The Diaries of The Camping Days (Part 1)

Dear Diary,

Today is the first day of the three camping days. The whole eighth grade were very excited. I, too was very excited. First, we got together at our school. A teacher was telling as to do this and do not do that. After that, we met the counselors.

Then we got on the bus and went to a camp ground in Tainan county. It was a torture to me. I didn't sleep well last night, therefore my left eye was so itch. It was a bad decision to scratch it because my eye got more itch and it was swollen. Then I got hyper-dizzy on the bus, and couldn't do anything but throw up.

We arrived at ten a.m., when we got off the bus, I quickly asked the counselors about what I had missed on the bus and quickly caught up.

We learned and put up our tent then. It was a very small tent for seven of us (our team). Then we went to get some sleeping bags for our tent floor, and put our sleeping bag and luggage inside.

We were all very hungry after the tiresome work. So we went to have our lunch. As soon as we got to the cafeteria, I found that I had forgotten to bring my utencel. Since I didn't know what to do, I told our team counselor about it. So he went to get a pair of chopsticks for me (I didn't know where he got it). Though lunch was delicious, we didn't eat much.

After that, we went to watch the counselors' play. It was very funny and interesting. The next thing was to play a game in the camp ground. We walked from here to there, and the games were competitions with the another class, and we had to flatter the quiz master, like to say something like "You are so handsome" or "You are so beautiful" (with fingers crossed behind our back) to get more points. It was fun.

After the exciting, long, walk, we went to have our dinner. We cooked it ourselves with char coal. We had to build the fire ourselves. I was the human fan, which is the best job in the team. Too bad the fire was too small. When we were cooking our soup, I put too much water in the pot, and the soup never get ready. So we decided to stop cooking and take the pot away from the fire. The dishes were eggs with meat, meat with too much salt, vegetable with too less salt, soup with cooked duck meat and with raw mushroom.

Our lunch was the worst meal ever. Our team ate all the egg, and no one wanted to eat the rest of the meal. I was still hungry (or not full), so I ate the rest of the too-salty-meat with the rest of the vegetable together. The soup was terrible. It was full of the smell of the raw mushroom. So I ate the rest of the duck meat, which was the only eatable thing in the soup, and drank a few bowl of the horrible soup, and poured the rest away.

Then we went back to our tents to put away the things, and got together in the dark night to listen to a counselor, who was talking in a soft, slow, ghostly voice. She told us not to call someone by her name, not to turn around or react when someone calls your name, for you don't know who or what had called you. Don't wear anything red, red is a harmful color. She also told us not to speak too loud, it might attract something. She told us to hold hands with a friend, but don't rehold when we accidentally let go, we won't know if we what we are holding. Don't tap on someone's head or shoulders because we have some kind of important fire on them, she said.

After that, we went to listen to our counselor. He was telling us some ghost stories. Dilemma was very scared. She held my hand tight in her pocket (not in mine since I wasn't wearing my coat because of the color of it). She was also trying hard not to hear a thing. Well, she was very good at it since I had to call her twice to draw her attention. We decided to call her The Goddess of Novels (a nickname I named her), and call me The Goddess (we didn't want to get to Athena's bad side, my nickname was The Goddess of Wisdom). I suggested that we should pray to the Wind Gods, so we did.

We saw some interesting scenes when we were talking. The were some candles on the road. The light of the candle was painful in my eyes, and it was hard to see things in the dark. How I wish that I can be a vampire in the dark, that way I can see more carefully.

After the walk, we went to see some more plays played by the counselors. It was very funny. Then we went to get supper, and went back to our tent. It was about eleven p.m.

What a tiresome day!

Judy