Leach Slayer

So I'm back from Tapah, with pretty much the same amount of bed bug bites as last time. And as last time, I'm the only one amongst us who got bitten at all. I swear there's a conspiracy here. I've come to believe that they bite the person with the most amount of luggage, as if to say that they'll cause discomfort to whoever goes through lengths to have comfort. This is under the assumption that more luggage is equivalent to more comfort.

I had seven pieces.

Well one was my cloths bag, another my harvest sack, two sleeping bags, a pair of computer speakers with a sub-woofer, 1 bag of junk food, and my pillow. One sleeping bag was for Jamie, the computer speakers for the hall, and my pillow? Well lets just say I'd rather not sleep on the drool of a thousand past inhabitants.

Though we were only there for two days, I had a great time and got to know some of the band members better. It was great fun.

The first afternoon we were there, I ended up playing monopoly with Jamie, Andy and Eugene on a laptop. Soon enough, someone began to, for lack of a better word, monopolize. Oh wait. There a better word. It's called ownage. =D

After I got owned, we went stream trotting. Since I only had one pair of shoes with me, I went with my customary bare foot style. About a kilometer down the road, I realized that it wasn't such a good idea after all. Now get this; I love walking barefoot. I've walked about 15km barefoot before. I love to run barefoot. I love to wallrun barefoot. I love the sensitivity of flesh, and being able to feel what I tread on. But what I don't love, is having to walk about 150m on gravel.

Yes, gravel; being stones anywhere between 5mm and 10cm, some sharp, some round.

Well gravel path aside, the stream trotting was awesome. We spent more than half an hour wading up a stream, making our way to a waterfall. When we got there, we decided to take pictures of us, what else, but sitting in the flow of the water. I'm sure it made a great picture, at the expense of out butts though. The water was freezing.

So we sat down, laid down, and had a water fight even. Then it started raining. We promptly left, lest we be swept away by a sudden gush of water. Instead of taking the river path down, we took a gravel road. *Yippee. More gravel* Though had taken us the better part of an hour to get there by the stream, the road took us back to the start within 5 minutes of us setting out. That means that we could have technically avoided the whole mumbo jumbo and walked straight to the waterfall.

But there's a lesson here. By taking the longer, harder road, reaching our destination was made that much more fulfilling. It's not just achieving something. The journey on the way is important too.

When we got back, we washed up then had BBQ for dinner. After that, we headed to the hall for our session. It was about what winning means. We all pretty much had a unanimous view on it; giving your absolute best, no holds barred, regardless of the outcome. If you're unsatisfied because of what you don't have, chances are that you wont be satisfied when you do. Again, the journey counts.

We went for a night hike after that. I had brought 4 torches to lend out, and luck of all lucks, Jamie's had run out of battery. I sacrificed Shirley (my Surefire) to him and instead navigated by light of two glow sticks. Surprisingly, I didn't get any leaches. Phylli however, collected the average of 1 leach per 4 minutes spent in jungle.

Though we were beat when we got back, we still ended up watching a late night movie called Never Back Down. (Props to Jon for telling me bout it. =D) The main character starts of as an angry young man who cant hold back his anger, and had a tendency to release it in violent manners. He's portrayed as someone who always wants to come out on top, and never lose. Throughout the movie, events slowly craft him into something quite different, and he instead becomes someone who fights for the sake of those around him. A nice element they added was a line about the Shield of Achilles, and how he ended up fighting not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He was fought so that he didn't have to fight again, and even though a chance presented itself, he abandoned the glory of winning simply because it wasn't one of his ideals anymore; because winning no longer involved his actual dispute.

Anyways needless to say, we slept after that. Like rocks, we slept.

I honestly don't remember much of Sunday morning, me being in a half catatonic state. But we did have another session and I do remember that.

One of the things I took away from it was derived from an age old Christian cliche. We are often told to be the salt and light to the world. But I realized that in order to be salt to the world, we must first make ourselves salty. We must learn before we can teach, or learn while we teach. Nevertheless, we still must learn.

Being a creative and wacky bunch, we of course came up with a different definition for the salt and light line.

Being salt, was to vanquish leaches. Light's only raison d'etre was to illuminate the area so the salt can find leaches to vanquish. We had a good laugh about that. Then someone said that "leaches", could be figurative. Our joke had thus become something deep.

We still laughed.

On the way back to KL, we stopped at this duck noodle shop for lunch. The noodles were great. But not as great as the car conversation. While Jamie snoozed, I learnt how to make vanilla ice-cream, and how nun chucks came about. We concluded that all invented food was either the result of an accident, or was Chinese. We talked about all forms of random stuff. At last I've found someone who shares the same appreciation I do for random knowledge, was home schooled, and is interested in psychology. Adam, I swear you must be my long lost twin brother or something.

We arrived at KL and went to Yong Yi's house. We waited inside and had a quick chat while we waited for the afternoon rain to abate. After that we parted ways, and YY sent me home. Waiting for me at home was my dad who had prior to that day itself, been away on a 6 week seminar in New Jersey. His total time away was bout 7 weeks because he took a holiday in Boston with my sister before that. It goes without saying that I was elated to have him back.

He had stayed in an apartment in Hoboken, and it so happened to have a gym. My dad decided to use it at a frequency of what I'm guessing to be every other day. To my utter most surprise when he shed his shirt, his belly was gone! Well, that's not the most shocking change really. Lets start with his biceps. Or rather the biceps a size worthy of a body builder. They're huge. Then of course there's his 6 pack in which with a little more effort, I'm positive he can turn into an 8. And I could go on, but words wouldn't do his transformation justice. I guess you'll just have to wait for the next church camp and hope that tradition persists. *Grins widely*

Well that wasn't the only surprise I received. While in New York, my dad visited David Blaine during his most recent stunt entitled Dive of Death. He bought a deck that David designed for his own use (split spades), and it so happened to be the black one! I can now add it to the red one my sister bought for me. And the deck wasn't all he obtained. My dad joined a long que and got David's signature for me. =D

I was just thinking how funny it is that amongst the many people I admire, three which are near the top (David Belle, David Blaine, and Derren Brown), all bear DB as their initials. =D

And no folks, that's not all. Along with the aforementioned surprises, my dad had brought me something else. 2 days before it's official release in Malaysia, I received my 2nd generation iPod Touch! I'm still in the process of loading my songs and videos into it, along with some applications I took a liking to. But I'm already in love with it. Smitten really. And grinning widely. Definitely grinning widely.

Pleasant surprises aside, it's great to finally have you home dad.


And a word of advice that goes out to all.

Never let someone else kiss your lucky egg.