Back from OBS!! Here's my 'journal', if you would call it... Well it's not complete though, because readers do not actually experience it. Here goes the first day!
Day 1 - Introduction + Belaying practice + tent pitching + The Flood
We all arrived in RI at the usual time, all tired and excited about what's up for us. Many guys were just walking around aimlessly. Soon Mrs Ong came and me and Jian Xiong got her a mobile system to address us. It was a long wait till 8am before we actually set off for the jetty. At the jetty we waited even longer for the boats, so some of us went to pee in the bushes, since we were all guys... The boats finally arrived and once we reached there, Andy, one of the instructors addressed us too, and we started off the day with the Spirit cheer before breaking into our watches of 16 people. My watch was Da Gama and the instructor was this cool guy with a cap: Alex!! He did a one-man show throughout the 5 days, cos the other watches had either 2 or 3 instructors. He collected all our valuables and we all did an introduction. My watch had 2 foreign scholars, Jeremy and Christian. We were introduced to our storerooms, which we didn't really see much of for the next 5 days, since we were mobile units. Next up we had lunch. Waited really long for the food, but the funny thing was that: Alex was the only instructor at the collection area who was actually eating something. All the others were so serious and looking at their watches collect the food, making sure they divide it into rations for each of the 5 days. Haha so Alex was munching on an apple and waiting for Beck, the food IC to finish up. Had lunch in a circle. We were quite worried that Alex forgot to divide our rations, so we asked him. Guess what the answer was!! Alex said, "Aiya. You don't have to care about it. I heard that most watches cannot finish their food after the 5 days and have lots of leftovers, so the instructors do their shopping and grab the food haha. But usually you guys will be more than happy to let us take the food, so you wouldn't feel pissed. Take all you want lar." I was laughing like hell and so were many of my friends. Wow we had such a diff instructor who was more realistic.
Had belaying practice in the afternoon, well we just rope ourselves up and make sure we know how to belay. That was about all for the afternoon and in the night we were taught how to pitch our tents and cook. The pegs were especially small, so we lost one in the morning. Had baked beans+ rice+ sausages for dinner. We were lucky we had foreign scholars, so they knew how to cook proper rice in a pot. Whew. So much for the day. Now for the night of Floods.
1.30am: I woke up feeling a little stiff and felt some water at my feet. Woke Jian Xiong up and we talked to each other. He said this isn't supposed to happen (he's from npcc) in tents. Soon the part of the tent that our heads faced was wet too and the whole tent became flooded. I put on my windbreaker and walked around the campsite, peeking into other tents, only to see that they were having the same problem. Haha some guy was shouting: "OMFG what is this retard doing out here in the rain??!!!" Lol I saw people rushing towards the toilets at the storerooms soon enough, trying to escape the rain. Bryan followed Kieran and Shang Xuan down too, leaving me, Jian Xiong and Jeremy in the tent. I also left at about 2am, and saw Andy + another instructor walking up the steps to get the guys who cannot escape. He saw me in my windbreaker and said: "hoho, you lucky fellow." Oh no, the remaining guys perished in the flood.
haha joking. Everyone assembled in the Multi-Purpose-Hall later on to sleep. Well i wouldn't say it is a MPH, it's jus a stone slab of cold concrete sheltered from the rain. Had a bad night sleeping.
5:33 PM
