care less

this year's campfire wasn't very good. many things stood out while i was there and made me feel sad for my scouts. there is hope with the younger boys but it is the old boys which i am worried about. i hope that i'll be around to set things right. the venture unit is undergoing a recruitment problem. they have no new members this year. so that means that next year there'll be no venture committee? not good. why didn't last year's scouts join the ventures? well, i know they have their reasons and it's definitely due to the attitudes that old boys have towards the juniors. we all know that attitude. "Back in my time..." "last time ah, you sure kena fuck..." "why you all so slack now?" am i losing to the dark side of softiness? but does that mean i cannot get things done?

i was introduced to scouts at a time where the sec 4's have ultimate powers over you and when the ventures come down for scout meeting, you pray that you go home alive. we got so many things done in those days. many of us were effective scouts who have basic scouting skills. that all was due to the hard line approach. but now, things have changed severely. Relations between scouts and ventures and even old boys have really deteriorated. it has everything to do with having "power". The sec 4's see the ventures as people who just want to do whatever they want to the scouts. The ventures see the old boys (me, daryl, yen chee, june ren, zhiwen) and think that we want to undermine their authority. i think if i keep on writing about this, it'll never end. the jist is that less people are seeing ventures as something they want to take part in and this will eventually lead to the lack of an experienced group of boys who will not be there to train scouts. standards start to fall and our ambitions of staying up there in the top 4 scout groups will never be realised.

can i change what is happening to the unit right now? i know i can and i dearly want to. i know that daryl, yen chee, june ren, zhiwen and i can change things though amongst ourselves we have our differences.it will take a lot of effort and time and i sincerely hope that i can come up with that time to help these boys. but of course, there are things that always set you back and make you think whether this is all worth it. when the scouties(guys from my batch) saw me in uniform, the comments/attitudes they made/ had were certainly uncalled for.

the thing about being nice is that you get stomped on. you want to help someone else, you do something for them and very often it gets unnoticed. i'm fine with doing things for others and not being noticed. it makes myself feel good and i'm happy. i'm not asking for any recognition. but when i get mocked, or looked down onto because i have made sacrifices to help, then it's just plain horrible. when you feel this bad, you try to remember previous incidents that put you into perspective and help you realise that you've gone past things which were actually worse and that what you're feeling now is something that you can overcome. i've tried and i know that yes, this is just going to be a small incident but that doesn't mean that the pain has gone away. does this mean that i should stop caring anymore and just be concerned about myself? that's fucking foolish.

on a lighter note, i learnt something real good from rubin that night.
Reuben: "Hey, where do you live?"
Scout about to be scolded: "Err... Tampines"
Reuben: "I'll give you one fuck swing back to Tampines if you (insert crime here) again"
dude, i can't believe you fell for that joke by goldman... you suck man!

Looking onto the bright side of the campfire(omg, how fucking corny is that), it did remind me of the times when i was a scout and how we used to act. As usual, all i noticed were the girl schools. i ain't no cradle snatcher but it's always nice to know which girl schools come down for our campfire. who cares about the other scouts anyway? there were the "boys" in blue from RGS, girls in glitter from IJ TP and a small group from IJ St Nicks. i remember that there were always 5 girls schools called down but i guess this year was different. we invited cadet scouts too which was really nice. De La Salle primary came up with a really cute item about red indians and they even designed their own costumes. We also had st anthony's primary and tanglin special school down. the kids really enjoyed the campfire :) to be fair, RGS did deserve the best supporting award but i always had a soft spot for IJ TP. many people did like our simple gateway. if i get a picture i'll put it up.

i enjoyed the time that i got to spend in the sun with the boys, doing work and preparing for the campfire. they all think that i'm the nicest venture/ leader around. oh my, they're in for a shock.



missing gillian terribly....
put your head on my shoulders, whisper in my ears "baby", words i want to hear, tell me, tell me that you love me too