Friday, January 20, 2006
I AM BACK from OBS!
(yes, i make it a point to grandly announce my return)
currently as i'm typing away, the computer screen and keyboard appears to be bobbing up and down. therefore you shall respect me for typing out this entry which, rest assured, will be long. only the best for my readers :D HEH HEH HEH.
DAY ONE
having barely enough sleep the previous night from excitement, i had to hoist myself from the bed early in the morning. not the point.
anyway. we took a bus from school to punggol jetty and then we took a speedboat to camp one. yes indeed, i got residential ): shut up, i started tearing when i knew that okay.
turned out to be okay. i guess there wasn't THAT much of a difference between mobile and residential.
upon reaching the camp, we were directed to the multi-purpose hall for a briefing. i think all the instructors there are inclined to the LAME side man.
instructor: "GOOD MORNING RGS!"
us: "good morning"
instructor: "NO, you're supposed to say 'the morning is good'"
ZOMG LAH KILL ME. so stupid haha. i mean like imagine if we do that in school. KENA from mrs prama lah lol.
okay anyway after that we met our instructor haha at first i thought he was kinda gay but he's DAMN cute and DAMN nice i CRUSH HIM LUH. haha really lah really. then we surrendered our phones and wallets and started abit of intro. he was damn lame at first lah but as the days went on he turned out to be DAMN nice! :D
we got brought to our dorms which would be our home for 2 days. the dorms were okay, i guess. bigger than the chalet we had for class chalet! hoho. after that, andy brought us to the store to get our lifejackets and disgusting waterbottles! woots our FIRST KAYAK LESSON WAS ABOUT TO START!
firstly we put on our lifejackets on the shore, held hands in one circle and walked into the water together. eileen was squishing my fingers so hard man! hahhaa everyone was panicking like siao and the water was SUPER gross lah. yellow yellow one! haha goodness, i can imagine how many people peed in it already! but anyway we were forced to dip our heads inside the water. yes, the dirty, gross, YELLOW water. EEEEEEEEEEEEW.
after that we learnt how to paddle and how to handle a kayak! then INTO THE WATER WE WENT. to LEARN HOW TO CAPSIZE PROPERLY. if you sitting at the back and capsize, you get hit on the head by a kayak! evilness man i was at the back and i got KONGED on the head by our kayak -.-
after that we paddled out quite far and had to capsize drills and had to learn to rescue and be rescued! and then i was damn suay lah my contact fell out and i had to put it in the bottle between the cap and the stopper. HEH. then me and anthea were super scared that a dead fish would come by floating my us when we were trying to get up from the water with a capsized kayak! and we were both laughing like siao la!
but it was really fun luh, every bit of experience is so valuable to me lah! (: after that we went to the cookhouse for a GOOD dinner. (the mobile people are just jealous HAHA)
bathing was disastrous. the toilet was kinda small and all the water was flowing out of the cubicles like siao, but the feeling of being CLEAN and UNSALTY is just TOO GOOD FOR WORDS!
after that we went to the mph for a talk by the nurse. she had a super whiny voice and was talking all sorts of crap. i was too busy reading the back of shekaye's waddle shirt to notice her. :D
after that went to the cook house to have dessert then we went back to the dorms.
me, she kaye and lynette squeezed in one bed cause i was too lazy to make my bed and she kaye was complaining about the light being too glaring ><
DAY TWO
got woke up at 4 smth by eileen who thought i was cheryl.......................
had to wake up early to go for flag raising and physcial training which was darn lame.
the instructor was trying to get us to do leg exercises like kick butt and knee raise, so she was like "you all like to chase guys right. chase guys must have correct techinique" then she was doing all sorts of random stupid things to get us to do the exercises o.O
then we did the basic exercises which left our palms hurting and body aching and mood? BAD.
after that, we grabbed our lifejackets and went down to the shore for an ACTIVITY. we had to build a raft with pipes, barrels and ropes. dhanabalan vs engsoon!
