after first class/avsw

as i promised, hike log is over and here is an update of everything since last weekend.

5th to 6th was first class, and in case you still didnt know, my patrol was zhongjun, yiming, raga and me. there were 5 patrols in all, next was francis, tak wei, kai jun and ming e followed by anurak ruiliang amos minglun then sup yenter jon ed edmund and last patrol is alvin sherman rong jun and luchen. first day was quite killer, around 36km. i was expecting to get blisters/abrasion, so i put plaster at my thigh area and powder in my socks. the plaster came out a few hours after the start of the hike, most probably due to my sweat. So in the end i still got abrasions, but not as bad as last year's first class. The powder in the socks were amazing and i only had one blister and the heel of my left foot. now i know how to prevent blister, next is to prevent abrasions totally. im thinking of getting skins, but its too expensive, although it will help in running as well. first day was really degen, first was tampines road, then was some mega long 10km south from one checkpoint to the next. anyway the rough area walked was like this:

pasir ris>tampines>kovan>ang mo kio>yio chu kang>bishan>kallang>katong>east coast park

in the end, we reached the night point 3 hours late, but at least we had the maps well drawn and the description written.

day 2 was not as bad. we rushed the first checkpoint, like 4.5km in 1 hour. Next few were slower than the first, but faster than day 1. reached the endpoint on time, but still the last patrol to reach. at least we completed the whole hike.

hike log was rushed as usual, 1 week to do it on top of AVSW games booth. monday was for rest, so didnt do log. tuesday was for games booth, wednesday for 01 cup, thursday for games booth, friday for games booth and hike log, saturday was gone, sunday was rest, monday was chiong all the way. yesterday was totally for hike log.

woke up early in the morning, printed everything i could, did some checkpoint maps, went to school to meet zhongjun and yiming. then chiong all the way, although our effeciency at the start was as low as flo rida. we were rushing all the way, even buying back lunch to eat. then the last few hours totally rushed like mad, and last 1 hour was frantic. actually i had thought we had already done most of the maps, but turns out the route map were mostly not coloured/labelled. and the checkpoint maps had a few missing that i did not know how to draw, like the scout HQ, start point and night point. anyway we completed the log at about 5pm, late by half an hour already. then went to bind it as well as print the reflections, and waited for 1 hour for some guy to finish using the computer as we had to print some reflections. so ended up putting the log in
dropoff point. have a feeling we going to get pumped cos no one handed in on time. but i think our hike log quite zhai, maps all very nice and we got the nice cover page thanks to zhongjun's imba drawing skills. hope we dont have to redo.

last wednesday was 01 cup, some ripoff activity from last year. almost exactly the same, even the stations. basically the idea was that there were station games - frisbee, soccer, dodgeball, sudoku, word search and charades. play against another patrol in that station, then move on to the next station. pretty ripoff but i guess it was fun, especially the charades. surprisingly we did not get owned as much as we usually do for sports type activity.

friday was very busy although there was no school. in the morning was hike log, then went to lunch and go to tanglin APSN to meet mrs povil for RE. then came back and rushed the games board that were not complete yet. then went to pathlight for the stayover, and helped out here and there. after we could go to sleep, we went back to the attic where we were to sleep and we just lala there. some played cards, some worked on the board, some pokemon with zhongjun's comp. at first i did the board, then at 1am i went to sleep, i think im the first one to sleep. it was so noisy in the room i had to sleep while listening to music. then woke up at 4.30am on saturday to help out. then at 7 went to our hub, which was at the courtyard at a hawker center near pathlight. no idea why we went there so early as we just stoned there for 1 hour+ before the first few walkers came. anyway it was quite funny, all the scouts at my hub (yan wei, wee kien, me, sup, jon ed, vj, yiming) were sitting down on the bench, while the red cross from chong boon were like perma senang diri. the npcc from chong boon were just standing around, and when we asked them go and sit they said they would get punished if they were seen slacking. so in the end scouts just hogged all the sits.

finally when the walkers came, it was really quite a sight. all of them were carrying balloons, with the other party items from previous hub. we were the last hub (5) so they just had to collect the last item, a face mask, from us. the walkers came in waves, most probably because of traffic lights along the way. but the walk was really effective in raising awareness cos it was just so easy to see this big group of people walking with balloons and all that. anyway saw the GOH, ms eunice olsen, MP. she was quite tall, and her hair made her about 1m taller or something.

after all the walkers came and went back to pathlight, we packed up and went back too. on the way back saw a balloon in the HDB void deck. so sup tried to jump and get it down, but couldnt reach, so he stepped on my thigh, then jumped up and got it. then when we were near pathlight, shi de somehow let it go. =(

back at pathlight, it was reallllly crowded. the carnival atmosphere was really there, and it was quite amazing how big scale this project really is. went back to our games stall, and it was quite a good business, however the dunking one totally owned everything else. got some free coupons from jeremy, and spent it all on the various stalls throughout the day. anyway the top prize for our stall was some imba big remote control car, and to win it one must complete our hardest level within 20 seconds. apparently some guy spammed our stall and managed to win that along with hell lot of other prizes. could see that they really wanted the car.

however, the best part of the whole event was the dunking. the 01 scouts who were dunked were (in order): zhi, hiok, francis, me, sup, anurak. as his msn nick says "Dunking j1s makes supernormal profits". i think he earned about $50+ for the stall as all the 01 scouts just keep spamming him. i was kind enough not to dunk him. hiok did not earn as much, as most people were already broke by then. i tried to dunk him once, but missed it totally. then francis turn, and i managed to get him with a tennis ball on my first shot. hehe. when it was finally my turn, there were not many people left. then zhongjun dunked me twice out of the five times i got dunked...must be hating me cos of the hike log. was the first time i got dunked, and quite a nice experience.

at about 1pm went around to spend my coupons, ate a bit here and there, then went back to the attic to sleep. slept about 1 hour, 2-3 before it was clearup time. nothing much to talk about for clearup, just the usual stuff of being a man. then wenjun and i played mercy and he totally owned me lol. anyway, heres the link for AVSW: http://www.autism.org.sg/avsw08/

oh and im in RLP =D

well thats quite a bit to read, have fun

ps. should i change blogskin? its a bit hard to read with the current one, i realised.