Wishing for a miracle to happen each day

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Day 1:

We arrived at OBS by boat!!! Split up into our groups and realised that my group members who will go through with me for the next 5 days were: Claire, Pris, Joyce, Sophia, Wanting, Siew Hwee, Pei En, Wangjia, Yu Chong, Edwin, Yan Sheng, Chern Yi, Wilson, Zi Kang, Ming Ze.

Together, we are Nila Utama Watch!!!

1st off, water activities, with the TRIYAKS. o.o ppl hear of kayaks but honestly, this is the first time I have heard of triyaks. triyaks are essentially 3 person kayaks (:

The back of the triyak needed to be knocked with extreme force. coz there are people who live in there...ants, crockroaches and even lizards. YUCKS.

During the kayaking lesson, we learnt how to capsize (capsize drills to be exact). Darn cool. except my eyes were never the same after that...salty sea!!!

hahas...then played catching and such...on triyaks. with pris and wanting!!! SO FUN!!!
wakakakas...then we got to BATHE.

OBS toilets are way BETTER than RV's. RV, you ought to be ashamed...

ohs. then b4 we got to bathe, we had to pitch tents and cook...DARN it. we put food outside our store then when we came back, ALL GONE.
=> lesson learnt: never leave your things unattended...they get STOLEN.
anyway, cooking outdoors and tentpitching we guides do before, then knots also easy to tie (:

Day 2:

Rock climbing/ Belaying time!!!
hahas...as a rock climber with prior knowledge...it is REVISION (:
helped quite a few people with FIGURE 8...
felt great helping people you know?
and looking at people conquer their fears of heights was an experience...

Trust fall...
As the name suggests, you need to trust the other 15 members to catch you when you fall back first from the platform...
although I was fearful at first, upon seeing how others could do it, I did it too...
guess it was just like I didn't trust the others enough at first...there were loads of whatifs running through my mind...

Then, we packed our bag and went map reading and trekking...
you could say we revised geog, but blehhs, I as a geog student was not doing the bulk, being the main player...seems like the guys had better sense of direction...

Played the pulling the ''victim'' game...kind of fun, guess that it was this which made us bond together...even when the instructor said that it was the last few seconds, we persevered on and pushed and continued, until he said due to our team spirit, he was inclined to give us an extension of 7 mins (if I didn't rmb wrongly)

That night, we pitched tents on the sand. and there was no toilets. the toilet is the ground, you need to dig. Not helping that something else was *occuring*.

Day 3:

Continued our hike to camp 1.
We had checkpoints to reach and spent alot of time on the one near the gravestone. Sorry guys, it's all my fault. I was the one who reached the gravestone first and thought that gravestones were taboo etcetc.

=>learnt not to be deterred by our fears and beliefs, for they may not always be correct...

Ohs. and we made a promise to the whole watch that we are not going to put down the heavy backpacks until we found the checkpoints. Not helping that Syed kept asking us why were we there? why are we not looking and moving as a group? But I guess, it was his sacarsm which pushed us to the limits, wanting to show him and prove to the rest that we CAN keep the promise. We did.

Due to the rain, we had to don ponchos and move back to camp 2, coz there was lightning.

After the rain, we continued our journey to Camp 1.
Walao.
The teachers had been camping at this heavenly site for the first few days and they nvr told us!!!

Anyway, next was Double Dangling Duo, some rope element that was like a ladder with rungs of logs and held up by chains? with the rung intervals increasing as you went higher.

One guy partners a gal, so ya, did the element with Edwin. We eventually went up to the top and STOOD up, becoming the first pair to stand up (: but yoz, couldn't have done it without you, Edwin... [He was pulling me up the last rung, but the first few I climbed it myself ok... (:]

Yars, then Mr Suria was yabbling about C.G. and moments and how I must lower the C.G. in order to stand up, blahblah. he even went to the extent to telling Edwin: "If you stand up, I will give you extra CCA points." LOL. and I shouted: "Then what about me???" He replied: "I will give you higher physics marks." ahahs. you'd better keep your promise!!! hahas

=> learnt that practical and theory of physics is totally, utterly different. when you are up there, who cares about the physics behind le??? I am coming for OBS, not physics practical!!! (:

Coming down was fun. just had to 'Sit on my harness' chicken feet...

then later canteen food!! dinner and supper was great coz we finally didn't have to cook nor clean the pot. (:

So sad that that night they didn't let us use the dorms in camp 1.
we camped outside camp 1, by the sea. the sea breeze was GREAT!!

Day 4:

SEA EXPEDITION DAY!!!
kayaked 17km to get from camp 1 to camp 2 again. nearly went round the WHOLE Pulau Ubin. FYI, P. Ubin is bigger than Sentosa ok...

I was partnered with Wilson and Yan Sheng...it's thanks to you guys that I had fun kayaking (:

we took like 8hrs?started at 8 am and ended at 4pm. (with a 1 hr break from about 10 to 11 am coz of rain)

yar, so we met with a thunderstorm? beached up outside NPCC camp. and some ppl are totally mad. outside a security camera (:

after that thunderstorm and such, the weather gave us a TOTAL change. it became SUPER hot.

Luckily other than a little spot on my nose, I am totally intact and not burnt.

We finally reached the Camp 1hr earlier!! hahas estimated time was 5pm earliest lor (:

Next, Syed brought us to one side and asked us to pick up a little pebble/stone. He said: "think of what stuff you want to throw away. It is this rock.You will throw it into the sea later as you take your jetty jump. Come up as a totally new person.(or something along that line)"

It was really emotional. and he was inspirational. Now I finally know the true meaning of inspirational.

Day 5:

PACK PACK TIME!!! yepp...came down from 101 steps to the store to clean up and stuff...
after doing all that, we did Trust Dive, in order touch the bell. No one except Edwin did it. coz Syed said to stand on the top step and visualise the bell as our goal. He says, don't be discouraged, you may get your goal in future. IF you didn't touch the bell, think whether you had the confidence to get your goal in the first place.

Then did reflections and our TREE! Syed, we'll always remember you via your teachings. In memory of Syed, we put a nice BIG poem at the bottom of the tree as part of the roots. Syed, we miss you and will always remember you! Oh and we gave him a heart card too (:

Got myself a OBS tee and a keychain (:
OBS tee is NICE.

Over this camp, I believe everyone lost their guy-gal childish thinkings. we were thinking, we are a GROUP, a WATCH, not an INDIVIDUAL.
in the end, we gals and the guys all mixed as one and sat together. now that's an achievement.
That's alot of psychology involved.

Tomorrow, we return to school. whether this has an impact we'll know tomorrow. Thanks guys, for everything.

HPDH
on a brighter note, I chionged HPDH yesterday.
It rawks and I'm satisfied with the ending!
ahahhas.
Harry didn't die.
Ron didn't die.
Hermione didn't die.
Lupin died.
Snape died.
Voldemort died.
Malfoys survived.
Dumbledore is dead but became alive in spirit.
Fred and George are no longer who they once were.

My snape-dumby prophecy came true!! exactly the way I once thought of it.
and my prediction is right. harry was helped by snape. and malfoy didn't detest him (:

kkz. ppl who haven't read it, you should read it.
cyas!!

~10:49 am

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