Hello people. I am very unfortunately back from OBS.
Here's a recap of what we did the past 5 days:
OBS: 5th-9th March 2007Day 1We were introduced to our watch. Mine was Livingstone! My watchmates were Chi Ling, Jasmine, Rou Ying, Cindy, Liwen, Hsiu Chin, Hsin Fang, Yu Xin, Uyen, Jin Faye, Pamela, Rachel, Sun Ran, Iris and Janabelle. Did icebreaking and nobody believed I was from choir except my CCA mates la. -.- Cindy has the same name as our instructor. So we have 2 Cindys. We left our bags at our stores or stalls or something. Then we went to wash our tents and filled our water bottles and stuff like that. After that we did trust fall! Janabelle took a long time cos she's kinda afraid of heights. But anyway Livingstone cheered her on and she did it anyway (:
We did belaying too. So fun. But it's kinda tiring. Oh wells. After that we went to pitch our tents which looked seemingly unstable and were about to collapse any time. Instructor Cindy cooked our rice for us while we were pitching tents. We had baked beans, canned sardines and sausages for dinner. Chiling and I shared a mess tin and we ate a lot. I never knew Chiling ate so much until then. Lol. We were one of the last ones to eat cos we were helping Rachel's group of 4 to pitch their tent. So we helped to finish up the food. So yummy. Canned food seriously never tasted this nice. My appetite has been expanding like siao ever since.
Then we helped to wash up and clear up the cooking area. Then we bathed and washed ourselves up and went to sleep. I couldn't sleep properly lying flat. Figured that I could sleep much better if I lay on my side. But it was too late when I realised that because it was about 2 hours to 5am.
Day 2We woke up early early and unpitched our tents. Rolled them up and went back to the store. Did PT which was actually games and not PT but nevermind. Brushed teeth and put on harnesses. The first thing we did was high elements. The zip/zig wire. Climbed up this really really tall structure and then just slide down this wire on a pulley. Yup. Climbing up's kinda tiring. So is belaying. Hahaha. Then stepping off the tower's scary too. Like you're just gonna drop off and die. But once you realise you don't drop and die, it's really quite fun. Then there are people at some trolley thing with Instructor Cindy on top to get you down. But they must drag you to the trolley cos you stop like 2m away from it. Haha. Then we stoned around while waiting for the rest.
After that we did a bit of kayaking. Learnt how to paddle and such. We did capsize drill too. Oh man that was fun. I found out that Jin Faye was a leftie too! We got our left handed paddles from Cindy. (: So we did capsize drill and the seesaw thing at the shallow end of the water where I got cut by barnacles when I was trying to get up to land. After that we did the capsize drill in the open sea. Chiling and I capsized and Uyen and Hsin Fang saved us. We were drifting off to some island can. Scary. The kayaks were horribly heavy. Doing the seesaw thing in shallow water already required like 3 people at each end of the kayak. Being in the open sea is like 1 at each end plus one in the middle. Can die. Was kinda freaky because Raffles aka our buddy watch and the rest of Livingstone were near the instructors and we were floating off. But we had this great sense of achievement when Chiling got into the kayak after me. (: So we kayaked back and I didn't want to get out of the kayak cos it was so fun.
Washed up and ate and bathed and pitched tents at another location near the beach. Slept slightly more soundly but still not well enough.
Day 3Sea Expedition! :DDD Jomain was our navigator. Chiling was the right marker. Sun Ran was the left marker. Patricia was the sweeper. Jin Faye and I got our left handed paddles after much exchanging of paddles with the rest. Our diamond formation wasn't much of a diamond but nevermind. We kayaked one big big big round from camp 2 to camp 1 through Ubin. Mangrove! That was funny. I didn't see any jellyfish. Sad. Many people got stuck in the mangrove and started screaming. Chiling and I got stuck too and I was so afraid the kayak would capsize but thankfully it didn't. Then Yun Jia and I kept drifting into the mangrove and I nearly became part of the mangrove when Chiling and Jomain got together to discuss the map. CJ kayaked past people and kept splashing water at them. So gross.
