The road to Utopia.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Losing sight of shore, and finding new oceans.

It was roughly 7.20am and the students of YJC were slowly but steadily filling up the parade square, and about 2 hrs later, all of these students were transported to Pula Ubin for OBS.
We were sorted of into watches and mine was Hillary(: and my watch members are Andria, Dung, Jocelyn, Eleanor, HuiMin, Winnie, Da Jie, Li jun, Li Fang, Cherlyn, Yuting, Sery, Will, GZ and Terrence. It was a pity that WeiLun and ShanHong couldn't be in our watch, they were allocated to ArmStrong instead.But hey, everything works out.And thats just what happened in the course of the next 5 days. We were then introduced to our instructor, Iskandar or for short, simply Is. The activities kicked off with us learning basic kayaking techniques.And, as fate would have it, my kayaking partner was none other then...
*Drum rolls*
Huimin!! Even after she vowed not to be my partner the day before. We first started off quite smoothly with us doing the lifejackets tests and stuff like capsizing and life saving. Although I kayaked before, kayaking with Huimin was a whole new experience :P It was loads of fun!
After kayaking, we went Jetty-Jumping. We walked out to the jetty where there was a sort of walk-the-plank scenario. One by one, we walked up to the plank and shouted something that we missed most before taking the leap. Perhaps I wasn't too serious about it, but because I wasn't missing anything, I was having fun here in OBS. We had tent-pitching and cooking lessons after that. Da Jie and company decided to cook rice while the rest were pitching their tents. We were all super hungry, so the burnt food tasted better than ever to us. We were more than happy to gobble down all the food. Maybe it wasn't really the hunger which made the food so good, perhaps it was because it was our friends who were the ones doing the cooking. (:
We slept and woke up at about 530 ?
After being brutally woken up, I spent about half the morning wandering around like a zombie while trying my best to go about my daily routine. After breakfast, we were ask to do the Helium Hoop. It was an impossible task where everyone was only allowed to use one finger to hold up the hoop. But the important thing here was not the game, it was the lesson. After we failed, we apparently focused on our bad points instead of our good ones. Soon, we ended up at a small patch of grass where we played the 'blade of grass', were we just line up in rows of threes and get pushed back and forth by our watch-mates, putting our trust of one another to the test. We also played the 'Washing Machine' which is just an improved form of the blade of grass. We did the 'Trust Fall' after that, where we pulled a large peice of canvas and asked our classmates to fall on it. It was really great and nice, we learned to trust our classmates more. Halfway throughout the jump, the teachers from YJC showed up... including... MR WOO!!! haha!!!
We took some pictures with them before heading uphill for high elements. We challenged Armstrong in rock-climbing, it was really fun, despite the fact I twisted my wrist early on. Towards the end, we saw this really huge spider, and me, Kai zhi and Kenny were feeding it those big ants, while doing so, an ant bit me, it was really painful.Serious.Even now, as I type there's a slight sting to it.. hmm.. think there a weak poison in it or something. After this, we set off for our expeditions. We had to pack our bag with loads of things.Food, clothes, water and many other things. After packing, we ended up with bags which weighed a ton or more. We embarked on our journey with the company of Armstring and Shackleton. I was the land expedition leader for Hillary, and i ended up also leading the other two watches. heh heh... admirable huh?
On our way there, I found a... DURIAN!!! serious!! no joke! it was quite big also... but, unfortunately, we weren't allowed to consume it, due to campsite regelations.Bummer. Iskandar took it. Before long, we reached the campsite, and we were shocked to find out that the campsite was no more than a mere clearing of gravel. After coming to terms with our surroundings, we did the usual tent-pitching and cooking. I, will, GZ and terrence had to do sentry duty. So, after we all settled down and litsen to the briefing by our Sea Expedition Leader, Andria, we stayed awake for our sentry duty.However, we fell asleep halfway on Armstrong's blue tarp.After a few hours of sleep and many many insect bites we awoke to a beautifully sunrise-lit sky. Then, we were given the back-breaking task of transferring our kayaks to the beach. We also had to carry all the bags, jerry cans and tents into a boat. After which, we just floated around in the water for awhile. While floating around, I asked Is, how was the durian.
He said :'I won't lie to you, it was the best I ever had'. (-_-) And before we knew it, the sea expedition begun. I was once again partnered up with Huimin. But this time, I worked like a dog and we managed to stay within the first half of kayaks. We paddled from sea to swamp, then from swamp to sea again.
