Today marked the end of my boys’ journey as scouts in SJI as they handed over their responsibilities to the secondary 3s. Even though I really wanted to stay home and recover from being ill, there was no way I was missing this.

A little bit of background for those who are weirded out with the term “my boys”: I came back to the SJI scout group in 2005 after being away since 2002 because of certain incidents and the army and right from about the first day I saw that this batch of then-sec-ones were a pretty unique batch.

I have to say today was pretty darn emotional for me. On one hand I looked at it probably the way a proud parent looks on his kids when they’re growing up but on the other I feel like four years just went by so quickly.

In 2005 when I started my journey with these rascals, I wasn’t even 21 yet, wasn’t even in university yet. And here I am in 2008 with them about to embark on their O levels and I’m almost ready to graduate. When I came back in 2005, I never thought I’d work with one singular batch all the way through. It’s gotten me into problems with some people, but me being me, I don’t give a shit.

We’ve laughed together, trained together, had good times, had arguments, they make me furious, I make them cry, they’ve made me cry, they’ve not always agreed with me but we’ve always tried to work things out. I think at the end of the day for me, I look back on four years of madness and hope that in some way I’ve influenced this batch of special boys to be better men, in the same way various people in my scouting life have made me a better man. I didn’t always understand things when they happened while I was 13-16, but I do now that I’m much older, and hopefully in time, they will look past the screaming and the scolding and the punishment, and understand. As much as I’ve been very very hard on them, I’m also very very protective of them.

In a lot of ways, they’ve contributed to me wanting to enter education at some point in my life. Working with young bright people like them has been tough, but ever so rewarding. I watched the video montage with amusement until the famed “We love Daryl’ picture, which got the emotional bit of me going.

It was almost weird today. I watched the boys say “goodbye” to the other leaders and shook their hand. But when it came to me (I was right at the end), for most of them there was no “goodbye”. In fact for most of them there were no words. Just a handshake, a nod and a hug. Maybe they genuinely didn’t know what to say, but on my end, I couldn’t possibly say anything in those 5 seconds to sum up four years of time together. So silence did the job.

So to my sec 4s:

I don’t say this as often as I should, but I’m very proud of all of you. Especially in this final year when you’re sec 4. It has been very enjoyable having you all on the same “level” as us, knowing that most of the time I can entrust you with things, and have them done to the best of your abilities. It wasn’t always the case and it wasn’t easy getting here, but we did. Together. I don’t know if you guys will want to continue your journey into ventures and beyond, but even if you don’t, I hope you keep the friendships and bonds that you’ve made over the last four years. They are very, very difficult to replicate.

I’m glad now we can look back together and laugh at UTC 2006 when I went nuts and destroyed your campsites, but if there are things that I’ve done that still sting, I hope you’ll forget about it and understand why things were done in a certain way. On my end I genuinely do not remember who has complained about whatever shit and got me into trouble how many numerous times. I think these are things that just happened and I don’t look back on them negatively. They’re just experiences we’ve shared together and we grow from there.

I wish you the best in your O levels and I hope you get to wherever you want to be, whether it’s JC or poly. I don’t really know if I’ll still be around next year, but I thank you for giving me something to look forward to every Friday for the last four years, and the good far far far outweighs the bad. If you ever need anything, you know where to find me.

To end off this post, Mr. Zachariah Chan has requested that I post his pictures on my blog so he can just download from here and be a lazy fart. So here they are.

I just got off the phone with one of my boys from Scouts, who told me the very bad news that three of them failed their pre-hike report for the Chief Commissioner’s Award, the highest award that one can get in secondary school as a scout.

The reason why? Apparently there were similarities in their emergency plans. Two thoughts come immediately to mind:

1) How original do you want emergency plans to be? Write down “Dial 911″ backwards and read it in a mirror?

2) Maybe the boys shared notes and picked the best out of their research. So what? Do we live in a world where the system doesn’t reward good research? At least they worked at it!

Maybe they suspected plagiarism, but I’ve whacked it into the heads of my boys not to do that. And I’m hoping they didn’t. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

But the big question is how are any of is Gen Yers and Gen Zers supposed to do stuff with these old, stupid people living in their “glory” days think they’re right all the time? We’re moving from mass production to personalisation. From tightly guarded secrets to open collaboration. But we can’t until the “old guard” gets the hell out of our way.