We got kinda stuck at this narrow narrow place when Jomain decided to go north. Then when we were halfway through CJ said we should turn back so we had to but everybody was crashing into each other and mangroves so it wasn't very easy especially because Chiling and Jomain had to discuss the map again. Turns out if we took another turn instead of going north we'd be in the open sea a lot faster but ohwells it was really fun going there. (: We got lost for a long long time in many different places. I still enjoyed navigating for Chiling. Muahehehe. She kept eating and putting sunblock lor. So funny.
We finally got out into the open sea again. The sea was much rougher this time round and we were all tired from hours of kayaking. My kayak also had a lot of water inside so Chiling and I had a really hard time navigating and we almost quarrelled. Then Instructor Cindy and CJ! I don't know how but they a lot of energy and kayaked way off in front to catch jellyfish when we were all dying behind. Hsin Fang got really seasick and Uyen had to kayak much the remaining distance on her own. This time round the navigator and the sweeper were really really far apart. More than the minimum 25m but it was really too far. Wasn't a very good thing but those in front couldn't slow down because the current was bringing them to shore. Those behind couldn't speed up very much either. Tired people.
I don't know why but I didn't really feel a sense of accomplishment when Chiling and I got to camp 1 after 8 hours of kayaking. Maybe it was because I was too tired, maybe it was because I was quite unhappy about the people in front because they were so far away and didn't slow down. Then again, I didn't know then that it was hard for them to slow down due to the current. Ah well. Everybody was so tired but we had to drain the water from the kayaks still. So we did that and went to rinse ourselves before eating dinner. Started off at about 10am instead of 9am and reached at 6++pm instead of 5pm. Not too bad I'd say, though it was seriously tiring. I enjoyed the experience very much and got really tanned after that.
Bathed and went to some ulu place to pitch tents. The place was so rocky and unpeggable so we had to use bricks. Stupid bricks. Heard there were wild boars and dogs where we went to pick bricks. If wild boars chase you, run zig zag. If dogs bark at you, stay still. What happens if there's a dog and a wild boar?
This time our tents were really very unstable. We only managed to pitch 3 due to time constraints and it was very dark. Pitching with torches wasn't very successful. Watchmate Cindy squeezed in with us. We couldn't sleep properly because we were kinda squashed in that unstable tent. Apparently it collapsed in the middle of the night. Chiling tried calling me up but I didn't wake up and so applies to Rou Ying and Cindy. She managed to wake Jasmine up and they repaired our tent. The ironic thing is that expert tent-pitcher Jomain fixed our tent just before we slept and it still collapsed anyway. I saw Jasmine sitting outside the tent in the middle of the night. That was just after they repaired our tent. Then she heard a dog barking and ran into the tent and zipped everything up. Hahaha.
My butt was on a piece of rock and it wasn't a very nice feeling.
Din sleep well either cos it was squeezy and hot and stuffy.
Day 4We were at camp 1 and we did high elements after playing some strange evolving game. Egg become Chicken become Eagle become Superwoman become Immortal. So strange. After that was ya la high elements. I belayed Janabelle for 1 and a half hours. Everyone was supposed to try at least 1 out of the 2 elements in the inverse tower for 2 hours. Chiling and I took about 30min to climb I think. But that was the easier one. Didn't get to try the harder one. Overshot by half an hour. Supposed to lunch at 1pm but ended up eating at 1.30pm.
Then we trekked 1.2km back to camp 1 for say half an hour? Not sure. But we barely trekked for 10min and everybody was dying because of the load on our backs. Poor Rachel was carrying the huge blue tarp and the tent lor. People will think we bullying her. But she very strong hahaha. Then we saw spiders about 4cm from leg to leg. Maybe abit smaller or bigger. Whatever. Quite big compared to the puny ones at home but CJ said those weren't big cos there were bigger ones and many people got freaked out. He pointed out this one that looked like a coconut. I seriously don't know if that was really a spider lah. It was huge. Abit smaller than the small coconuts in the pasar malam. Big, brown and scary with short legs. Looked kinda funny but also looked like it was going to drop down any minute because the legs were so puny. So funny. Hahahaha.
