JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

I’m not a camping guy. I don’t fancy trekking forests and pitching up a tent just to stay for one night. I don’t like raising a fire to cook some really-lame food that produce less calories than that used to raise the fire, and most of all, I can’t stand fatigue really well because of my old age. I will do weird things when I’m tired and I can’t stand balanced when my eyes are struggling to keep open.
That’s why I hesitated when our MED94 (Medical Students Year 94 (2005)) seniors promoted their Freshmen Camp. Just think of our Kem Jati Diri last year…Anyway, the dateline approached and I stupidly paid the fees.
Saturday morning, a beautiful, 24-degree-Celcius-just-suitable-for slumbering-until-12-noon morning, my roommate’s alarm clock rang at 7.00am. Reluctantly, I climbed out of bed and after waiting for my 2 other roommates to complete their toilet business, rushed to the school canteen for breakfast. Several of us trotted into our classroom A102 to be greeted by a fierce-looking senior. He reminded us of the importance of punctuality and after more yadda-yadda-ing, we departed at 8.03 (3 minutes behind schedule).
On board the bus, another senior suggested we play some games when what we really need is more sleep. By then I was relatively convinced that this camp will turn out to be another variation of our Kem Jati Diri back home. We reached 鯉魚潭 soon enough to b e asked to dump our bags and to participate in the activities immediately.
What I really like about the camp was the amount of dramas and shows. Our seniors really did their best acting their various characters and before we know it, our fatigue were replaced by endless laughter about the stupidity of our seniors and the hilarious ‘Oath of Obedience’. Next, we were assigned to groups according to which sector we scored the highest marks in our field games before that.
That very evening we have seniors performing fire dances (those really-dangerous type) and out-of-the-earth plays. For one, the play was a ‘videotape’, in which another senior controls either ‘play’, ‘fast forward’, ‘rewind’ (and the players really speak reversely), ‘language controls’ (Chinese, 台語) and ‘performance controls’ (puppet setting and 瓊瑤 (romantic female author) setting).
Later we were told a series of ghost stories (some fictional, according to our Hualien classmates) and brought into the forests. Each group of 8 were given 4 lamps. With that, and a bottle of water, we trotted into the pitch-black forest. It was so dark you can’t see 2 meters beyond you. But the good thing is that we were in a group and we chatted along the way, and made jokes about the ‘ghosts’ (seniors wearing white raincoats, holding torches actually) along the way. We went through several challenges i.e. guessing something in the dark, looking for a joker card in the dark etc. Up to a certain point we were seperated by a group of seniors. I followed my class monitor and we walked approximately 50 m together. Along the way there was this area specially ‘modified’ with a green flourescent lamp which made it looked extra eerie. Thanks to my monitor’s wisdom (which is, see nothing and walk on), we were not thrown anything and shouted (by seniors). Many others were thrown at with shoes and stones and finally, when the seniors can’t stand us peeking around finding out why there are shoes flying about, shouted at ‘walk on you stupid!’
Back to camp, we shared our experiences and got to sleep without any shadows from the forests just moments ago.
The following day, we started off with a lame dance followed by a very-exhausting Field Games. I won’t report on how my team performed, but we got 2nd eventually, and was very satisfied about it. That afternoon was spent by watching shows by ourselves and it should be really nice if i can understand 台語. There’s this stupid thing seniors will do when they find you doing stupid things on stage: they’ll dress up in stupid clothes (helmet with goggles, laundry basket with a broom etc) and invade your stage to upset your show. It was really chaotic at times but I guess that’s medical students (and young people). Shortly after that we had a brief water-balloon session, and due to unfair game rules set by our seniors, it wasn’t really fun the first and second round. However, after picking up experiences, some superstar seniors are completely soaked.
Finally, with great effort, we were settled down and our seniors sang for us (sounds like we were babies). Some singers weren’t really that good, but it’s their sincerity that touched us. Before we leave the campsite we watched a 5-minute collage of photos about what we did the past 48 hours.
On board the bus I was further touched when our seniors rejected the seats offered by us (too many people, too less seats). They were the one most tired and they did most of the work, yet they still put their juniors as their first priorities and give them the best whenever they can. Whether or not this is a spirit of great love from Tzu Chi, or it is really so in most Taiwan universities (they have senior-junior system too in other Us), I cannot tell.
Things will get more tired tomorrow if I don’t rest early. 8 hours-non stop of lessons (due to our PE lecturer who chose to travel overseas last week and insist upon replacing his lesson tomorrow).

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