____light my way________

take my heart but please don't break it

Wednesday 30 January 2008 ;

20:12:00

sigh it really isn't that easy you know. I mean, I've spent my life being told to give in, being scolded for stuff I didn't even do wrong. so when someone does something wrong, to me, it's my fault. and I tell myself, what would it be like if I were in that person's shoes? everyone makes mistakes. when someone does something I don't agree with, I try to put myself into that person's shoes and find a way of agreeing. if someone daos me, I think about what I may have done to piss that person off. (haha I know that's quite over, but ya) if I accidentally dao someone, I feel like whacking my head repeatedly after that. if someone pisses me off, I usually don't openly show it, and if I do I regret it like hell afterwards. I mean, how many ppl have really seen me pissed before? (daniel doesn't count haha he's 8 almost 9 and freaking annoying)

haha maybe at _ though. but that's a special case. and it's not really pissiating so much as... amusing. O.o like it's so utterly nonsensical that the whole hypocrisy or fake drama and exaggeration is like hilarious. sometimes the stuff mentioned are so dumb that you completely burst out laughing at the comp/ place where you hear it haha. sigh but it's also at _ for _ la. ruining an innocent life. pft you.

oh well. I suppose we all have to try. jiayou to all of us! omg I can't believe it's so soon. AHHHHHHH. jumps up and down yelling. okay. WE WILL SURVIVE! (: (I hope)

-light my way

"well done la!"

Thursday 24 January 2008 ;

22:36:00

OBS was awesome.

DAY 1
introductory briefing, introduction to watches and instructors. stocktaking of store and preperation of kayaking equipment. simple lunch, then started on kayaking. first was the lifejacket ploat test. whee! (: then capsize drill. WHEE! ((: sam and I had to try twice to flip tje kayak over haha. and getting back on was tiring. we only did actual ~~kayaking~~ triyaking for abt 10 mins then beached cos of approaching rain.

the walk between the main building (where the hall and everything is) and the store is really long. pft. we learnt how to pitch tents (I wasn't really listening at that time heh) then pitched for that night after dinner. oh we cooked dinner (rice, canned food- baked beans, braised peanuts cocktail sausages) at the under the pool place, forgot what it's called. anw, 4-5 people per tent, and I tented with sam, jess, szemin and xinle.

we had to pack stuffs for the next two days, but we couldn't finish packing food (sam and I stupidly blundered into the world of food I/Cs thinking it'd be an easy job. my foot ah.) so we woke up at 4.30am the next morning to pack.

-

DAY 2
sian, wake up so early still cannot finish packing on time. by this time our instructors (jill-Barker!; andy-Sui Sen) have prob realised that we can't seem to ever be on time. sigh.

yay then we went out for trust fall! super cool. like whoosh- the free fall feeling. freaky but fun! (omg so much alliteration! XD) dunno, it's quite unexplainable to all those who haven't experienced it before.

started off late, but finally got around to rowing. it's a lot more tiring than kayaking. boated with el, renee, sam, jess, (see) xiaowei (and her boyfriend haha: the medical pouch), and megan. dragging the boats into the sea was so fun! we're the cool ones who took the front end of the boat :P so we practically ended up swimming while the others were pulling the trolley thingy from the shore. and there was this sudden drop of seabed thing and I tripped down it and freaked out! joo and I nearly floated away.

anw, we had to get to the next campsite in 3hrs to get a surprise (which was supposedly to get to bathe in the freshwater quarry. but we didn't make it.). started storming after abt 1 or 2 hrs, and rowing in the storm was undeniable fun and bonding, esp with el and her lame jokes haha. "why is love blind? because it has no 'i's!" and sam peed in the bail bucket under the poncho lol. and we heard a splash in the boat all of a sudden (like arnd the time she was peeing) and all froze but no it wasn't what you're thinking hahaha.

kekek campsite was like OMFREAK. eew. one patch of muddy ground with surrounding forest. toilets- completely natural. haha no one in the watch actually used the entrenchment tool lol. had to pitch and cook in the dark, and wash utensils in the sea (while the tide was RISING rapidly), and bloody sandflies kept biting all over my feet ankles and calves. as if blisters weren't enough alrd. I'm allergic, damn you all! glares at sandflies.

