It was basically a study camp, whereby all of us attend an Adam Khoo's Workshop. The founder, Adam Khoo, is known for his motivational talks & workshops which students attend. Rich parents pay thousands of dollars to send their kids for his workshops every year just to learn the study skills, apply it in their lives, and eventually excel in their examinations.

For me, the school subsidized the payment for us, so we only have to pay about a few hundred dollars to attend this.

Through this camp, i learnt more about myself. I got to know myself better, in terms of my strengths and weaknesses. For instance, i'm actually an auditory learner. There are three types of learners- visual, auditory and kinesthetic. If you want to find out which is your preferred style of learning, click here to find out! :)

The tips they taught us are extremely useful as well! Such as time management and note-making skills. I gotta say, in the past i used to hate making mind maps, i preferred to make notes via point form. After attending this workshop, i personally feel that making mindmaps is actually the best way to memorise things, especially content for science and humanities subjects.

As for time management, they gave me a better idea on how to actually manage my study & revision time, like when exactly should i revise, how many times i should do it, when to practice, so on and so forth. Right now i'm hoping i can actually apply the skills. I've already bought my weekly planner today, just gotta learn how to use it right! ;)

The seniors who've attended this workshop warned us that the things they say will make us cry, literally. And it's usually on the second day. I believed them, and initially i wanted to prove the trainers wrong. On the second day i kept waiting and waiting for them to tell us sad stories and make us cry. In the end, i did cry. (so much for proving them wrong, very smart, Steph, very very smart)

Even the boys cried lol, i got a shock that the boys in front of me cried before I did.

Some of the toughest boys i know wiped their tears away, sobbed really hard, and the sniffles omg, i wanted to laugh but the background music was so sad, it made me cry again OTL.

If you're wondering how in the world they managed to make the whole cohort cry, here's how.

The trainer started off with asking us to tell him the problems we're facing that cause us to not excel in our studies. I kept quiet, cause i thought those problems were lame excuses.

It got pretty boring cause he started talking about his secondary school days as a class joker, so many people started to fall asleep and stuff like that.

Then it got worse.

He started screaming and shouting at us for not giving 100% in whatever we were doing, including listening to him talk. Then the background music totally changed to some really sad piano song in F minor.. He started talking about how he lost his dad at the age of 20 and when he was telling the story he cried. His voice was literally shaking, and because of the background music, the whole atmosphere was just really sad.

It affected all of us, real bad. Then he started talking about losing your loved ones, and then the tears started flowing down our cheeks.....

To be frank i think this is hypnotism. Seriously it's like if it wasn't for the background music, most of us wouldn't have cried lol.

On the last day of the camp, we had an appreciation ceremony for our parents. We were given a choice to go up on stage and say what we want to say to our parents and teachers.

So most of them started going up and shared in front of the school about their life story and their promises to work hard this year, etc.

I felt like i was in a reality show.

My friend and i were laughing at how surreal it was, there were photographers and the trainer was like the host of the whole show rofl.

My other friend, let's call him A, he planned to create a twist and decided to call his mom up on stage to apologise. He even put eye drops to force himself to "cry". Turns out, when he called his mother on stage, he ended up sobbing really really hard. He apologised for all the bad things he did and when he came down he didn't dare to talk to any of us lol.

When the whole thing ended he tweeted, "I let out my emotions after so long...felt so tranquil. haha the irony is that I apologize for these mistakes.tml night it all happens again."

I can honestly say that even though their life stories gave me goosebumps, and i felt very sad for them of course, but deep down inside i doubted whatever they were saying. I get it, some of them really mean what they say. But most of the seniors told me that this whole "crying session" they made us go through isn't very effective. Sure it made us cherish our parents more, but the motivation usually doesn't stay long. At least for the most of them, anyway.

Hopefully it will last on me. :)

After the whole sharing session, they asked us to go stand by our parents and the whole hall sang a song together. I saw most of the students hugging their parents and crying, real bad. I felt kinda guilty for laughing but then again, will this even last?

I'm very close to my parents, especially my mom. I tell her everything that goes on in my life, so for me to say "i love you" to her isn't really hard. But for me to say it to my dad, it's kind of awkward, but after this camp it wasn't anymore. :)

Before we attended the workshop our teachers admitted that the things they teach are only effective for the first half of the year. When some of them thanked their teachers, most of them plastered a smile on their faces and i bet their minds were thinking "We'll see about that..." haha.

My arms hurt, my hands hurt, my whole body hurts from the "goal setting" yesterday. We had to write down our goals on this piece of paper and hold it up, right in front of us, with our arms straight, for 20 minutes. It was pure torture, we were lucky that it was raining, because for the NA classes they had to stand under the hot sun and do it for a full hour. Imagine doing that!

If all of us hadn't done the final countdown together, i would've stood there and cry.

I didn't bend my arms at all, i wanted to prove to myself that these goals are the ones that i WILL achieve. It's something that i REALLY want. It was seriously painful, i kept screaming and screaming during the whole 20 minutes. Some gave up along the way, some teared, and some even danced! Haha!

Overall, i really enjoyed this camp. The whole of 4G1, 4G2 and 4G3 got closer than ever, we cried, we laughed and we stuck together throughout the three meaningful days.

I do hope all of us will study hard and excel for our O's! ^^

Oh, and before i leave.

This is Nisa, the girl whom i had the most fun with in the past three days. ^^