BACK FROM OBS!

was in camp 1 washington!
[i know some sqms think that just because camp 1 looks like resort = we just went for chalet or whatever but it is not true and i decided that i shall heck care sqms' opinions in this matter!
最重要是we had fun! + 有收获from obs! :D]
watch mates: simin, yinan, ziyan, jiayi, sarah, rachel koh, yingshi, germaine, jingfang, yingxuan, delwen, rachel sim, hui yee and siman! (dunno whether the names are spelled correctly :X)
instructor: jill!!

camp 1 bravo: elizabeth! nehru! WASHINGTON! tock seng! (:


thankyou watch mates+jill and camp 1 bravo-ers especially sea ex leaders (michelle, shi hui, hui yee, rebecca) for making obs a very fun and nice experience for me! (:

shall blog in detail abt obs with the help of my obs journal(:


day one:
reached campsite 1 feeling quite excited :D
settled down in the multi-purpose hall.. abit of intro stuff, got to know our instructor (jill!!!) and each other (:
handed in our valuables and played ice-breaking game 'celebration' which was quite funny.
went to collect our rations... i was very amazed when i saw our rations haha. got very very nice food! compared to area atc and school atc hahaha. took a very long time after that sorting our rations into breakfast lunch and dinner for the next 4 days. then had lunch and went to our store to pack all the tents and everything.
continued with the 'blade of grass' thingo then freefall which was scary! o.o but come to think about it, it wasnt that bad lah. haha :D
then did belaying which was okay..
then cooked dinner very very early! at like 4+pm.. cooked butter rice with the help of jill :D our rice was nicely cooked :D even though abit burnt lah haha.
bathed afterwards. got alot of time to bathe o.o nothing much to do that day.
then first aid briefing~ fire drill~ nothing much.
jill taught us some theory abt kayaking after that. the bow stern port starboard etc etc and how to paddle.
then wrote in journal and dunno do what after that coz i never write down -.-
i only remembered that we slept beside the exact replica of the indiana in our dome tents :D


day two:
woke up at 5 and did some morning exercises which was amusing. breakfast was fried mee from the cookhouse :D
went kayaking after that~ partner was germaine :D
erm did intentional capsize and tx rescue where we floated very very far away and almost reached camp 2 -_- some kayaks floated past camp 2 somemore. li hai lor.
kayaked back to camp 1 to shore which felt very very far coz me and germaine were kayaking in a zigzag way = the distance we travelled was alot more than the displacement. changed to dry attire then briefing on sea ex. then lunch.
then went to pack for hike to camp 2. had activity called alpine rescue on the way where we had to transport all our 15 2litres waterbottles on a stretcher from one end to another on this thingo which are mainly LOGS. the activity was 1h 15mins and we failed T-T coz either 1. people keep falling off then had to restart or 2. the stretcher keep sliding off. somemore it just rained and the logs were super wet + slippery.
had dinner and spent the night in camp 2... had more detailed briefing abt sea ex. which sounded very scary then. found out that the tide was going to be against us for the whole of sea ex somemore. then the instructor i/c of sea ex was saying that if we cannot reach sembawang in time we have to spend the nights on our kayaks anchoring to the safety boats before going back to camp 1 the next day o.O