and dhanabalan's design and engsoon's were EXACTLY the same! 303 SPIRIT SIA! but OBVIOUSLY (haha) engsoon's was steadier luh! andy was PULLING away at the ropes and we were PRO! after the shake test, kick test and buoyancey test, we were READY TO ROLL!
the speedboat took all of our smelly and heavy backpacks to camp 2 first, then engsoon and dhanabalan sat on our rafts and paddled to camp 2! and i am proud to say that we MADE IT!
though we nearly HIT the jetty and had to be pulled away by the speedboat, WE STILL MADE IT NONETHELESS :D
after reaching camp 2, we dismantled our raft and kept it at the obs store at camp 2! saw the mobile people too haha. after that we went to the shelter to put down our grossly heavy backpacks and laze around for a long time (we hadn't had lunch and we were complaining like SIAO). then we realised that andy gave us the wrong info and the food that we rationed for thursday was actually supposed to be brought to camp 2 to be eaten! so we were hungry and whiny and pissed. but we pulled through!
after that, we went to set up the bashars, SO COOL i tell you! pegs here peg there and TADAH you get a BASHAR! it felt good to actually know that we could live in the wild just like THAT!
we proceeded to cook dinner! our dinner was scrumptious! even though we had semi crunchy rice (thanks to CHARMAINE HAHA), curry chicken, mushroom and peanuts i think! haha it was GOOD luh. but we were too hungry so we kinda ate our breakfast too! anyway andy promised us more food for breakfast anyway! :D andy rocks
after that we went to bathe! but when we reached the toilet, it was DARK! so me and anthea went to the other toilet which had light but was super gross! i actually didn't wanna bathe but then i decided to even though the toilet was super gross hoho. and i didnt wanna be alone in the cubicleso i bathe in shorts and underwear HAHA in the common area. it was CRAZY i tell you hoho.
but i still didnt feel clean, so i went back to the mph to POWDER BATH! SHIOK MAN i tell you, prickly heat powder is the best invention ever! haha.
anyway after that, andy told us to go outside the instructor's room to meet. dhanabalan was there with serene too. we were going to have a joint activity! heh.
but the activity was a NIGHTWALK. which meant that we would be brought into the forest and then we have to walk down the same path ALONE. it was the most meaningful activity that was done, in my opinion.
nightwalk was scary at first. we were brought into the forest as a group and i was clinging on to my shuaige (wanlin) cause i was so freaking scared. then we went quite deep into the forest, then serene said that they originally wanted to let us walk alone from there, but there was a change of plans and the walk alone was going to be slightly shorter. i was freaking out by then and i was like, crying and stuff. but chloe shiayen anthea cheryl charmaine and ALOT of people were giving me support so i guess it wasn't that bad luh. and guess what, in the wait to walk, i saw FIREFLIES! not many, just a few sparks of light in the trees, but it was great nonetheless. when it was my turn to walk i just kept freaking out and let chloe go first. but then i realised that i would have to do it anyway, so i went after her. i remember praying very very hard for the strength to complete the walk. well, i guess my prayers were answered cause i came out alone, UNSCATHED.
the walk was freaky. i kept imagining demons and evil stuff and weird animals jumping out of the bushes around me, but obviously, nothing of the sort appeared otherwise i wouldn't have lived to tell the tale coz i would have died of shock there and then.
actually i could hardly see where i was going. the path just appeared to be a white spot in front of me. and sounds of mating cicada were all around. i started to sing to myself but after a while, i decided that i sounded disgusting and i started to listen to my own heavy breathing. i bet my heart was thumping so hard and fast it would just stop had the walk been longer.
i think my faith in God has increased alot. because i never EVER imagined that i would be able to do that if i had not known God and known that He is always with me. and nearing the end of the walk, i just saw light spilling out in front of me. it was really like heaven lah im serious.