[just added: but this time (my second round of bites) isn't as bad as the first. so far only abt 3 bites got bloody (i.e. I scratched badly, subconciously), and the rest are somewhat ok. maybe cos my plaster allergies are itchin gso much the bites forgot to itch/ there isn't enough itch to go arnd.]

that night was the lowest point of obs for most ppl. we had to powder bathe, and many of us did so in the tents. then our tent couldn't find our groundsheet, so we slept on a wet poncho. no, wait, I meant a swimming pool of a poncho. then everything was dark, and I couldn't find my headlamp, which made everything so incovenient. never appreciated light more. AND the worst thing was that everyone was in a pissy mood, and many people were snapping when you talked to them. and poor el, it was her bday. ):

-

DAY 3
everyone still a bit pissified by the previous night, but at least we were leaving. and wth la _. whywhywhy! ): I think quite a few others too. anw, we started our land expedition. it was far beyond what we could have imagined anyone doing, let alone believed that we would have survived that gruelling 7-8 hrs, 10km and 20kg backpacks. (yes shurrup terence I know yall did in 4 hrs.) lost our way once, but not too bad.

got all the checkpoints. after the long climb one, the quote was "The closer one gets to the top, the more one finds there is no top."- Nancy Barcus. after backtracking to the next one, and like feeling half-dead alrd, it was "We are like tea bags - we don't know our own strength until we're in hot water."- Sister Busche. trudged around more, and the third was "Let us realise that what happens around us is largely outside our control. But the way we choose to react is inside our control."- Anonymous. when a lot of us were close to giving up and just flopping down, it was "Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."- Nicolo Machiavelli. and finally, the last one, was "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."- Anonymous. which happens to be the quote on our handbook the week after obs.

anw, the quarry was awesome. we shouted "threethirteenrocks!", then it shouted "rocks!" back at us haha. cool right! ok so we all made it to camp 2 dying but alive. it was seriously an acheivement la. (: but I think the backpacks stunted my growth and made me shorter than I alrd am. ): [just added: yeah I checked. I'm 1cm shorter. lucky height&weight was taken before obs haha.]

then we had quite a good dinner. with lots and lots of maggi mee cos we had LOADS left. [just added: haha we brought back a lot of leftover food and more than helf of it was maggi mee! haha we just eat it raw. it's like mamee.] anw, the instructors made us APPLE CRUMBLE! :D it was damn nice la! thank you jill! [just added: haha we got the "recipe" on the talking cock session on the last day! guess what we're gonna try to do someday. thinks apples. :P]

then we walked into the forest as a group in pairs (as in rows of 2) to some firefly place. we only saw one firefly though lol. but the stars were really ~~chio~~ pretty! orion's belt! then, with a bottle, and a whistle and lightstick to be used in the case of an emergency, we solo nightwalked back. I was a bit more freaked out than I thought I would be la. esp at the pure darkness parts. I tripped once! and I kept thinking patches of light were puddles of water, and avoiding them haha. -.- haha el's the best la. saw a wild boar and thought it was a moving bush. XD

anw, when we were all congregated back there, we did a mini item thing where the instructors walked towards us and we all stood up and parted a path (like the red sea thingy) and yelled "instrustorcs jia4 dao4!". haha I don't think they got it. anw, after we bathed, we did another more well planned item. the items were actually to ~~suck up to them so they would~~ convince them to let us wear short-sleeved shirts and shorts for the next day's water activities. we sang dedication, then did a raffles cheer (the new one, the one that involves some rhythm and goes "ra-raffles, say raffles yeah"), then yelled "5 dollars!!" which was from the "ghost story" andy told suisen. haha anw whee, our request was approved. :D

I think this was the best day so far. ok well makes sense, 1st day for everything usually isn't very likely to be fun cos you don't exactly do much, and 2nd day had kekek campsite in it, no further explanations needed. but still, I liked day 3! ((: um besides the sore feet, aching shoulders, and bruised hips. ohh and thigh abrasion! pft. ouch. haha during the trek we were singing "I feel it in my shoulders, I feel it in my... soles! pain is all around me, and then the feeling... grows!".

