level. Mr. Ekbert also gave us the course booklets, it was big, cool and had a lot of cool pictures of gadgets we should build and also knots that we should know, along with a step by step guide on how to make them.

My patrol was a mess. Everybody was not in one place like they should be. I had a tough time getting them together especially CK who runs everywhere with no reason what so ever.

I don't remember what happened between here...

We picked our bamboos and bought our gloves (for those who don't have) and started out stilt tower. I did not notice this until the next day, but my patrol was the noisiest patrol among the 3. We talked and talked, making us getting to know each other faster than the other patrols. (Wow.) My patrol was I think, one of a kind, it was like a box of chocolates with many different flavours!

First of all, me, I am the only person in the patrol who had most experience with Mr. Colin and the, what I call, 3 troop-bond-thing most (DJ, Tropicana, BU3). Leonard is a rash person who rushes things and smiles a lot. He does not really listens to me. CK, oh, simple, emo, hyper, hardworking (okay...) and Naruto-like (air head). KS is smiley, tall and smart (I guess...). He loves to dig and in his bag, majority are food. I think we did the right thing and made him QMM. Jay is tall, pretty lonely, and I think there is one thing in his mind when we are in the patrol, "work". I notice that he talks a lot only when we are going to sleep or taking a break. He talks to me a lot. PH is well, short? Talkative? Random? and I have to admit, she is really Kelly-like (Kelly is a super short girl who some people thinks of her as bitchy.). XF is the normal one in my patrol, (unless she had something up her sleeve which she did not show.) but she is also something different from other girls, she does not mind telling others her weight and is pretty strong (I think... Haha, I always, "I think.") JY is a quiet boy who came from the same troop as XF, he mostly talks to XF only maybe because he is shy? Who knows. Elfred is a funny boy. We nicknamed him the monk because he shaved his hair before the camp. Funny though, he likes to speak Malay despite the fact that he is Chinese like the rest of us.


Mr. Ekbert came and did some rounds to look at our progress. He showed us how to do the Japanese square lashing which is faster and tighter than the normal square lashing. After he left, we continued but unfortunately, it rained. (By the way, it rained a few days before the course at least once everyday.) We continued to build our stilt tower under the rain. We used our fly sheet, as a big shade but it did not really work. Only two of us had raincoats so the raincoats were given to the girls and us boys were "sacrificed" under the rain. Mr. Dawson called the PL's and gave some orders and told us if we want to stop, we can take shelter and a break at the school canteen. I told Mr. Dawson that my patrol had nothing to shed us from the rain, so Miss Melody gave me some clean, new rubbish bags to make our "raincoats". We continued until the sky turned dark and the rain stopped, I was shivering in cold and was trying to keep warm. Later after we finished, we went to have dinner.

Tonight's dinner is....

Rice with half cooked veg and chicken curry. We gobbled up the food and I don't remember what happened here. Hee-hee. For the rest of the night, I remember we showered and went to sleep.
We slept in the school hall because our tents were wet, inside and out.


Day 2


When I woke up,


Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.......


It was cold! Eeek!
We all woke up and went for morning exercise. After that, we had breakfast and then PL's meeting. This time, Mr. Ngoo was here. He discussed with us on what to build that day. After a long time, Mr. Ngoo told us to build a trestle tower. He gave us permission to use bakau because we ran out of bamboo. I'll skip the taking the bakau out part because it's basically just taking bakau out of the scout den. Leonard planned everything on the trestle tower and we made our measurements on the tower. So along with the tower we go. Basically I was just supervising the patrol because of the rain, I had a headache and I felt slack. When lunch time was here, we did not leave the place at all, so did the other senior patrols! We all had the same thinking, "Finish this up before it rains again.". Us senior PL's told Mr. Dawson about it and we got permission to continue. Well, food went fast and we seniors had no food. Mr. Dawson went out and bought chicken rice for us and I only ate at 1400 hours with Jay because we had another meeting with Mr. Colin about our up coming hike. When Jay and I left the patrol for the meeting, the other then only had lunch. Under the hot blazing Sun!


During our meeting, Mr. Colin told confirmed with us what to bring and the information related. After that, we dissmissed and we left for our places. After a few minutes, the time that everybody had not wished for came, rain! Argh! I had it, I took shelter in our tents along with Elfred, JY, Jay and KS. Then, CK gave me his raincoat and I ran out for Miss LM called for the PL's. It was funny when I ran out, because I ran in the wrong direction away from the school buildings towards our gadget. When we got there, Miss LM told us to hurry up with our gadget and come in but the God was not fair to us, He made lightning and all of us had to rush into the school compound. I almost got sweeped off my feet because the wind was so strong it reaped CK's raincoat almost in half!