The trip was unexpectedly short cos we suddenly saw the zip/zig wire area and we were so happy and surprised.
We unpacked, pitched tents at the zip/zig wire area and had OBS prom with Raffles. I ate a lot of bread. Can't remember who was talking with us but she said when she came I had 2 sandwiches in my hand and after she came and talked with us I still had 2 in my hand cos I got another one from Chiling. HAHAHA so funny. I really ate a lot la. Ate about 1/2 tin of Raffles' tuna and 1/4 mess tin of their baked beans too. So funny. I very good lor help them clear food cos they had so much. I should stop being ego.
After that we had night activity. The instructors made it sound scary because it was a tunnel but I felt kinda cheated after that cos the stupid tunnel was only 2m long and being the first few, Chiling, Yun Jia and I had to wait over an hour for the rest in the holding area. It was horribly humid and Chiling kept running into spider webs cos we had to make space and move back. Poor thing. I extorted a lot of orange juice from the Raffles people who were there cos I was damn thirsty. I think the scary part is going to the tunnel and returning to our campsite from the tunnel. The path wasn't very smooth and our only lights were the lightsticks they hung. Plus there was this rocky area. Slipped many times and I was holding on to watchmate Cindy so tight when we were making our way back to campsite.
Our tents were much more
像样 this time compared to the previous night though it still looked like it was going to collapse cos our guylines were too long. I slept a lot more soundly. The most sound night ever. Happy night. I just got used to sleeping in tents cos I slept on my side and then they make me go home the next day. ):
Day 5It was just packing our store and stuff. We had proper PT this time. Ran round the parade square. Then we paid for our lost items which included a bowl from camp 1, a whole bag of tent pegs and I think 3 water bottles. Then we had our last sharing session with Instructor Cindy and I almost cried but I didn't.
I drank Rou Ying's bottle of orange juice which was there since Tuesday. She told me that when I was drinking halfway but I wasn't bothered and continued drinking. I finished up the whole thing. HAHA. Then she kept saying "I know you all NPCC people not very clean but aiya...I know you not from NPCC but..."
HAHAHA that was so funny can. Everytime she decides I'm not doing something very clean she'll go "I know you all NPCC people not very clean..." and then realise I'm not from NP. Highly amusing. (x
So we made our way to the jetty. Chiling and Janabelle were walking in front but they ended up at the back because they were staring at jellyfish. So funny. The jellyfish were so cute lor. Then there was this instructor that Iris liked and Cindy found out and she said she had a surprise for Iris at the end. Turns out that instructor was the one sending us to Punggol Jetty. So he helped us onto our boat and Iris kept going "I'm so happy!" when she got in. Oh man so funny.
Then there was this bag of our journals. We took and passed around. Some didn't want to take so it kept going in circles until the instructor took it and read everything inside. Iris started going OMG!! because she didn't take hers and she wrote something about him HAHAHA. And then he was smiling when he read every what-I-want-to-achieve thing la! Damn funny lol.
Ok I guess that sums up what we did over the last 5 days. I felt really strange when we got back to school. Things just didn't seem right somehow. I didn't quite recognise the auditorium -.-
I feel like going back to OBS. Life there is so free. Not like here. I know I'm using the computer but it feels alien. Things just don't feel the same. I wanna go back to OBS and be an instructor! Chiling told me I look like one HAHA. Yayer.
Oh well. The experience may be over but I guess I picked up some things I can never learn from other camps in Mainland Singapore. It's really very different and very worth it. I don't know what I picked up actually, but it just feels different. I just feel like a different person.
I slept for 15 and a half hours yesterday from 4.30pm to 8am this morning and I am happy.
Not.