-

DAY 4
JETTY JUMP! :D I was a bit freaked out at the edge, but when it was over I totally wanted to do it again! it's like trust fall, the split second free fall, the stomach flying, and the unexplainable euphoria thing. some ppl cut themselves on barnacles, ouch. and _. damn annoying.

after that was rafting. renee, el and I were really PULLING ropes at the corners we did. rope burn! (haha when we had to dismantle later el said her hands were pink with lovesickness for the raft -.-) suisen's barrels (omg I'm so used to spelling darrell that I almost spelt it as barrell!) popped up, so they kinda nearly fell apart, but they really did well, it was just cos the space between the two pipes was that fraction too big. we made it around the jetty. (: the tide was against my side so we were rowing like siao. and i was sitting like on one-tenth of the barrel (like less than one-third chair ok! :P practically less than one-fifth.) and right over the space between the two barrels, and my legs were over the pipes, so when we disembarked I was like OUCH. like doing a split for 20 mins kind of feeling.

after all that, we started trekking back to camp 1. (ohya by then I was starting to run out of underwear -.-) the 20min trek was like nothing compared to the prev day's land ex la. like a stroll across the batch corr compared to like 2.4; to the power of 2. (heh sry la I bet it's all the exponentials pft.) ohya anw I got more bloody sandfly bites. [just added: I realised that works on a literal basis too...]

ok then it was rock climbing, the last obs activity. AHH SO SAD! )): anw, like a lot of ppl reached the top (12th panel) la. I only reached 10. ): pft i know I suck. anw, it was quite a bonding time, cos like andy said he told us not to cheer each other on, but everyone had been helping and encouraging and congratulating anw, so it was quite sweet, the class spirit and all.

eeks last night in obs! )': anw, dinner was catered! it was the first time in a long long time we sat on chairs and used tables and plates and cups can! el sat then she was like "look! look at this plastic thing specially crafted for us to sit on!" cues heavenly light and choir haha. (sorry I just added that part, it seemed relevant haha) sat beside el and was laughing/choking throughout dinner cos el is, well, el after all. we found out that her record for not talking is like 1min max hahaha. (okay the next day it increased to 3mins 23secs, we were super amazed la! XD)

then we did the picture story activity, and I think the full story is like quite cool. in some abstract way. haha and we were like "okay how to tell whose is more macro?" "oh my guy/bus/rooster is this tall... *sticks out finger and thumb to approx height*" "oh mine is this tall... *repeats action appropriate to own picture* ...so yours come first." lol. so our conclusion was... SIZE MATTERS! haha.

quite a few of us decided not to bathe that night heh. and some ppl like didn't bathe for 3 days. O.o and I heard that someone's hair would stay in that position if you pulled it outwards cos it was so sticky. gross haha. and el didn't bathe since her birthday! O.o haha anw, rebekah, roxanne, el, renee, xinle, giam, clarissa and I took the store that night and splept on the new blue tarp. oh after clearing up and packing a lot of stuff like lifejackets and waterbottles etc. anw, we stayed up abt an hour eating and talking. (abt sick stuff. and controversial issues. and mainly smth that kinda falls into both categories. thinks 377A.) we finally stopped talking when el decided to stop/sleep haha, no surprises there. amazed that we actually slept like 5 hrs, which is A LOT considering the circumstances haha.

-

DAY 5
OMG WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO HOME. cries. we were asked to draw smth we missed and I didn't miss anything. I dunno, it was quite cool, kinda hard to explain. I felt sorta just out of the real world, like obs offered this tranquil world for us to step into for 5 days so I just left everything in the other real life behind willingly. or smth along that lines. anw, I was very sure that I wouldn't be the only one missing obs today. jess was whining to me (as usual), and I'm sure many other ppl were touched by these 5 days too.

