Thursday 23/08/07
Day 1
The commencement of my 12 days OBS course. I was hoping that the journey from HTA to Punggol jetty would last forever so that I won’t reach Ubin. I am still quite sian about the whole thing. Upon arrival I saw this big ship which was built on a patch of land some distance in front of the jetty.
We were ushered into the Multi-purpose Hall where we were divided into 3 groups (A.K.A watches). I was in “Nehru” watch. My instructor is Cindy and she looks like a pleasant lady. I saw the various rock walls and ladders and ropes hanging down from the roof of the hall and wondered if we would be doing them. I have mild acrophobia. Next we were led to our dormitories which we assumed we would only be staying in for a fraction of the 12 days. When I entered the dorm I was like “Wow!”. The place was much better than I expected. It gives off a kind of cozy feeling. I picked a bed next to the window overviewing the Tenacity Drive. Or was it Enterprise Road? Basically its just the route which we will take from our dorms to the other facilities.
I thought since half the day is already gone and we would be slacking for the rest of the day and the real activities would start tomorrow but no. The instructors wasted no time. After briefing us about the dos and don'ts of the dorms and officially handing the stores to us, we were told to report to the Inverse Tower in our climbing attire, bringing along our harness and helmet. My first activity was a high element! So off we go to the Inverse Tower and after some rounds of belaying lessons and briefings, we started scaling the tower. I paired up with Jaromes and we did the DDD; 7 logs there were attached together horizontally with the distance between each log increasing as one gets higher. I got really scared when I reached the 3 log and got abit hesitant about moving on. Nonetheless I moved on. But alas, fear took control over me and I got stuck at the 6th log. In the end, we failed to complete the DDD because the time limit is up (yes, there is time limit).
After that I felt damn disappointed with myself. Just one freaking log away only. I tink I let Jaromes down since he wasted all his effort in hurling me up to the 6th log, only to have me giving up there. Hai. When we were packing up our stuff and were getting ready to return to the dorm, I realised that it was such a bloody waste. Just one more log away only. Hai. Its always like that, regretting what I didn't do. After that we changed in PT attire and went for a 2.4km run. The route was so very similar to the MacRitchie route, except with even more rocks and uneven surfaces.
Food at Ubin was good. 10x, probably 100x better than HTA's. We had a night lesson that night. It was on leadership profiling. I was given this booklet which I had to fill in accordingly to see what kind of leader I am. The results were somewhat surprising. Self-renewal and Character. Hmm..
Friday 24/08/07
Day 2
10 more days away to the end of the course. The usual routine here is lights out at 11pm (our lesson drag till 12am this morning though) and reveille at 5.55am. Relive the BMT moment! Anyway, we had to report to the Expedition Square (AKA parade square..) by 5.55am for a not-so-formal flag raising session. For being the super-provost, I got arrowed to raise the flag for our first time. Its quite simple. We just had to sadiah when we were asked to and then stand straight until the flags were raised. No singing required. Short and sweet.
We began the morning with a game which I can't remember. It involves all 42 of us though. After that we did some stretching and went for a 2.4km run. Probably because of the terrain, all our timings were between 11 to 13 minutes. After the run, we cooled down and went to have a dip in the sea. Simply put, all of us stepped into the sea and then lower our entire body into the seawater and then come up again. Once would suffice. I wouldn't mind if the water is crystal blue but with all the floating twigs and leaves and rubbish and patches of oil... Ugh. No choice tho, it was mandatory for all of us.
That concludes the end of morning PT and we went back to change and then went for breakfast and then went for morning circle. Morning circle is just a session where everyone would gather in a circle with all 3 instructors and we would reflect upon the previous day and then share with one another. Quite pointless in my opinion. This would be the usual morning routine for the next 10 days.
In the afternoon we did two activities, kayaking and X-field. For kayaking, we were thought the basics of kayaking.. how to paddle, how to steer the boat etc etc. When we were about to set off to do a little bit of rowing for practice, a thunderstorm starts to brew and we were forced to abandon the practice row. We waited for the rain to stop and when it does, we began doing the X-field. Its something like the amazing race, minus the price money and minus the global scale of checkpoints. We had to find like 7 checkpoints which are scattered throughout the island in like 2 hours.
The checkpoints were planted on ...
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Ok. I give up. I no longer see any point in sharing every single day of my OBS here. I will just give a brief summary.
25/08/07 - 27/08/07: Land expedition. Same stuff. Basically we just need to go around finding checkpoints and work as a watch. Got to camp out in the open, cook our own food, saw huge spiders, found out about something more in Ubin. Ended the expedition by building a raft at 4am on the last day and paddling it back to base camp. Upon reaching the base camp at 8am in the morning, we went kayaking to prep ourselves for the sea expedition that is coming up next. We kayaked around the entire island of Ubin plus some of its offshore island.
28/08/07: Felt very nua due to the hectic and tiring schedule yesterday. The usual morning routine still applies. We had some more kayaking classes today and spend the afternoon planning the sea expedition. We would be the one planing the routes, deciding the ETA and stuff like that. All of us are running the sea expedition.
29/08/07 - 01/09/07: Sea expedition. First day we got stucked outside of Changi Naval Base. We were supposed to keep a 1km distance away from the base but the freaking strong waves kept pusing us towards the base. A police coast guard boat actually approached our instructor's boat (they were not kayaking, they were in their engine powered boat) to see what we are trying to do. Luckily things went well. Camp at east coast the first night, sister island the second night and east coast again on the third. Corals at sister islands. Aircraft carrier. Destroyers. Adrenaline rush from the rocking of the waves. Big big waves. SIA and budget planes flying above us. Sun tan. Sun burnt. Shaq. Motivated. Shaq. Motivated. Goes on and on. Arrived back at base camp on thursday 4 hours earlier than the ETA. Mwahaha. After packing our canoes and stuff, its about 3pm. guess wat. THE DAY GOES ON AS USUAL. we still need to do afternoon PT!
02/09/07: Peak ascent. Another high element challenge. But abit more advanced. This time round I completed it! Huat ah. We spend the whle day doing it cause everyone must at least climb once and the periodic intervals of rain kept disrupting our ascent. At night, Nehru gathered for the second last time to share our reflections. Found out interesting stuffs about Cindy and my other mates.I shared some of my own too.
03/09/07: To quote Mark Twain - "I am happy when I completed a challenge; abit because it has ended but chiefly due to the fact that I will never be doing it again." Yes. The much awaited day has arrived. We did the graduation run in the morning. A 10 km run. I finished it in 52minutes and 42seconds. Went for breakfast. Then went to pack up our luggage. Then went for a debrief. Then went for lunch. Then went to souvenir shop. Then went back for more debrief. Then went home. The end.
Few things I want to say about the OBS. While it is fun , I won't say I thoroughly enjoyed the whole course. There is still room for improvement. Like the quantity of ration given to us during the expeditions. Anyway, I have learnt several lessons during the course and I think I have grown slightly more mature. Perhaps. I have developed more of my leadership skills. And yes, it will be a somewhat memorable chapter in my life.
I dunno about you guys but for me, everytime when something comes to an end, like JC, some courses, BMT etc etc, I will feel kinda emotional? Something like I don't want it to end.
I guess I said enough tonight. Getting exhausted...
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