Went to school as usual today, then when me and jingkai asked mrs jaya what the sec 2s were supposed to do, she checked the programme, and the whole column for sec2 was filled up with STILL AT OBS, so she said we didn't have to come to school. Me and jingkai didn't know what to do, cos we wanted to wait for joash and yongle to finish their stuff, so we went to play basketball with some ball with many bumps and stuff we found. Then sam came and play with us and we got owned. Me=someone who hasn't played for 4 years and just played on sunday, jingkai=doesn't play basketball. lol. Then yongle and joash were done, and they had to go for their eoya, which was bowling, and they wanted us to go also but it was a consortium activity, and mine is tomorrow..bowling also. After that I went to j8, bought starch and some microwave food for lunch, then go home prepare no.4 for tomorrows training..training. And i realised i have time, so i shall post about obs! I know it was so long ago but who cares heh. I shall try to remember the obs as good as i can~

DAY ONE
Reached school with my heavy bag+shoe bag which i skilfully squeezed a pair of shoes, sandals and slippers in. Put my bag in class, then went to the bridge. Shan't talk about this..=/ Then i couldn't run, cos like my blister from monday training was super pain, and i still run cos i was gonna be late, had to assemble at 7.15. Went back to class and qucikly put a plaster on my blister. Ha it rhymes. Then went to assemble, and got on bus to get to the jetty. Passed by my house on the way, so sad. Reached the jetty, and the teachers who accompanied us went off..pangseh. So we stoned at the jetty, and we got on the boat watch(the name for groups in obs) by watch. Then..we passed by this obs campus, and it was like super nice, like a resort, and then the instructor on the boat anti-climax us and said, this is not your campus. When we reached our campus, it was some..old and..dilapitated? place.

Okay, then we met our instructors, my instructor is Ahmad. My watch is called Da Gama, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama. All the watches are named after famous people, e.g. yongle and joash's watch was called Gandhi, i bet tee zhuo would go crazy. Then we had some ice-breaking activities. We all wore nametags so we would..know who was who? Then played with a ball, like throw here throw there and we were challeneged to make everyone touch in the least time possible, so in the end we jus put the ball in the middle and everyone used 1 finger to touch, so smart right?

Then they appointed day ics, water ic, safety ic, food ic. And they went to collect rations while the rest of us packed tents, fold ponchos and stuff, each watch had a store. The food mainly consisted of canned food(sardines, curry chicken, mushrooms, ikan bilis in sauce, baked beans, braised peanuts, vegetable soup), biscuits, bread, powders(isotonic, milo, ovaltine, coffee, cereal), maggi mee and rice. We were only allowed to cook during dinner, rest of the meals had to eat bread/biscuits those stuff, fruits(apples and oranges) And, we had no hot water, so smart right? Somemore only allowed to cook during dinner, like..who will go drink coffee at 8pm. So most of the time we ended up eating the powder raw, same for the maggi mee. And our instructor challenged us to finish the food cos he said no watch has ever finished their food. He likes to challenge us..haha cos he say he doesn't want to force us to do stuff.

Okay, then we went to learn how to tie knots so that we could pitch our tents. And it's like we had to decide how many tents to use, cos the more tents we use, the more space we have, but the more weight we have to carry, so we decided to use 4 tents and since there are 15 people, we split 4 4 4 3. I shared tent with jingkai, weilun and alvin. Then..there was one faulty tent. So me and jingkai didn't know, and we were like already quite crazy cos we felt so lazy and lethargic, then we were laughing at nothing like madmen, so we opened the tent, then we realised it was faulty, then we were damn lazy to put it back, so we just started laughing again, and we laugh laugh laugh until we cannot stand up. Okay we're crazy, and it's only the first day. Then we pitched another tent. Okay done.

Next we went to learn how to belay on these..things that we use to learn how to belay. And i was the first person to climb, super scary can, the people all never listen then dunno how to belay. Belaying is fun heh, climbing with and inexperienced belayer is not o.o After that was our first dinner! Some people went to bathe while others ate first. We ate rice+curry chicken, and vegetable soup which are all super nice. Okay then i went to bathe, and read postcard! =D Had to wait until no one was around before i could do that, so i hide in the store. After that we had debrief. Then we sleep..zzzzzz

DAY TWO
Okay we were supposed to assemble at 6.30. We woke up at 5.30. Was quite hard to sleep, jingkai was sleeping half naked..NO WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. Ok we did..we slept..still sounds so wrong..nevermind. So we were late to assemble, oh yar, we were late for everything, so zai right? Our first activity. Ahmad brought us to the rock climbing wall, and the surrounding area was forest. Then he climb inside the forest and ask us to wait. Then he brought us inside, to this tunnel system. We were supposed to go in and stay inside for a few minutes to think about 2 questions, what we watned to achieve from the course and the rules and regulations of our watch. So we climbed inside one by one, it was totally dark, cannot see anything, so we had to hold on to each other's ankles. Then we stayed inside for like 10 minutes? And we climbed out. After that we went to write down one rule per person on a piece of paper.

