butterfly dream.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

I SURVIVED OBS!!!!

~~and i'm half dead now ):~~

Well kind of glad this is a once in a lifetime experience cuz it was REALLY REALLY tiring. At night can't sleep that well. Lights out around 11pm and normal waking time is like, around 5.30am? /: My watch was called TENZING! My instructor was TRACEY! :D Michelle, Kaiqi and Meimei were in the same group as me! :D Saw Shiqi, Haslinda, Jessica, Jaslin, Jun2, Debbie, Fifi etc on a daily basis haha. Jaslin didn't bathe for the FOUR nights @_@ Her hair was freaking oily lah /: I bathed every night except there was one night didn't bathe, only washed hair with dry shampoo haha. Let me outline what I've gone through...

DAY ONE
Reached one of the camp sites in Pulau Ubin. Played this game where a loop needed to go through everyone. Our timing was 1 minute and 40+ seconds :D Then learnt how to do belaying, something related to rock climbing. Pitched our own tents and learnt how to cook in the open. It was dark and our rice wasn't really cooked. In the end we ended up with a pot filled with porridge and one not cooked. Added sardines to the porridge, quite okay. Heated vegetable soup too :D Then I went to bathe, not a very good experience /: After that had a fire drill... So lame man /: Then lights out, went to sleep. Michelle, Kaiqi, Meimei and I slept in the same tent. And our tent was nearest to the bushes!!! D: Damn scary okay. We were quite scared. When we opened the tent, I think Michelle screamed and the rest of us screamed too. So we scream and scream and then asked what's the matter. Then the answer was just that we're scared haha. I went in first followed by Michelle, then Meimei and Kaiqi. Me, Meimei and Michelle slept parallel each other while Kaiqi slept perpendicularly to us. She was nearest to the door haha /: Definitely didn't sleep well. Kept waking up. Woke up a few times to tell Meimei not to take up Michelle's space haha. I think I only got a few hours of sleep /:

DAY TWO
Woke up at 4+ and it started drizzling... Actually I woke up to Fifi's voice. Heard her yelling at people to wake up HAHA /: So the four of us quickly woke up and unpitched our tent and brought it down to the store. Had to pack our bags into another haversack. It was damn sandy and wet and DIRTY D: Had to trek with that heavy bag to another camp site, but it was quite a short distance. Took around 40 minutes D: Could've died. Went to do rock climbing. It was quite fun :D But when I climbed to the 8th box (10 boxes altogether) I got a bit apprehensive. Kept looking down to get advice from Michelle and Jolena. I was really really scared and I kept saying I wanted to come down. They allowed me to come down in the end, thank god haha. Then there was a trial kayaking. At first it was fine, had to capsize, quite fun :D Hated that I had sand in my shoes though /: Then Kaiqi and I had to change partners cuz Kaiqi couldn't kayak that well... Paired up with Hanisah! We then kayaked out to sea and we had to hold onto a rope for a LONG time. Then I got TERRIBLY seasick. Really very bad. My head was spinning and I felt like puking but I didn't wanna puke. When Tracey told us to go back on shore, I paddled like XIAO. Headache was quite bad. Went to bathe. CROWDED man. Borowed shampoo and soap from Xuli. Went outside to those taps you see outside the canteen toilet. Washed my hair there cuz people were taking such a long time in the toilet. Washed my body inside the cubicle when it was my turn and quickly changed into my clothes. Had cooked food for dinner. There was a lot of rice, CURRY CHICKEN (I said I didn't want it haha), cabbage, some type of meat ball and some type of soup. There was water and syrup. Honestly, it didn't taste THAT fantastic. The cabbage was fine, meat ball a bit salty. Soup tasted like celery /: But I drank it up anyway. Syrup was sweet at the first taste but it left a weird taste on your tongue. EWW. Saw Jun2, Debbie, Olga, Yeeting and Isabelle that night haha. Sleeping was a bit scary cuz we could hear wild boars. I thought they were sheep cuz they made a 'BAA' sound. They were so loud at night! And our tent was WET. No choice, had to sleep /: Slept a bit better that night cuz I was really tired.