ok we brought the triyaks back, sang my bonnie lies over the ocean and squatted/stood up at every 'b' we said (jill's instructions!), did some have to throw rocks to each other and simultaneously catch activity, and one where we had to throw a rock representing our weakness(es) into the sea, and the barker web. I shall treasure my string forever! (:

then we did some item for jill that was supposed to be super sweet, like sing pass it on, then give jill a matchbox with a match that says "you were the spark". (you must know the lyrics to get this!) tell me I'm good at making super sweet items with cool links. :D oh anw we added "you made the difference" to the original line also. haha dunno, I thought short and sweet was better. oh but we kinda screwed up a bit cos half of us didn't know the lyrics for the 2nd and 3rd verse of pass it on. we should have just sang the 1st verse haha. but jill appreciateds it anw, so yay! (: oh we did one special-coloured match (which was the same colour as jill's shirt! :D), with 14 plain brown ones, which represented our watch.

then we did obs evaluation (sad they didn't have a qn "how much did you like obs?" cos I would have put smth like "off the scale".), got back valuables, got little souvenirs, got our certs (I realised obs has a lot of traditions too! cool!), etc. then was the shortshort talking cock session. we asked her for the apple crumble method, her past CCAs, her age, abt the 21 day course (sounds damn freaky I tell you), etc. we only got to chat for like 15 mins, after that we had to gather at MPH. we realised that that was prob the last time we were ever gonna see jill! )): we got her email though, so we can all keep in contact. (:

so it was debrief, and there was this cool personal recount of obs by someone. it's titled I Want To Go Home, and it starts with the title phrase. then is this tirade of complaints about the conditions and manual labour and everything. after that, it's abt how things seemed to change, and how he viewed things diffly, starting to enjoy the activities. then the cool part is how it ends. "I want to go home. I want to go home and show everyone what obs has done for me.". it's super sweet can! (': and I like the way it links, the way the same phrase can be completely diff.

then jill led our class to the boat back to mainland, and we were like :D, but only 12 ppl (which excluded me, jess, sam, el, those ppl who'll miss jill) could get on, so we were like ):. we got andy haha. when we were walking to the jetty, sam, jess and I alrd started emoing, and on the boat there were like tears silently flowing. it's really sad la, leaving this beautiful place where the 5 days packed with memories to be cherished had been spent.

-

I miss obs, ubin, the campus, the sand, the sea, the trees, the store, the tents, the groundsheets, the ponchos, the waterbottles, the messtins, everything! I miss jill. ):

obs really changed all of us, I can bet everyone felt very diff on the last day as compared to on the first day. when I went for obs, I left s'pore and sch and all that hw behind. I really didn't want to leave the serenity of ubin for that hectic lifestyle again. when we were back in s'pore, everything felt surreal. it was as though everything we had done during obs was left at ubin, I felt as though we had never rowed in the storm, never trekked for 7hrs, never learnt more abt our classmates, never met jill. it felt like my usual life was pouring back into me, no matter how much I tried to hold it out. HWHWHW! sigh.

I'm really glad obs helped our class bond so much. it's no wonder they planned it this way. cos we'll be like together for 2 yrs. it's great to start seeing everyone more as 313 than as individuals now. (: haha also bonded a lot with el, which may or may not be a good thing. :P

so when we came back, we were supposed to emo in the corr haha but jess had to go, and sam started to go indiv or smth. so I went to band room too (after dumping this plastic bag of leftover food in my locker), and zhenyi was ranting abt how we were all so un-tanned. and she and delise were discouraging me from indiving right after coming back from obs, so I didn't haha. sigh, thigh muscle aches and sandfly bitessss! PUCK. (heh puck arose as a less vulgar sounding version cos when el was trying not to talk and was handsigning, she accidentally did p instead of f. go figure.)

obs was awesome indeed. it was an experience of a lifetime, a huge distance we covered on our journey of class bonding, a great stepping stone in the path of all our individual lives. in perseverance, confidence, conquering fear, everything. it was awesome, and I'm gonna miss it.

"well done la!" (':

-light my way

cool!

