Hello. Back from OBS. And I just lost my handphone. Not at OBS. When we got back to school. I am such an eejit. These things will onyl happen to meeeeeeee.. AHHh what a fat stupid idiot!!

Ok. Now about OBS. :D

DAY ONE
Dear diary,
Today I woke up at 6 and went to school by 6.45. Waited at LT 2 for absolute ages for the bus to come and take us to Ponggol jetty. We even watched a bit of shrek, lying with our feet up and our heads on the bags. Backache before we even began. We took a little boat to Pulau Ubin and got into our watches. Heat heat heat. Our watch was Kurt, and half the class was in it.
I am currently running around in the rain, looking for things that are aroud the camp. Running around in the pouring rain, soaking wet.
Bathed at night. Jia Min offered to let some of us bathe in her dorm. Me, Melissa, Yi Chan, Rachael, Angela and Beni wandered around in the dark with an orange light shining eeriely for awhile. We arrived at a part that was dark, pitch black with that stupid orange light, linked arms, ran and screamed. We came to the road where the sign said Dorms 1-5. Jia Min's in dorm 5. Or she's supposed to be. We wandered up the slope and every single dorm was deserted. Earlier Angela said, 'We're alright unless the electricuty goes out.' Bad bad thing to say. We finally arrived at Dorm 5, totally totally freaked out. The lifejackets were hanging down like dead pigs. The darkness cast a shadow on them; looked more like dead people. Should we run and scream? Yi Chan was like, let's be brave. It's fine!
Then the lights flicked off.
You should have seen us. A group of 6 girls screaming and running in flip slops carrying plastic bags, yelling for our lives.
Day ones are always boring.

DAY TWO
Dear diary,
(this is adapted from Adele's 'letter to her mom' as we sat on the concrete slab eating dinner. Thanks Adele! Hope it's ok to write this:D)
Dear mom,
I am currently sitting on a dirty, ant-infested, oily, muddy concrete slab eating dinner licking a spoon that has been licked by a few other people. These few other people are now bathing in a mucky bathroom that has a brown floor. I hope no one is in the cubicle with the socks that I bathed next to. Tonight we are going to sleep in a basha which is held down by rocks that are tiny and pegs that are coming loose and bricks that break when thrown. I'm having a lot of fun.
Love, Adele.

Adele has a way with words. :D haha. Yi Chan dropped a brick and it cracked into two. Part of it was holding up our basha.

Earlier, we scaled up a rock wall. Or we tried to. I received a very friendly abrasion or two, and was bestowed with a blister while belaying Fernie. :D Fernie looks like a chipmunk, and with her hair slicked back with sweat, and the stinky, never washed, been used and sweat infested helmet, she looked like a drowned hamster.

We smell bad.

We had lunch. Lunch involved washing, getting food, eating, washing, drying. Food is the same. All the time.

After lunch, we went kayaking, and went to camp two. Camp two with the dirty bathroom.

We spent two hours trying to put up the basha. THanks to the experienced girl guides, especially Calean with her upper body strength:D, we (or rather they) got it up!

DAY THREE
Set out from camp two carrying bags that had to weight at least 15 kg. Urgh. Massive backache added onto to the arm muscles aches that we got the day before from kayaking and rock climbing. This is where massage circles come in handy. :D it's strange how close the sounds we make are to erm... hehe. :D MArie and Rachael are brilliant navigators. :D I think our watch had got to be the happiest watch.:D We kept stopping and eating. :D We only trekked about 7 km, but it felt a heck lot more. Stupid bags.
Swimming in the quarry!!! :D Crazy Marie tried to get us to tie her shoelace. Every tried to do an underwater somersault with a lifejacket? Don't try it. :D
Camp 'three' was a little clearing. We set up the bashas and cooked the food. Ahem. The mass tins were kept next to Fernie's wet icky dirty urine shoes. :D We got dihorrea.

