Brilliant BRATs

I know this may be a little late, but its better late than never right? So I just came back from the most awesomest camp ever called the BRATs (Bright Roving Annoying Teens). Its a 4 day 3 night journalist camp in Ipoh, Perak where we were treated as real journalists. Sounds awesome right?

Before I continue, I had a secret which made me feel uncomfortable when I attended the camp. The age group for this workshop is between 16 to 19 years old and I'm 15.

How did I get in? Well, you're supposed to write an essay about yourself and if they think you're good enough, you're in! Its not that I LIED about my age or anything, I just didn't mention it. Plus, I look like a 17-year old because of my height. (I'm pretty tall for my age, you know.)

But, I've always wanted to become a Brat someday even as a kid because I did accompany the Brats to Sipadan, Sabah one day. Not that I was in the group or anything, my dad was supposed to teach them how to make reefballs, an artificial home for aquatic life and raise awareness about our environment. Just by watching them, I knew straightaway that I definately want to be a Brat.

Brat, haha!

As soon as I noticed the ad for the Brats workshop in the beginning of the year, that's how it began.

A few of my good buddies!

So anyway, a month later, I received a letter from them saying that I'm in! I was like wow! I really enjoyed the camp immensely, but honestly, it wasn't exactly a bed of roses either. We had a street poll where we were sent out to the streets and interview random people based on a subject. Sounds easy right? WRONG!

Based on my experience there, I understand that most of the locals around spoke cantonese, hakka or chinese, and I don't know how to speak their language. Not only that, we have to interview at least 16 people in an hour!

In the beginning, we were sent to a shopping mall, Jusco and it started out quite smoothly at first, until some idiotic security guard chased us out! Apparently, they think we were 'harrasing' their customers. We're just a bunch of kids, fool

At the end of the day, we interviewed about 6 people. Sad isn't it?

Also, there were some plus sides to it. We got to interview our famous local band, Bittersweet and we even got featured on the newspaper for the past 4 days. Another fact is that the majority of the entire group of 34 were girls! Guess how many boys?

17? Nope.

10? Try harder.

Give up???

4 boys.

During the workshop, I realised that there's a lot of skills needed to become a journalist. We were taught how to take a good picture (you be the judge how good my photos are), how to make a photo essay, talking heads, writing good articles (trust me, the editors are soo hard to please) food reviews, making videos, interviews, how to present yourself in front of the camera and all kinds of stuff.

As a Brat, you're also privelledged to stuff yourself all day, 'cause with the Brats, you'll NEVER go hungry.

I even got to design a pot (I was the only lucky one) at a pottery factory we were supposed to write a report on and here's how it turned out....

Isn't it beautiful?