Capture My Love

Wan Ting
18 May
Art Gym
Hadley
RGS
106'05
205'06
309'07
409'08

9:06 PM, Friday, January 19, 2007

hello! i'm back again cuz i don't know where to write this but i don't want to forget it. Anyway, OBS was really really fun. (:

Day 1 15 Jan 07
around 13 ppl of 309 was sent to the wrong jetty by the stupid boatman. We were in Camp 1, Residential but he stupidly sent us to the jetty for Camp 2, Mobile. So after walking across the loooonnnggg jetty and climbing a pretty steep slope, we reached the wrong camp. Got kinda pissed as i was lugging along this really gigantic bag which made me look like a turtle. But we got sent back to the resort-lookalike Camp 1.

Groupings were quite weird at first cuz the whole of 309 and 315 were spilt into Barker, Tock Seng, Washington and my beloved Sui Sen. Everyone was like "huh? isnt OBS for class bonding?" but later on, everyone bonded and it was great. :D anw, we met our instructor Chu Ai whom we thought looked quite fun at first but turned out to be really serious. we checked our store and laid out the bed mattresses on our bunks before going to the cookhouse for lunch. The food was good for camp food. (: We played some ice-breaker games before belaying practice. The falling game or whatever it's called was pretty fun. You call out to your grp to make sure they're ready to catch you on the mat and you fall backwards. If you don't trust you watchmates, you wouldn't be able to fall so ya, trust. (: The calls went like "Sui sen, are you ready?" Then the ppl below go "Sui sen ready, sui sen pull!" It's ok for our grp name but what about Danabalan or Nila Utama or De Gama? I bet they would have sounded damn funny. So after that, we had belaying prac. We learnt a very impt thing there, NEVER let meijia belay you if ur climbing sth really high or dangerous. Your life could be in danger. She was belaying yenlin i think and when she went "squeeze check", she squeezed the carabiner and it wasn't locked! x) We practiced pictching a basha and it turned out somewhat screwed. lucky we didn't have to sleep in it that night. At night, we bathed, ate dinner and attended some funny medical talk. The male nurse who briefed us kept going "Basically... basically..." and lots of us were laughing. Had a night circle thingum after the briefing and we talked about non-philosophical stuff before chu ai came. Went to have supper (green bean soup) and sleep after the night circle.

Day 2 16 Jan 07
We had to wake up bloody early (5 am) in order to make it for physical training at like 5.55 am. I think our watch arrived slightly late though. The warmups and exercises were all pretty lame but tiring. The run was urghh. wished i could stop running because of my stitches but completed it. We had kayaking lessons after breakfast and it was fun and disgusting. Kayaking with your partner was fun, but going into and capsizing on purpose into the flithy sea and getting gravel and sand into your shoes are positively disgusting. We also had a taste of how heavy kayaks could be, how tough going against the current is and how far it can push you. Fiona and I were trying to keep up with Chu Ai so we paddled really hard against the current. However, we turned our heads and realized that we had been stuck in that same spot for the past few minutes! We hadn't moved from the line of the palm tree at all. We found out later after rinsing that we would be going for a sea expedition the next day. We would be paddling all the way to SEMBAWANG lah. It looked extremely far on the map they showed us. What's more, we would be going AGAINST the tide for around 6 hours. Freaky. after the briefing, we packed our rations tents ponchos mess tins into the 2 plastic bins. After dinner, we went for the Vertical Challenge Activity. We were supposed to climb these two climbing structures and get points. We also had to set a goal. Ours was 2500 points. so we started climbing. Meijia yenlin fiona me erika erjia jiayi and jingya did the snake and ladder one first. Other than the first connection being a little hard, it was quite okay. Fiona nearly forgot to wear her helmet before climbing! lol However, we watched the people doing the triple-d and they looked like they were struggling. We were all like "oh dear, i don't think we can reach our goal." Surprisingly, after a few more people climbed, we started to chalk up loads of points (: Meijia Fiona me Eliza Nicole and a few others managed to complete the triple-d, which was logs strung above each other horizontally. It was really hard to pull yourself up we realized. But we kept cheering each other on. Nicole was so good! She only managed 3 logs the first time round but she didn't give up and when she tried again, she finished the whole thing! yay nicole and yay everyone cuz we exceeded our grp goal by like 1150 points! we got 3650 points in the end! and andrea's triangular smiley! we had night circle and had to pack our personal belongings for the sea ex. Everyone passed forward their own ziploc bag and andrea started squeezing them into the bin. It wouldn't fit so we had to repack over and over again.

