im back and alive frm OBS!
yay!
it was SUPER fun!
i love my watch, Livingstone, to bits!
be prepared for a super long entry..

day 1: Everyone arrived at school with their huge luggages and barang barang. As we headed off to the Pulau Ubin Jetty, our hearts were laid with burdens of doubts and suspense about OBS.

The first impression wasn't too good. It was just stinky, dirty and just simply horrid. As we see many of our schoolmates leaving in the pathetic sampan/boat, we were elated when we (jiayu,sherm,lez & i) found out that we were taking the speedboat instead! hahas. Everyone envied us but it was plain random. We lugged our heavy bags around, awaiting to know our watches/grps.

I got livingstone as my grp. i left hurriedly to look for my grp members, hoping they will be amicable. Fortunately, i love my watch to bits! jiayu was in my watch! woot! My watch consisted of the following:

Jiayu (my great buddy! luv ya!)
Eleanor (crazy and noisy girl)
Natascha (my 'stupid' kayaking partner)
JiaYun (another crazy and hyper auntie)
Petrina (the soft-spoken and meek one)
Josephine (my classmate or jojo!)
Sing Hun (the responsible one)
Steffie (the super noisy one!)
Kristi (the lama)
Charlotte (the one who lost her voice)
Clara (our scholar! she rocks!)
Marshella (Scholar 2! she's nice too!)
Yingbin (our very own China scholar!)

Don't my watch rock? ha. My instructor was Chua Kim Chuan whom we named Captain Stone as we often forgot his name. If i'm not wrong, he's jia lin's instructor too! anyway, we took some time setting down, playing lame ice-breakers and bonding with my dear watch-mates.

Next was trust fall and tent building! it was quite fun and called for a lot of trust. Tents were lobbed-sided and we were sleeping in the dark, creepy forest. arghhh!

Did some belaying exercises and managed to climb the small rockwall. Dinner was okay, they forcefeed us. We had so much food! Sleeping was quite scary as we couldn't use out torches, heard music,footsteps and dogs! so scary! But although we woke up occasionally, it was still endurable.

day 2: We did Rock climbing in the morning and kayaking at afternoon.

Rock Climbing was extremely fufilling as i reached the second last block of the rock wall! yay! Even though i didn't reach the top, (no one did) but i'm satisfied to reach one block below the top as i usually don't even pass the danger zone. As said by me, "you'll never reach your ver best unlkess u stretch and test your limits."

Kayaking was really FUN!! The capsize and rescue training was also interesting and kayaking to our campsite, Macho, was just superb.

However the night spent at the campsite wasn't too good. In fact, it was quite terrible. We had to pitch our tents, find rocks, cook in the dark. The situation was just so chaotic. And horror of horrors, we couldn't shower or go to PROPER toilet facilities. So when 10 of us went to the 'toilet' together, it was really amusing. We also had to wake up at 1 to watch the kayaks in case "illegal immigrants" steal them! hahahahha. But it was quite scary as the wild dogs were lurking around and the tides was getting higher.

day 3: The day just didn't start well. A storm hit us in the early morning and it started pouring really heavily. As our tents were ankled on rocks, it wasn't very stable. Hence, everone's tents started to collapse and leak. My grp's fly-sheet even flew off! Well, depression really striked me then as i started to really appreciate the comfort of our home. Everyone started complaining and grumbling, wanting to go home. As said "attitudes are contagious, is yours worth catching?" i tried to cheer everyone up but to no avail as i was also getting affected by them. Anyway, the packing up was sandy, stinky and soaking wet.
Then the star activity of the camp, Sea expedition. The journey towards the broken jetty/near the quarry was tedious and very energy-consuming. The first part wasn't too bad. It was only until the government fence part thaat dragged my smile and kayak away. Natascha and i were using all our might to steer the kayak to the left but to no avail. We wanted to give up then as the kayak was only moving right, drifting further and further. I was just so afraid as it was the OPEN sea!
But we steered hard enough and thank God we're still alive and we didn't give up. The rest of the journey was considered okay although my middle finger got pinned in the middle between 2 kayaks. The pain was excruciating and it bled quite a lot. T
he most hilarious part was when the instructors threw food at us.If we missed, we could see food floating around and we could just take it and eat. My apple got chopped when it hit the kayak before reaching me! But it got drifted away so i got another one.