Later when everybody got in, Mr. Colin told us to get dry and we went to do our patrol meetings for MK that night. The senior patrol's were combined together to do our sketch, about a boy who kicks cats and God tells him about the bad luck he will get if he continues to do so. It was hilarious! William slipped and fell twice when he was explaining his idea. He still joked that a stuntman was supposed to take his place while some people carry him away. After the rain stopped, it was late already. Mr. Ekbert told us to take a shower to prevent from catching a cold. I don't remember what happend but, we got ready for dinner and the seniors had a meeting with Mr. Ekbert before our dinner.

After dinner, we had our MK, after Mr. Ekbert passed Mr. Dawson this really cool vest filled with badges, the MK started. We had our cheers and then the sketches begun.

.... (Bla bla bla) ... (Jo~king lar~)

The PKK's did a good job, for their standard. It was short, not so funny, but still, they are kids, so it is something big to them. The juniors were also not bad, after all, they are around our standard. Not forgeting that the scouts from DJ and Tropicana are excelent. We presented our funny sketch and was pleased with it (even though there was some parts that we failed to perform). Some rovers also did some performences, Mr. Marwan and Mr. Jaffrin pulled up a song and guitar performence and everybody was waving and singing. We sure did had fun.

After the MK, it was sleep time. KS cooked instant noodles for us and we shared it among ourselves (boys only, the girls took their time in the toilet.). After a short chat, we slept at the school coridores becasue our tents were flooded with rain water. Sigh...

Day 3

Day 3 is the last day for this course. After we woke up, we did an extremely stupid and dumb morning exercise. We spent all night drying our shoes, and on that morning, made it wet again because one of the scouters pulled us into the wet, ocean-like school field! Muddy too!

After that, we had breakfast. Mr. Dawson told the PL's to get our things ready and be in full scout uniform for gadget inspection. After the inspection, it was time to say goodbye...

We had a closing ceremony and the camp was over. Luckly, we gave each others contacts on the second night. Tee-hee.

THE END~



NOT! HAHAHA!!

The seniors had to stay back to help clean up the school. After a few hours of picking up rubbish left behind by the juniors and us. We went home one by one.

Now this is really, THE END.

Save the World

Silence, was the word,
no one dared to speak.
Chirp, went a bird,
and a mouse went squeak.

This world is balanced,
by the natures of life,
But man made it unbalanced,
by starting with a knife.

Pollution kills our Earth,
does man really care?
I see people destroying the Earth,
throwing garbage everywhere.

Blue, green and brown,
you see the bins here and there.
Come, go, you frown,
they put the wrong things there.

Stop, think, not stop and stare.
What will happen to this world some of us don't care?
Recycle, reuse, and don't forget, repair.
If we do so, we can still save this world, please don't don't care.

A wind blew, so cool.

The wind blew, so cool,
The weathermen relaxed, at last.
The farmer went and washed his bull,
It worked so hard, it's shower, was like a blast.

A night's chill, so cool,
The animals have gone to bed, at last.
The old man, went for a swim in the pool,
His wife sat quietly, remembering of the happy past.

The wind blew, so cool,
You know, you want to relax too.

Sakura Petals of a Modern Hanami

Bloom went the sakura flowers,
A new spring has come, no?
Girls in yutakas, boys too?! Uso!
People having picnics under the beautiful scenery,
Ahh~ What a feeling.
The happiness does not end,
The party will not stop,
The food keeps comming,
The petals keep falling.
This, is, happiness.

Life

One, I saw that silver bullet fly out of that black coloured gun.
Two, I seem not to know what is happening or who ever are you.
Three, I climbed up the mountain just to reach to an empty bare tree.
Four, I wathced her ran away from me to that white door.
Five, I ran as the bees flew out of their broken bee hive.
Six, I accidentaly tripped over my friends MagicMix.
Seven, I looked up to the sky and saw clouds that looked like heaven.
Eight, I stand here, looking over the grave of Alexander the Great.
Nine, I lie there in the hospital because I broke my spine.
Ten, I looked at the possibilities of life, now, this is the end.

The future is unpredictable. Good things may happen, so do the bad. Please do and always treasure and enjoy life.

-Max