Saturday, January 17, 2009;
9:38 PM
OBS <3
dayy one:i remember how we were all made to sit down on the grass at punggol jetty to wait for the others. chris and i were scared of insects, and my repellent was put to good use. when all the others arrived, they announced the instructor for each watch. i recall how Sam(not me) skipped our watch ENG SOON, and i was wondering what happened. ended up having Samuel as our instructor, the crazy one who does all sorts of accents and stuff. i carried the food bag up the boat, and soon we reached pulau ubin. chris and i became store i/cs and it was a chore to walk up to the store everyday. i think ours was the furthest. we had cooked meals at the cookhouse, something that we appreciated only in the next few days. in the tent, maria, chris and i were amusing ourselves by imagining what we would do if our tent collapsed. we kept laughing and people from other tents hushed us x]
day two:we woke up at 5am (first time in my life), and unpitched our tents. we took super long at first, still trying to figure out how that thing works. had to do morning PT(?!), by playing games and doing sets of crunches, pushups, halfsquats and all. the dodo dance was retarded man so amusing to see people do it x] we started packing equipment and it was a horror to check for all the many things and stuffs. i carried the big heavy blue bin down with siyun, and we kept stopping and resting. it was today that Sam had to go as he injured his neck, and we met Naf at the rockclimbing wall where we took our group picture. i rowboated with maria, melissa, shin huoy, josephine, chris and shuwen to camp 2. there was a storm so we got tied up to the buoy for a long time. and started laughing at the other boats who couldnt make it there as the buoy kept drifting away from them x] after reaching camp 2, we jetty jumped! O: i was scared at first, but i convinced myself to do the jump. my mind was blank when i was walking on the plank. when i was falling the feeling was awesome, and hitting the water was wow. though the seawater was salty, yuck, i never regretted jumping. i got high :D
i bathed in the clean toilet that was in total darkness! apparently the light wasnt working. i still managed though. we cooked our first meal tonight, rice and curry chicken and corn. quite plain. we ate in darkness and cleaned up.
day three:in the wee hours of the morning, OUR STUPID TENT COLLAPSED. one of the poles snapped.
from shin huoy's blog :
sh- is it raining
chris- yea... eh wait no its not
sh- then why you put poncho on my head!
chris- i dint put poncho on your head!
sh- i cant breathe!
chris- sam, wake up!
sam- *stirs* what, i want to sleep...
chris- the tent collapsed!
sam- huh?
chris- THE TENT COLLAPSED!
sam- hmm the tent collapsed?
sh & chris- yeah
(for the next 15 mins, we were trying to sleep with our legs propping the tent up, obviously to no avail)
sh- lets go find the instructor la
sam- im very sleepy...
chris- im very cold...
(after 8mins or so)
sh- lets go find instructor!
(so we walked in the dark amidst the chilly night to the instructors' bunk)
chris- *whispers* naf, naf
(we start to walk abit, then we saw a sleeping bag hanging suspiciously between two pillars, like a coccoon)
chris or sam- hey look at the sleeping bag! lets steal it and sleep in it
(SUDDENLY IT MOVES)
voice- hey what you want
sh and sam- *stares*
chris- our tent collapsed, the poles broke
voice- go back to sleep! share tent with your friends la go
(ended up there was a guy in the sleeping tent on the floor, who we never noticed and almost trampled over)
hahah throughout this thing i was so sleepy couldnt really think. so we all ended up using the tent as a blanket, and all the others who woke up in the morning thought we finished packing our tent at first, and then when they saw faces and people, they thought we three were weirdos.
we did belaying practice, and trust fall as well as rockclimbing. during the trust fall, i was abit hesitant at first as i wasnt sure if everyone could take my weight. did it in the end :D rockclimbing was so loser, i couldnt get past second panel. i tried to get up using different rocks and ways, but kept slipping. gahh should have climbed up the wall on the other side, heard that it was easier. then we were given coordinates to our two checkpoints and campsite, and had to get there with a map and compass. chris had read about it before in geog RA test, and stephania learnt abit about it from her senior, so they two figured out the positions and led us. the whole trekking thing was a killer, though it was only about an hour or so. i even had to sit down on the floor to lift the bag, and without walking it was already hurting my shoulders. i carried a tent bag with shin huoy, and we kept pushing on. i was so relieved to see the beach campsite area (:
we had briefings about our sea expedition the next day. after that, my tentmates did sentry duty from 10 to 10.35. we were the first group, fortunately. it would be unpleasant to wake up at 1, 2 or 3 am in the morning just to patrol around and watch out for people trying to steal our boats. we also had to hush people to go to sleep. so we started acting like bernard(rajaratnam's instructor) to scare people into keeping quiet, with the guy low voice, saying "eh go to sleep la" we laughed at ourselves in the tent. being unable to bathe, it was sticky and gross when we were sleeping. the protruding rocks were uncomfortable too. i was so tired that i fell asleep quite fast.
day four:we woke up at 4.30, having to finish packing by 5.30 and start our sea expedition by 6. i was quite annoyed, having to wake up so early. i forced myself up and woke the rest in the tent. the packing was troublesome, having to find our stuff in the darkness amidst all the other bags. soon we loaded our bags and water bottles up the speedboat, and were the second boat to leave.