Day 3 17 Jan 07 - Sea expedition day 1!
woke up at 4.30 cuz we had planned to set off at 8 plus in order to make full use of the good tide. The four sea ex grps gathered and we had a briefing and everyone had to say one word of blessing. i said "DINNER!" then we set off. Tze qing melanie and laura/carolyn were our navigators. Beatrice and laura/carolyn were our left markers, li hui and yishan right markers and jan and rachel sweepers. Fiona and i tried to stay with jan and rachel to accompany them but i think we didn't half the time. sorry! anyway, for the first part of the journey, channel crossing, we saw like a million dead fish floating around. It was DAMN gross. After that, we just had to follow the navigators in a diamond formation but it didn't really work cuz the fast were too fast and the slow too slow. We kept trying to ask them to stop but the difference was too big. We passed punggol jetty and since jan and rachel were behind trying to get ppl to hurry up, we joined them and kept "hooking up to drift". We sped up later in order not drift back so much while we ate lunch. Lunch for us was... a kaya bun! Fiona and I paddled really hard, then stopped and took a bite. then we paddled and stopped again for another bite and so on. Poor fiona started getting sunburnt as i think she had sensitive skin. I had rolled up my sleeves to not get a funny tan but it didn't really work. The breakwater part was so loonngg and really got lots of us down. no matter how hard we paddled, it seemed like we were still at the same place. of course, the tide against us was really strong then. oh, and i had to pee in the water. feels weird :/ so anyway, we paddled for like 8-9 hours or 22km before reaching sembawang where we set up camp. i realized i was sunburnt only when i reached shore. -.- i kept on bobbing too. Chu Ai taught us how to cook first and my gas lighter came in handy! Then some ppl went to cook dinner while the rest of us pitched bashas. Our first basha turned out really great. The top of it didn't sag at all. the 2nd one was almost as good. (: I think our tents looked the best out of all the rest. we had to finish the 2nd one in the dark though. we had dinner which i guess was passable. crunchy rice with curry chicken mushrooms and anchovies. we had to pee in the grass and change under ponchos. it must have been the dirtiest day of my life. Eight of us slept in one basha and we were packed like sardines. i couldn't turn if i wanted to and woke up every hour. Sentry duty was scary. the ppl before us was like telling us there are wild dogs there there and there! like under the kayaks and it was freezing.

Day 4 18 Jan 07 - Sea expedition Day 2!
we had peanut butter bread for breakfast and packed up. packing up was funny. heh (: i didn't want to get sunburnt anymore so i wore long pants and a shirt with quite long sleeves. then i wrapped the remaining part of my arm with a shirt and towel. but they got soaked and felt like weights. the journey back was much better, the tide just pushed us forward and we reached in a mere 3 hours. we managed the diamond formation too cuz the fast ppl waited. Some ppl like lihui and yishan got caught in fishing lines and most ppl got swept towards the kelong. Fiona and i nearly got stuck there but we escaped. we rafted up against the speedboat while waiting to go to shore and fiona and i were thinking that if we were the last, we wouldn't have to carry kayaks. so we tried to be the last. while waiting, i talked to my cousin's cousin, kristabella. i think it was the first time in 2-3 years we actually talked. (: we had to go to shore at last but we still had to help carry. pooh. oh, we couldn't do jetty jump as well. ): but after unloading everything, we had to carry it all up to the dorms. we decided it was stupid to carry up all the water in the bottles up so we had a water fight. We just splashed water at each other and got really soaked but it was super fun. we brought all the stuff up and had to wash them. erika meijia and i washed the bottles and jerry cans. Then later, when we had to wash the tarps and groundsheets, meijia, andrea and i had a very painful experience. we laughed for at least one solid hour till our throats and stomachs hurt. The three of us just laughed and laughed and laughed while washing. Washing was never so fun (: The story goes like this. Andrea and i held up the tarp while meijia put her thumb under the tap and sprayed. then andrea went "meijia, stop peeing!" and we started laughing. it just went on and on till ppl told us to shut up. it was very very fun and funny :D whats more, during dinner, meijia brought out a pack of orange juice powder and we laughed again. concentrated pee! we made it and it tasted really good. so i thought we should name it. it was at first WAMPEE but then we changed it to MAWPEE! cuz Meijia Andrea Wanting and everyone would go "i want MAW pee!" the more you drink, the maw you pee! Haha. and so the name stuck. meijia even split it all over herself while laughing. i think everyone thought we were crazy. yilin even asked me whether i hit my head. we had our last circle and everyone had to read out from their journal. it's kinda sad but it wasn't the end yet. we got or photos too. yay! fiona looks spasticated and meijia was a hairball. heh.

since it was the last night, a few of us didn't want to sleep early. Jan rachel jiaying fiona nicole me and i think one or two others stayed up to talk and eat. i slept next to the door and was scared chu ai would come in so i put my bags on the bed and covered it with my blanket. we talked about random stuff until 12.30 and all of us slept.

