wheew.. exams are next week.. can't wait for exams to end.. diploma lectures was re-scheduled again.. we are having our first lecture on the sat of the same week that we finish our exams!! dang.. can't slack much.. hahahah oh well.. omg i hate physics!! :(

Aaron

yeps.. must mug like mad this few days.. anywyay.. the rifles have arrived!! omg those metal cased ones are dang nice!!! the wooden ones are not so good though.. rather off balance and slippery.. hahahaha yeps after exams we're gonna paint and number them!! :D

ooh met lydia at the bus stop yesterday.. hahahaha yeps.. dang peninsula didn't have the thing i wanted.. on the way back, there was this accident on the highway that caused an hour of jam.. and the bus was dang cold.. funny how buses are dang cold when it's raining or when there's a jam.. hahahahha


saw this on xiangan's blog and decided to do.. hahahhaha

Yeps.. wowowowowowo

Aaron

tomorrow's the start of a new term and it's onl 2 weeks and 2 days more to final years!!! omgomgomgomg k i'm gonna start mugging from now till then.. hahahahahha need motivation which happens to be my birthday(which falls on sept 22)!!! *hint hahahahahha

YAY my mum bought me a new school bag!! i hope the rifles have arrived.. hope i don't get any fibreglass splinters stuck in my skin when i use them..

lalalala dang i think i better go finish up my chinese newspaper cutting now... yeps.. :D

Aaron

OBS DAY 1

wheew.. arrived at the jetty at round 7.45.. thanks to xiangan's dad who helped fetched sean and i to the jetty.. hahahhahah yeps saw lots of sad faces there.. hahahaha we gathered in our watches and proceeded off to pulau ubin..

my watch is Kurt Hann, kurt for short.. kurt hann is the founder of Outward Bound School.. we have 14 people in kurt, namely Bryant, Clement, Brendan, Francis, Ronald, Bryan, Darell, Stanley, Randy, Vivaldi, Keith, Azriel, Daniel and me, Aaron. Our instructor is Narfeeza or Narf for short.. The rest of the instructors are Zippy, Yvonne and Abidin. only four watches are going to be in camp 1: Kurt, Bo Seng, Munshi and Marshall. the other 16 watches will squeeze in camp 2.

Camp 1 was dang nice.. looks like a villa from the outside.. We were shown to our dormitories where we could store our bags.. cos camp 2 had to sleep in tents, we had to sleep in tents instead of dorms.. hahahaha the dorms were dang nice. It's kinda like a bungalow, with 3 levels, spilt into 2 for 2 watches.. dang cool.. there were 2 toilets for us which we could use!! 6 showering cubicles for 30 people.. which is real good considering those in camp 2 had to share toilets with 16 watches?! hahahah feel so fortunate to be in camp 1!!!

Went to our store on the ground floor.. darrell and i were the store i.c.(s).. discovered many reasons why camp 1 is better than camp 2.. our dome tents are newer, roomier and a lot easier to fix.. All you have to do is just re-attach the collapsible tent poles and pull.. the tents in camp 2 are the A-shaped tents, which required a lot of tying and knotting and it's smaller, older and looks very fragile.. hahahahaha so YAY for camp 1!!! our backpacks are newer and our store is a whole lot bigger than those in camp 2.. yeps..

After packing, we went for lunch in the canteen!!!! Yeps, heard those in camp 2 had to start eating their rations.. that's another reason why camp 1 is better!! i feel so fortunate to be in camp 1.. :D

After lunch, we were shown the 24hr medical centre before proceeding to play some trust-your-friends game such as the blade of grass and the trust fall.. hahahaha omg when the first person dropped, my head snapped forward in a whiplash effect.. and that person was only the lightest one.. we were all quite scared of clement falling cos he's the heaviest.. but he survived.. actually everyone did.. afterwards we went for "belaying school" as narf puts it.. pitched our tents cos we were done with our activities.. hahahahha we were the first watch there so we could choose where we wanted to pitch our tents!! :D hahahaha then it was dinner!! had our first lesson on trash management and conserving the environment.. hahahahahha

we had a briefing about the medical pouch by abidin, who loves saying stuff like "this is the moment when u guys go wow.." then when we go "wow..", he goes "good boys.." hahahahhahahha spastic..

Yeps, that's bout all for day 1!! Camp 1 rocks!!

