whee camp!

Hi everyone. back from camp. whee

Camp has been an interesting experience for the NPC team. We have finally realised that we are quite dead for NPC.
Everything was too slow. Camp development, too slow. We had to shift the gateway. Our tent collapsed once and we had to shift that out and build another one. Gadgets mostly failed, we didn't build our baggage rack or our table and bench.

Pioneering, generally ok but we kinda ran out of ropes at 11am, and it was too slow (wth pioneering from 8-4?)

Backwoodsman was probably the most fail. We had at most 30% of required ingredients. We had no salt, sugar, pepper etc. as well as the 'special' ingredients we wanted like Dancing Chef pineapple rice paste. And we had no firewood.

But what was the most shocking was the Panther story. With Nick Eu as a leader, we had been getting about 4th for camps. As the Dec camp approached, everyone thought that Panther would die horribly as without me, Nick Eu and Joel our sec 1 there was no one with adequate skills left. Except maybe Gabriel our sec 1, and Eugene for his initiative. We thought that Jon Tan would just fail.

Or so we thought.

On the first day, the Panther tent was up within 30 minutes. The other patrols were still erecting their tents and the Panther people were standing around looking happy. I thought," Ok maybe Eugene and Jon Tan rushed them and they finished it quickly."

Then Panther won again, and again, and again. To such an extent that we got first for every event except cooking (where we got second). Out of a score of 200, we got 194. I'll add a list of the stuff that we did here:

Ironman. Michael (our slightly AP and kinda unfit sec 1) won Tat Hsiang (our Senior Patrol Leader) to the ultimate Ironman award.

Cooking. We got second.

Hike. We started out badly but eventually overtook the rest to reach the middle mark 2 mins ahead of the rest. We then finished 15 mins ahead.

Campfire. First (not really sure about this one).

Wargames. The NPC team rejoined for this one. We still got first.

VOJ. A series of stations with tasks. We got first.

The ventures were so surprised/pissed/wth'd I can picture them in the venture room throwing their proposals in the air and swearing.

This brings about the question of whether the NPC Panther people are actually helping or hindering the patrol. Time for some evaluation.

First, Nick Eu. His skills are way past anyone else in the troop. Skillswise, Nick owns everyone. You don't even need to do it, he just owns you before you start :P

But I feel his leadership skills are lacking. To compare him and Jon Tan:

Nick Eu: Michael, just do it! Don't waste time!
Jon Tan: Michael, quickly do it. [on further slacking on Michael's part] Oi, Michael. Do it.

Nick Eu shouts at you to do it, whereas Jon Tan makes you feel like doing it. Nick Eu also makes learning from him difficult. E.g:

Josh asking Nick to learn a simple knot which I should have learned a while ago and the response: Hey [Nick/Jon Tan], how to tie [so and so] knot?

Nick: I'm sure you don't know how to tie. So noob. You fail and you don't listen.
Jon: Um, sure. But try to remember it this time. I may not be around next time.

See? Not that I hate Nick Eu, but learning from him has become a thing which I fear as he just makes me feel like some random doad (is that even a word?). Jon Tan makes me feel as if it's ok, I'm human too. Although Nick Eu regularly checks on me like *hey are you ok, if not, fall out*

That's something that I have learned as a leader: Care and always try to be patient.

Time for me. God, this will take a total lack of modesty. But lots of honesty.

I think my skills are ok.

Gah, i'll continue another day. Got work to do.

Joshua (hellogoodbye! Camp Holadios! Get the pun?)