Olympiad Camp, An Unforgettable Experience

Hello, today I'm going to tell you about an experience I will never forget. Even, if I was offered to go back to these time, I would accept the offer happily.

A drawing made by one of my friends
in the olympiad camp.

When I was a junior high school student, my school sent me and some other friend to olympiad trainings. I write it with s, as we were sent there not only once. I joined the training 5 times, each of them was about 2-3 weeks long. The events, usually called as "Olympiad Camp", took place in SD-SMP-SMA Kharisma Bangsa Bilingual Boarding School Tangerang Selatan.

Yes, they were not in Bandung so that means I should stay in the school's dormitory.

What did I do there? I think by hearing its name, you can tell what I did. I was trained to be a good olympiad contestant; to be a winner so that I could make my school proud. The learning process was quite interesting yet frustrating; the schedule was very tight I should be studying the same subject since 07.30-21.30! It was divided into 5 sessions; the last session, 19.00-21.30, is for self-studying. In the fourth session, I usually got tests. On the last day of camp, the scores of all camp participant were ranked.

The process was interesting, but it isn't the main reason of why I love and miss the camps.

I was a Biology olympiad student. My teacher in the 1st-3rd camp was Mr. Didin Sopandi, he is very funny. Sometimes, when the camp participants were very tired, he told us jokes so that we laughed and got spirited again. On my 4th-5th camp, my teacher was Kak Roswitha Muntiyarso. She is very smart and sometimes she told jokes too. She was the bronze medalist of International Biology Olympiad 2007.

My friends there were very cheerful too, and they were the ones who made me struggle to get through my first camp. I was stressed out that time, as the materials taught were really hard. It was a heavy pressure for me.

What makes my friends there be special is that they come from all parts of Indonesia; some of them are from Yogyakarta, Depok, Sragen, Tangerang Selatan, Semarang, while the rest even come from Aceh, Padang and Kalimantan. But it also means that I'm not able to meet them often. I don't even know when I can meet them again.

The camps taught me many things, not only subjects, but also life lessons; first, I need to struggle for success. Second, when I don't believe in myself anymore, I still have Allah. With Him, I can survive anything. And the last thing is, friendship doesn't count miles. Even though all my friends are now far away from me, I know they are going to be on my side if I need them.

Every day, I thank Allah for giving me chance to join these events. They had changed my life so drastically.

These are the participants of my last camp. There were only two 9th graders; one of them was me.
The rests were all  in 10th and 11th grade. But still they were very friendly to me :)