Came back from OBS!!!~


Day 1

School teacher said to meet at 7am. I reached at 6.30am. I sat at the cafe with a few friends until 7am. We were then sorted into groupings at 7.30am and departed school at 8am. I ended up in a group named Munshi. I find the name really cute. XD The instructor was Bibiana. Group members are Adriel, Fiona, Atiqah, Jie Han, WeiCheng, John, CaiLing, YiXin, LeTing, Norris, Yong Yuan, Cherlyn, Edwin and me.

We didn't do much on day 1, as of every day 1 of camps. We just had some icebreaker games and stuff. We did trust fall, belaying and pitched our tents in some super duper ulu part of the forest.

At night they had some fire drill but we were ignorant about it so we ended up 14 minutes late. After the drill, we cooked our first pot of rice. The pot wasn't big enough so I couldn't put enough water so the watch ended up with super sticky half cooked rice. Sorry guys. DX


Day 2

We started off the day with PT in the morning. Very fun doing the dodo dance. “dodo dodo dodododododo”. XD

Next we went for a high elements activity. Thanks to my partner Norris, who practically carried me like a heavy sack of rice up the logs, we managed to reach the top log. But sadly I was scared so I forgot to look at the scenery from up there. Sigh...

After that we kayaked to our campsite for the second night. I got my first ever sand fly bite there. So memorable and itchy! There wasn’t a toilet for bathing so I put much powder and deodorant and mosquito repellent. XD
We cooked instant noodles for dinner with torch lights. After that we had to do sentry duty from 12am to 1am. Saw the big black dog and my legs went jelly.....

I shared a tent with Fiona and Atiqah. We were very lucky because Fiona brought mozzy coil so I was kept mozzy free for that night. BUDDEN, the mozzy net spoilt so we had to sleep in the super no air tent for the whole night.


Day 3

There was no PT in the morning but we had to unpitch our tents, eat quick breakfast and embarked on the sea expedition. Before that, YiXin, Fiona and I were volunteered to help clear up the rubbish at the campsite. After that, I shared one Tri-yak with Fiona and John. Our expedition was with Marshall so we ended up being known as M&M (Munshi and Marshall), like the chocolate. XD

At first it was easy as the paths were very obvious. Then we went into the swamp. We found ourselves at a lost because on the map they only showed a patch of swamp. No directions whatsoever. At every junction there were two or three paths. So we went in one path, saw the dead end and U-turned back. It continued for many paths. We also had to stop at weird places, carry our boats up onto the roads and went down another path to another river. This led to more mysterious paths.

Throughout the expedition, Bibi kept splashing water and throwing mud onto people. She also used our kayaks as arm rest and insisted we pull her along as we rowed. Norris was no pushover. When he got the mud from Bibi, he returned the favour with more mud and water. We really had a lot of fun seeing them "attacking" each other. We kayaked all the way from 8.30am to about 4pm.

It was earlier than expected so we were given the time to play a new game called the washing
machine. It was the most fun water game ever because we got to see people being dipped in the water and thrown in the air continuous times while the people chanted "Wash! Wash! Wash! Wash!" and finally they were being thrown 180 degrees into the water, landing with a huge splash. As the group got more and more high, the chants became "Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!" XD It was really nice to see M&M gathering as a group and sharing the happy moments together. XD

There was a toilet at campsite 3 but we were still not allowed to bathe. What is this....?
Oh yeah...And I shit 3 days worth of shit. Just felt like telling people. XD

Day 4

Trekking! Yayness! We packed our backpacks. It was light... ...NO WAY! It was heavy! Before setting off, we played beauty and the beast. It was really fun. XD We also had to carry our stuff, with poncho and sometimes groundsheets or tent or the tarp. For me, I carried a tent almost 3 quarters of the time.

Although it was very physically demanding, no one complained about the weight. We were all mesmerized by the beauty of nature that Bibi showed us along the way. There were mudskippers, wild boars that crossed our paths, snakes and very beautiful flowers.
To keep our spirits high, WeiCheng made up songs that contained the word "walk". They were very stupid but funny songs. Everyone was very encouraging and no one showed signs of giving up. We even fought with each other for more stuff to carry. Everyone put on a strong front and insisted that the weight was not a problem at all.
The objective of the trek was to find checkpoints and also to reach camp 1. We managed to find some checkpoints with the hints from Bibi and some through map reading and pure determination. Seeing that we were going to reach campsite later than the predicted time, we wanted to set off for camp 1 straight away and ignore the rest of the checkpoints. However, the group was determined to find more checkpoints so we decided to look for the checkpoints if we were really to walk pass the supposed checkpoints.

