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Friday, January 23

OBS was the BEST!

Hey peeps, i'm telling you! OBS was the best camp i've ever had man! Simply the most fun and enjoyable camp that i've ever experienced. At first we set out to be so bored and homesick but as the days goes by, we really didn't want to go back. I'm going to talk about the times i spent during OBS. So sorry but it's going to be a long entry. Please bear with it if you want to hear the interesting stories about it.

Day 1 (19/01/2009)
We went to school during the normal school hours. We sat according to our classes and did the morning assembly with the other levels. After that, we went to the basketball court near the canteen and waited for the buses to come to bring us to punggol jetty. While waiting, yogga was telling me how much she wanted to go home but i told her that it was too late.
When the buses came, most of the classes left and about 2 to 3 classes were the last ones to leave and one of those classes was our class. When more buses came, we went on our way to punggol jetty. During the ride, yogga sat with victoria and i sat with amirah. Nawirah and asyiqin were in front of us. Asyiqin and nawirah took out their handphones and played music like BIG BANG'S RED SUNSET GLOW. When we reached the jetty, we were grouped from 1 to 15. Group 1 to 12 stayed in camp 2, i think while group 13 to 15 stayed in camp 1 which was the one with better living conditions.
My class was split into 3 groups, half half but yogga, xae-rl, shawn, victoria and i were in the 3rd group and we had to join 3/5. So it wasn't mainly a class bonding session. We had to bond with 3/5 instead. So then we took a boat ride from punggol jetty to camp 2. Xae-rl and shawn had a basketball match so they didn't join us for the 1st day. We were also introduced to our instructors. Our group was called MAGELLAN and our instructors were charles and bibiana (which everyone calls her bibi as it is easier to say and is faster.)
When we reached camp 2, we had some games that we played to bond together and had a little introduction to obs. After all that, we had to pack our foods and eat our lunch. We also had to get our own 2-litre bottles and fold the ponchos plus pack the tents into a small bag. After that, we had our bath and our dinner. While some of the members were cooking dinner, janice, jasmine and i were helping to pitch up the tents. For our dinner, we had rice, peanuts and campbell mushroom soup. After dinner, we had more briefings and when it was almost bedtime, the fire drill rang. Everyone had to assemble at the assembly ground and one of the instructors said that that was only a practice. If it rings again from tomorrow onwards, it is the real fire. After the fire drill, we went to bed and had our 1st night there.

Day 2 (20/01/2009)
We woke up, unpitched our tents, had our breakfast, prepared ourselves with the helmet and harness for the high elements and then went to meet charles. We did the trust fall and i felt great that my safety is in the hands of the team. We had to say something and it was like this,
Person: Magellan ready?
Group: Magellan ready! Magellan pull!
Person: Falling.
Group: Fall On.
We also learned how to belay someone who is climbing and the basic commands of doing high elements for example,
Climber: Am i on belay?
Belayer: No you're not.
Climber: That's me.
Climber: Climbing.
Belayer: Squeeze check, pull check, instructor check. (Climb on.)
*I'm quite familiar with these commands cause i did this during the STEP camp.
After we did the belaying thing, we did rock climbing. I had difficulty climbing cause my hands were starting to tremble while i was climbing. Amriyatul and fatin were the 'spiderwomen' of the day cause they reached the top. I admit that i'm super lousy at rock climbing. After the rock climbing, we had an introduction to kayaking. I'm also quite familiar with kayaking cause i kayaked during the STEP camp. But i learnt something new which was the wet exit and plus the T-Rescue. The T-Rescue was the more challenging one cause the kayak was heavy and we had to lift it up in the water. When me and yogga capsized, yogga drifted away and i had to use my paddle to pull her back. I kept felting water weeds rushing through my leg. The funny thing was that a fish actually swam through my leg! We kept capsizing on purpose cause they wanted us to learn about the basic kind rescue. After kayaking for a short distance, charles went for some exam so bibi was in charge for that period of time. She told us that tomorrow will be the REAL challenge and that the sea expedition was tomorrow. We were all so shocked when we heard that. Then we went to bathe and had our dinner.
After dinner, there was a briefing on the sea expedition. We had to elect 4 leaders mainly the navigator, the side and the back person from the 4 different watches which combined to be camp 2A. The 4 watches were Marco Polo, Jun Ko, Livingstone and Magellan. The leaders were amriyatul (navigator) from Magellan, lydia (side) from Jun Ko, asyiqin (side) from Livingstone and madelaine (back) from Marco Polo. When the briefing was over, we went to pack for our sea ex and land ex as well cause we'll not be camping in camp B but in Jelutong Campsite. We packed until it was 10.45pm and then we went to sleep.

