Dhamma Camp 2008 - Find your OASIS!

Yeah, I'm finally back to Medan. I arrived last night. For the past few days, I was participating the NUSBS Dhamma Camp, so I'm going to share my experience about it now! In this camp, I am participating as a group leader. Thus, I had many to prepare.

7 December 2008
That day, it was group leaders' training day. Since most of us did not have any experience, we were called for this day to learn as much as possible from the seniors. The training itself was very fun. I also learned a lot that day. It really helped me in the camp.

8 December 2008
Finally, the day to check out from my room. We went straight to Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery, where our Dhamma Camp will be held. As the committee, we were there one day earlier to prepare everything.

9 December 2008
The 1st day! We, GLs, went to Toa Payoh MRT Station to wait for our group members. I was in Group 4! Every group had 2 GLs. Usually, the 2 GLs are a boy and a girl, but I ended up with a male partner. Hahaha.... But, it did not have any impact at all. In fact, he was really helpful. So, after everyone had arrived, we went back to the Monastery. We had them re-registered and kept their stuffs in their rooms. At 10.00 a.m., the camp started!
That day, our schedule was, Icebreakers, Bhuddist Etiquette, Temple Tour + Game, Sutta Studies, and Movie Screening (Title: Angulimala). By the way, my group's name was "Buddha Kids".

PS. I will only elaborate some nice activities.... ^^. For those who wants to know more can contact me directly... hahaha..

=Group 4: Buddha Kids=

10 December 2008
For morning, we had morning puja, morning exercise (Tai Ji Chian), Dhamma Talk (Topic: Dana). For the whole afternoon, we went to Bishan Home For Intellectually Disabled as a welfare visit. We were separated to 3 groups. The largest group was cleaning group. Next, we had another group to accompany the residents there in the library (telling stories, talk with them, etc.). And the last group, where I was placed, was there to organise games and play with the residents. After the game, we sang some Christmas songs for them. Later, at night, we had a quite interesting Dhamma Circle (Topic: When Buddhists fall in love)

11 December 2008
We had usual morning puja, morning exercise and Dhamma Talk (Topic: Sila). For today's main activities, we had a Dhamma Workshop (Topic: Relevance of Buddhism to the Modern World) + Debate (Topic: Does Premarital Sex Violate the 3rd precept?). For the debate, group 1,2, and 3 were in the proposition side, while group 4 and 5 were in the opposition side. Thus, I had 2 of my members to represent us. Both of them were not from NUS. One was a girl from University of Malaya. She was studying law! Hahaha... Another one was a boy currently a freshman from SMU. Both of them were very good speaker. However, the proposition team was also very good. In the end, we, opposition won the debate! That night, we had another Dhamma Circle (Topic: Is Media Selling Us Lies?)

=The Opposition Team=

12 December 2008
There would be Finale Night that day! Every group had to perform a performance. My group prepared a skit. I'll come back to this later. In the morning, we had another Dhamma Talk (Topic: Bhavana). In the afternoon, we had Dhamma Panel Discussion (Topic: Emptiness). The committee had arranged that we would have 3 venerables from different streams (Theravada, Mahayana, and Vanjrayana). The panel discussion turned out to be very interesting. I was really impressed with the eldest venerable. He gave a very very great speech and answers to questions. Before Finale Night, we had a Candlelight Procession.

Finally, the Finale Night! It started by the shows from each group. All the seniors came to see our performances. They would then decide the best performance. After the performances, we had a solo dance from Tong Shien (the best joker here!) and singing session. Before we ended the Finale Night, the judges announced the winner. And the winner is....... Group 4! Unbelievable, we won! A really big congratulations to all my members. We recieved a packet of snacks and we decided to share with everyone. After that, we took photos, photos, and photos!

=Group Photo (There is a new member!)=

13 December 2008
Finally, the last day of the camp. The last programme was the "3 Refuges and 5 Precepts Ceremony". After lunch, Hebert and I went directly to Changi Airport..... FIN.

It's Holiday Time!

First, let's see what I feel about my exams... (You can actually skip this ^^)
CS1101C - This killer module almost killed me that day. There are 22 pages of really long questions. The only thing I can say is I finished it on time. Hopefully, I was not that careless. So, it's quite good (since this is my last resort after the other 60% is not that good).
MA1505 - Well, another killer module. After unsatisfactory result of Mid Term, I really need to do good for this. I spent the most time for this exam in reading week. The result was okay, I think, though some questions are really not do-able. At the very least, I am satisfied.
EG1108 - This module suppose to be quite easy. However, it turned out that the final exam was really challenging. Hopefully, the day before I spent some time for it since I really could not bear with my CS1231 anymore. Actually, I do can finish the questions on time after some hindrance. But, still, I think I had done some mistakes.... but, forget it! Let's wait the result.
CS1231 - My last paper. The night before, I only spent one hour to review. There is really no much to learn/review. It's an open book exam. Thus, I needed a full 8-hour sleep. In fact, I slept for 9 hours that night. In the end, I did feel very relax in doing the exam. This is the longest 2-hour exam I had. However, I couldn't feel I know if I was doing good or not. Well, who cares? It's last paper and I could give the answers for the questions.

Now, let's forget about exam... Of course, I need to wait for others to finish before we are going out. So, yesterday, after Kelvin finished his math exam, which turned out to be quite perfect, we went to Habourfront for lunch. Since Hadi was going to be late (and he was really late!), we had our lunch first. Next, as Kelvin has planned for a very long time, we followed him to buy his brand-new handphone, Nokia E66. I planned to go and take my passport that day, but it turned out to be quite late. Thus, we decided to go straight to Orchard. That night, we were going to have dinner with everyone (who were still in Medan, of course).

Today, after a very complicated discussion between Hadi and Harris, we decided to have dinner at JustAcia, a so-called "economic" restaurant since we can have a free flow drink and ice cream. However, this afternoon, Hadi still had another schedule, so I went out with Kelvin first. First, we went again to VivoCity since Kelvin need to do something (for detail, ask the person himself). Next, we went to take my passport (in fact, I also took Hadi and his friends' passport) at Indonesia embassy. After that? We had nowhere to go. Kelvin and I decided to go to Dhobby Ghaut first (JustAcia is around there!). We arrived and "window-shopping" around the Plaza Singapura. As usual (Medan lang...), they (Harris, Hadi, Ady) were late. The dinner was wonderful. While sharing some joke (and "suan-suan" lang), we had our dinner. After dinner, we had an unpredictable accident! It was really a life-time experience. I didn't think it's a good idea to write what happened. So, just approach me for more details.

That's for these 2 days... Holiday is still long! Wait for more interesting one!