The Jadded and Departed.

My 14-day school week has taken a toll on my health, performance and mood. With 5 more days to go , I'm quite the wreck. But I'll survive - like i always do.

I'll pick up where i left off. The two-sentenced entry that had defeat clinging to every syllabul.But right now, I wont go into why but Friday left me exhausted, mopey and dreading the three days of Mazarin camp that loomed ahead.

Saturday came and puffy-eyed, jadded Farah Bawany reluctantly dragged her beat body to the Research Center ready to have her nerves, immune, physical endurance, resilliance and mental health tested by a team of what seemed to be cocaine-high gibbons in heat prancing about in bermudas, scaling the floor like it was a rock-wall, preaching the "work in excelence" and more gibberish about leadership-blah-blah-blah.

Someone spell Pessimist.Thanks.

But as the day inched on, from 5-way tug-of-wars, journaling sessions and over 380 squats, I came to realise and sheepishly admitted that the jadded me found a camp that actually helped and mattered.

Surprising ,no?

Our facilitator Ian was such a darling. Thank god he wasnt one of the over-excited steroidal ones. He was the inspirational architype trainer. My team did not consist of Balaji and Timothy .Although i was previously in raptures that i was working with them, i'm not complaining that i didnt.

My brilliant team consisted of (i appologise in advance for mispelt names) Vincent, Zing Zhi, Charlene, Yu Hui, Lin Shuang, Fu Kang, Ting Hui, Pei Shan, Carol, Ajit, Ardesh and Elisse. And of course myself and facil - Ian.

Saturday was spent team-building and we went through what we call the Norming and Storming Stages. I cant possibly list all the activities . I'll just put it this way. It tested us physically . A lot. And if you happen to notice how much i resent physical excercise, (major euphemism there) you would know how badly 380 squats still hurts. Ouuucch.

One activity that had an impact was the feedback sessions especially the one where , get this, we had to rate the top three leaders in our group and the bottom three. This was followed by a sharing session where each of us had to tell the group who we selected and why. No sugar-coating allowed. Okay. It sounds not tooo bad here. But trust me. When round-eyed teenagers with make-or-brake confidence look at you with sparks of hope dancing in the centers of their eyes, you feel pretty much like crap telling them that he/she is the worst.

Thankfully, the kids who were voted bottom three by quite a few took it amazingly well. Plus, it was constructive feedback. But still! I am so proud of them. And what i loved was the paradigm shift in gourp dynamics afterwards. Our group was suddenly so close-knit and steaming with excellent camaraderie.

Another activity was when we had to "handle conflicts". I really liked this part becasue it taught me a lot about conflict and how we, as leaders, can stop 'tension' from escalating to 'crisis'. And it even applies between friends and especially when you are in a relationship. We know communication is key. It is about learning how to communicate towards a win-win situation.

What we did, was to sit in a circle and basically tell whoever it was that you're uncomfortable with why and what was causing this discomfort. In my group, it was more of classmates trying to clear bad blood. I had one person calling another 'abnormal' and i was quite tickled. Still am actually. Haha.

It wasnt at all horrifying. It felt good getting things off our chest and bad feelings that were simmering just, dissolved. Poof. In another group however, there were tempers flaring and tears shed. But i'm fairly confident they felt better after.

Today, we concluded with another game and celebrations. And i think the main lesson learnt was the concept of winning. Points wise, my group was last. It was quite funny cos we lagged behind the winners by hundreds of points. But we had the winning idea (and the winning attitude) that many groups copied after. While it took ages for us to actually act, our final product though disappointing at first became quite encouraging.

Finally we celebrated the Teejay way. Go on. Guess.

Of course. Mass dance and cheers:)

During our final feedback session , facil-Ian actually cried. And it was really touching. So yes, the jadded Farah departed and the one who was really passionate returned from last year!

Meanwhile, Ive got a long, long week ahead. Tomorrow in fact, Ive got a Mock SPA.

I'm actually thinking about listing '5 sources of error' and '5 Suggestions for improvements' that i have to memorise here. But i'd drive the mickey out your ass doing that, wouldnt i?

That's all for now,

Conquering 5 days of hell,

Farah:)

PS: Special thank you and sorry to Maurice. I love you:) Thanks for putting up with my crap and talking me through my conundrum. I'm gonna miss you when you go back to Perth. I promise promise promise we're going to get to spend more time together this month okay? And i'm booking you for sheesha with Nad next week.

Love, King Julian