ok. all posts after this will be set in the present. fast forward time. dots.

day 5

whew. 5 days are almost over in a blink of an eye.
last day was not much, mostly some small activities, talks, buying of souvenirs, and finally, getting our certificates.

Certificates!

the only thing that actually sums up your entire experience here! the paper of proclamation! the sheet of spiel! the ... ok that's enough.

rest of the day was just the boat ride back, riding back to school on the bus without the teacher (whoops), returning home, flopping on the sofa, yadda yadda.

5 days down, next is the start of a new beginning as life in 3T...

day 4

sea ex today. woke up at 7am, which, according to our instructor, is late. oh please. i'm sleep deprived anyway. so we did our morning sharing, filled up our water, loaded our bags into the instructor's motorboat (scammers <.<), and headed off. i was in a double seater with Sheng Wei, port marker was Mervyn, starboard markers were Manfred and Jian Wei, navigator was Hiok Yang (he was navigator for land ex too), and sweepers were not really noticed by me. sorry.

we went around ubin island, starting from the main jetty on the south-eastern end of ubin, and did a counter-clockwise round all the way till camp 2. we had luch on the sea, which consisted of us throwing oranges, biscuits, digestives, drinks, powder, milo etc. around the kayaks. quite fun. first time i really needed to catch my lunch on the sea. jian wei lost his specs, cause i dropped them when my partner capsized the boat suddenly. oops.

not much i can remember from the rest ofthe day, but i remember thinking that this would be our last night on this island called ubin. looking forward to going home tomorrow.

4 days down, 1 to go.

day 3

landex. it's the main theme for today. yes standard blah blah stuff we did in the morning, and then we were off to walk around pulau ubin. how fun. before that, we learnt pacing, which in my opinion is a rather retarded process, since we are going to follow the roads around anyway. so there we were, carrying our already heavy bags, when javinson huang comes over and says,

"hey Ernest, you got space or not?"

"err... my bag already very heavy liao leh."

*opens my bag* "got space lah! carry this pot" *stuffs it in my bag*

thanks to him, i nearly broke my back.

anyway, we were soon off, first to the German girl shrine, then the Buddha rock shrine, and then the sensory trail thing owned by the Singapore something association for the blind. i have no idea how those three places are connected up till now. how random.

thankfully, it just started raining when we completed our journey around ubin, and , even better, our campsite wasn't far away. only one problem. we set up tents, only to have them soaked through. hope the tents dry soon. dinner was a rushed affair, with maggi mee being eaten like mamee. rest of the night was quite relaxing, except that my tent mates, including viet, snored me awake. or was it the other way round? i forgot. who cares.

3 days down, 2 to go

tomorrow is the sea ex. hoping for good weather as i slowly.... fall...... asleep....

day 2 of OBS

woke up at 5.55am as mentioned earlier, and had a run-it-yourself tour of the OBS camp. and we found out instructor haizul's favourite phrase is "many many more" why? you'll find out later.

standard procedures for breakfast followed, and then was the height element.

THE HEIGHT ELEMENT!

it looked fairly simple from down on the ground, but once you got up there, it was as though your legs had become disobedient all of a sudden. there i was on the Warden's Walk, hanging on the the rather useless "support rope" that they had provided, and inching forwards on the 1 cm thick metal wire they had. finally made it, and the next part was the Swinging Log. i zoomed across it, to my surprise. it was quite fun overall.

next was the kayaking course. we learnt basic strokes, how to capsize and get back in (some people lost their specs) and that was it.

finally the briefing for the land ex. we learnt navigation skills, how to read a 6-years outdated map, basic safety precautions, wild boar evasion techniques and what to pack.

and finally, the second course for the mosquitoes and sand flies.

2 days down, 3 to go.

day 1 of OBS (Outward Bound Singapore for all you clutzes who don't know what that is)

lugged my 2 heavy bags to school and placed them in a line at the raja block foyer in the okapi group line. i tried to strike up some conversation with my classmates, but this is all i got:

"hi. what's your name?"

"..."*turns away* "Oi Jack! what you ..."

-_______________-

fortunately wen da and brandon from the neighbouring class, were conveniently located next to me in the other column (lol makes it sound as though their some kind of convenience store) , and it was much easier to talk to them, as compared to mr. turn-away-when-i-try-to-talk-to-you. phew.

and to quote some teachers," We'll be away at OBS." yeah right. going to the dock, and saying bye bye is not part of going to OBS.

anyway, we were off in the ferry to pulau ubin to the OBS camp 1. we met our great instructor Haizul, and we set off doing some group bonding activities. the rest of the day was fairly fast, with getting the tents, some belaying courses, intro to the outdoor camp site, cooking dinner (burnt rice FTW), and finally feeding time for the mosquitos and sandflies. wake up time tomorrow is at 5.55am. whee.

Labels: OBS

just completed OBS, and was feeling absolutely lackadaisical (ooh big word), even though i was glad to be back. overall, it has been an extremely enriching experience for me, and i learnt much more about my class than i probably would ever do in that same period of time if we had been doing something else.

i'll elaborate on the 5 day's activities in the next few posts.

well well. my new blog. feels a little strange that i'm only starting a blog in the 3rd year of my existence in RI, while the rest of my friends have like, long lists on their blog pages. *stares*.
anyway, since lots of things have happened since this blog was created, you might see stuff from before now mentioned. rewind your minds, people...

next thing, i'm quite new to this blog thing, so forgive me if i post weirdly or something.

oh well. it's a new blog after all.

Labels: intro