i think the walk of Christianity is just like the nightwalk. its not an easy path, there're many rocks and obstacles and uncertainty. but you just have to have faith that you are on the right path and you HAVE to keep to the right path in order to get to the end (heaven). scary, sometimes, it may be, but God is always there and you just have to know that. and after that walk, all you can say is "God is SO awesome"
the talk after the walk was even more meaningful. all the christians of the class just huddled together and cried and praised the Lord together. all of us just confessed that we haven't been keeping to our faith that staunchly and that we feel so guilty. it felt really good cause all along i thought that i was the only one feeling that way. but now i've found a group of friends that feel the same way and have the same faith. i'm just starting to love 303 :D
after that we went to a small hall and gathered as a watch for reflection it was good, seeing and hearing everyone's different experiences of the nightwalk and honestly, it's the first time i heard shekaye say she was scared. hoho.
went back and had cell for a while until serene came and chased us away to sleep. i'm kinda happy that the class is bonding well but i still miss 209 :D
could heardly get to sleep because the floor was so fricking hard and i was COLD and shivering. in the middle of the night i saw charmaine sleeping sitting up. hoho.
DAY THREE
woke up with an aching body. hey im not accustomed to sleeping on rocks, okay?
after washing up, we went to gahter outside the instructor's room. andy made coffee and chrysanthemum tea for us after we had out measley breakfast and really, we were all thinking of the shitload of food back in our dorms.
after that we sat in a circle and andy read us a story about finding ourselves and about what we change into might not be what we really want. about how we grow up into may not let us enjoy the little things in life. just to see our lives zooming past us in a flash, that's sad.
after that we had to learn to belay again, the routine stuff in school.
"am i on belay?"
"no you're not"
-pull pull pull-
squeeze check pull check
"that's me"
instructor check
"ready to climb"
hahaha belay was the usual stuff again but it worked as a refresher.
andy cooked some noodles for us to eat! ANDY ROCKS!
after that, andy went to set up some stuff, he wouldn't tell us what, but then we just sat around talking for a long while until he came back. then he brought us 101 steps up no this giant playground with flying fox and assorted other stuff. i thought we were going to do the flying fox lah i was so happy, turned out that we didn't. but we did something even cooler man!
ABSEILING
we learnt how to abseil down this small kerb first, just to make sure we knew the basics, but actually abseiling itself was a learning experience. you can hardly teach someone to abseil down a wall that she's never seen before, it's pretty much impromptu.
a number of people went down before me, then when i started abseiling, it started to rain, therefore i was the last in the watch to abseil and a few people didn't get to do it. luckily i didn't put off going down like the nightwalk, otherwise i would have lost a learning opportunity.
abseiling was quite fun even though i was FREAKED OUT at the height. i looked down before i started abseiling lah. what a wrong thing to do. and in the middle i wen too far towards the left and bumped into the clay. but i couldnt give up there cause i was right in the middle and i was damn scared to let go. by then the stupid gloves were losing friction and basically i was sliding down the rope and somehow landed on the ground. then we went back up and ran al the way back to the shelter, drenched. sat down for bout an hour in the shelter eating raisins before it was okay to trek back to camp 1.
the trekking was okay cause the distance was really short while the other groups trekked like, 10+ km HAHAHA. i feel so loser lah! but never midn its alright. we got excuse cause it was RAINING haha. i stepped in so many puddles of water my shoes were all gross and muddy lah. it felt so good to wear slippers man i tell you.
when we reached the camp we DUMPED our stupid bags down and went to bathe. it felt good man. the cold water splashing on your skin. couldnt feel better man!
after that we went to the cook house for dinner. the drinks, though bland, were GOOD cause they were COLD and the dinner was GOOD lah. no wonder i didn't lose weight! :D but never mind, i gain muscles :D
after that went to the hall for sea expedition talk. stupid kennth kept shutting us up with that stupid zipping action and threatened to throw his stupid stinky sandal at anthea cause she was laughing. ya cause we were both laughing at anthea's farts HAHAHA ooops. and we were laughing at his chicken drumstick legs and takopachi octopus mouth HAHA!
then after that we had dessert at the cookhouse, went back, packed our stuff for the expedition and went to bed.
i managed to squash 4 loaves of bread into the bin and i fold a squash piece of bread into the shape of a fan while everyone was laughing their asses off at me. WHAT! no tv, that's the next best entertainment WHAT?!