My message to the Singapore Scout Association: Ask the boys to re-do the pre-hike log, but don’t fail them at this stage. It doesn’t teach them anything, nor send the right message. Let them try and if they fail, they fail for proper reasons. Like cheating, or not being safe, or not finding the checkpoint. Not for trivial reasons like this.

Do I think they’ll even read this? No. But in the slim chance they do, I hope they respond. These are 16 year old boys trying to work hard for something they want. Are we nurturing young lives by showing them that such efforts do not pay off?

It really made me sick to hear the phone call and makes me feel sick thinking about all the effort. In a sense I almost feel it’s my fault. I should’ve asked to see a copy of the log before they submit it up the ladder. Is this what I’ll leave them with after four years? Failure to support them at the final steps of their journey?

Last weekend I was at Sarimbun spending the weekend with my friends and fellow scouts, Reuben and Marcus, as well as about 120 other smelly, stinky, dirty boys in the sand, dirt, mud and rain.

It was actually my first visit to Sarimbun, which is shocking considering I’ve been in scouts since 1993 (that’s 15 years, longer than some of the boys have been alive). But a combination of timing and absence made it so. It was quite fun actually. Although it was truly a hellhole in that we had no creature comforts like power points, a decent bed or aircon, being so far away from the world really felt refreshing.

For the first time in years (actually the first time ever) we took a backseat and handed duties to the older boys (the sec4s, Jc1s and Jc2s). A combination of unfortunate circumstances (which I won’t elaborate on here), and newfound, almost foreign trust in the them. Actually the trust wasn’t foreign to me since they’re “my” batch which I was with since sec 1 way back in 2005.

Here’s the weekend in pictures. I’ve only selected nine to put here, the rest can be found on the Facebook Album. Enjoy!

The dark path to the campsite. Pretty hazardous at night.

Start the morning with Marcus!

It looks so serene.

Our “beds”. Mine’s the one closest to the camera.

Crazy mutant ants. Check out those JAWS!

So we take care of the ants the only way scouts know how: Fire in the (ant)hole!

Sarimbun’s perfect for some solitude

The uniform.

And the flag. Both used to mean pride and accomplishment. Now… I’m not too sure.

Camp really made me think about my place in the unit. I’m notoriously anti-establishment, but I’m fiercely dedicated and loyal and protective of the unit and I respect the teachers who have in a way “cultivated” me since 1997. A lot of the things I am today were taught from my time in scouts. But the way things are going now, is this a path I still want to head downwards? Just as well I’m heading to Canada, so I can put off making that particular decision till January ‘09.

So here’s the missing pieces of the story after the buffet “ran out” and before Guitar Hero started. I was looking through the shots and this segment of the night really produced some wonderful shots (or so I think) due to a combination of the surroundings (Arab Street really has a charm around it) and my anyhow-shoot-photography-with-a-dslr.

Instead of doing this the normal way, I thought I’d create a little comic strip with Comiqs, which is something started by a Singaporean, Michael Lim. You upload your photos and then you get to put in speech and thought bubbles, as well as captions. Very cool.

The Quest For Dinner from uniquefrequency on Comiqs

There were a few more shots but the first time I published it, Comiqs didn’t work, so I had to re-do it and didn’t have time to put in all the shots, just a few of them. Pity though, cos some of the others were nice to look at.

After the fiasco at Ambrosia and dinner later (more on that tomorrow), it was proposed that since we were in the east, we should go to Reuben’s place and play with his Xbox 360. As a brand new Guitar Sidekick, I didn’t need much convincing even though I stay at the opposite end of Singapore.

Oddly enough, despite knowing each other since 1997, none of us had been to Reuben’s house before. Somehow we’re always at my place or Johnny’s, or before he moved, Rubin’s. I guess it’s because the three of us are most central.

We reached Reuben’s place and said hi to his parents (his parents are great, they actually know and remember us by name despite seeing us like once a year), and took the tour. Check out the pictures (click for bigger images).

Why yes, of course there is.

The blanket Gillian made for him (Remember? They’re getting married?)

The computer from which he pwns us all.

After the tour, it was time for Guitar Hero 3!

Pattie’s virgin attempt at GH3

The HUGE ASS tv

Reuben vs Pattie. Reuben won (surprise!)

Reuben’s avatar of choice

Reuben showing off his mad skillz on some song our brains couldn’t even process, yet alone play.

