Rants and recollections
Mobile sea, if I remember correctly. Trek first, canoe back. I can’t remember how many of us were there - 16? 18? one of those numbers - and I remember reflecting at the end how there were 4 leaders, 1 great cook (she was so good the other watch begged her to cook rice for them), and the rest were all lazy bastards. Debra got an allergy and wound up in the sick bay on day 1, so we were one short. Most of the work was done by the 4 of us (the leaders XP) and the resident cook liked to talk a lot but never made any sense.
There was this girl who was terrified of heights. We did both the jetty jump and flying fox, and she would stand there, on the precipice, frozen for a least half an hour. I’m sure you’re scared and all that, but we’re ALL WAITING FOR OUR TURN.
And WEI JING. She was literally Edmund Hooper in the flesh. Manipulative and bossy outside, but in the woods was the weakest link in our chain. Refused to do the canoeing, sulked in a corner and did nothing, sprayed the INSIDE of the tent with insecticide so no one slept with her after that, and she never stopped complaining. She was part of the lazy posse, where all they did was sit and watch people do all the work.
I was the last one to do the flying fox. I remember when going down, I thought ‘this ride is as slow as hell’. We also went into some freshwater lake thing. The gates were padlocked, so our coach went around and got us to crawl through a broken fence to get to the lake. Heeee.
And I remember the first night we camped out. In some dark part of the woods, and halfway through the night it began to rain. Our tent wasn’t set up properly and everything began to leak. The coaches were nice enough to lead us back to the, uh… place, and we slept on cold concrete instead.
The coaches had mattresses for themselves and everything. 
After that, I think it was the first time ever we prayed for no rain, because rain in Crescent = No Mass Run.
We got pretty sunburnt after the ordeal. Our scalps started to flake. Not dandruff flake, but enormous pieces of dried skin that had to be torn out. Quite a sight to see everyone in school after fiddling with their hair.
Did I forge closer bonds with everyone else? No. In fact, I think we wound up not liking each other more. The need for survival brings out the worst in everyone. It’s always ‘me, me, me’. I don’t think I was that traumatized camping out in the woods, but I can’t suppose for others. Perhaps that’s how the entire need for self-preservation and selfishness comes about. I remember my ‘partner’ (another lazy bastard) got so wound up because I didn’t bring a fork and had to use her utensils. I don’t know about you, but I think there’s more things to worry about than sharing utensils.
Did I become a better person? No. I was still loud and bossy, my mental capacity neither increased nor diminished and I still failed my way through sec 3.
I would go back again in a heartbeat. But only with trusted friends.