day three and four:
woke up at 5 again. then had a quick breakfast and left for camp 1 in the darkness at 5+ 6~ and our whole watch cleverly consolidated our torch lights but left all of them in camp 1 -.- so we were depending on the only torchlight at the front to tell us everything. the messages passed were funny "puddle on left!" "another puddle on right!" "vertical root!" "horizontal root!" "hole in the middle!"
reached camp 1 at around 6.30 then we packed and loaded all our stuff on the safety boats and our kayaks and started on our sea expedition!!!
partnered qianying (long story) and felt quite irritated on the whole journey. then we beached up at seletar for lunch since we were quite fast. changed partner to hui yee after that :D (same long story) but after lunch trouble started T.T the storm came and the waves were horribly large and frequent and the wind and everything was strong. for alot of times i thought we were going to capsize and the wave was so huge, water kept entering our kayak. then we were supposed to keep abt 10m away from the shore but it was so hard to steer and when we steer too left we kept being pushed up the shore by the waves and if we steer too right we will get pushed by the waves too out to the sea. so we kept going zigzag and once me and huiyee were pushed too near the shore in the rain and couldnt kayak back into the sea no matter what we did. in the end i got so frustrated i got out and pushed the kayak back to the sea -_-
when we finally reached sembawang all of us were tired, wet, cold but happy people. reached on time at 3+ 4. abt 7+ hours.
and realised that after all the talk on sembawang island and seeing pulau sembawang on the map... sembawang was actually the singapore sembawang -_-
had dinner, changed, and debrief. lights out was early that night -- 10pm :D
had to do sentry duty at sembawang since it was a public place.
very interesting things happened during sentry.
firstly the sentry broke down coz apparently kathy (elizabeth)'s tent was supposed to wake the first nehru tent (which happened to be pinky's) kathy tried to wake pinky up but she dint want to wake up. so she woke someone in the middle (which we found out was sarah in the end) who woke up, sat up and opened her eyes. kathy asked her to wake her tent mates up and she nodded her head. but somehow~~ pinky's tent dint wake up after all -.- so the whole sentry broke down from 12 to 3.30 where sharon (from nehru and supposed to do from 1 to 1.30) woke up and realized that it was so late already and did sentry from 3.30 to 4 (coz she was sentry ic then she know who to wake). then she woke my tent up (supposed to do from 2.30 to 3) and we did sentry from 4 to 4.30 instead.
secondly, during sentry, we saw quite a few couples dating. at 4am in the morning. 4 AM LEH!!! siao. i rather go sleep can. anyway they were dating then there was this couple that kept laughing very loudly o.o
thirdly, during sentry, we saw this guy who was collecting cans or something from the rubbish bin. then he got very very near to the place where we left all our stuff. and he placed the bag that he was using to keep all his collected stuff right next to some waterbottles from one of the watches and was squatting down and doing something there! i was like thinking "sekali he take all our waterbottles!" so me and germaine walked there. then he sort of looked up then i think he saw us and left quite soon after that. hmm highly suspicious character.
fourthly, while doing sentry, this guy came up to us and went
"do yall have any tissue paper?"
*looks at each other* *turn and look at him*
"no."
"one piece also dont have?"
"no."
*gives the disbelieving look*
"okayy.. thank you anyway"
haha. funny guy.

yup. that's all abt sentry. oh got this police car keep driving past us. haha. its good to know that there are actually police patrolling the area at night (:

dint go back to sleep since it was already 4.30 and had to wake up at 5. so we just talked and went to toilet and woke everyone up at 5 :D
had another quick breakfast and left sembawang at 6+ 7 D:
kayaked back to camp 1! this time i partnered pinky!!! yay! :D we were highing on the kayak haha then we kept kajiao-ing xiaoyou and rebecca (who were starboard side) and shihui (who was the sweeper) haha. we entertained shihui too :D
then the storm was approaching (again) so we beached up at selatar and went to hide in the forest under our ponchos from the rain and 取暖 then the small spiders kept attempting to crawl onto my face so i went under the poncho and fell asleep there -_- for a while. until someone called me then i woke up haha.
stayed there for abt half an hour or 1 h not very sure then carried on finally :D i was feeling very cold! coz i took off the poncho which was suffocating me and the lifevest haha. so yea was glad when we could finally move on :D
reached camp 1 finally at around 2+ yay camp sweet camp! realized that we kayaked for 28km all in total. yay 有成就感 (: but quite sian also coz we kayaked for approx. 14hrs. then had debrief, washed kayaks, changed.
and started cooking dinner! yay! the celebratory dinner! which was fantastic! (:
we cooked fried rice! and soup! and omelette! and jill taught us how to make apple crumble using our food rations! haha with apples, instant cereal and digestive biscuits. the apple crumble was very very nice! then the other watches were jealous haha.
then we took some of each of our food for jill since she was accompanying us :D and was so nice :D then we took quite little of each since we thought she will be having dinner on her own with the other instructors. then the instructor from the other watch (tock seng) who was cooking with us was looking quite sad when we gave jill the mess tin of food. then we asked jill if she will be having dinner then she said no! all the food that we gave her was her only dinner! then we felt so bad can. somemore we eat until there was very little food left. only got the soup and abit of uncooked luncheon meat left. then we fed jill the luncheon meat since only got like one spoon left then if give her very paiseh. haha. so funny.
after dinner we went rock climbing. we wrote down our target on a piece of paper and jill made us write down a watch motto with each word on each piece of paper. i think we were the only group that did the motto thing. coz we were supposed to stick each word on our helmet and climb up the rock wall and stick it at the top. i think it was the motto thingo that motivated each of us to continue climbing. and all of us reached the top! really must thank jill for her effort coz if not for her, some of us might have just given up halfway or something. yea.
oh our watch motto was "aim for the moon and reach for the stars" haha :D
then debrief and got to write in our journals again.
lights out after that. got everyone in our watch to come to our tent coz we wanted to write this appreciation thingo for jill in a notebook. like everyone write one page. so we got everyone to come in case some people fall asleep. but then 2 people from our watch went to another watch's tent area! so in the end only a few people write then we passed the book to the 2 people. then the rest of us got very restless in our tent coz they write very long -_- in the end everyone went back to their respective tents and we asked rachel to pass the msg to the 2 people to give the book to the next tent when they are done and asked the next tent people to pass to us.
then i was struggling to stay awake coz i got a feeling i wont wake up if i fall asleep. but in the end i dozed off anyway. woke up at 3.48am and realised that we havent got the book yet! ahh well was too sleepy to go find the book so i went back to sleep -_-