DAY THREE
I think I woke up at around 5+ that morning. At first we lost our tent bag but luckily, Hanisah managed to find it for me (: Had breakfast in the hall where we did rock climbing. Then I started putting a lot of sunblock lotion cuz we had to do a lot of trekking. Oh I also swopped sunblock lotion with Michelle cuz hers had a whitening effect and she didn't like it while I didn't mind it. I mean, I'm white enough, how white can I get? After plotting our locations on the map, we set off. My bag was really very very heavy. In fact, everyone was the same. My group reached our first checkpoint where we were suppose to go through an activity called Tunnel. Had to crawl through a tunnel and feel for slips of paper and our mascot, a stuff toy. I was in the second half of my group to go in. It was quite spooky okay. There were at times it was really very very pitch dark and sometimes I lost touch of Michelle who was in front of my and I was so scared that I kept shouting at times. I felt that the Tunnel was quite fun though (: When we came out to see the outer part of the Tunnel (we were blindfolded at first so we can't see how the tunnel looks like) it really looked so simple ._. Continued our trekking where we had to go to different checkpoints. Woah the going ws really really tough. Bags were heavy and we had to walk. Sometimes there were people on bikes or vehicles that went past us. Some smiled at us. And we felt that they were mocking at us. All of us were really dripping with sweat loh. At the checkpoints, there were very inspirational quotes :D Haha. When we finally reached our campsite for the night which was by the sea we were really really over the moon cuz we were the first group to reach! :DDD All of our shoulders were hurting and legs must've been aching. We had started at around 12nn and ended at around 4-5pm :D We were soaked with sweat but we couldn't bathe cuz there wasn't a shower room but thank god there was a TOILET. So I didn't get the experience of doing any business in the bushes. But it was quite a long walk to the toilet /: My dinner was Oreo cuz I couldn't take the Chicken Curry instant noodles T.T Really very spicy until I couldn't take it. Saw Debbie and Jun2 coming in from the sea in kayaks. They looked tired /: And we were sitting there, EATING. Haha. Then we were kinda pitying them cuz they also couldn't bathe and they were soaked in seawater D: After eating we sat in a circle and had a bonding session. Sulastri and Mira were very funny and they were like a radio haha. After that we had a briefing about our sea expedition. Almost fainted when we were told that we were practically kayaking around the entire Pulau Ubin. I thought that was freaking freaking crazy D: After the briefing, Alex (an instructor) gathered Tenzing together and asked, "Did you see an old lady?" Then we were like HUH and started panicking. Then he told us a story... He said an instructor, around that time (10pm) was hungry so he went to a nearby store to buy chao bee hoon. Most of the shops closed already but there was an old lady, hunched so he couldn't see her face, in her shop still cooking. So he shouted his order and went to a bench to sit down. He soon fell asleep. When he woke up he saw a packet but not the old lady. So he placed $3 on the bench and walked back to the campsite. Then he heard footsteps but when he turned around he saw no one. (Our group started to get really scared and we all held onto each other tightly) He felt the footsteps getting louder but everytime he turned around he saw no one. (Our group was really scared now...) Finally when he heard the footsteps were really really loud, he turned around to see the old lady, hunched and her fringe covering her face. (We SCREAMED. But I think we screamed in the earlier part of the story but can't remember when) Then... Alex said the old woman said...
"FIVE DOLLARS AH!!!!!!!!"
Alex screamed that line and ALL of us really really just SCREAMED and squeezed each other very tightly. GOD. THAT IDIOT. SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ALL OF US. Subsiquently everytime he said "old lady" all of us would just scream. Actualy during the story, I was so scared that I just cried. I don't know why leh. Tears just dropped loh. Mira said she just cried also, don't know why. Both of us agreed that we never cried over a horror story before. And Alex actually didn't tell us a scary story but he made it damn spooky. Maybe cuz it was dark or something like that. But both of us cried haha. After that our group wanted to go to the toilet but it was damn dark. So we linked arms, 4 in a row, altogether 3 rows cuz not all went, and we walked to the toilet. We were still freaked out cuz of Alex's damn story. The toilet was quite crowded though. People who went kayaking wanted to change out of their clothes /: Talked to Debbie, talked to Isabelle as we walked back. Then I went to find Jun2 and started talking to her wahaha. I was kinda homesick and friend-sick. /: After chatting with her, went back to my watch who were by their tents. Some of us sat facing the sea and started talking. We could see Singapore, all brightly lit. And I could see the Changi Chalet from last year 6A chalet, so cool haha. We were so keen to go back. It felt warm to sit near each other facing the sea and talk. ((: Then at around 10.45pm, one tent had to go do patrolling so the remaining of us just continued talking. Then it was my tent's turn so Michelle, Kaiqi and Meimei got up with torches and went patrolling~ Some people yelled at us saying they wanted to sleep and told us not to shine the lights hehe /: We scared away the manymany stray dogs by the beach and went to walk around. Suddenly someone shone a torch at me and asked "Are you Mindy?" I said yes and told her not to shine the torch in my eyes and asked who it was. It was Debbie Tan loh. HAHA. Talked to her for a while then continued patrolling. Then went to sleep. I was the only one in my tent that couldn't sleep well cuz I was sleeping mostly on rocks hehe. /:

DAY FOUR
Overslept and woke at 6am instead of 5.15am :X Frantically woke up everyone and went to unpitch our tents. Quickly took sunblock and my hat and went to pack bags and so on. Today was sea expedition day D: Hanisah and I had to go out to sea to do a capsize drill and rescuing drill. Quite fun :D Okay and during the drill I peed lah. It's perfectly NORMAL. Really. Then we went on shore and prepared to set off. Omg the sea expedition was really a challenge. Even more of a challenge when compared to trekking. Hanisah and my kayak just won't go STRAIGHT. So we had to keep doing a Left/Right C Curve to go Right/Left respectively. It was freaking tiring. Whenever we had to stop to wait for people, I always took the chance to drink water, smell an orange to lighten my seasickness and/or re-apply sunblock. Most of the time I always reapply sunblock. Really didn't wanna become red. During lunch, the waves kept making us go back cuz we were stopping in the middle of the sea. Quite seasick. I think at that time all 4 watches out of sea (namely, Camp 2A) really wanted to give up. After Ahmad kinda shouted at us, we continued with some determination. I was really very very tired. Sick of doing U-turns when Hanisah and my Right C Curve didn't work out. I was kinda cursing already. Damn the current, damn the waves, damn the wind, DAMN! However, when we were told that we were nearing our destination after so long, all of us had a sudden surge of energy. To add on to that, I saw Fifi and Jaslin on a row boat. Then Jaslin laughed at me... I got pissed so I paddled faster to show I won't give up, HMPH! Really paddled with really all, ALL my might. The waves, wind and current was actually stronger now but we really paddled hard. Finally reached shore, I could've kissed the sand. I mean, we started at around 9am and ended at 5pm+!!! That's around 8 hours of paddling! Tried to get up but my knee joints had a sudden sharp pain. Legs were damn damn numb @_@ Hated that we were so tired and had to bring back all the kayaks and wash them. Freaking tired. Had a debrief, went to pitch tents then went to bathe. Borrowed Natasha's shampoo and soap hehe. Looked into the mirror and realized that I didn't turn RED and I was still pretty fair xDDD Very proud of myself cuz during trekking and especially during kayaking, the sun was damn blazing. xD I did have a tan but it's only a bit dark, not damn dark. Have an ugly tan line on my right arm cuz I wore long sleeve tee. Don't know why left arm don't have /: Had Chicken Curry instant noodles for dinner again. Tenzing was really thoughtful lah. They cooked two pots of noodles, one of which they only added a pack of flavouring while the other, added all the flavouring. It was still a bit spicy but it was kinda tolerable for me. When all of us sat down, we could really still feel the waves going up and down. Meimei said I was moving back and forth even though I couldn't feel it. After reaching my limit of spicyness, I went to find Jaslin Koh. Talked to her and then saw Jun2 and talked also. Both of us nagged at Jaslin for not bathing haha. Talk until I shuang3 haha. After cleaning up, we went to our tent. The four of us in the tent started to talk. Michelle so funny. We talk halfway she suddenly sleep. Left me and Kaiqi talking (:

DAY FIVE
Overslept again. Suppose to wake up at 4.45am in the end woke up at around 5.30am. Quickly went to find Tracey first before unpitching our tents. Went to pack everything back in the storeroom and packed our personal bags. Lost a pot cover and many tent pegs /: After finishing up the packing, we had late breakfast at around 10am I think. Strawberry Jam damn nice :DDD Then we had our last group bonding session. Then we went to another location to get our certs and photos we ordered. It was kinda touching. Tracey put our certs face down. Then she said to turn it over and give it to the person. I had Hanisah's. Hanisah had mine haha. We went up to each other and hugged tightly. We went through such an unforgettable challenge together after all! After that we had to go to a toilet to pick litter ._. I picked a LEAF HAHAHA. Went souvenir shopping. Got myself a white polo and Algy, a blue tee :D Then Tenzing started distributing the manymany leftover food haha. In the end I gave a lot to Jun2. Gave her 1kg of powder isotonic drink and other things. Reached school at around 3+ but only left school at 3+++ cuz Jaslin, Jun2 and I were forced to wait with Meimei until her mother came -.-# Jaslin walked to the MRT, Jun2 waited for the bus while I cabbed home! xD I reached hope quite quickly :D Damn tired. Everywhere aching. Slept at 8.30pm.

TODAY
Had to go for makeup piano lesson. Trimmed my nails in the car haha. In the end my dad drove me to the wrong location so had to make a detour. My finger bones and muscles were damn pain loh. Couldn't play properly. Running notes all slipped etc. You could say I was still kinda half asleep @_@ Well I held the paddle for 8 hours after all... Stayed at home while the rest of my family went out. Fell asleep on the table and on the sofa @_@

Well OBS was definitely an unforgettable experience but to me, it wasn't that FUN. Varies for different people (: OBS taught me to perservere and not to take for granted what I have. Singapore water has never tasted that good before xD

7:00 PM