Hard times during EduCamp

I have facilitated the EduCamp (first batch) for two days already, and I must admit that it was more tiring that I had expected. For two days, we as facilitators had to walk to Old Village 5 from Village 2 and back many times. Besides that, we had to walk to the lecture rooms and the co-curricular building to help facilitate certain activities. This walking started from the morning until past midnight. Today itself, I had to walk from my hostel (in Village 2) to the Chancellor Hall for Document Management. Then, at 9.15 a.m. I left the Chancellor Hall to the co-curricular building (which is about fifteen minutes walk away) for my Basic Dance and Movement class. I attended class for about an hour (I have mastered the Waltz) and then left with permission back to my hostel (I had a stomach upset) before changing into another shirt and then left for the Main Hall.

There was an English Proficiency Test for the EduCamp participants in the Main Hall and the Multi Purpose Hall. The test was supposed to start at 10.30 a.m. but it wasn't until 10.40 a.m. that I reached the Main Hall (I had to walk slowly because my feet still hurt). In the examination hall, I had to invigilate (a group of SPM 2005 students [ironic? Not really. It's absolutely normal.]) the exam and had to do a lot of walking from the front to the back of the hall to attend to the requests of some participants.

At 12.00 noon, the exam was finished and all of us made our way back to Old Village 5 for lunch. That was the moment where I could really sit down and relax. After having my lunch, I couldn't help accepting (and was grateful) Qian Pink's offer to fetch me and some of the others to the Chancellor Hall at 2.00 p.m. At that time, the students were supposed to go to Pocket D for a Career Talk, but as they do not know where Pocket D is, we had to ask them to gather at the Chancellor Hall before taking them to Pocket D.

After directing them to Pocket D, I, together with a few more facilitators, left for Village 2 because we were not in charge to facilitate the Career Talk session. Upon arriving in my room, I immediately removed my socks and sat down on my chair. It wasn't long before I continued my Engineering Mathematics assignment which I have now completed.

Last two nights, I had a terrible time. At around 5.00 a.m. my roommate left for Medan Gopeng in a bus to fetch the EduCamp students (who are normally not from Perak) to UTP. Not long after that, I felt a terrible pain coming from my right knee. I started to massage it and thought that it would be all right. However, I was very wrong. To my surprise, the pain did not subside but instead became worse. I tried bending my knee, but I couldn't as the pain was too much. I had to slowly bend my knee, and even that was done very slowly. I tried turning my leg right, but the pain prevented me from doing so. I found that I could turn my leg to the left with ease, but couldn't bend my knee or turn my leg to the right.

I thought to myself, "God! What is happening to me? Did I dislocate my knee-cap during my sleep?" It couldn't be because I could still bend my knee, slowly. Ignoring the pain, I tried to bend and straighten my knee a few times to let the blood circulate. Perhaps I bent my leg too long during my sleep that blood might have clot at that particular area. However, to my relief, the pain at last was gone and I could continue my sleep. The next morning, I was only too happy that I could at least walk out of my hostel for the first day of EduCamp facilitation. Last night, my knee was all right and until now, there is no problem, except that my leg muscles are feeling sore from all that walking. Regarding the pain on my knee, if anyone of you what might have caused my misery, please shed some light for me.

I'll only be too happy to be able to rest for about three to four days before facilitating the third batch of EduCamp, where I'd expect to meet more Michaelians. Currently, only Jonathan Chew is in the first batch, but fortunately he made friends easily and adapted to temporary hostel life quite well!

Nowadays, I realised that I'm in constant stress, not only because of academic, but also because of the events that are held in UTP. Even if the EduCamp was not held, I would still feel more stressed than before. I do appreciate Joanna Chia for giving me a CD (The Classics at the Movies) for my birthday. The relaxing music (plus some of those by Richard Clayderman) did me good.

All right, I shall stop here right now. I'm going to do some questions for my Chemistry tutorial before leaving for dinner in Old Village 5 again. After that, I have to invigilate another test called the Critical Reasoning Test (IQ based questions) at 8.15 p.m. More walking to do!