Aaron

OBS DAY 2

wheew.. woke up at 0555 today.. rather tired.. had our very first p.t. which was very unique.. hahahahhaha yeps.. we were supposed to do high elements today.. but it started raining like mad and we had to retreat to the multi purpose hall to use the high elements there..

so according to narf, we had to fulfill the roles of being climber, belayer, assistant belayer, anchor, rope manager, knot helper and motivator in order for us to earn our OBS wristband which will certify us as "rangers" for land expedition the following day.. yeps.. so we were climbing the swaying rock wall and we had to do it with a partner.. the rain was being blown by the strong winds into the hall.. wow.. really bad weather today.. almost like a typhoon!!

so after our high elements, when the rain finally ended, we lunched and proceeded to trek on to camp 2.. i was the i.c. or chief navigator and luckily, i didn't get the whole group lost.. hahahahha XD when we reached camp 2, we went for our kayaking lesson with the rest of the camp 1 watches.. it was quite fun.. they taught us those capsize and rescue drills.. omg poor francis, out of everyone the jellyfish chose to sting him.. dang unlucky.. and stanley's head got hit by a paddle.. ouch..

yeps, after dinner for our circle, narf presented us with our wristbands!!! ours was red, Bo Sheng's was orange, Munshi's was blue or yellow and Marshall's was yellow or blue.. hahahahahah i don't think the camp 2 watches got any wristbands.. though i heard from xiangan who's in camp 2 that some of them got it.. oh well.. camp 1 still rocks!! :D

my wristband!!! oh the words engraved on it are "OUTWARD BOUND SINGAPORE"

Aaron

OBS DAY 3

Woke up at 05 55 as usual and assembled on the big "H" of the parade square.. did the usual p.t. and wake-your-friends-up games but this time we played some really weird squirrel game.. right.. hahahahhaha omg zippy has some seriously crazy ideas..

so today was land expedition.. we were no longer normal participants.. we were now rangers.. hahahahhaha according to abidin that is.. yeps, bryant, vivaldi and i were made the land expedition leaders.. i was the chief navigator.. yeps.. so we were about to set off when it started raining and cat 1 warning was issued.. so we all lazed around under the shed opposite the instructors' lodge and most of us just slept.. craps, woke up with a rather stiff neck from sleeping on the ground.. then it was finally time to go!! We gathered up all our backpacks, tents and sticks and started doing pacing..

while we were walking through the forest in search of the 4 checkpoints that will lead us to the "hidden oasis", we started singing and azriel and keith started doing spongebob imitations.. hahahahhahaha both of them were really spastic.. poor keith, he was literally spamming himself with insect repellent but those mozzies still came.. woots.. we got a bit lost while finding our first checkpoint cos i read the map wrongly.. XD so we had to seek some help from narf and backtrack to the junction to go and search for another trail.. finally we found it.. took us a while to find the small yellow sign pegged to the tree.. then we had to play an activity to earn our clue for that checkpoint.. it's called key punch.. basically we arranged our life vests in random order and we had to punch the numbers on the life vests in order without verbal or physical communications..

That's our first clue!! contained a map piece..

so onto our second checkpoint which was found a rather short distance away from the first.. we had to play a game called tarp flip.. basically flipping the tarp over onto its other side without anyone touching the ground.. fortunately, my watch has only 14 people as compared to the usual 16 for other watches, so that made doing the tarp flip easier..

2nd clue!! contained 3 pieces of cardboard with 3 letters on each "S", "A" and 'N"

next checkpoint was freaking faraway.. all the way to the other side of pulau ubin.. passed the reservoir again.. omg had to push everyone on because we were running out of time.. we had to be back in camp 1 by 3.30 p.m... yeps.. so went to the jetty.. couldn't really find the sign.. calculated coordinates and double checked still couldn't find it.. narf told us to look nearer the jetty.. did so and found the sign!! i think the coordinates were slightly off.. cos we were at least 30m from the sign.. we didn't do our activity there in the forest cos it was too cramped.. went back to camp 1, where our last checkpoint was, to do it.. the 3rd activity was called "stone jungle". basically each of us picking up a stone each and by only using our left hands, passing it around the circle without any dropping for 3 consecutive times.. hahahahah we had a lot of fun doing this..

that's our 3rd activity.. it contained a paper that stated "look for a weaved cube"..

finally our 4th checkpoint was somewhere in camp 1.. found it at the place outside the multi purpose hall.. that was where we played the "stone jungle" and "helium stick", which was our last activity. for helium stick we had to lower a hula-hoop from chest level to the ground using only one index finger.. completed it after a few tries..

