ABC

Personal Growth through Adventure: Low Event and Wilderness Overnight Camp has been the ever first adventure based camp for me to join. Beforehand I did join quite a lot of camps with various purposes and natures. Some of them were fully for fun, like wild camps threw by the classmates (my class is by the name of Environmental Life Science, ENS, with many ENSians enthusiastic about the wild environment and ecology), while some were O camps hold by societies in the institutes aimed to let ourselves meet one another. Sometimes I was really bored by them just because there was no anything fresh. Before taking the course ABC I didn’t know what means by ABC, not even Adventure. But I expected a lot of things before the adventure camp. And I was certain that I could gain, could learn and could experience a lot from the adventure camp. That was why I was keen to it. While I am not the one who could easily familiarize with the theoretical concepts of adventure based counseling, I personally interpret the uncertainty in my uncertain way, by which I am always experiencing more. I just found that there is something entitled “character education”, via which the self-aspect one is aiming to rise the understanding of oneself, self-confidence and so, and that’s what I concerned most. At the moment I feel satisfied with relationship with others, but I realize that I often fail to stabilize and control my emotion, mood and temper, which make me down and upset. So, I often focus on self-counseling. I expected the camp could help me.

Before the camp I was surprised that applicants were divided into 3 groups regarding to their curriculums. I appreciated that arrangement because this helps us, in particular whose were relatively outgoing, to reveal their feeling and they experienced. Plus, I relax and feel comfy much more under a familiar circumstance. I think I can gain more step by step. At the beginning, I was delighted and inspired by the certain kinds of activities we tried at the secondary school campus where the facilities there were amazing. As usual, our guide, Mr. Lau, kept letting us do evaluations and giving us debriefing after every single problem-solving game. That’s the key part of each game. It includes trust, initiative, What applicants should concern are what and how they gain as much as they could. Actually I gained some, but not too much, because I have thought about them before and had the concepts in my mind for long. I preferred learn something new which leads to change. A small change may evolve great improvement. And I was still looking for it at that moment.

Wow! We went up to the hill at the evening. I stayed in the wild again! I became in a great mood since then. But my feeling this time is most different. I love hiking, but never hike at night. The feeling was fresh and good, but the journey on the trail and the dinner we made were no big deal to me. I started to feel disappointed with the camp. “Did I expect too much? Is my Goal set too high?” I asked myself. Besides knowing myself, knowing other people is also a critical thinking. Some of my teammates who are not studying ENS have seemed quite silent all along. Is that trust failed to be built between us. Is that what called “comfort zone”? I have to think about it. During the process of growth, matter the youth and the adults, people are facing thousands of challenges and breakthroughs, and in the view of “uncertainty”, such a comfort zone is restricted. I used to confined in a small comfort zone. It didn’t have to be like this. I realized that people must to equip themselves as regards emotion, physical status, and belief. During the camp I tried stepping out of the comfort zone so that I could “grow”.

The “walk alone” task was soundly the most meaningful program in the camp. It was an incredible experience for me and led to a great change to me. I was a boy who is terribly afraid of ghosts, darkness and solitude. However, in fact, I am a Buddhist. I believe in Buddha. My religion tells me that ghosts do exist, but could not do any harm on humans. So ironically a great contradiction has immerged in my faith, and it has been one of my deep worries all along, making me not able to make important decision about “to do or not to do” in my daily life. I tried to fix it times beforehand but failed over and over again. The religion does not mean all to me, whereas it has been one of the key and essential parts of my life of the spirit. I am pleased that the dark trail helps solidify and tightly keep my faith of my religion. What’s more, I notice that the faith could be generalized and spread throughout everything, including affair, man-man relations, attitude to many things, in which that to the nature seems to be the most impressive. I did experience changes. They are a kind of changes in faith. I used to love the nature, but now I KNOW I love the nature. I dare say that is a very important change in faith to me. I could interpret it as a peak experience.

The fact is that the dark trail was an awful adversity to me. The appearance of adversity usually turns out to be an expansion of comfort zone, allowing me to rearrange the belief of life and its preference, mending some of my unconstructive habitats, leaving meaningless boundary and persistence, and even making a brand new choice of direction of life and focus. On the trail I did some introspection, and as a result I alter such an adversity to become a beneficial experience about a process of renovation at this point in my young life. And I believe its application is available in the future.

Programmes were group based and its value considerably relies on applicants exposing themselves to perceived physical, emotional and social risks. I was nice that a vital supportive group atmosphere could be evolved and that basic, agreed principles of engagement were shared by our group.