When we finally reached back at camp 1, we threw the entire load off our backs and suddenly there was a smile of accomplishment on everyone’s faces, to see everyone being satisfied with their own performances. We all sat in a circle, and did some sharing. I was very happy to hear people thank me for helping them in one way or another during the whole expedition. I didn’t think I did much but I’m glad I could be of help.

We pitched the tents, cooked porridge, for easy washing hehe, and went to bathe. I felt really clean. We were supposed to meet Bibi at 10.15pm after bathing and everything. But we reached at 10.50pm. Although we were super late and Bibi was angry at us, she didn’t really scold us. She just asked for an explanation, set another time for the rest of the guys to bathe and the nice smelling people to bring our backpacks from the tents back to the store. Poor Marshall. Ahmad never let them bathe that night so they went to bed with 3 days worth of dirt.

Day 5

I guess everyone was dead beat because so many of us set our alarm clocks at 4.30am but none of us woke up at the designated time. YiXin was woken up by the noise made by Marshall and saw the time to be 5.30am. She immediately woke everyone up and soon we were all like running panicky zombies un-pitching tents and carrying the tents and everything back to the store. We were supposed to go for PT at 5.55am and 25 minutes didn’t allow us to do much. We didn’t brush our teeth, didn’t air-dry the backpacks, and didn’t wash the groundsheets. We just changed our shoes and ran to the parade square or whatever they call it. I did flag raising that morning. I did something I shouldn’t have and that is I let the flag touch the ground. ARRG!!! I must have been too sleepy I didn’t realise.

After flag raising, we had PT again. We did greetings in many forms, sumo wrestled in many forms and Fiona and I went high. XD Then there was breakfast waiting for us in the canteen. It was beehoon and sausage. We did an activity called the Johan’s window. We passed around a paper where people could write our pluses and deltas. I found out that people found me impatient and stubborn. Thank you guys for your feedback, I will do my best to change that. ^_^

We were then sent back to our store to do the last part of the packing. The objective is simple. Make the place look like we have never been there before or even cleaner. And that is exactly what we did. I was very proud of Munshi because we took proper care of our stuff and only lost 2 whistles which added up to $1.20. Divide it by 13 people, one person only needed to pay about 10 cents. Haha. We were allowed to visit the souvenir shop and I bought a really nice trekking design shirt. By the time I finished my purchase I walked out of the shop and found myself staring at the raisin-filled floor. It was really hilarious.

We grabbed our goods and headed for the last sharing session with Bibi. She wished us enough, that we may see the littlest joys in our lives as huge blessings. I really loved Bibi as our instructor. She was ever so caring, ever so cheerful. Seeing her smile just make all my worries go away. Hearing her tease me about her high-tech pens (only LeTing, Bibi and I know) really makes me feel so silly and happy. She has taught me so many more things that I have never discovered in all my 17 years. Munshi might just be another group of kids to her. But to us, I’m sure she has left a huge impact deep within our hearts and she is one we will never forget.

To Bibi:
I want to thank you for passing so much knowledge to me. For helping me to grow into a stronger leader, be it at home, at school or at play. You are my idol and role model and I hope to grow up to be just like you. Strong in character and passionate in whatever you do. Your tender loving care for all of us showed just how you take pride in your job. I look up to you Bibi. Thank you.

We played ‘zhong1 ji2 mi4 ma3’ to try finishing up the leftover food but we couldn’t finish all. I found it a waste to just throw everything because it was a really big bag of stuff. So I took all the oranges and apples (total about 10) and the instant noodles (about 7 packs) and the rest went into the bin.

These five days were really fulfilling. We never talked in school but at camp we were best buddies. This relationship is really amusing and amazing. Okay this post is super duper long. I shall post some pictures now. Dun wan la. this post too long. next post all pics. ^_^