Day 5 19 Jan 07 - Last day
okay, woke up today and packed everything. we went for breakfast and i was traumatized by sth really gross. >.< (meijia got it too) you don't want to know what happened, really. We prepared for our performance after breakfast. It was about the four instructors and what we learnt with jan as chu ai, fiona as lum, andrea as wee and rachel as serene. It was really really funny and good during our rehearsals but was a little screwed during the actually thing.

"Dayung sampan, dayung dayung sampan..."

"Row row row your boat, roughly down the sea, throw your instructor overboard, listen to him scream!" yay.

but nevermind (: Before performances, we gathered as a class again and the teachers came. sharon siow came. then we had sucky station games. i'm sorry to say that cuz they planned this for a year but it was really kind of boring. we played like 3 games before getting lost as to where we were supposed to go. then we just hung around till it was time to gather for the teachers' performance. It was quite sad though. So many of them trooped down to pulau ubin just to race 15m or sth on wooden boards. I can't say i was thrilled about their item. Then we had rations for lunch while the teachers had a buffet. so not fair. the dry food we were given tastes much much better on the sea. They gave us packs of mawpee too but i didn't get to keep it. hmph meijia. then we watched a short video of our time at OBS and had the performances. it got really sad after that as the instructor announced that we were officially dismissed. We went back to the dorms after failing to find chu ai and found her there instead. Meijia andrea and i went to hug the pee-pole and turned it on for the last time and laughed. We gathered our bags and went back down to the hall where i hugged all the 315 ppl in my watch. we proceeded to the jetty and left OBS and pulau ubin.

On the way back on the bus, i got a little emo and teared a bit. OBS to me actually felt like a getaway from normal life. i didn't have to think about homework or studies at all. in real life, every hour of my life has been planned out but in OBS, you hardly know what you're doing the next day. Also, in OBS, you do all sorts of things with your friends like kayaking or washing while in school, you just study or go out together. As cheesy as it sounds, OBS has really affected me. We really had to work together to complete things and if just one person gives up, the whole group can't succeed. All of us complained and grumbled loads but we still came together to succeed in the end. Helping each other out really makes the difference. I made many new friends, learnt many new things and did many things with them. 309 and 315 are really wonderful classes with wonderful people and 315 have the nicest geps ever. i'm seriously missing OBS life with Sui Sen. We were a marvellous watch. It was lovely being in OBS with you all: Fiona Yenlin Meijia Erika Rachel Jan Andrea Eliza Joyce Aera Nicole Erjia Jiayi Jingya and Jiaying. We must keep in contact kay? and sign up for a mobile course together next time. (:

To wrap up this extremely long post, i shall put down some very memorable moments in OBS and Sui Sen.
1. "Call me five minutes later when everyone is here. I'll be in the office."
2. the sui sen ready, sui sen pull!
3. all the circles we had
4. waiting for everyone to sit down before eating
5. always trying to chope tables in heaven for meals
6. being late for almost everything
7. everyone screaming when we went into the water (and achieved our grp goal)
8. grumbling while walking about how far away the dorms are
9. climbing and cheering each other on
10. kayaking and peeing in the sea together
11. screaming about the ridiculous insects in the dorm and toilet
12. bobbing together
13. pitching bashas in the dark
14. wearing ponchos to pee and change
15. the awesome taste of apollo and kaya buns on the sea
16. our water fight (where so many ppl dumped water on me)
17. MAWPEE! and the solid hour of laughing
18. meijia and MATTHIAS CHIA hahahahaha
19. the sight of all the poor sunburnt people
20. the spastic instructors: Lum and Wee with his indecent fbts
21. CANT TOUCH THIS! (:

22. HENCE, we learnt teamwork, determination, perseverance and optimism!

23. going on sea ex with tock seng, barker and washington.

24. every moment i spent with the best watch of all, SUI SEN

that's it. i love you, SS. and i wish you enough.