Skating fun? Anyone?

Hey. Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been uhm, really busy lately...

Anyways, for my update, let me start with Saturday! Well, as I was absent for half day during the SPLTC, so I have a corresponding punishment! Hmm, all of us who's been absent either at camping or during the training were supposed to make a video about the important events of the three-day camping. And the whole troop decided to head to Keith's house to do the punishment together. The more the merrier, right? The thing that's wrong with working with so much people- it's so hard to get everyone to concentrate on finishing work! So we sort of crammed when afternoon came. But we got to finish the video anyways. :D Just a little editing, and it will be all good. :D Punishment didn't really feel like punishment since we had so much fun doing it.

On Monday, we had to go to school in the morning for Scouting recollection and rush to Chem class afterwards. Honestly speaking, I found the Recollection quite boring. Good thing Jona made the whole time fun by forgetting our names. Haha. So we made him guess some of our names. After the Recollection, we raised of course flag, finally. It was one victorious moment for us. And Chem class? Well, Chemistry class was happy, as usual. I'm so enjoying Chem class, I think I'll actually be loving Chemistry during the school year. :D Haha.

Tuesday, we had to go to school for Graduation Practice. After the practice, us, SPLTs and some of our Junior Staff went to SM, Mall of Asia. We watched Poseidon [uhm, it was boring? Kinda.], shopped for Leslie's birthday gift [A little bear from Bear Cuddler, with a watch from Tomato, and oh, so beautifully gift-wrapped! :D] since she couldn't come with us, and went skating! Haha. It's my first time skating! And I could say that skating isn't as easy as it looks. I wonder how figure skaters do it so easily and gracefully?! Haha. Well, after a really, really long while of staying by the sides of the rink and holding on to Kathleen, Neri and Karen, I finally tried to "skate" on my own [but, of course, with very close supervision of Kathleen!]. Haha. Before we left, I could already do the "short slide" or walk or whatever you call it. Haha. Skating was F-U-N. :D

As classes start for the other schools, realization finally hits me that summer vacation's also over. There's only less than two weeks left and the thought of going back to school makes me sick. My summer vacation was just about to start... :(
For pics of activities, just go to my Multiply. :D

Today, I'm bored.
Tomorrow, I'll be uber busy.
Hay, LIFE.

Langkawan.

After the 6-day indoor training, we had the 3-day, 2-night camping at Mt. Makiling; which is our outdoor training. It's just my second time to go camping. But I could definitely say that camping this year was more enjoyable than last year. :D Maybe because we are a small group and have known each other for quite sometime now.

DAY 1:
Well, Day one was reserved mainly for CD [Camp Development] time. We were taught how to pitch a tent back when we were in school, and now's the time for the application of what we were taught. So the guys went on to tent pitching, while us, girls, started on our border. I could say we did quite a lot on the first day. We finished pitching the tent, the ditch done [I did a tinsy weensy bit of the ditch! Ask Pison and Mark!], and the borders finished, too. And uhm, camping food, was well... camping food. :D If you know what I mean. But instead of bananas, we had Potchi this year. I thought I was gonna be sleeping early this year. But I was wrong. Activities still ended at around 10 pm, and lights off was still 12midnight. Oh yeah, we had rededication before sleeping. And before rededication, they told us some creepy Makiling stories. Didn't really make us scared though, natawa pa nga kami sa mga kwento nila...

DAY 2:
Day 2 was when we had most of our activities. We had our cook-out in the morning. :D [Cooked chicken mechado.] We had a hard time maintaining the fire since it burns real low AND we weren't taught how to. But we had no choice but to cook it becuase it will serve as our lunch on that day. I helped out at our corners since I wasn't couldn't offer much help at the cook-out. We had yummy lunch that day! [Kasi kami yung nagluto!] Lolz. We were all pretty hyper on that day since we were expecting to go Hiking after lunch. But it rained before lunch so we had to stay near the barracks. Our Hiking was also cancelled. :c :c So sad! We were all looking forward to it since it's most of us's first trail hiking! So we had this mini-circuit like game instead of hiking. And come that night... CAMPFIRE! We were kind of scared that campfire would be cancelled too because of the weather. Good thing it pushed through. :D We really prepared for this. This is like... the second fun thing at my list for camping. Campfire this year was great. Ok naman yung performance namin. Performance of the JLTs- THE BEST! The performance of the CAT was also nice too, and amazing.=) We also had a deal with the Senior Staff about finishing 50 bananas for additional five points in our results for the third day. :D So we all suddenly turned into banana lovers. :D As for our corners and results for the second day, we already finished all the required gadgets on the second day and our borders aren't like limbos anymore. :D [Isa lang yung nakalas!] We were aiming for standard on this day. The comments of the Staff during the results were soo nice! [We love you Sir R, Ma'am Luz!] They said our improvement was really big and everything. :D :D Yeah! But we didn't reach the Standard grade, though. Aww.

