Ming How’s Holiday Reflection

Ming How’s Holiday Reflection

On 7^th November, my squad had our squad outing at Jurong Central Park and Jurong Safra. Since this squad outing was personally planned by me (and some of my squadmates), I was quite excited to see how the squad outing will turn out. Originally, the plan was to spend some time at the Jurong Central Park first before going to Jurong Safra for a barbeque party.

Since I was part of the organizing committee, I went to Jurong Central park slightly earlier to set up the games and settle some stuff. My squadmates and I settled down at the Macdonalds there to eat out lunch first before we started with the setting up of the games. Our first game was running man so we had to prepare some wristbands and mission cards. After that at approximately 1pm, the rest of my squad came and we officially started our squad outing. 

After my squadmates have settled down, I started briefing my squadmates about the rules of the game. The rules are quite simple, and it was to rip off the opponent team mates’ wristbands and there would be power cards around. When the game started, everyone was quite excited and surprisingly, everyone was playing the game very enthusiastically! However, there were a lot of problems (like wristbands started peeling off since it was not sticky enough) and thus the game ended much earlier than expected. 

I was at a loss, since things were not going according to schedule and I did not know how to deal with the situation. In the end, my squad just decided to play at the playground. However, I was quite disappointed with myself since I have not planned the squad outing very well. From this, I have learnt that it takes immense effort and time to plan an enjoyable and smooth squad outing. I was still quite glad that my squadmates were still enjoying themselves so things were not as bad as I thought.

At around 3pm, we made our way to Jurong Safra. Since it was a very hot afternoon and the distance was quite long, we started playing with the ice supposedly for the drinks later during the barbeque party. That was precisely how we did not have ice for the party later.  .__.

When we reached Jurong Safra, we rested in the main lounge since there was air conditioning there before making our way to the barbeque pits. It was our first barbeque party so everyone was quite excited in helping out with the starting of the barbeque. The girls were busy setting up the food while the boys were helping out with starting the fire.

 I had barbeque experience and thus I was quite confident of being able to start the fire but…. Just when everyone was so ecstatic, it started raining. Haiz…. Yet another setback…. In fact a very big one. Thanks to the big rain, there goes over barbeque party. During that time I really felt like crying since i have really put in a lot of effort  in planning this squad outing. Out of desperation, my squadmate and I even kneeled down to beg that the rain would stop. We even started singing “我问天”…

Meanwhile, the girls were busy covering the food from the rain with umbrellas and so in the end, the food was quite well protected from the rain while on the other we are totally drenched. In the end, one of my squadmates brought back all the food and as a squad we ate all the food in school the next day.

 

In the end, we just spend our time playing at Jurong Safra, doing drills and playing in the rain. Even though the barbeque party had failed very terribly, i was very glad to hear my squadmates saying that they have enjoyed themselves a lot and had a great time. Personally, I was not quite happy with myself since this squad outing had a lot of mistakes but my squadmates enjoying themselves was a really great comfort. 

In a nutshell, from this squad outing, I have understood the difficulties of planning a very smooth and successful event. It was very hard for me to plan this squad outing (even though it was quite successful) and thus I should learn to appreciate those who have planned any events since it is very hard on them too. Being flexible in my plans is also very important since many unexpected situations can happen. I can be better next time but I believe my squad have also enjoyed this outing.