4th clue.. received a paper that said "one for all, all for one" which is basically the words etched onto the wall behind us... hahahha

so albeit being a bit lost and tired, we managed to reach all 4 checkpoints, complete all 4 activities and yet still coming in FIRST!!! YAY FOR KURT!! hahahahaha in fact we were so early, narf asked us to go back to our dormitories and shower first..

went down to the canteen for a warm, cooked and proper dinner!!! hahahahaha after dinner, narf brought us to our 1st night campsite and explained what has happened to 2 watches from camp 2: apparently they got lost while out on sea expedition and were tri-yaking through a mangrove swamp.. the tides changed and the water receded so they were left paddling on mud.. they had to start carrying their tri-kayaks through mud and they were on the other side of pulau ubin facing johore.. without dry clothing, tents and food.. their instructors radioed for help and the 4 camp 1 watches: Bo Sheng, Marshal, Munshi and Kurt(us) were asked to help carry their back packs and tents from the camp 1 site to the safety boat so the 2 watches that were stuck could at least make camp somewhere.. we were all quite worried bout the 2 watches cos trudging through mud and carrying a tri-yak is so not fun at all.. Later on(the next day), we found out that they had actually walked around 1.6km carrying their tri-yaks and found a npcc campsite that was nice enough to give them shelter for a night.. so they got to shower and sleep in bunks.. hahahahahah we all thought that they would have to sleep in their tri-yaks and in wet mdudy clothes.. but cheers to them!!

so after helping move the stuff onto the safety boats, we gathered at "orchard road" to try to solve the location of the "hidden artifact" using the clues that each watch had earned.. the map piece showed the island of pulau ubin and a part of singapore, the letters added up to "SEMBAWANG", the pieces of paper gave a brief outline of the route and every watch received the same "one for all, all of one" paper.. so we had to travel to sembawang during our sea expedition and find "a weaved cube".. Before dismissing us for supper(yeps.. warm delicious supper!!!), the instructors asked each watch to nominate 2 guys who will be the sea expedition leaders for the following 2 days.. oh and the hidden oasis that abidin was talking about referred to the toilets found in camp 1.. err right..

we got warm green bean soup for supper.. yummy!! :D hahahhahaha ronald and i were the 2 nominated from Kurt(our watch) to be the sea expedition leaders, Munshi nominated amerpal and gabriel, Marshall nominated edmond and arun, Bo Seng nominated jia lei and sean. when everyone else had been briefed on what to bring the next morning and dismissed, the 8 sea expedition leaders had to stay back and discuss the positions.. jia lei and sean would be the navigators cos both of them are in scouts, edmond and arun were the port side markers, amerpal and gabriel were the starboard side markers and ronald and i were the sweepers.. hahahahahahah with that, we had to go back to our dormitories and start packing..

OBS DAY 4

today's the day for our sea expedition!! woke up at 0500 to bring all the equipment down from our dormitories store to the "one for all, all of one" place.. my back was aching like crap cos i slept on a dang rock throughout the whole night..

met at 0555 for morning p.t. and wake-your-friends-up games.. coool!! i met bryan lauw and wenhan!! hahahhaha they were in shackleton.. met back at the "one for all, all for one" place to start briefing and wearing life vests.. there was a sea expedition leaders gathering and Yvonne told us the guidelines on what to brief them about and we had to discuss and come up with the details.. i was appointed the spokesperson for the sea expedition leaders which meant i will convey what we have discussed to the rest of the fleet.. after the briefing we were all ready to start moving the kayaks (which i kept getting mixed up with canoes until everyone corrected me.. hahahhaha), paddles and load equipment onto the boats.. had a safety briefing at the Indiana, which is dang cool.. reminded me of pirates of the caribbean..