DAY FOUR
woke up in the morning, couldnt help but kept on yawning, felt so lethargic, what was i gonna do?
DID PT EARLY IN THE MORNING AND PLAY WEIRD FUNNY AND STUPID GAMES WHICH WAS TOTALLY LAME TO MAKE US WAKE UP SO EARLY TO DO IT BUT heck it was quite fun LOL.
after that we went back to dorms and brought our blue bins down to load onto the speedboats then we shifted all the kayaks onto the shore and got ready to go. after a long time, cause the kayaks were so freaking heavy, we were all in the sea and ready to roll!
we had to keep to our diamond shape formation all the time, which got abit irritating because kayaks are not easy to control! but we did fine i think, even the instructors said so!
me and anthea were just rowing till the cows come home then we were like motivating people by going "jiayou jiayou jiayou jiayou jiayou" to the speed of our rowing and we rowed from the back to the front of the diamond lah! are we pro or are we pro!!
after rowing for what seemed liek forever, we were finally reaching the frog island where we would eat lunch. we needed the toilet so badly so we started chanting "toilet toilet toilet toilet toilet.." instead and we were pissing people off lah aha but who cares!
we made it to the island at 12.10, which was record time since we left ubin one hour off schedule and reached there 50 mins ahead of schedule! pro shit, we are. me anthea and isa quickly went into the sea and peed together. whoa i tell you, peeing never felt so damn freaking good before.
ate one red bean bun and munched on nuts for lunch. wasn't quite enough, but i dealt with it. after lunch, we carried on rowing and rowing and rowing crossing the channels and stuff. kenneth kept stopping us to tell us what to do when crossing the channel and stuff but overall he said we were good! haha :D
we got sian of rowing after a while, so we started singing! alot of stupid songs summore! like WE ARE ONE SINGAPOREEE ONE NATION STRONG AND FREEEE and WHERE I BELONGGG WHERE I KEEP MY HEART AND SOUL, WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE FOR USS! and alot of singapore songs and christian songs. it was really enjoyable and made rowing didnt feel so bad after all. though anthea puked like, 9 times and i saw a dead fish we were all HYPER!
before we knew it, we were reaching! then me and anthea started singing edelwiess! which was super spastic lah. complete with knocking summore. we were liek banging our paddles on the kayak for effect HAHA!
"edelwiesssssssssssssssssssssssss -knockknock" HAHA
when we reached, we had to drag all the kayaks onto the grass and lay it properly. then we pitched our bashars. when someone unfolded the stuff a frog jumped out and i SCREEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMEDDDDDDDDDDDDDD liek siao lah. amphibians reptiles and insect and creepy yucky stuff PUT ME OFF
then we went to the toilet with our stuff. the first one was super crowded so we walked up the hill and turned and turned and turned until we found another one. and then we realised that it would have been much shorter had we walked straight. we rinsed ourselves with water and put powder all over. though i didnt cause it was kinda late hahaha.
after bathing we went back to camp and cooked dinner. ok no lah i slacked around and waited for people to cook for me HAHAH im SUCHA slacker i should change! :D
had instant noodles, curry, beans, peanuts and mushrooms for dinner it was GOOD!
after that me cheryl charm and anthea sat on the sand and boiled chrysanthemum tea and ate coffee powder and chrysanthemum tea powder then it started raining o.O
then we carried the mess tin back to the bashar and left the stove burning on the beach for the rain to extinguish HAHA we're such losers lah.
