As the end of the year came, the long awaited holiday finally got around the corner. As for my school, the holiday spanned from Wednesday, December 23rd 2014 to Sunday, January 11th 2015. So, basically we got to enjoy around three weeks of holiday. Not me though. It was more like a week of holiday and a real hellish time before it.
So basically, I joined this extracurricular activity called Jamadagni, a PPA, Perhimpunan Penjelajah Alam or Nature Explorer Association and it used the occasion of this holiday to put us, Calon Siswa or Prospective Students in a nature training called Pendas, Pendidikan Dasar or Basic Education to become Anggota Muda or Junior Member. It was not all fun and games, it was more like a get-down-and-give-me-a-set-of-finger-pushups kind. The Pendas was held from Saturday, December 27th 2014 to Friday, January 2nd 2015 in Subang.
Before the Pendas, my holiday was used for the preparation of course. Called Pre-Pendas, the Calon Siswa was trained in school, in both physic and knowledge. We also made sure that we carried the right things, from clothes to cleaver. Pendas started with a ceremony in school with the parents and the Senior Member of Jamadagni. After getting an hour or two long trips in a military bus, we walked a long way, called a Long-March to our training place deep inside a forest carrying our heavy carrier bag. There, we had to make our own food cooperatively with our teammates, four in each team. For our sleep, we had to make our own bivouac, from rain ponchos or natural material like branches and leaves. As for the teaching material, we learned a lot of things, open and closed navigation, rappling, first aid, survival, search and rescue, and many others. After each days, there were evaluation time where we mainly were being punished to do a lot of pushups because of our faults during the day, like being slow or egoistical. Each day was harder than the day before. It was so tiring that I could always slept well during the night. Well, but I still remembered the New Years night where I got outside of the nature bivouac I made because I move a lot during my sleep and a hole in my imperfect bivouac and ended up woken up and heard the fireworks right during the year transition.The 6th day was probably the hardest one since we had to do Long-March and traveled longer distance than the first one, probably twice as long. And the final day, the 7th day was the most memorable moment, and the happiest too, probably since it finally ended. On the 7th day, we were woken up early just to do commando crawling up the hill. After we finally get to the top, we were told to line up and after we were told to turn, there were already the Senior Members and our parents ready for the inauguration ceremony. Some of my friends started crying and to be honest I teared up a little too. After the ceremony and a lot of selfie, I went home with my parents. After the Pendas, I admit I became quiet glutton, probably because the food there sucked, from hot rice right after cooking to the tasteless banana tree's trunk.
After Pendas, mostly I spent my time home. Playing video games, watching movie, reading comics, and all the stuff you can do on your laptop alone. It was really fun and I wished I had three weeks to do all that stuff like anybody else (who didn't do Pendas). The last two days of my holiday was spent going to Ciloto, a semi-natural vacational area with my parents and their friends, graduate of 3 Senior High School Bandung year '82. We did outbound and games there. Of course there was no pushups involved, so it was really fun as I voluntary asked to come along.
And that's it for my holiday. Feel free to tell me your holiday in the comment. See you.
