Haha, yay, I'm back from OBS, the truly memorable and challenging experience, and still alive and well! :D Well done! :P Okay this post is gonna be very long as I shall recount my whole experience at Pulau Ubin. :)

Day 1:
Belay school - Learning how to belay people and climb up safely. Boring. Not so fun.
Pitching up tents - Learning how to pitch the tents and dust them out. Not very fun either.
Cooking with solid fuel - Never have I touched solid fuel in my life before! Nice to see the white cube burn and disintegrate, and fortunately the rice we cooked was soft and not crunchy. ;) Canned food isn't really appetising, and with knowledge of Biology, canned food contain lots of trans fat which raises the overall cholesterol level. NOOOO...
On the whole the first day was for bonding with your watchmates and getting used to being in the physical environment and not in the comfort of your own home. My group - Rajaratnam (what a silly weird name after one of Singapore's founding fathers); consisting of Aavishka, Sarah, Justina, Rachel, Josephine, Samantha, Eleanor, Charmaine, Astri, Sheralyn, Carmen, Zhilin, Diana, Yuen Han and Kelly. I had nice people in my watch, yay! :)

Day 2: Activities start to get more fun! :D
Kayaking - Eleanor was my partner and we practised wet exits and capsizing. First capsize I was so nervous and unprepared I just screamed right into the water and let go of my paddle. :S Then after I regained my "sense" I realised I had made a fool out of myself in the water bobbing up and down foolishly in my life jacket. Haha! Anyway Eleanor was a really cooperative kayaking partner and our 'right, left, right, left' chants worked well. :) We split the watch into 2 groups and played water polo after our practice, and I saw with my own eyes and heard with my ears how Justina and Samantha fell straight into the sea while trying to reach for the dear yellow ball! HAHA! So funny. I laughed so much I nearly forgot I was supposed to go save them since my canoe was the closest to theirs. :P
After rescuing them, we carried on playing and my group lost eventually. Forfeit is to capsize deliberately and get the winning group to rescue you. Clever me, I remembered I was wearing a cap and had a water bottle so I passed them to Astri (who was gonna save me) and then went to capsize, so they won't fall into the sea. ;)
Belay school - Climbed higher heights, more challenging, more fun! Hehe. The Double Dual Decker was really tricky; had to swing your legs up and turn your body around on the rung. Climbed up with Zhilin, who unfortunately had some difficulty ascending so I was mostly sitting on the rung above trying to pull her up. :/ Poor her. Thanks Sheralyn for belaying me so well. :)

Day 3: Sea Expedition (13+km, 6h)
I had to go in a solo canoe because due to vague reasons (I can't remember anyway), I had to kayak alone. Well I agreed anyway. A great experience on the whole, but it was SO TIRING! Everytime I wanna rest in the midst of kayaking, my dear canoe drifts backwards. One very "memorable" experience - I was so exhausted halfway that I decided to take a break by myself, but my eyes started closing. :S I was gonna fall asleep. Then Carmen and Diana passed by and Carmen asked if I was okay. That really woke me up and I realised I wasn't floating in my bed or whatever and I was actually in the middle of the sea drifting away from the coast. Humourous perhaps, but a bit scary now coming to think of it. What if I capsized because I was falling asleep?!!
Well in the end we reached the destination called Kekek (I think). No modern toilet. Urgh. So we jumped into a restricted quarry, haha, and had a nice freshwater soak! Oh it was so refreshing and we stayed there for about 40mins... We did a 'quarry jump' instead of a 'jetty jump'. Nvm, same jumping experience, just that we jumped into cleaner water. :D Omg, and not forgetting, we had to go to the toilet in the bushes and in the sea. YUCK. First time, but hopefully my last time.

Day 4: Land Expedition (15km, 7h)
I think my tent company's 2 backpacks were 10-12kg each. One for personal belongings, the other for tent equipment. Omg, it could break my back! I carried the bags for 4h, on and off, exchanging with my 3 other tentmates every hour. Oh my feet were aching so terribly but I couldn't stop! I guess I don't have a lot of physical strength, but at least my mental strength was strong enough to take me back to my campus, Campus 1.
I feel that kayaking was more fun, more of an eye-opener compared to trekking. :) I got to see a really huge orange jellyfish in the sea! But I didn't see any wild boars in the jungle. :(
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Now I shall talk about food... As mentioned above, canned food for dinner was horrible. Not that my watch couldn't cook, it just tastes terrible. I got so sick of instant noodles, fish lunchen meat and corn. The sight of these dishes makes me want to vomit. Day 1 dinner I could eat. Day 2 dinner getting sicker. Day 3 dinner totally avoided those dishes. Even the smell made me nauseous. So I stood far away from the cooking area and peeled oranges and threw the skin into the sea. Hehe. Nice. My romantic dinner with oranges, bread, a bit of tuna and sardines. The chicken curry disappeared after I finished peeling my oranges. :(
For breakfast and lunch, the food was mostly biscuits, bread, buns, fruits. Nothing interesting, nothing appetising, so I didn't really look forward to mealtimes. The meals were high in carbohyrate and fat content, and not healthy at all! At least on Day 5 for breakfast I ate 2 apples. That helped. I didn't feel so guilty for living a day without fruits or vegetables.
Oh and I musn't forget! Day 4 dinner was the best of all meals! WE GOT TO COOK FRESH FOOD! YAY! Let's see... Cabbage/carrot soup, fried rice (garnished), plain white rice, pork lunchen meat with egg, long beans with egg, baked beans, apple crumble. Yummy. I was sitting beside Diana as she fried the rice and meat and veggies, and I garnished the fried rice with browned onion slices, which looked okay. I didn't have better means to do a better job... Aavishka's soup was really good and refreshing, we drank like alcoholics gulping down beer, HAHA! Justina and Sarah did a wonderful job making apple crumble, but sadly we couldn't finish it as we had too much food! The fried rice was very popular and gone in a moment; thanks to Diana the great head chef! :D Hmm my hands still smell of the onion and garlic I was dicing. :P

At night thankfully I could sleep in the tent. I used my sleeping bag as a pillow, quite soft, and I was the only one in the watch to come with an alarm clock. The instructors say report at 5.55am but I need to get up at 4.20am, if not I'll be late. Unpitch tent, walk up to the store, get clothes and toothbrush, wash up, pack, etc - takes time! Haha. So my dear tentmates have to cooperate with me too. Too bad. (I was still late in the end on Day 2.)