Day 3 (21/01/2009)
We had our sea expedition today. We kayaked from 10 plus to 3 plus non-stop which was approximately 5 hours. The total distance we kayaked was 8 to 10km long. When we arrived at Jelutong Campsite, we helped to stack the kayaks and paddles. Then we went to pitch our tents and change. We couldn't use the pegs to pitch the tent due to the hard ground so we used rocks but most of the tents that were pitched up were not as perfect as at camp 2. Apparently the we didn't bathe that day cause the toilet had a water limit and it may stop when you don't know it. Charles said that 2 weeks before our OBS, some of the RI boys secretly bathed and when one of them was shitting, he couldn't flush it down so they had to clean the toilet.
For us girls, we were obedient and did not bathe. We just did powder bath. The water there was not clear i'm telling you, it's YELLOWISH! We had chicken abalone instant noodles for dinner. After we ate, magellan had a night stroll without any torchlight and no talking. We reached a spot, sat down and talked about our team's bonding together on that day plus bonding much more tomorrow. I really liked that night stroll cause it helped us to reflect what we contibuted to the team.
We went to sleep earlier but each tent had to wake up to do a watchover for the whole campsite. It was said that there were many things that were stolen there so each tent had to watchover for 15min. Magellan's shift was from 12am to 1am. Me, yogga, shawn and victoria were sharing the tent and our shift was from 12.15am to 12.30am. The order was amriyatul's group, our group, janice's group and lastly xae-rl's group. There were many wild boars and wild dogs around but they didn't really attacked us cause charles said that wild boars are shy creatures. When they see humans, they tend to run away. During xae-rl's shift, i heard 2 dogs fighting and one of them was wailing. During our shift, there was a big fat wild boar walking around. That day, my wrist and shoulder ached like hell cause we kept paddling non-stop and also cause there was a time when the current went against us so we had difficulty paddling.

Day 4 (22/01/2009)
We went for our land ex today and we trekked from the Jelutong Campsite back to Camp 2. Although we got lost sometimes, we worked better than the other days and it helped us to find our way home. We had to find 7 checkpoints as well as to find our way back to camp 2. I shall tell you the phrases that were on the checkpoint board which really rung deeply in my heart when i heard them. The phrases were,
*Checkpoint 1 (Jelutong Beach Shore) ~
In this world, there's always danger for those who are afraid of it.
*Checkpoint 2 (Puaka) ~
The closer one gets to the top, the more one find there is no top.
*Checkpoint 3 (German Girls' Shrine) ~
The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot ideas.
*Checkpoint 4 (Sim Watt Estate) ~
We are like teabags: We don't know our strengths until we are in hot water.
*Checkpoint 5 (Lam Hong Estate) ~
Let us realise that what happens around us is largely outside our control. But the way we choose to react to it is inside our control.
*Checkpoint 6 (Tombstone) ~
Good judgement comes from experience - usually experience is the result of poor judgement.
*Checkpoint 7 (Camp 2) ~
By recording your dreams and goals on paper, we set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be.
We went to the highest peak of pulau ubin which was the 2nd checkpoint. We shouted "MAGELLAN!!!" super loudly and there was an echo. It was so cool man. When we were having our lunch at this shelter, we saw some people from camp 1 going to Jelutong Campsite to kayak back to their campsite. I saw Ying Yun, Yan Jie, Deobrah, Wai Sze and the Korean Twins. Charles, my instructor was like, "Where's the twins?"(looking frantically) when that group passed by. The korean twins saw him and smiled at him. I haven't really seen the korean twins smile since and i got to see it. They smile very nice lehs. All of our backs and shoulders were aching like madness but we persevered and did not give up. We missed the 3rd checkpoint because there was this other team that was blocking the checkpoint sign and that caused us to miss that. When some saw that there was a tombstone at the 6th checkpoint, they wanted to get out quickly but surprisingly, the checkpoint was right in front of our eyes. While we were trekking halfway, xae-rl was saying to me, "Ah Ning ah, can we sing noona nomu yeppo?" I looked at her with a weird face. We sort of murmured romantic, mirotic, SHINee World etc. We raised our hands up high and shouted outloud for WE'RE LIVING IN A SM TOWN!"
After trekking, we did the TKG philosophy cheer and went to take the best shower ever. We had our dinner which was cooked specially by charles which was sort of like a farewell meal. We had raisin rice, luo han zhai, sardine, egg with luncheon meat, button mushrooms with corn with cabbage soup and for dessert, we had apple crumble which was the best cause it tasted like macdonald's apple pie. We went to get food from other watches as well such as popcorn from Jun Ko and apple dipped with boiled milo from Livingstone. After dinner, we had this like farewell party. It was from the start of the party that i didn't want to leave OBS.
We had this 200 seconds game. In that game, we had to complete tasks like 6 people skipping through a big rope with 2 people holding onto it, a puzzle, loop the loop, running with the newspaper and doing the group cheer. We had to complete it before 200 seconds. For magellan, we were improving gradually but we dropped sometimes. We broke the 200 seconds record but the best timing was 2 min 26 sec by marco polo. We were just a little later than them but we couldn't break their record. Our group was the one which tried the most number of times. Charles said that he was proud of us for trying so hard. He said that we like have 2 lungs or even NO LUNGS! Hahas. So funny, i kept laughing about the no lungs part. Our group kept trying and trying but we didn't do it. But i'm proud of magellan cause at least we gave it our best shot. After the party, we didn't have to pitch up the tent. Instead, we went to sleep in the shed with a lot more other watches. I was freezing cold almost every night due to the extreme breeze.