Then we went to change into wet attire to learn kayaking! Spam sunblock lol. We learnt..how to paddle, capsising drill. After that we had lunch break. Then we went on kayaking expedition! We had to kayak around a neighbouring island and back, since going around pulau ubin was too long for our screwed 4 day and not 5 day obs. I was one of the four expedition leaders..somehow. We did with costeau(pronounced coos tow) which was jingyao and jia hans watch, and also our buddy watch. There were 4 expedition leaders, one navigator, one port(me), one starboard and one backsweeper. We kayaked in tri-yaks, which is a three people kayak. My kayak had me, jingkai and glenn. Then we set off! We were supposed to maintain a diamond formation, so much for that. All the people all anyhow paddle, so screwed. And glenn was like totally slacking, his paddling was more of sticking the paddle into the water, doesnt even move the kayak, and somemore he keep resting. Jingkai still got paddle, not so bad, but he still rest quite alot, then..i had to like, keep paddling even though they were resting cos the current keep pushing us. Two people kayaking with a dead weight most of the time. And glenn still can sit there and eat. The kayaking expedition didn't take long, like..2-3 hours?

After our kayaking expedition was supposed to be jetty jump..which is a jump into the sea from a plank on the jetty. But it was raining heavily after we cleaned the kayaks, so we sat in the jetty with ponchos, and the rain was..raining on us. In the end we couldn't do the jetty jump, cos the rain was too heavy. So disappointing, jetty jump was like the highlight of obs. Then we bathed..dinner..debrief..sleep. Our tents were wet cos of the rain! luckily for my tent is jus like the feet there got a puddle, and cos i was at the side my arms there also got water, so i pulled down my long sleeve.

DAY THREE
Woke up again. Then went for rock climbing! I was belayer most of the time. There were two walls, one intermediate and one basic. While others were doing basic i went to try the intermediate first, got aboult halfway, it was hard. Then i went to do the basic one. Had to climb in pairs and we were connected by this cord thingy, then i climbed with shaun, and i couldnt go up cos he was still too far away, so i hold there very long, then he said he want to stop, so he released the cord and i continued up. 3 quarters of the way Ahmad suddenly said, even though you are not connected you should wait for each other, then i realised he had not stopped yet, but he was like barely halfway up, so i stone there..wait for him and my arms were aching. Then..he stopped and went back down...................... So i had to continue, and the top part was curved, reached the top and went down. Then we had another challenge. We were supposed to guide a blindfolded person up the rock wall. I was the belayer. Most of the time the person would be hanging there..resting, and i had to hold on to the rope to make sure he didnt drop down, and the harness was tugging at my..nevermind. That's how i got my rope burns, belaying contiuously for about 1 hour, cos altogether 3 people tried and i belayed 2 of them. Usually someone would climb with the blindfolded person to guide him. The last one was jingkai, zhoukai belayed..thank goodness. If not i cannot celebrate father's day. Jingkai reached the top. Woo hoo. But we exceeded the time limit like siao.

Next we had our land expedition, i carried the haversack.. We had to go to the other campsite together with costeau. Wasn't very hard, and wei lun was busy finding a stick to use as a walking stick cos the two walking sticks were already taken by people. Then when he found one he used it awhile and threw it away. Reached the next campsite, pitched our tents. Okay we brought 4, and we only managed to pitch 2 cos the tent poles and pegs were missing from two of the tents! gg.

After that we went for this rescue mission thing. Basically we had to walk on top of logs, then got all the weird obstacles, and we had to carry this weird stretcher with all our bottles and helmets inside. Did with costeau, and the watch that travelled a greater distance could decide who go eat first and who go continue pitching tents. In the end we won, but we very good, so we asked if we could pitch and eat together. Not like we had anything to pitch anyway. Then, went to eat catered food! Campsite 1 had a cookhouse with catered food, and they got to eat catered food on two days! We only got to eat on one day, dinner and supper. We ate rice with fish, chicken and vege, then got free flow of winter melon and some grape drink which is diluted. Damn nice. After that we went for night activity!