it was quite cool to see the scenery, water and trees all around as we were paddling in the morning. the oars were heavy, but we continued on. looking at the sun rising was memorable. we rowed to ubin village(?), and turned back before we reached our destination as the current was against us. we were practically rowing on the same spot. with our change in direction, paddling was much easier as the waves were with us. before long, mrs hoo and the other principals appeared and waved to all of us on the rowboats.
maria was freaking out, as when we waited for the other rowboats to catch up, we became the last. it was quite stressful, so we became crazy people who kept chanting, DIP, PULL, DIP PULL... we caught up pretty fast, overtaking the other boats one by one. we became the first or second :D maria started making weird noises like a wild boar, and after that she tried acting bimbo. she became the BIMBO BOAR xD
we made it to camp 1 at about 1.30, after about 6 hours of rowing. we were starting to be quite sianned, and were so relieved to see land. we had to clean and push in the boats and stuff, which was quite tiring. it took much time to finish everything. naf called when we were at the store, telling us that we left stuff at the jetty. chris and i walked there and were shocked to see so many things. there were four ponchos, blue mat, jerry can, two maps, a tent, two food bags etc. it was almost impossible for the two of us to carry all those up. chris carried the jerry can and tent. i struggled with the rest of the items, finally deciding to put everything inside the blue mat and lug it around. though it was exhausting, chris and i had fun laughing about it and all (: after that i bathed at the toilets above our store, which were clean and slightly bigger(:
we had a celebratory dinner! overloaded with food i tell you. i was cooking the noodles at first, then naf kept hinting to us to cook something more creative. i just mentioned sandwiches, and didnt expect her to really ask me to to cook that! she started teaching me how to use the mess tin to toast the bread. shuwen helped to put the tuna, lettuce and baked beans. after we finished cooking, dhanabalan and eng soon presented our dishes :D i came up with really crappy names for our dishes, like we're sandwiched together for the sandwiches and mr noodle for the noodles. we could finally eat after presenting, and realised we had too much. the chrysanthemum and orange mixed drink was nice :D and the apple crumble that naf cooked for us was so goood that i ate alot of that. we had lots of food left over, so we just had to waste them and throw it away. washing up took a long time, and we were the last watch to finish.
i was grateful that our tent site was quite close, near the big ship structure, instead of walking far up the forest into the trees, like our first night. however, there were two glaring lights coming from lamp poles, when we were sleeping. i just closed my eyes and slept.
day five:chris and i were counting down to when we could go home. we did mostly packing and packing, having to organise the store and all. before that, we had to ring the commitment bell. we had to stand at a raised platform and try to dive for the bell ahead of us and fall into the yellow mat the rest of the watchmates were holding. the distance from the bell looked intimidating at first, but after i lunged forward for the bell, it seemed quite easy. eng soon had lots of food left over, and i kept trying to get people to bring home all sorts of things, from powder drinks to raisins and canned food. cause we already opened a packet of raisins at breakfast, we all kept trying to finish all of them. i was desperately eating them non-stop, which i grew quite sick of after sometime. i helped around with the keeping of equipment, which was so tiring. after naf checked our store, we headed down to the hall for presentations from the watches at camp 1.
hahaha eng soon reenacted our tent collapse scene. i had quite few lines as in the actual thing i was asleep so i didnt talk. shin huoy was shy so melissa had to act as her D: most people couldnt hear us, so the funny stuff was quite dry. only the people at the first few rows laughed. the mics werent working sighh :/ i was thankful when my handphone was returned, as it helped me to count the money and record who had paid already for the photos and damages. we lost some stuff and paid 60cents each for the damages.
at the punggol jetty, i was overwhelmed to see everyone and hugged some people. chris and i were fantasising about the treats we could get in singapore. chris wanted her bubble tea and i wanted ice cream. we kept craving for it on the bus back.
obs was the best experience ever, taught me lots of things i would remember for life. i learnt about teamwork and all, and grew to love my watchmates everyday. we had our high and low points, which we would remember for life. now i understand why all the seniors said they loved obs. this morning when i woke up, i was surprised to find myself in a comfortable bed instead of a tent with shin huoy chris maria and shuwen. i started missing obs, eng soon, naf and sam oh man i love them so. i only treasured the times i had at obs only after i left, contradictory to when i was counting down to when i could go back to civilisation in singapore. eng soon became closer as a watch at the end. we were from three different classes, and most of us didnt know each other when we started. the whole course was bonding for us, and i hope to see the rest around in school(:
hahah i want to get a part-time job at obs during the hols! can go back to visit the place and naf and sam! for now i'll just reminsice about the times. like just now at tuition rachel wang and i just started talking alot about obs, how we missed it terribly. we kept writing notes to each other in class when the teacher started complaining about us not listening. her blueish shirt that she wore there was nice! regret not buying it ):
I LOVEEE OBS, ENG SOON, NAF AND SAM(get well soon!) <33
when i grow old i'll stare at the two photographs, my two journal sheets and look at my blog post which recorded all the happy times. this is my longest and most memorable post ever.
ESCAPE.
