...Happy thoughts, Happy thoughts...

The title for "happy thoughts, happy thoughts" actually came from my recent camp as a facilitators for the school kids. After my facilitators 'lessons', I was waiting for my bus in a pretty quiet and rural area where mosquitoes thrive. Been sweet and everything, mosquitoes always seems to find me first! And to think that we have 4 people waiting for the bus, I was the one who got most of the bites!

While trying to walk off the mosquitoes attraction, one of the facilitators was saying "happy thoughts, happy thoughts" so that I would keep my hands from scratching the bitten areas. :)
I started doing some stupid step dance steps look-alike and replied, "I only know 'Happy Feet', 'Happy Feet' ". Hahaha..

:) Camps, the last one I have attended seems to be a decade ago. Ahem, I am not really that old, nor am I that young though. To think that I am even joining as a camp facilitator... Hahaha.. It started as a simple reply when my primary school friend called and asked if I am free to be an instructor. I enjoyed new things and thus replied "Do not mind trying out" :)

Well, I have had doubts even during the facilitators 'lessons' because of all those endless things we have to take note of with regards to encouraging team building, safety, activities, and to be able to talk to kids.

I do like kids, in fact, I think kids like to play with me too. Playing is playing.. playing is good for me.. I can play with kids.. but talking is another issue altogether. I do not really have trouble talking to a small group (about 15) of kids (around 10 to 11 yrs old). But when you put around 30 kids together, I will be stumped! Which it really happens. My poor partner has to do most of the talking whenever 30 kids are together. At that point, I am certain that I will not do anymore of this because I felt that I would not be able to give the kids a good camp experience.

But now that I reflect back, it is partly due to the lack of camp experience that I can share with the kids. I learnt :), as I did more camps (just for the record, I have had only done 2 so far). My dear primary school friend. :) She seriously want me to continue with being a camp facilitator and so, I agreed to go to the second camp. I wanted to give myself another chance to see if I am really cut out for this.

The second one was much better because I am more prepared for it. Kids, they love to learn new cheers. And bless me, I have a much younger sister who's into organising camps for kids. So, here I am, being a student again and started learning some simple cheers from her. Hahaha.. SIMPLE's the word. I think I am tune deaf to a certain level and she almost gave up on me!! The look on her face, priceless! Not that it reflect much on my level of learning a tune.. :P

All in all, I have had fun during the camps. It is really a few days out of civilisation which I enjoyed the trees, the mud, the nature, the lack of cars and the lack of tons of people. It is a good break for me from all the recent unpleasant events.

And kids! Am really glad they have had a chance to learn new skills, to push themshelves beyond the limits they have set and to work as a team. You have to give it to them to surprise you at times. :) So cool that they can try to work out a good cheer as a team. So cool that they will say "you rock". "Rock" here and "rock" there. Hahaha.. we will soon become rocks...