since today is such a boring day, i shall blog about my scout life since i joined in sec 1, 2006. ive been wanting to do this for quite a while, and this post is inspired by a senior =) have fun guessing who. oh and if you are a non scout reading this, good luck trying to understand most of it.
when we were told to choose our ccas in sec 1, my first 3 choices were sports (something like softball rugby judo i think). and my 4th and 5th choice i contemplated between putting 01 and 02, somehow 4th choice was 01 and im thankful it was 01. so my sports applications were rejected, and yea i was put in 01. remember it was a 4th choice, so i wasn't exactly very happy about it at that time.
the first ever moment i remember was sitting at a table in the shaw foundation ceremonial hall. then-stls hiokhong and alvinyong were there, along with ms goh and the rest of 01-06. ms goh asked us to say what we thought scouting was about, and i remembered saying something generic like outdoors, camping etc. (and i also remember sup saying guns and all of us laughing at his answer. typical sup =D)
i got posted to falcon, and i was in falcon all the way through till sec 3. my first impressions of my patrol were pretty good. koala and hq were just so hilarious in anything they do, and qianwei and benhong were exactly what i thought a senior should have been. first part of sec 1 was fun, just going for act every wednesday, pump a bit, laugh a lot, lala here and there. friday patrol meetings were non existent for falcon, it was just go den, take attendance, and zhao off. and the first part of sec 1 ended with SUTC.
SUTC was really a diferent camp from my idea of camps last time. sec 1 it was at balestier hill primary if i remember correctly, and my patrol was juggerknot (theme was dota). my fitness increased dramatically, my mental strength improved by leaps and bounds. but 01-06 still wasnt solid. i remember being more attached to the then-sec 2s, somehow always drifting to them rather than 01-06.
next major thing that came up was GTC. absolutely tiring, totally exhausting, but extremely rewarding. people keep saying GTC is life changing, and yea i totally agree with that. some memorable things were 1. hotel ubin 2. 6 loafs of bread 3. frickin long hikes 4. THAT night call 5. big petty jug
number 4 will be something i remember for as long as i can remember hopefully. its such a special moment that really kickstarted our batch bonding, and since its so special it cant be expressed in words.
and the last part of sec 1 was group celes. all i can remember was jianliang saying something like "i hope i have done a good job with the gc next year".
sec 2 went by in a blur. somehow i dont remember much except batch project. the endless hours we spent in the library tying our knots, the fun moments (how to save a life!) we had stoning in the project room once again, tying knots. and it was really rewarding to see our stuff being sold at AVSW, to know that we have actually helped the group.
oh another thing i remember about sec 2 is SUTC. the last part of SUTC was really cool, where we formed 01 while in pushup position. and the j1s were really fantastic to give each and every one of us cards with feedback on them. i still keep mine =)
gtc was painful, as always. just that this year was more painful than last year. the sense of relief upon reaching back to RI was just amazing, and the blisters and abraisions i had were just sooo disgusting. and the night call at west coast park...still remember how dam loud leonard shouted, how much it echoed throughout the night. and the crowding in the pavillion when it rained was just so fun, and ms goh calling us mother hens or something like that.
moving on to the more recent sec 3. being patrol leader was fairly stressful at times, especially at the start of the year when i was not used to it yet, and also during AC period where its just pure mentally tiring. i wished i had been a more fun person like how koala and haoqin were, but i guess its just how my personality is. sometimes i regret being too strict with the patrol on stuff, and wished i could be more like eagle where they just whatever everything and everyone has fun.
getting 1st for AC was a pleasant surprise, and it was made possible due to every single member in falcon. no one slacked, everyone worked hard, and yea the effort paid off. it made all the preparation seem so worth it.
and i have no idea why my sec 3 life seems so uneventful at this point in time. weren't we supposed to learn the most in sec 3?
and lastly, venturing is just awesome. having a chance to do something different from the past 3 years is nice, but having a chance to do something different WITH your best friends is just amazing. and im just hoping this year never ends, cos when we get to j1 its inevitable we will split up into those who get into gc and those who dont, and i really wish it doesnt happen. im so not looking forward to end of this year =(
and of course looking ahead, theres still gc to go, where it will be a lot of stress yet very rewarding as well.
im so thankful i got my 4th choice
Thursday, June 18, 2009
the curious case of my desktop
i was using my desktop normally last wednesday when the keyboard AND mouse just died on me. tried all methods to repair it, and nothing would work. even called up dell, but they didn't have any solution for this problem. so now my desktop is left rotting in my room, and im using my dad's desktop. it was really quite a bad time la, seeing as how my proposal for VPA was due on the friday to zx actually, so I had to redo it when i came back from...