DAY 3:
Break camp day! Waaa. We went to church and attended mass first thing in the morning. We were all bangag since we only had like 2-3 hours of sleep. I thought I could fall asleep during the mass if only we weren't standing. After the mass, we went back to the Langkawan Hall. It rained again so we only had two representatives for the inspection. [Wala daw nakalas na gadget nung inspection!] For the rest of the day, we bundled bamboos, finished packing and tried to eat as much bananas as possible. No buko pie for me this year since I thought of the weight of the luggage I'll be bringing home. :D We also bought identical bracelets before coming home.=) The bus trip home was kind of boring this year, compared to last year. We even got to play Truth or Dare on the bus trip home last year, but this year, EVERYONE was asleep! Except for Keith, Mark, me and Sir Fo. We chatted all the way until we reached school. Unloading and closing ceremonies were pretty fast this year. So results... ah, sweet results! We reached standard grade! Weee! That was probably our happiest moment. It's like, we've reached the sky! Haha. :D Our grade was 89.78 with the standard grade at 88 and honor grade at 90. Aww. Too bad, we should have ate more bananas! :D

And now, training's kind of over. We still have to go to school for other things, though. I somehow miss training... No, actually I miss FLAVAHZ! Hehe! I'm missin everyone so badly. Oh yeah, I've got punishment because I was absent for half day. We'll have to do a video about the training. So we agreed to do it with all of us present over at Keith's house on Saturday. Bonding time!! Weee! I'm kind of excited to do our punishment! Lolz.

Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition is almost over. Here are my bets for the Big Four:
1. Jamilla
2. Kim
3. Gerald
4. Mikee/ Brenda [one of them has to go...]

Btw, I'm so behind in my Chemistry lessons. I hardly understand a thing anymore. Let's say I don't have any more absences in the coming days. But the damage has been done. Half lang ng mga namiss ku yung naiintindihan ku... :c [My mom's gonna kill me.] I've also been kind of out of the world lately, laging bangag!

I'm still alive.

The past two weeks had been so crazy. Grabe. Thinking back on the past weeks, I can't believe I'm still alive. SPLTC has been quite an experience. I never would have imagined a person could hold or feel so much emotion in a short time. Haha. I know there were times when I felt really, really down; times when i see no point in going through with the training... But it's all just part of the pressure of the training. :D

Well, anyways, here's something like a summary of our 6-day indoor training. ^_^ [*warning: quite boring. AND they're not arranged! quite RANDOM!]

DAY 1:
Our patrol [Patrol Bubblegum] had a bad start. We had NOTHING on our corners on the first day. As in- no borders, no nothing. Our corners were supposed to be like our "home". And we had to make it comfortable. [e.g. food, cushions, appliances?!] And, we also had to make our corners EXTRA CLEAN. Our SAGO was really lousy. Plus, our patrol is also suffering from scarcity of people! Chesca's off somewhere, DG is sick and Steph is absent every other day!

DAY 2:
Well, day 2 was a bit better. Hmm, I kind of thought we improved a lot on this day, but when the staff announced our results, they said we lacked a LOT! Argh! It was kind of frustrating since we all exerted big effort and it still amounts to NOTHING! Sobrang tinamad na kami nun. Our hand and feet are killing us yet it seemed like nothing. So sad. :c And it's still just Chanel, Alysa and me in our patrol. [And they say number isn't important...] Got home, lash... uhh... and 2 hours of sleep. And there it goes again- that inner voice that tells me to quit.

DAY 3 :
Oh dear, I shalt forever remember this day. WATERFEST! Jeez, waterfest will forever be waterfest. As in you're drippin wet. Extra everything didn't seem like extra evrything the day before. So I was still kinda wet after changing. Ok. It was really fun. Especially when they wet you while you're perspiring and sticky all over. But what happens afterwards is another story;- that is, whether you get sick or not.