before we got out to sea, the sea expedition leaders, (which were shortened to sea-ex leaders by the instructors, which was then shortened to S-EX or SEX leaders by the fleet..hahahahha XD, had a last briefing in which i told everyone bout the plan for the diamond shape and did a final cheer which went something like, Me: "Are you guys ready?" The rest: "yes..." Me: "i can't hear you.." The rest: "lol u deaf arh?" Me: "walao.." hahahhahhahah i got jacked by the rest... hahahahhah

then it was time to go!! as planned, the navigators, port side markers and starboard markers would go out to sea first, then the rest would follow fill in the spaces to try to create a diamond shape.. ronald and i would be the last to push off cos we were sweepers.. the route was to head for camp 2 first as a warm-up and then head to coney island and then on to sembawang.. while heading back to camp 1, it started raining and it was a cat 1 which meant heavy rain and lightning.. so we beached up back at camp 1.. and waited till 1230 for cat 1 to pass.. during that time, the sea ex leaders had to get together to discuss the break times, lunch times, route and expectations of the fleet..according to Yvonne, at 1400, the tides will be against us at a resistance of 0.4.. which meant we had to paddle doubly hard and gain as much ground as possible.. before leaving, we had another briefing with the fleet where i told the fleet bout the currents and the break times.. finally it was time to go.. before we left, i tried doing another cheer in which i got jacked again just like above.. hahahhahaha

the channel crossing was quite fun.. hahahhahaha the instructors were shouting at us to keep going before a ship came and ram us.. hahahahhaha we reached coney island and started our journey!! hahahahhah being sweeper is really quite fun.. u just have to keep up with the last kayak.. and the last kayak usually moves dang slow.. omg and the navigators were always moving fast so the gap widened between the front and the back.. so occasionally, we would ask the navigators to slow down.. which they didn't really do.. hahahhahha i think the whole fleet was pissed at the navigators for going so fast..

at round 4 plus.. we stopped for a break in which the instructors called for a sea-ex leaders briefing.. they told us that we only covered around half the distance in 3 hours plus and reaching sembawang before sunset was impossible due to the speed at which the whole fleet travelled.. besides from 1700 to 1800, the resistance of the tides would increase from 0.4 to 0.7.. they gave us a choice of either returning to camp 1 or continuing on to sembawang.. we voted 6:1:1(neutral) to go back to camp 1.. so we went back and rafted up in the 4 separate watches.. i told kurt that i had good news and bad news.. the bad news is we had only travelled half the distance and we need to travel that distance again.. omg every one's faces immediately dropped.. but the good news is we were going back to camp 1.. at that moment, it took a while for the words to register in every one's brains.. their faces immediately lit up and everyone was raring to go.. hahahahha

so we turn our kayaks around and set off for camp 1.. it was much easier this time round cos the tides was pushing us forward rather than backwards.. did the channel crossing as before and the instructors suddenly asked everyone to gather.. i knew we were going to do something else cos obs never cancels an activity without replacing it with another.. they told us that we had a choice: go back to camp 1, have a nice shower and eat and sleep, OR go to camp 2, where we can experience what others went through like no showering cos all our towels were left in camp 1.. of course, everyone wanted to go back to camp 1 but in the end we went to camp 2.. hahahahaha the way they proposed the options was slanted towards us choosing to go to camp 2.. so there's not much of an option..

yeps, so beached up at camp 2 at around 1905.. realised we kayaked for 6+ hours.. had to drag the kayaks and paddles up to the area outside the boat shed.. joel peed in his shorts duirng the briefing cos he drank too much water and his urine kidna dripped onto the floor and congregated in a puddle.. yeah.. then went to pitch our tents in the dark and ate in the dark.. i think camping at camp 2 was a better idea cos we could meet our friends from the rest of the 16 watches based at camp 2.. hahaha met george, kevin, xiangan, dinesh, bryan lauw, chris, john, amos etc.. found out that the watch, cheng ho, and some others have never been to camp 1.. which is so sad.. hahahahaha kevin was wearing this kodak towel as a cape and was like "nein, ich bin kodak man" when i asked him whether he was spiderman.. hahahhahah met back at the boatshed for a final debriefing and packing and went straight back to our tents to sleep..omg i went to xiangan's tent and realised the tents that camp 2 watches used was seriously small and clustered.. our dome tents were so much bigger and nicer as compared to theirs..

Yeps..

-Aaron

OBS DAY 5!!