First one was solo walk. We walked deep into the forest, and Ahmad marked a spot with a lightstick before we walked on. We were supposed to walk one by one to the light stick. Jie gang went first, i went next. Then while walking i saw a light stick swinging, and i thought jie gang went to break his. Cos we were told only to use light stick/torchlight in emergency. Then i walked closer, and realised jie gang picked up the light stick Ahmad has used to mark, it was so short lar the solo walk lol. And someone kept onning and offing his torchlight, thinking no one could see, but everyone saw, apparently he was looking for puddles..hmm?

Next night activity, another tunnel activity. This time it was like a maze, had to go through and find a duck, which would be at the only entrance we could go out. Then..we completed quite easily. And the duck wasn't even a duck.

Then we had supper! Green bean soup. Ahmad asked for 4 volunteers to go back with him to campsite 2 to take our poles and pegs as a "punishment", so i just volunteered, and zhou kai, wei lun, alvin, jie gang and shaun went also. No one wanted cos they didn't want to give up their bathing time and they thought we had to walk back. In the end we took speedboat =D and when we got back, others would pitch the tents while we bathe. What a good punishment. The speedboat was super fun, but can smell the pollution. The wind is like super strong, very shuang. After getting the stuff, we went back to bathe, then sleep. At night, zhou kai and goh id were shouting and niaoing each other. Goh id had a hole ripped in his shirt..o.o Then there was a dog, and zhou kai ask goh id to ask his friend to go away, the goh id say it send his friend to go ka jiao us.

DAY FOUR
Land expedition again. This time we had to go to four checkpoints. 3 were trees, heh pun, and one was some structure thingo, then go back to campsite 2. Ahmad told us we would have a suprise activity if we had the time. Went to the structure first since it was the nearest, then we were told to walk around it and think of a motto. I just used one of karltons phrases lol. Went to the next checkpoin. Then on the last two we were like lost. They didn't know where we were on the map, but in the end managed to figure out then we went to the two checkpoints and back to campsite.

Next, our suprise activity! Jetty jump! Other watches had quarry jump, which was better cos the quarry had CLEAN and FRESHWATER. But heck, we got jetty jump. Changed into the stinky wet clothes which had been hanging out in the rain along with my towel, and cos my towel was wet on second day i had to use my tiny tiny face towel. The jetty jump was supposed to be like..a commitment, means like think of a commitment, then once u jump must stick to the commitment. OC =D In the end we won! heh. Then there was one person who didn't dare to jump, and he keep telling himself he can't cos hes too scared. We were told to take one step off the plank to jump, then he keep like flicking his leg out and say see cannot..liddat who can lar. And he kept thinking Ahmad would push him down. Then while we were talking among ourselves he suddenly jumped.

Went back to clear up all the stuff. Then Ahmad was disappointed cos only some people were working then others were busy eating all the food. Oh yar, we finished all our food heh. Cleared the stuff..then went to buy souvenirs. I only had $10, so i borrowed 10 from zhou kai and 20 from pek. Bought 2 shirts. Then we had final debrief, got certs, photo, and pay for losses. We lost 21 pegs, 1 tent pole set, 2 tent pole bag, 2 tent peg bag, one whistle, one walking stick. $73+ And Ahmad helped us to get 1 tent peg and one walking stick, so became $64+ Each person pay $4.30. Then we went to holding area to wait for boat. And all this while we were told that campsite 1 people already left, only while leaving we realised that they were still stuck there. One of the instructors read his poem titled "I want to go home" was quite interesting. Then me and jingkai got Ahmad to autograph our photos. Then he shook our hands and..i don't think we'll see him again.

Went back to jetty. Then the first thing we smelt was garbage..bad omen. And a bird shit on my shoebag asoidfioasviosndf. It was 4.15, parents not there yet so i stoned until 4.50. Campsite 1 only reached the punggol jetty at 5.30 lol. Went home, then didn't sleep, went out for dinner. Slept at 11+ that night lol.

OBS is good lar, can learn so much stuff. Too bad is only 4 days. I remember we were saying 4 days already so long, but then at the end we realised that it was too short. And the instructors said that our obs course may have ended, but when we get back it's like another obs course, all the challenges and stuff. Mmmm..

darren