Kem Membaca 1 Malaysia

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green

Recently, our school held a reading campaign. It lasted for three days and during the three days, teachers in class were asked to spare some time for us to finish the tasks given. On the first day, we had word search. I was really excited and pumped as it was my favourite game of all time. Before the game starts everyone was exchanging glances and making bets to see who finish the game first. It was during Bio and I was sitting with Yoong Yiin. She said she wanted to be the first to hand in her papers, I grinned and jokingly challenged her to see who really owns the game (not like I’m kiasu or what, c’mon it’s just a friendly match, people tend to be competitive sometimes, okay?). Time ticks and I didn’t knew why my palms were sweating when the time hit the 11th minute as no one handed in the papers during the time period. Puan Lim was teasing us (and somehow mocking us) because she say we’re lousy. Finally, my sweaty hands slashed across the last word with a highlighter and I quickly got up to hand in my papers, with a sigh of relived. Yoong Yiin was 2^nd to do so but she said she still have plenty of time to duel again. I laughed.

On the second day, we have quizzes about general knowledge mainly on books, movies, bands and countries. Everyone was flabbergasted when Joseph answered almost all of the questions, though some we didn’t even know what are those about, Joseph got it all correct like a piece of cake. Yee Shuen and Zheng Yang were the hosts of the game, I was surprised how Joseph could get them all right when the hosts didn’t even gave us choices to choose as they said it will be very easy if they named the possible answers. Even the brain of our class, Chase merely answered. Yee Shuen kept on insisting Joseph had saw the questions and answers but I doubt it. Joseph reads a lot, from what I knew. Zheng Yang had no choice but to ban him unless there were no one who could answer the questions. Still, Joseph became the MVP of his team as he knew more than us.

On the third day, we were supposed to go class by class and talk about the book we presented for ULBS (verbal exams). I was totally shocked. Imagine talking about a book in front of the class you’re not familiar about and all eyes were on you. I would immediately say no thanks to the idea but since everyone is going, I had no choice to join the so called “challenging-our-skills-activity”. Luckily, I was paired with my best friend, Wen May and the luckiest thing was, we are going to the form 4s. It wouldn’t be that awkward as we knew most of them and they are mostly our friends. Me and Wen May entered the classes we were assigned to and gave a short talk about our books as we don’t feel like any of them were listening. Just as we thought we will finish our presentation at the last stop we are supposed to go, we were suddenly called by Cik Norliza, as her class were now vacant. It wasn’t supposed to be like that in our plan but we still went in and talk about our books (you know what will happen if you don’t).

Overall, I think it was great, especially on the third day. I was nervous on the first class but I got eventually better as we stopped in a few more classes. Oh, I remembered, maybe because right after the reading campaign, we have to get ready for Mr James’ surprise farewell party. We can't think just about the challenging task. Got to go and meet the others as planned!