Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Now I get to what I consider to be the best part of the first day of the students’ leadership camp.

It was a teambuilding activity where the whole group had to stand on a blanket, and they had to be able to turn over the blanket, without letting anyone stand on the bare floor. To make it worse there were some people designated not to follow any orders, but just sit on the rug and not do anything.

Yeah, it’s a physical challenge, but it also needed mental strategizing. It was also the third such task that I’ve encountered, after the hands-linked-in-a-circle problem and the “warp” everyone over a neck high line in a pool dilemma I saw first hand December two years ago.

What I didn’t like about the whole thing this time was that the facilitators who arranged the activity, student leaders themselves in another university that is part of the system, let our guys stew over the problem for only a few minutes before they were told: “Let me give you a hint.” And showed something with their handkerchief.

Of course they were able to figure it out, even though they didn’t actually accomplish it because there were still people who stepped off the mat at certain points that it was being flipped.

And in the eventual analysis that happened afterwards, one of the questions the fascists asked was, “Why didn’t you follow us immediately when we gave you a clue as to how to solve it?”

Too bad George the student council president wasn’t honest and said, “Because it hurt our pride a little that you would give us this puzzle then judge us almost immediately that we could not figure it out without your help.”

Then they probably would have been lectured about ego being the downfall of some leaders and groups.

In real world situations, of course, it is prudent to be suspicious of people who are the source of your problems in the first place, and then they offer help in overcoming the said obstacle. More often than not, you’re just being manipulated to the other party’s advantage.

Of course, now I’ll have to think of our own spin to such symbolisms when we hold our own camp next year.

I would also remove what I consider to be the superfluous assignments of the devil’s advocate, the yes-man who doesn’t follow orders anyway, and the ADHD sufferer who just gets attention from the leaders in the first place.

There were more team builders like this one, but I’ll take them in order. In the evening session, for instance, were two separate round table discussions for student council officers and the student organization officers. I sat down with the first one, although the voices of the second one were audible from across the auditorium.

I’ll write more about it next time, in the session after this one, number 594. Class dismissed.