Day 5 (23/01/2009)
That day was the day that no one wanted it to come. We woke up and ate our breakfast. We had a farewell chat with charles and bibi before we left and we got autographs from them also. We did a last check on our stall. We lost 1 jack knife and everyone had to pay 40 cents i think. At around 12 plus, we gathered and waited for the boats to come. When we left, majority felt sad and couldn't bear to leave the place.
When we reached punggol jetty, we purchased the OBS souvenirs before we boarded a bus back to school. I bought a black collared dri-fit short sleeve shirt for $18. I helped soniya buy a black non-collared short sleeved shirt which costs $15. We took a bus back to school when we reached school, we were whining. We saw some sec 4s welcoming some of us back. I saw soniya and passed her the shirt. After that, i went home to unpack and here i am blogging about OBS.

Well, this has been my experience at the OBS camp. I love it so much and would want to experience it again if i could. I think i saw like a total of 4 wild boars and 5 to 6 wild dogs for the whole camp. The best part was that everyone was trying to get their hands on the ISOTONIC DRINK. I love that drink too. Janice, Xae-rl, Shawn and me loved that drink. I brought back 2 packets to Singapore to drink. We also used the instant noodles as mamee monster snacks. There's is this phrase i always laugh at when janice and jasmine say from the previous channel u show BU LIANG XIAO HUA. The phrase is,
1)My name-u is-u fu-lao-er. You can call me little fu-lao er.
2) S-R-R-O-Y (which was meant to be sorry) *Janice said it really loudly and with gusto.
When we were trekking and whenever janice meets with a mishap, she will say oh my mama. Then we will say oh my chor chor. Hahas. Or oh my tia tia, or oh my nya nya. Janice calls me chor chor or mama. Am i that old? Heh heh.
When we were trekking, i said oh my juxiang and my shoe got stuck to a branch. Xae-rl said that was my retribution for talking about juxiang. Janice's laughter is contagious man i'm telling you. Once she laughs, you can't help but laugh. Her lips went a bit swollen after the sea ex and xae-rl called her SAUSAGE LIPS. Xae-rl also called janice COMMANDRESS.
Anyways, i've got to get some rest cause i've not been having enough sleep since the camp so i'm going to take a good rest. I'll blog some other day. This blog entry seems to be like an essay cause it's so long. Aiyah! You know me right? I'm super long winded. Byes! :D

blogged by weewee at 5:12 PM

ABOUT ME

Wee Jie Ning
aka wee wee
ex-maha bodhi-an
ex-TKGian
ex-TJCian
current NP student
ex-four-fourer
ex-two-sevener
ex-32/11
current T04
ex-TKGian chorister, sop 1
ex-TJChoir chorister, sop 1
18 years old
sixth of may

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