When we finally reached our destination, we were overjoyed! Tears welled in our eyes as we finally completed and survived the "16km" journey, and if we include all the drifting, it should be more than 20km. So the watches, HIllary, Tenzing, Shackleton and of course Livingstone are really proud of ourselves..We managed to finish the expedition despite all the rain and scorching sun, with evidence of scars, bad burnt marks (i have a handprint tan on my thigh..eew) and charred lips.

After that, we changed our shoes and lugged our heavy bags and started to track back to our original obs campsite, camp 2. The journey could be longer but we had to track faster as it was dark and freaky. I nearly fell a few times as my bag was damn heavy(mess tins, pots, food).. When we finally saw the light, it was like a dog seeing a bone! No wonder people said Light brings hope.

We could finally bath and had to pitch our tents again. As we were too lazy to wash up after cooking, we decided not to cook but eat muchies. We all slept really well that night as we were all drowed by fatigue.

day 4: the great news was that we didn't have to keep our tents! We tracked to camp 1 with high spirits, singing all the way! wheee! We went to the Indiana and did high rope courses. It was pretty successful and i'm proud of those who completed it and overcame their fear of heights. Lunch was a surprise as the cook there had prepared a sumptious meal for us. To us, it was like whao! Everyone was delighted to see cold drinks and proper food. We were even hyper enough to start reciting the mandarin pledge and taught ying bin how to say it. We compared the singaporean voice and the china one, the difference was like whoa!

After that, we did the Triple D, Double Doer Danggler. We couldn't pair up with our usual partners so i paired up with Kristi! I'm proud to say we managed to climb to the 5.5th log together in the 7 logs obstacle. It was really difficult to move but it was super fun too! Had dinner there again and headed back to camp 2.

We just showered and started packing our store, looking for lost items. We lost like quite a lot of things so we were quite scared. But when we heard that other watches lost even more things, we were slightly relieved.

Our tent was slightly wet but compared to the rest, our tent was in the best condition. Josephine's tent had a river and Steffi's tent had a reservoir! hahas. So jiayu, josephine and i started chatting until steffi came along to join us. We finished the entire packet of nuts as it was so addictive! Later on, jiayun came back and kaeting and lorraine joined us. So it was like 7 pple squashed in the pathetic 4-men tent. We were chatting happily and we were on the topic on our instructors when suddenly, a face popped in "Who are u all talking about? me is it? the model looking one?" i started rolling with laughter as jiayu and josephine continued on that topic, oblivious that the instructor was there! wahhahaas. And jiayu went "Who is SHE?" lol. Anyway our tent made the most noise as we were alwayss laughing.

Steffi and JiaYun's craziness.
Jiayu's incessant laughter.
Kaeting's gossips.
Josephine & Lorraine's cheerfulness.
And of course my hyper-ness!

We chatted until 3 then we fell asleep.

day 5: the last day of obs. It was really sad as we moved on with our day. We had to pack our store again and find lost items. We managed to find most of our things efficiently and we finished packing our store the fastest with one of the least things lost, 2 whistles. yups. Then souvenir shopping! bought a nice black shirt! The area we had to clean up was easy too. It was just the area outside th jetty which was empty. I pity those that had to clean up the disgusting state of the LADIES. Final debrief was a very heartwarming one. All of us love our watch and couldn't bear leaving it. We all did our final sharing, sang some last songs together and took photos. We all couldn't bear to leave. But there is always a end to the beginning of a wonderful journey.

We were stangers
Starting out on a journey
Never dreaming
What we had to go through
Now here we are
I'm suddenly standing
At the beginning with you

No one told me
I was going to find you
Unexpected what you did to my heart
When i lost hope
You were there to remind me
This is the start

Chorus: And Life is a road and i wanna keep going
Life is a river i wanna keep flowing
Life is a road now & forever, Wonderful Journey
I'll be there when the world stops turning
I'll be there when the storm is through
In the end, I wanna keep standing
At the beginning with you.


In conclusion:

Different people
Different classes
Different CCAs
Coming together as one

One new watch
One for all
United we stand
Together we soar

Livingstone's our name
Achieving success is our game
We live, We stone,
We rock the Livingstone!


"You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore."

Livingstone rocks!