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Friday, 7 December 2007

Holy crap! I kissed guys and girls!

Indirectly, that is. We shared water bottles that looked the same, so that just shows how little we care about hygiene or how united we are. I prefer the latter.

So...Az is back from OBS and now he's typing stuff, hoping to find something to write about. Hmmm...

Ah, yes. Firstly, let me introduce you to my watch.

Wait, that's not right...

Lame jokes aside, here's the bestest watch in the whole of OBS Course OD527/07-II.

I sincerely apologise for the low quality. I'm too lazy to scan the photo.

I has more peekturez (grammatical error intended) of the people from the camp after the camp.


The two most enthu people in the course since day one, Benjamin and your favourite beatboxing ambigrammist. Always volunteering to break the ice and climb suspended logs and jump off jetties.


That's him trying to beatbox or kiss his fellow watchmate. Or he's enthusiastically talking about something, like he always does.

Benjamin Poh was the most leader-ey (for the lack of a better word) person in the watch, always encouraging us and taking charge of stuff like the expeditions and helping the IC's out.

So then, what role did I play?

Food IC, which means I'm in charge of the food, cooking and stuff. And there was a slacker (who's gonna kill me for calling her that) who wanted to be a co-cook.

Presenting...Pei Ling!

I'm not too sure what she's looking at in this picture.


That's the self-appointed co-cook taking a picture of Benjamin.


Me and the peanut-butter-slathered-spoon-licking, rowing-obsessive girl. Note the height difference and the fact that I had to bend to fit in the picture.

Eng Pei Ling was the most-teased person in the Cousteau (try pronouncing that) watch. Along with Benjamin and myself. That may be because she's the watch's favourite girl or because the three of us were the only trio that had all three genders in it (male, female, Az). Thumbs up to her for being sporting about it and being able to complete the sea expedition without letting me row.

And then there's the...Monkey!

Azmeer can do monkey calls. How cool is that?


The two emitters of unique sounds.

Azmeer was the Store IC, and I think he did a pretty swell job. He's also fun and enjoys watching street races (how cool is that?). He's muscular, too.

Due to laziness and a lack of inspiration, I'll just spam you with the magical wonders of peekturezxzxzxzx.


The two-person inhaler gang. We're both *cough* (pun intended) asthmatic.


Khairul, the dude who's as skinny as me or even more and managed to carry lots of heavy stuff. Willingly and almost tirelessly. Applaud for him, please.


Kai Sheng, my fun-loving tentmate along with Khairul and Benjamin. Had fun with him teasing Pei Ling and Benjamin.


Crystal Koh, who has this big piercing on her ear and one on her tongue. She also has a tat. Also worth noting is that she's really really 'knowledgable' (I think she's just horny), as she calls herslef.

I have more pictures, but...myeh.

On to the experiences.

On the first day, I got separated from Ming Yew and Wafiy (they got each other) and then I was thinking, "Ah...shit." But after meeting all the fun-loving characters from Cousteau, I actually felt pretty unwilling to let go of OBS.

We were all still very icy for the first few hours and then we played games and the ice broke (which is probably why they're called ice-breaking games.

And then some of us cooked at the beachfront of Camp 2 while the others pitched tents. The sunset was pretty, as are you (how cheesey). We had a dinner of ricage (rice and porridge) with sausages, button mushrooms and baked beans.

The next day a very special man came. PM Lee Hsien Loong. I got to do a flying fox jump for him without even being asked to do so. That gave me the chance to do the flying fox three times, though I had to sacrifice my go at the Pamper Pole. One thing I learned, fear and uncertainty can be overcome with a little motivation and just a leap (or in this case, drop) of faith.

Then we got to waste the rest of the afternoon at Camp 1 watching some ceremony, from which we returned to Camp 2 by walking through around 1km of forest.

The next day we got to trek from Camp 2 to Camp 1, but it rained so we skipped some (or all) of the checkpoints. In the end we took a long way through forested grounds in the rain covered with our rubber-duck-yellow ponchos and our heavy, heavy backpacks.

We arrived at Camp 1, got a tour, went for another High Element activity which required teamwork (guess who was the first pair to volunteer themselves). We had our dinner, a briefing on the next day's itinerary (which was basically a sea expedition followed by a land expedition). Benjamin, myself and two others from another watch became the captains for each 8-man rowboat and the whole expedition.

Due to the rain that didn't bother to stop, we didn't sleep in tents (which put around 20kg to waste) but in the Multi Purpose Hall instead. Let me tell you one thing. It was freakin' cold. And I was wearing long pants. I woke up a few times shivering. I don't shiver even when I sleep in a room with a fan and air conditioner turned on at the same time. Those who wore shorts to sleep got totally GG-ed.

The expedition on the next day was fun. In the sea segment of it, my crew did well and were faster than Benjamin's (and I'm supposed to be the one with the more physically-challenged group). Teamwork works. I wanted to be a rower but turns out I wasn't cut out for it and ended up doing what the captain was supposed to do. Man the rudder, which actually requires skill (I think). And then due to my nodding off to unconsciousness, I got switched to the watchman, and I, well, watched and got all upset because I only got to row for a maximum of 10 minutes. Oh yes, the expedition was around Pulau Ubin.

Then we washed the equipment up and packed our backpacks before walking back to Camp 2 the short way. We then pitched our tents and the 'love triangle' cooked the meal. Cleared the store up a bit and went off to sleep.

Then we reached today, where we basically cleared our stuff and got debriefed. We then got to do our Jetty Jump.

Throughout the whole course we were given around 10 minutes a day thinking and reflecting on anything we wanted to reflect on. We wrote everything down in our journals and shared a few words for each reflection session.

My journal:



We got to decorate our own journals, as you can see.

And during the last reflection session, I got all sad because our instructor, CJ, was playing songs like "At the Beginning" (from Anastasia) with his phone.

We were strangers
Starting out on a journey
Never dreaming
What we had to go through

Part of the lyrics. So appropriate. Hah, and yep. The last reflection session was kinda emotional for me, though I didn't show it.

Cousteau, you guys are awesome. I apologise for any hurt I've caused any of you or if I slacked while you were slogging away (which I did). Thanks for bearing with me all this while. Will miss you guys.

"Expect the unexpected."
-CJ, OD527/07-II

Your favourite beatboxing ambigrammist,
Az

Posted by Az at 5:23 pm

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