Overall, OBS was a memorable experience, and I bought myself a black OBS T-shirt as a souvenir to remind me that if I can go through this tough journey, I can complete whatever I do in the future! Motivation! :D

The Enchanting Twilight

Urgh. Down with hives. Non-infectious, cause unknown, minor case of rash. But super itchy. And my appearance has been disfigured. Yuck. That's why I chose not to go to school at all today. Not gonna let my friends see me like this. :(

Well anyway, I want to trace down the cause. I have no allergy to anything, so I really don't know what's wrong with me that I get this stupid hives. Hmm let's see, I ate normal school canteen food which I eat every day, chocalates Mrs Choo gave, food from MOELC canteen. What did I touch that isn't usual? Nothing. I was revising French in class most of the time and sitting at my desk like a couch potato. I didn't get stings or insect bites either. So, I guess it's the chocolates I ate? Searched on the internet, and lots of websites say chocolate can be triggers. OH NO, being allergic to chocolate is terrible!! At least to that brand Guylian. But it was so nice. Sigh.

At 2pm my right eyelid felt so heavy. When your eyelids feel heavy, this feeling makes you want to sleep. Which was horrible because I was trying to pay attention to Ms Lau. :S At least my eyes got better and I didn't feel so sleepy for the controle at 3.30pm. Haha. If not I'd be dead! Sleeping in the controle. :O After that when I returned home, the rash was getting really bad spreading all over my shoulders and neck.

Well right now, I just hope that I'll recover asap so that I can go for OBS. My dad's already getting hesitant in allowing me to go and asked the doctor to give me an MC for a week although the doctor said I'm fit to go. :( Hope for the best.

Oh, and my sweet sister wrote me a 'get well soon' note before she left for school. HOW NICE OF HER. YAY. <3

The Enchanting Twilight

Labels: Hives

Hmm. Common tests are finally over. :) Well actually they were already over on Wednesday.

So I shall recount on the wonderful time me, Annette, Sarah and Marian spent together at KAP eating at Macs and sushi from Cold Storage. :D Oh we talked about so many things - Mrs Sim and her weirdly funny antics, life without my presence, tests, etc. Sigh. I miss those moments when we just sit, talk and laugh.

As for the common test results, they're all being released slowly one by one... Hmm, I guess I didn't do as well as I should or as well as I hoped because I didn't put in much effort in my work and revision this term. Slacker. :P Like really, for me, don't study as hard, marks plunge significantly. Well... what a great experiment, one that I never dared to try throughout all these years in the Singapore school system. Haha.

It saddens me to think that next Monday's chapel service would be the last ever that I'm gonna attend as an MG student. Now coming to think of it, I've been going for chapel every week ever since P1, which was 8 and a half years ago! That's really long. And to suddenly be away from it... it just feels so weird. Like a part of me has vanished. Christian songs won't ring in my head anymore, neither will the beautiful MG school song. My whole school life in Singapore, I've only sung 1 school song, no other. And to think I spend more time in the wonderful MGS building than at home. And to be on that ground for more than half my life!

8.5 years in MGS has really changed me. The friends, teachers, culture etc. It's a school I love so dearly, so much that I can't bear to part with it. But the teachers always tell you you've gotta step out of your comfort zone sooner or later. Perhaps now's the time. Time to see the world. Time to go for a 3+-year long ROCs trip.

Such a melancholic post today. Can't think of anything better to write. 8.5 years passed just like that. Why must time pass so fast? Before I know it, being in MGS would be a thing of the past. :(

Labels: MGS

Oh wow! It's now 11.11pm and I'm blogging about this frightfully busy day. :/

Busy because I was trying to find time to study for the coming common tests and also juggling the stupid housework. My dad had this sudden idea of eating in (which means my sis and I have to cook) and finishing up all the canned food. Haha. So you can imagine how unhealthy the dinner was. :P

We began cooking at 7pm. Bad start. We didn't know we'd only finish cooking at 8.40pm!! Gosh. And to make matters worse, we used lots of utensils, which meant loads of washing up to do. :( So eating plus washing up and cleaning the kitchen took until 10.30pm. How nice, my whole evening was wasted doing these silly things! My father didn't want to trouble himself and help us wash up; he only boiled water (the easiest thing to do -.-). Hmph. Make me and my sis work like crazy after whipping up such a fantastic 'preserved food' meal.

Well looking on the bright side, I'm so thankful that at least I've a wonderful sister who helps out! :D And agrees to cook with me. Hahaha. Or else those hours spent would've been doubled. :O

In the end due to our poor estimation, we cooked a bit too much. Hehe. But managed to finish the food with our dad's big appetite and also because we kept him so hungry waiting for dinner to be served. Haha!

Oh no, I just realised that yuedufansi would most probably be due next week, or in other words, this coming Monday!!! Tsk I've only done 1 article when we're supposed to do 8. Okay I'm so dead. Bleh. I must start. But now? Maybe, maybe not. Idk.

Off pondering (but not for too long),
The Enchanting Twilight