day five:
woke late at around 5.20. haha germaine dint hear my watch alarm at 5 again and i was too deep a sleeper to hear it. went to solve the book mystery and wake everyone in our watch up. found out that the 2 people wrote till very late then they were thinking that the rest sure sleep le so they left the book in their tent o.o apparently they dint get the msg that they were supposed to wake the other tent up. oh well.
chiong-ed the book-writing thingo until 6 where we had to go for flag raising and morning exercise which was fun again. haha then went to the jetty to have a dry activity [jill wanted us to do jetty jump but then the majority of us dint want to get wet again after so many days in the sea so we dint do jetty jump ):] then had breakfast where the rest of the people wrote in the book and went back to store to do clearing up.
after store-cleaning we had alot of time left so we went to behind the hall to play some games. then we had debrief about the whole of camp where we talked about our highest point, lowest point and the take away. jill gave us this ball of twine which we threw around so that you hold it while you talk then pass to any other person other than the one beside you to form a web.
hmm huiyee was talking then she said that another of her lowest point will be when we leave obs this afternoon.. then she started emo-ing and made like half our watch emo. then after everyone finished talking we named our web the washington web.
jill was saying that the start of the web was when we first stepped into obs.. then the web was the process where each of us contributed and did different activities and had our obs experience here. but the end will not be the end of our outward bound journey. the end of the web will continue to form another web as we carry on with our life and our individual outward bound journey elsewhere.
and she said "after today, washington is no more. it will only remain as a memory to each and everyone of you..." i suppose that statement had a great impact on us and that's what got most of us crying.
and she used a penknife and cut the web such that each of us got a piece of the web. the atmosphere was so silent, so sad when she cut the web up. after all these 5 days we have built up our 感情 for each other and experienced extremes of emotions........ and it's all over. gone. with just a slice from the penknife.
yea. anyway she said that next time if we feel lost and direction-less we can take that twine out and hold it....
and she asked us to take a stone each (from a pile at the back of the hall) and think about our weaknesses. then we went to throw the stone into the sea while shouting out something that we want to change about ourselves, about our lives...
conclusion: she really is a very good instructor. because of her, our watch is so bonded compared to the other watches. and because of her, i think our watch really learnt alot from obs.

lunch at the cookhouse after that (: since we closed our store already. then went to obs souvenir shop where i bought a obs tee and a keychain :D

then met her again and gave her the notebook where we wrote in. and she gave us the wristband thingo and the pen and our photographs and our certificates. and returned us our valuables lah.

saw the sms from zhiyi ma'am and realised that training was cancelled and prelims and finals was postponed. wanted to forward the sms to sqms but closure started and i forgot abt it.

and with that, obs ended.

to all or most of us, washington will be nothing but a memory. but washington will live on wont it? with other people from our schools going to obs and forming a new washington...

really really a big thank you to jill for making obs so memorable and enjoyable for us. and telling us all the stories and teaching us alot of life lessons.

oh yea, dint get sunburnt after all o.o practically every moment we spent outdoors it was raining/going to rain/at night where there is no sun at all. only a few people got sunburnt coz they really very sensitive to the sun and got sunburnt in like 5 minutes of the sun. oh well.
dint get any serious injuries too :D fortunately. only alot of mosquito bites on my legs coz i think im allergic or something to the insect repellent that i brought there. after applying the insect repellent got this very uncomfortable feeling like alot of pins sticking onto my skin or something that wouldnt go away so i gave up on the insect repellent. then cut my finger while trying to open the can of luncheon meat haha. but dint feel anything at all even though blood was flowing out and my watch mates were fretting over it more than i was -_-

okay. must stop blogging now. how abrupt. o.o

oh wait one last funny incident.
went to kap after that then i ordered a meal from the counter then i wanted to get mayonaise so i went
"can i have some mayonaise?" to the person there.
*conversed with meichun and pinky who were also at the counter while waiting*
*turns back to the counter and realises that the person dint get me any mayonaise and probably dint hear me*
then i went
"aye got mayonaise or not?" -______-
dint mean to be impolite or anything but i guess i was still in the camping mood -_-
the person was looking at me very weirdly then before i realised what i said haha.

okay really must stop now~
going for first guitar lesson later! so exciting.