Chapter Eight: Camping Sans Tents (~jinghan)
Note from the Author: I felt the need to balance out my previous very-serious-deep-and-meaningful blog, with another more casual blog, and because I didn’t end up writing about what I wanted to write on.
It was a too early in the morning. It is often too early in the morning. But after a week of sleeping in during the easter break it was especially too early in the morning. And all the students gathered beside university square for the fotoholics camp were unanimous on this point.
During the period when first years were so fresh, everyone liked to impart lots of wisdom on us to make themselves feel more experienced and smart, we were told to join lots of clubs and attend lots of camps. I can say that so far I’ve been on two camps, which is two more than I thought I would go on when I heard about the strange drunken experiences of other university students (- including the eating of a lot of hard boiled eggs in an egg-eating competition, and waking up next to a lake after a night of drunken festivities and an attempt to see the sunrise.)
The first camp was a leadership and team-work camp organised by the university. It did not seem to be the sort of camp where I would end up on the side (sober and) watching drunk people roll around on the ground, so I had no hesitations about joining. I had an awesome time and really got to know some people over the course of the week end, despite having to get up at 6am on both Saturday and Sunday.
The Fotoholics camp was the second camp, funded by the university, but organised by students. Already I was seeing the differences. It was 10:30am and we had travelled no where. There were four rented cars lined up to take us to the Great Ocean Road as opposed to a big bus. (Where the other five cars were to make the total convoy of nine was a mystery.) Shopping bags with loafs of bread, stacks of bottled wated and styrofoam eskies were loaded into the boots of the cars along with our luggage. Oh, and I had no clue who else was a first year student.
Whatever sleepy, edgy and impatient experience I was having in the morning dissipated as the camp unfolded. I got to know the people in my car, and soon we had our own collection of private jokes and unique experiences. We were running behind schedule more often than not, and perhaps only 20% of out original plans unfolded as planned – but the spontaneity was new, exciting and added to the experience. There was just enough beaurocrasy (some lists and papers to sign, designated navigators and first aid personelle) to make us feel in safe hands, but not so much that it felt like someone else was in control of our experience. Everything seemed to be planned (by consensus) as we went. At one point all nine cars went down the wrong road, and a slow process of making three point turns and back tracking added to our lateness. Five minutes before we needed to leave, we decided that the rainy weather would not stop us going to the Twelve Apostles to see a possibly cloud-hidden sunrise. We skipped Appolo Bay to have ‘lunch’ at 4pm in Lorne instead.
Some of the strangers around me were international students, some were much older than me, some went to other universities, some were second year students on their first camp and some were graduate students still involved with the club. Well they were strangers at first, and their names were still strange to me by the end, but the unseen barrier that stops a lowly first-year talking to strangers was gone by the end of the camp. They didn’t mind explaining how to use my (very basic) camera to me, or telling us about their driving experiences (when some of us have had less then 20 hours of driving on our learners). I was in a cabin with seven other girls who were all very respectful of each other despite conversation in three different mother tongues.
And despite the claustrophobic space of the car it was relaxing to do nothing but watch the fields (or rain forest, or sea) rush past and not have to worry about anything at all – not even the fact we were running behind schedule. On my other (more organised and prompt, but less exciting) camp journeys on the bus had been monotonous and purely for the purpose of reaching the next destination. But in a car with just five people, commenting on the music on the radio, taking photos out the window, proclaiming that we did not know where we were going, laughing at the guy making a vlog – the driving was the experience!
Needless to say we were late returning to Melbourne. But it didn’t feel like the camp had ended too late.
I had really hesitated about taking the advice to “attend camps” seriously. But I’m glad I changed my mind. Though, at the same time I don’t regret not going to some of those crazy drunken camps (some people like that, I would just feel very uncomfortable spending a weekend like that). So I’m going to pass on the advice to you: attend a camp. But not just any camp, attend one that’ll connect you with people you are comfortable hanging around, and do it when you feel up to it. The first few weeks of uni have a lot of camps, but that’s also when first years are most easily overwhelmed and stressed and scared. It’s never to late to go on your first camp. And it’s okay to ask a friend to come with you, it was my friend who roped me into this camp anyway – and need I say that I don’t regret it at all.