Me trying to activate my Star Power. Yes those are M&M’s coloured socks. They go with the transparent shoes.

I kind of skipped the dinner in the middle because I looked through the pictures and they’re pretty good, so I’m going to try using Comiqs for the first time and come up with something amusing. Stay tuned via RSS! (the button at the top right of this page)

Last Saturday (an exhausting day after Social Media Breakfast), I met the guys for a belated birthday celebration for Rubin. Being his birthday, he got to chose the place and led us to Ambrosia, 19 Baghdad Street because of its’ $11 buffet.

So we got there and sat upstairs when a waiter came and said “Sir are you eating buffet or a la carte?”. So we said we were there for the buffet. The waiter said we had to sit downstairs for the buffet. Now downstairs is this tiny place which in all likelihood, could not fit 7 of us, even though it was empty at the time. The guy said he’d check.

He came back up and said “I’m sorry sir, we ran out of buffet”. All of us were like “What?! How do you run out of buffet?”. It wasn’t even 6:30 and the buffet starts at 5 and ends at 8. Unbelieving of his tall tale, we left the place to find food elsewhere. Clearly $77++ wasn’t enough business for them to let us have the buffet.

The evening in pictures (click to enlarge):

The mosque near Arab Street

Working on a Saturday

Walking like his butt hurts

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore

Man & his ladyfriend.

Did you seesha that?

Shoes (you can make out my transparent ones at the bottom right)

Did Patrick give Rubin…. FLOWERS?!

Reuben handing Rubin his gift: Warcraft 3 Battlechest original. So that he can play with us on Bnet.

Ingrate’s look of disgust.

I’m currently still using my DSLR very much like a point and shoot. So if you’d like to critique the photos, I’d be more than happy to hear from you!

So of course you’d notice that I don’t talk about where we went after the-place-with-no-buffet. All I’ll reveal now is we somehow ended up in the east due to some sneaky actions and Guitar Hero 3!… find out more tomorrow.

So over the long weekend 8 of us from the Scout unit headed up to Yen Chee’s house in Johor Bahru to have a retreat and go into spiritual meditation and plan for the upcoming camp…

No actually we went to play Xbox 360 till 5am in the morning and promptly resumed at 11am.

And of course what’s a better party game than Guitar Hero 3? I declare myself the Guitar Sidekick because no one but Reuben could beat me on multiplayer. And he’s had the game for months.

For the rest of the post, pictures speak louder than words! (click for larger images)

Reuben and Aravind starting it slow

Me vs Boon Leong. Also starting slow.

I’m player two. It says “Player Two Conquers With Authority!”

I only did this because I’ve been drinking

Jumping my butt in June Ren’s face while I’m kicking his ass.

There’s actually a video of me jumping around like a monkey while playing Guitar Hero and kicking June Ren and Marcus’s ass, but I hope that never sees the light of day on the internet. Check back tomorrow for a post on the whole Malaysia trip (it’s hilarious).

You might remember me mentioning Reuben a couple of times on this blog. We’ve been friends via scouts since sec 1, and are both voluntary leaders in scouts today. (Not to mention Team Fortress 2 players virtually every other night).

So the big news is: Reuben is getting married!

It’s quite overwhelming and crazy at the same time. It’s like how do you transform from a “Go to school, go for scouts, watch a movie, go home and play Team Fortress” to a “married” lifestyle! The jump is almost incomprehensible for me. (For now).

I guess the news never really sank in until this:

Big congrats to Reuben and Gillian, can’t wait for it next year!

Kinda makes you think “omg we’re all going to be adults”, doesn’t it?

Looking through the very short list of my videos on YouTube, I’m reminded of this little clip taken two years ago of Rubin eating a pistachio ice-cream cone at Swensens.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7EdG9ERVOM]

This was actually the second time that night, but the first time the cone didn’t break. Don’t say you weren’t warned if you attempt to eat this!

Some of you may know that I (along with Marcus and Reuben) are voluntary adult leaders for the Pelandok Scout Group back at our secondary school, St. Joseph’s Institution.

Many people ask me what in the world three of us do while surrounded by 13-16 year old boys all Friday afternoon.

With this video, your questions are answered. Sorta.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cFi9_paWSs&hl=en]

Edit: I’m totally not a video person so this is a highly amateur attempt at a video. Don’t kill me for it!