Ok, this is the most interesting part, the kayaking.As you all should know by now, my partner was HUI MIN! haha.Well, while everyone was paddling straight, we were travelling zig-zag. I'm positive we covered more distance than anyone else in Mobile D(Hillary, Armstrong & Shackleton). At the rivermouth, where we were supposed to turn past this two gates, we ended up almost banging into the gates.(-_-) Almost, because I used my paddle to push us away.Haha. We crashed into trees times too many to count. but we did a world-class turn to get past a tree,which was in the middle of the swamp, by travelling diagonally under its branches, whereas everyone else was going around it. Guess there's hope for us after all. After paddling, for a very long time, and many, many crashes later, we reached a mud bunk. If we had actually left on time, we would have been able to paddle past it, but however, we were left with the messy task of carrying our kayaks over-land to get past the bunk.When u get out of the kayak, that feeling, when your shoes enter the water and reaches the mud. It's priceless. That soft, sticky, dirty, mucky mud. It engulfs your shoes in a probably swirling vortex of mud.Ok, i'm being lame here. But, seriously, your shoes get stuck in the mud, and its very very hard to get it out. Well, after I got my kayak over the bunk, I put on some mud as war-paint and continued on my journey. We managed a break, and I feasted on oreos while huimin 'borrowed' a fruity bar from me. After that, we kayaked for awhile more before stopping for our scheduled break. After awhile, I figured that this was to wait for the tide to come into the swamp. So, as to better paddle out. This break resulted in alot of ants coming into our kayaks and for something to get into my eye. Thankfully, Andria was kind enough to blow it out for me. Then we managed to get our ant-infested kayak back into the water.While waiting for the other kayaks to hit water, we rafted up with a few other kayaks from Hillary and just drifted along the river(swamp). We drifted for very long and I fell asleep.I found out that I can sleep while holding on to things very well.(: After zig-zagging our way out of the swamp, and getting banged countless times by the infamous 'terrorist' of Shakleton, we were faced with the daunting task to paddling in the deep blue(green) sea. Though the sea was so big, we still ended up combing the whole area. I paddled my heart out, and every other organ with it. We were not that bad, considering we were still at the top half of the kayaks, thanks to my hard paddling. after reaching the beach, the feeling is indescribable. when you jump into the cool waters, its like heaven. Well, I helped steered other kayaks in while in the water. After emptying the kayaks of water, we debriefed for awhile. Come to think of it, throughout the entire journey, we never travelled straight before, haha. But hey, to all people out there, if you want to get a kayaking partner, get one like Huimin! It was great fun. Haha, no regrets there, kayaking partner! (:
Before we knew it, we were already on our way to our next point, Camp 1. We emptied the jerry cans and went on our way.We made very good time, with we being the 1st team to reach there. After bathing(IT WAS DAMN SHIOK!!) and having dinner, we made history. By being the 1st watch(both mobile and residential) to use one use one of the learning rooms. The Kilimanjaro Room. We were asked to fill up our journals and go for supper. Upon returning from supper, we did an activity where we were asked to name the ideal and unideal follower and leader. Later we also did the Pig Activity (: It was so much fun. After that, we hit the sack. Soon, we awoke and had an activity. The Raft-Escape. We were supposed to all squeeze onto 3 planks and six blocks of wood and try to get to the centre of the parade square(we were all at the sides) and also without the planks touching the floor. Well, even with us having the most people, we still managed to get the furthest. Haha, so we won. We then celebrated with a hearty breakfast of bee hoon and sausage. Up next was Raft-Building, our raft was not as promising as the rest in the beginning but slowly and surely, our raft soon materialized. our raft looked the worst of the lot, and frankly, I didn't mind swimming. But as it turns out, we had the best raft.(: IT WAS SOLID MAN!!!After our bath, it was our high elements. I was belayer, which was rather fun because I get to poke fun at the people I was belaying. But I was so tired, I was afriad I would fall asleep or something. Due to the insufficient time, me and andria had to go over to Shackleton's side for our high elements. We thought it was easier, due to the colorful obstacles. But we couldn't be more wrong. It was so much harder. haha, but we made it in one piece. So proud of us. haha. After that, we packed up and went back to Camp 2. We reached there in a very short time, considering we took a super-short cut. And we spent the rest of the day, slacking, packing, cooking and pitching tents. It was the last day already. And frankly, it came too fast. We met Is for breakfast. It was a hearty breakfast, with Is cooking Milo for us (: which was real nice, considering he wasn't obliged to. After our breakfast, we have went to a shack nearby and slacked while we drew each others names and wrote about them. This was really great. but however I felt that we should have done one for each of us and vice-versa. Then, it was the jigsaw puzzle game, which taught us the value of teamwork. Then it was the cheer. I thought that Junko should have won, since cook's one was taken from our orientation booklet. not fair. After this we headed back to Singapore. We went to compasspoint next, we had KFC.. WOW, when the chicken enters your jaws, it's beautiful. haha, we had alot of fun talking about OBS. We all parted ways after that. But Andria made sure she saw everyone home first before she herself went home. I thought that it was very sweet of her.
Well, one thing's for sure, OBS was sure fun!!! and there's no arguments there. Over there, it's the tests before the lessons. Others Before Self.

Rick blogged @ 7:10 PM