Outwit, Outplay, Outlast

Some great news to share: My brother went through three days of Prefect Selection Camp - and lived to tell the story.

See, while in our school, teachers first nominate girls for prefectship, then the student body elects the eventual members of the prefectorial board, this does not seem to be the tradition of a certain boys' school (I think it's better to keep the name of the school anonymous). The initial stage is the same, where some boys are nominated by their teachers, but it's after this that things really start going wrong. The group of young males are put to the test with a three day-two night Prefect Selection Camp, in which they endure torturous hours of pre-NS training. From here, half the group is eliminated. Then nearer the end of the year, the remaining half is forced to live through another camp, after which, they will be further whittled down to half the number. And there you have it, next year's new batch of prefects.

I suppose this would be their equivalent of our GIB, but what an equivalent. The activites included:

1. Daily cheering sessions, totalling at least six hours for each day of the camp - apparently, they were told that they're "supposed to be cheer leading, not cheering". Like what, are they promoting gay-ism (I don't mean gay as in happy)? Imagine poor Secondary One boys cheer leading. I shudder at the thought. In addition, they don't just jump up and down on the spot and cheer for hours on end; things are made much more interesting for them. They cheered while doing push ups (the least number of push ups they were made to do was fifty, making me wonder how in the blazes my brother managed to survive it, considering how his muscles are non-existent), they cheered while running, they sangs songs and cheered at the same time (??), they cheered ALL THE TIME. There was even one activity in which all the potential prefects had to line up in a row along the track in push up position, then cheer (what else?) continuously as the first boy ran round the track, while the rest did push ups, then the second boy'd get up and run, while the rest pressed on with the push ups and so on, until the last boy had completed his run. Their school has a 400metre track, by the way. You know, this kinda makes you wonder what these prefects do other than cheering - I'm guessing nothing.

2. Simulated fires and made up stories that the school was burning down. Two days in a row. Personally, I'd be quite amazed if anyone actually believed that. Still, the fire alarm obediently went off at the stipulated time (one was at 12 midnight, resulting in my brother only being able to get three hours of sleep that night), causing the boys to have to dash to the assembly area and what have you. Apparently, casualties were placed along the corridors and staircases and on the field (kind of like our EEE), but these boys, having gone a bit nutty from those torturous hours of cheering, thought the 'unconscious' teachers (they actually had teachers lying along the staircase for one of the drills - HAHAHA!) were placed there to trip them up, and were meant to train them to look where they were going and run without falling down. Haha! I was laughing so hard when my brother told me about that, especially when how after it was all over, they were all yelled at and punished, because they didn't save the 'injured' people.

3. Night games. Now, this may sound really interesting and exciting initially, but believe me - it wasn't. So a murder mystery had been set up, and it was up to these potential crime fighters (i.e. prefects) to solve the mystery and catch the murderer. They were split into groups and had to run around the school in the dead of the night, collecting clues and sifting through evidence. For a moment, as my brother related this bit to us, I was thinking of how fun this would be in SC, and nearly wanted to forgive his principal, prefect master and senior prefects for forcing them to go through three days of torture, until my brother revealed the details. The whole night games idea, was just a ruse to get them to cheer some more, and do forfeits for the entertainment of their senior prefects, who were situated at the different stations to give out the clues, etc. I cannot believe how evil the senior prefects in this school are. I mean, my brother said that the head prefect (that's Lee Li-Shan's counterpart!) was the nicest guy, because he was the kind one that only made them do fifty push ups. Like, okay...

And guess what? The people in charge of the camp are essentially the senior prefects (told you they were evil), and throughout the course of the camp, the potential prefects have to call each of them "Instructor _____". While the sound of "Instructor Lesley" sure does seem pretty cool, but imagine all the junior prefects running around during GIB shouting "Instructor Li-Shan!", "Instructor Jean Woon!", "Instructor Valerie!" or maybe even "Instructor Lee!", "Instructor Goh!", "Instructor Loh!" just to ask a totally unimportant question, say for example, "Can I please fill up my water bomb now?". Geez. Oh, and because my cousin is a prefect in Secondary Two, my brother had to address him as "Instructor Chin Hian" for THREE WHOLE DAYS. This is the very same cousin, whose younger brother once told me that his "Gor Gor wants to flush [me] down the toilet bowl", because I was irritating. Hmph. Though my brother did say he was one of the nicest instructors (I really can't stand this "instructor" thing. Aren't prefects supposed to work together as a board?), so I guess that's alright then.

The best part of the story though, was of how one of my brother's friends, Julian (otherwise known as Vanessa Tok's younger brother), got fed up with the whole camp and decided to walk out. Yup, just like that. He didn't even stay the first night, but kinda just packed his bags and left. What a MAN! Haha, or perhaps it'd be 'What STUPIDITY!' if because of that he's now blacklisted. I sure hope not, because quite honestly, I admire him for his guts. Put me in the same position and I may have been complaining all day long and saying how much I want to leave, but I wouldn't actually do it, because I'd be too scared of the consequences. I suppose it isn't good to totally disregard the effect of your actions, but...whoa. I was pretty impressed.

Well, now my brother's as black as a piece of charcoal, his voice is hoarse, and he looks unbelievably exhausted (though he still managed to stay up into the wee hours of the morning yesterday to play computer games - I'm guessing it's because he was desprived for three days). I tell you, if I ever became principal of that school, I'll do something about these insane acts of inflicting pain and suffering on the students.

Since when was school about "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast"?