DAY 4 :
All the guys got sick after the Waterfest. Unfortuantely, all three of them belong to Patrol Rocky Road. We were all panicky in the morning when we heard that ALL of them got sick. The staff didn't believe that ALL of them got sick, they kinda thought that they had an alliance or something. Luckily, Peterson came in before lunch. What's confusing is that, they got angry when nobody of Rocky Road was present in the morning, but when Peterson came to school in the afternoon, they got angry because he tried to go to school even if he was sick. Parang ang labo diba? Also on this day, we had a game versus the PLTs. Well, they thought they won, but we did since we did an extra turn. The game was exhausting. Haha. Afterwards, results time was a nightmare. The staff agreed that Patrol Rocky Road should be disbanded. It came as a shock to all of us, I mean, is there such thing?! I mean, they didn't deserve such harsh punishment for being sick, right?! We had sort of a "mini meeting" among ourselves after the results since we didn't have PC time. We all agreed that we definitely NEED an open forum- right away! since we can't just keep all our saloobin inside and most of us are pretty angry.

DAY 5 :
We were all quite angry and matamlay on this day because of what happened on day 4. We were kind of discouraged to do better because they don't really appreciate our efforts. I wasn't even in the mood to got to school since I feel like I haven't slept for a long time. My hands hurt because of lashing and my feet are killing me because of the sago. My parents are really angry with me becuase of Scouting. Parang all of a sudden, ang bigat ng feeling pag naiisip ko ang Scouting. But I had no choice but to go to school, after all, we've only got ourselves. [Especially in our patrol.] After we expressed our request for an open forum, we really had open forum that afternnon. Well, it went OK, I think. [Topics discussed are strictly confidential!] Our Sago improved after the open forum. The staff said, "Open forum lang pala kailangan niyo..." I guess it was when they started to show appreciation for all our efforts, that made us go beyond our limits and strive for perfection. 'Coz when you ask me, being angry with us and insulting us wont make us better, they just discourage us...

DAY 5 [and a half] :
You're probably wondering why there's "and a half". Well, after the open forum, we decided to do our best on the last day since we have pretty much enough time to prepare. We agreed to go to Keith's house on Saturday to do our gadgets together since it's more fun and more encouraging. It was kind of stormy on this day, but we were so happy. Haha. We were 'kind of' complete since on Mark was not around. This day was sooo fun! Flavahz [That's our troop name!] bonding day! Haha. Plus, the food was fab. :D We are all confident that we will reach the standard grade on Monday. :D That night, we all slept with high spirits and made sure we're up and going on Monday. =)

DAY 6 :
I LoOoove this day! We've got lots of gadgets! Lots of food [*Yummmm!*], lots of energy. And we've all got that, "We can do it!" look in our faces! And we were all in high spirits! Haha! My sister should have been there! Aww... Well, On this day, we also had the obstacle course that had been postponed too many times. I was waiting for the obstacle course the whole training. Bad news is, at the middle of the obstacle course, Mrs. Camacho ordered the obstacle to be stopped because of an accident! :c Our group was winning! :c By the time of the results, we were all kind of nervous. When Sir R announced "Madugong 95.195", oh dear, I felt like I was going to cry! It was one victorious moment for all of us! We were sooo delighted we wanted to jump up and down and hug each other if only we weren't in TIKAS mode! Standard grade! Yeah! [Even if we were aiming for Honors...]

Ok. I know, our training's kind of crazy, kind of senseless for you, even. But then, I don't know... You just sort of get addicted to it. :D "Bisyo na to!" Now that we've got two days break, I'm already missing Flavahz, the Junior staff *Ma'am Jo, Ma'am Rai, Ma'am Fran, Sir Rj[PC namin yan!]* the Senior staff *Ma'am X!! We looove you! and all the others* <3>

Camping, here I come!

I'll be back next week, hopefully. :D

Random things on my mind right now:

1. Scouting was pure torture.
2. On second thought, it was not that bad.
3. Ok. Erase number one. It was fun. Now that i thought about it.
4. I've got Chemistry class tomorrow.
5. I don't like to go to Chem class tomorrow, or do I?
6. Body aches... badly. Urgh.
7. I'm too tired.
8. Season three of The OC starts today! Can't watch though... [too busy?!]
9. Screw... Find that screw!
10. I'm sleepy na...
11. Camping?!...
12. Umabot kami standard!! Yeah!