Saturday 12 January 2008 ;

12:57:00

you know the cool thing like about how band is probably the only cca that people universally can say that they have a complete serious true absolute passion for it? as in like there're sites like TFBC, facebook groups, everything. and this means it's not just us, it's not even just s'pore, it's like ALL OVER THE WORLD! I think that's really smth that we can be proud of. (:

and I was viewing some discussion topics on the facebook group ykyabnw (don't ask, read tfbc!), and I realised that it isn't just me, flats are terrifying monsters to sax players all over the world! hahaha. http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2210842786&topic=2750&start=0&hash=f67de648509bf1a2891095979f665014 you can go read all if you want haha. like it's on whether ppl prefer sharps or flats, and like 100% of the sax ppl say sharps. most flute ppl say flats I think. haha but flats are really O.o! I only managed to train myself on Bb and Eb. maybe Db but I get confused cos it's usually around a Eb. yepp anw I still think it's cool! haha.

haha this is quite funny.

Christopher David Francis (Richmond High) wrote on May 12, 2007 at 8:24 PM.
You know how to tell what section music belongs to without looking at the section ? Trumpets always rip their music because they always fight over it. Clarinets and Flutes are always writing notes and making their names pretty on it. Trombones always have grease stains from food and also very dirty from the slides hitting stands and knocking music off onto the floor. Tubas have foot prints because when they drop their music they step on it and slide it over to them. Sax's have turned corners for unkown reasons. Percussionists....well...we dont know...we never get music back from them...

-light my way

My First Proper School Week of 2008 (minus Friday)

Thursday 10 January 2008 ;

23:30:00

Mon 070108
ok so sch has like "officially" started. I feel old. I don't wanna be sec3. eeks and hearing all the sec3 horror stories. and my maths and chem is gonna totally die.

Tues 080108
AHH OMG OMG OMG! :D
[I still miss them though. ):]
anw, Russian Sailors' Dance is damn hard. crazy 110.

Wed 090108
bah phototaking was so screwed. and I think I screwed up this photo too lol. we're not gonna live with this photo on our ic or smth right? O.o

ohh and I have no idea why the clars think we play 110 pro-ly. I was completely letting my fingers fly and like playing everything wrongly. and they can do 122 better than us!

chem diagnostic was so screwed. I'll be lucky to get 10/40.

hahaha anw, when we were gonna go for batch lunch, siti suddenly yelled "cute guy!" and ran off, and rebecca ran after her (obviously :P), and julia was like "everyone's running! so... run!" and she ran off with them too lol. then when they caught up with us outside the gate, siti was like "ahya not cute alrd" hahaha. and we were wondering abt if they did that like during some section outing or smth: someone yells cute guy then their whole sb suddenly disappears. XD

I'm a wall! X)

Thurs 100108
hahahaha omg. see the 2nd para of yesterday? guess what I got! :P now all we have to do is just pass our eoys to show TREMENDOUS improvement. highest in class... drumroll... 21! ok so my maths and chem IS dead. oh and let me add chinese to that list. sigh surds are absurd.

[random] haha I'm still very amused that Physical Fitness Test (NAPFA) 's acronym is pft! because it's just so awesomely true! [/random]

haha I really think _ has a lot of _s! ok no one knows what I'm talking about except for gloria maybe. oh oh are we still doing syllabus? heh. barnarnar! haha sorry random. bah gotta do commonwealth essay. aurgh.

haha ohh I just read yujia's blog. well speed-read la hahaha if not I won't even finish by obs. :P HAHA ok so now I gerrit. goodness it's like actually more useful to know about this kind of current affairs (i.e. blog posts, msn nicks, dps etc) than the kind they print in straits times lol. ohcrap I made a new year resolution to read the newspaper but I haven't started heh. besides browsing through life today but my main goal was the comics heh.

ok shall stop and be guai and focus on my stupid commonwealth essay. 5 days into school and I'm alrd starting to stay up late cheonging. bleagh.

"we're SHAKY like that!" :D

-light my way

Catching Up

;

22:06:00

haha ok so to catch up with a lot of posting. well not really a lot la. anw, random doodles are on facebook photos, too many to upload on blogger. I shall upload some random comics here though.

oh wait this pic first! we were at pop bkfest, and we found this instrument encyclopedia thingy and all started flipping to our own instrus haha. guess who's who.