DAY FOUR
Trekked a short distance back to camp two. Kayaked back to camp one and cleaned up. Had lunch, and then... time to test out out upper body strength. Enter the inversed tower. That was about it. Had out night circle, where Wee Wee told us a lame story but freaked us out, so everyone shared beds. hehe.

DAY FIVE
Last day... cleaned up the place, and ran around looking for missing bottles. Had one last morning circle where everyone painted this mosaic. We had to cut it up! Left around 2, and everyone was crying. Even Wee How. hehe.

I realise something. It is impossible to capture emotions fully in words, in memories, pictures, even videos. Everything that happened the past five days seems like it was a dream. Like I stood at one corner, watching what was happening to me, but feeling like it was happening to someone else.

Even though it only ended yesterday, it seems like yonks ago. It feels like forever since we last saw wee wee, last sat in the last morning circle. We painted a mosiac, and cut it up, in resemblance to the fact that our paths meet and yet parting is invetable. And when Wee Wee cried... you just knew. That was a beautiful five days that just flew by. And now it's over, never to come back again.

The past five days- an enigma. Everyday seemed to take ages to pass, each moment sometimes filled with crazy elation, sometimes filled with frustration. Yet the five days flew by faster than I could record them. You want to go home, but you're sad to leave. Yet if you have to stay longer, you're unwilling to.

How I wish to capture all those memories, those feelings that are tumbling out faster than water down a waterfall. How I wish that I can relive those moments. It's funny how we can change so much. I've grown so much closer to all the people Kurt; Adele, Fernie, Marie, Melissa, Yi Chan, Elizabeth, Yu Qin, Calean, Kyna, Florence, Jolynn, Rachael, Angela, Benita, Heather.

All that screaming, encouraging one another, feeling our abs, upper body strenght (of which Calean has LOADS:D). Wow. I can never forget that. Yelling at each other never to give up, as we scale those rock walls, encouraging one another... there's nothing that can describe that. How can you describe people yelling their heads off; they look so tiny from up here; but their hope, their encouragement... that's not tiny. Nothing that can describe shouldering heavy packs and trundling through the bush. Nothing can describe sleeping side by side feet curled up in a basha, rocks poking into our backs.

What was the best part? Sitting in morning and night circles, laughing and talking crap (yes, even so much as to go into detail of what brand of pads we use:D). Bonding time. Massaing each other, and making some rather...ahem...not so right noises. Listening to Wee Wee tell us inspirational stories, like the missing piece and the giving tree.

Right then you know that technology screws our lives up, and there is absoltely zilch that can be compared to that. Right then you know that you must must must treasure and hold onto those moments because they might fade away faster than you can imagine. Like the friends I had when I was younger. Rarely do I speak to them.

We can give so much. We can take so much in. We learn that emotions, feelings...showing that... there is nothing wrong with that. We hugged each other so much, I think we all smell of each other.

We all know that we're not alone. Friends come and go. But we should appreciate each moment spent with them. Never let them go.

What a beautiful picture it all makes. We paint, with ourselves, a painting worth more than that of the Creation of Adam, or the Mona Lisa, of every fresco that it on the ceiling of the sistine chapel, of every painting by Van Hough, or hanging in the lourve. A painting, a picture, so beautiful, so imperfectly perfect, so priceless that to say that would be an insult to priceless.

How we grew during OBS. We shared all the utensils, water bottles, food... hope, friendship, love, experience.

Yes, we went through some rough patches. But all that sticks in your mind are the good times. The good times that will never, that you hope will never disappear.

So many things fade into oblivion. At the end of the long long road that we've all traversed, we've been through so much, only so many things remain- love and friendship. Never throw that away, because that is all you really ever have.

Some pictures...



Group photos on the first day...




hehe...Fernie's protection against vicous mozzies...
OUr scary encounter...
Standing at the highest point of Ubin...
Our massage circle!!
Eating out of mass tins that had been in Fernie's shoebag....
The infamous I-CAN...
Our poem for Wee Wee...

~fin~