then we went to the toilet and when we were walking back we saw someone digging around in teh dustbin. i thought it was some lunatic or poor man looking around for food to eat lah, turned out it was kenneth digging out the dustbin cause we weren't supposed to throw ANYTHING into the dustbins. we even had to dig out the sanitary pads from the bins where we threw them. luckily i didn't throw anything at all lah. HENG. the park people are so unreasonable. one tissue only what big deal haha.
then we stood around complaining for a while and started laughing about chihuahua legs a certian someone has and how he uses veet to shave hAHAHA.
ok not funny.
after that we met andy for a talk felt so much better after that. and then we went back to sleep. actually was supposed to stay up for duty but i was so tired i didn't volunteer and i looked like a ghost already with super gross eyerings so i went to sleep. cheryl was talking about what i said in the afternoon to anthea and the frigging bullfrogs kept mooing.
all through the night i was complaining about how the freaking bullfrogs were making so much noise then we started talking about if bullfrogs have udeers and the different tones of the frogs were cause they were pulling different udders.
sheesh the first time i heard a bullfrog i though it was indian workers having sex or smthing. ooops?
DAY FIVE
then in the morning got woken up at 5.30 cause andy wouldnt let us wake up anytime earlier than that even though we were supposed to wake up at 4 to pack. andy rocks
after all the hooha, we set off on our journey back to ubin, this time using a shorter route and we made it back in good time EVERYONE was so super happy lah. then we did a raffles cheer to celebrate the completion of the expedition! :D
ran back to dorm after that to bathe and make it to the cookhouse to eat lunch! after that we went shopping at the obs gift shop then went to the hall for a debrief. we sat around in a circle with andy and reflected on the last five days. i couldnt help but cry lah. im such an emotional person HAHA :D but yeah seriously i miss camp alot. and I MISS ANDY CAUSE HE'S SO SUPER NICE LAH!
he read us this meaningful poem and a short prose which was really touching though i cant remember all of it.
all of engsoon started crying after the refecltions and i realised that each and every person was nice in their own way. and i really felt bad about being so evil to eileen and joy. andy started crying too but he went away so we wouldnt see him
we had a final briefing and the instructor read us this meaningful thingy that mother theresa said
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realise it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is costly, care for it.
Life is wealth, keep it.
Life is love, enjoy it.
Life is mystery, know it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it!
i think its so true and while looking for this quote i found many other meaningful stuff that mother teresa said. i think she's really admirable and it's worth a read.
yeah after the briefing we gave andy a group hug like twice and then it was time to go
all of us were crying and crying and crying cause we really missed andy. i thinkhe's the best in the whole world even though gandhi refuses to admit it.
we set off on the boat back home and everyone was crying then we were laughing about the beans that make you fart and the extra power it would give the boat. and then we were laughing and crying at the same time..
soon we reached punggol. i think it was a really long time since we were last there. or it felt like it. i mean, so many things happened in that five days.
then we went back to school and i chionged to get a can opf grass jelly. HEAVENLY, i tell you. i sat around with eileen and weiting and we lamented about how our classes were bonded and how afraid we were that 209 would drift apart. i think its abit inevitable. but i still love 209 ALOT :D
after that i went back home, it totally felt good man. collllddddddd drinkssssss. had the first good bath in days and chatted for a while on msn and started blogging. now as this blog entry is coming to an end, it is 4.52pm on saturday. i shall conclude the stuff i've learnt through obs.
1. have faith in yourself and the instructor and people around you. that can never go wrong.
2. have faith in God.
3. milo powder tastes damn good
4. coffee powder and chrysanthemum tea powder taste okay too
5. beans make you fart. ALOT.
6. bullfrogs keep croaking cause they are unattractive and can't find a mate. therefore they keep croaking.
7. don't waste coke. EVER.
8. etc. HAHAHA.
obs was really a good experience and i hope i never ever forget it.
to serve to strive and not to yield. :D