Yeps, so today we woke up at 05 55 again for the usual routine of p.t. and waking-your-friends-up games.. most of us were all like jelly fish, just floating around cos we were mostly too tired from yesterday's sea expedition.. so after breakfast in which Bo Seng took our digestives biscuits, we started preparing for the return to camp 1 by loading all the bins and tents onto the safety boats.. once again sea-ex leaders had to gather and start supervising.. that's one thing bad about being a leader for this kinda stuff, you want to help your friends carry the stuff but the instructors want to hear your voice supervising them.. there's a conflict in the roles you must play and some people will comment on your eye power.. oh well..

yeps, so we set off from camp 2 to camp 1 with me and ronald being the sweepers again.. helped push off the kayaks before we set off.. the instructors tried to make us form a diamond shape but to no avail.. it's nearly impossible to form a diamond shape in the sea.. it was an easy 20 mins paddle to camp 1 where we had to beach up, wash the kayaks, paddles and life vests and once again, we had to unload the safety boat and some complained of tired eyes from all that eye power.. hahahahha XD john foo's sunblock kinda spilled out during the paddling and he had SPF 50 sunblock all over his left butt.. it looked like winter on his shorts.. hahhahaha

then we had to gather for a circle and the sea-ex leaders were called upon to give the group a final de-brief and what they taught bout the whole expedition and i was like "i believe each and everyone of us here has done very well so we all deserve a round of applause" hahahahhah then the instructors wanted the whole fleet to describe the expedition in 3 words and our infamous navigator jia lei said, "damn pro navigator" to which we all clapped and said "good joke" hahahahahaha did a final josephian cheer and proceeded to bring our stuff back to our dormitories store.. oh the "weaved cube" that we were supposed to find is actually friendship!! friendship forged during the sea expedition weaves us together.. real meaningful..

ronald and i quickly grabbed 28 bottles from the cluster of bottles on the ground.. Bo Seng saw what we were doing and did the same.. hahahahhah we carried the water bottles back to the store.. it was freaking heavy.. we decided to pour away the water inside since we would be doing that later on as well.. then it became sooo light we could make it swing round and round the bamboo pole..Yeps.. so back at stall, i had to supervise as the store i.c. some went to wash the camping equipment while i checked the quantity of the store items.. found we were missing four bottles, 1 compass, 1 whistle, 1 tent peg.. hahahah had to run around grabbing stuff and ended up we only lost 4 bottles and 1 tent peg.. which the whole watch paid $3.40 for.. omg munshi lost 1 bagpack.. which meant the whole watch had to pay $120 for the backpack.. like omg how can a watch lose a bagpack? it's so big?! Yeps, by the time we were done scrubbing the toilets upstairs and packing the store, we were late by 1 hour.. according to zippy and narf, the canteen stopped serving at 1245.. so when we got there at around 1245, they were still serving!! so zippy and narf had lied to make us move faster.. hahahahah had a very delicious lunch in the canteen, making it the 4th provided meal over the stretch of 5 days.. hahahahhaha feel so lucky to be in camp 1.. those in camp 2 can't enjoy so many cooked meals!! :D

met back at the multi purposee hall for the last activity.. we were supposed to do a final last element but because we overshot the timing by an hour, the activity was switched to souvenir shopping!! hahahha we rushed to the souvenir shop and started choosing.. daniel bought one of everything.. from the stitch on badge to the keychain to the giant mug to the round neck and collared shirts to the pencil case.. hahaha crazy dude.. i bought 1 round neck and 1 collared shirt.. they didn't have the black collared shirt on hand so i chose white.. dang should have gotten the royal blue one.. hahhahahaha it's dang fun to shop!!

went back to the hall for a final briefing and received our certs and stickers.. took the symphony boat back to punggol point jetty at around 3.20 for dismissal.. hahahahahhah said bye to the instructors.. kinda sad.. cos narf was a really good instructor.. hahahha omg zippy being hyper as usual, tried to turn on the radio on the boat for us.. she accidentally unlatched the radio control from the radio set itself so it dropped to the floor.. then when she finnally switched the radio on, she played classical music for a while before tuning to FM98.7 cos we were all dying.. hahahahahhahha


My cert!!

hahahaha yeps so went home and had a nice normal dinner.. yay!! i only suffered 3 mosquitoes bites for the whole camp!!! :) hahahahhahahha obs was real fun!! :D

-Aaron