VLC! yea basically thanks to everyone in VLC, ranging from 01-06, to other venture scouts, to the leaders, to the (very old) lecturers, to the people working at terror sea scout. some of the people are reallly wonderful, like justin, who is desperately getting people to add him on msn/facebook =p despite the 3 hrs of sleep, it was still dam fun (but suuuper humid!)
and when i went jogging 2 days ago, my right knee hurt after that, and after yesterday's super tiring swim training it hurt even more, then after a while the pain went away. no idea what is wrong, but ill limit my exercises to swimming as much as i can to let my leg heal. and i really hope it heals.
its already the 3rd week of hols. this june hols got frickin lot of projects, and glad to say at least SS is going well, although the rest are *ahem*. hopefully h1n1 causes sch to be closed even longer hehe
VLC! yea basically thanks to everyone in VLC, ranging from 01-06, to other venture scouts, to the leaders, to the (very old) lecturers, to the people working at terror sea scout. some of the people are reallly wonderful, like justin, who is desperately getting people to add him on msn/facebook =p despite the 3 hrs of sleep, it was still dam fun (but suuuper humid!)
and when i went jogging 2 days ago, my right knee hurt after that, and after yesterday's super tiring swim training it hurt even more, then after a while the pain went away. no idea what is wrong, but ill limit my exercises to swimming as much as i can to let my leg heal. and i really hope it heals.
its already the 3rd week of hols. this june hols got frickin lot of projects, and glad to say at least SS is going well, although the rest are *ahem*. hopefully h1n1 causes sch to be closed even longer hehe
Thursday, June 11, 2009
hillary
k this is long overdue. 8 days to be precise.
so we won hillary! old news haha. but yea its quite cool cos i never really won any competition before, other than nspc heats for chariot race, but yea thats another story. up against 27 other teams, including raffles team 2, and im quite surprised we came up tops! was just hoping we could qualify at first, but yea it was a pleasant surprise to know we are doing good.
but the hc prelims itself wasn't that much of a challenge to be fair. most of the stuff we did didnt even require a leader or teamwork, it was more like if one person knew how to do it, you have already cleared the stage. so in that sense, yea we shouldn't be too complacent about the double 1st and 2nd for raffles, although its still a job well done.
oh and our team rocks. i shall refrain from using the team name, it makes me sound egoistic. DISCLAIMER: I SO DID NOT COME UP WITH THAT NAME HOR. I AM NOT AN EGO DUDE
haha but yea its all for fun so, whatever.
and i swear zann is the most hardcore girl i have ever known. she puts me to shame -.-"
so we won hillary! old news haha. but yea its quite cool cos i never really won any competition before, other than nspc heats for chariot race, but yea thats another story. up against 27 other teams, including raffles team 2, and im quite surprised we came up tops! was just hoping we could qualify at first, but yea it was a pleasant surprise to know we are doing good.
but the hc prelims itself wasn't that much of a challenge to be fair. most of the stuff we did didnt even require a leader or teamwork, it was more like if one person knew how to do it, you have already cleared the stage. so in that sense, yea we shouldn't be too complacent about the double 1st and 2nd for raffles, although its still a job well done.
oh and our team rocks. i shall refrain from using the team name, it makes me sound egoistic. DISCLAIMER: I SO DID NOT COME UP WITH THAT NAME HOR. I AM NOT AN EGO DUDE
haha but yea its all for fun so, whatever.
and i swear zann is the most hardcore girl i have ever known. she puts me to shame -.-"
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
week 1 of hols!
what a week. first of course was vc, followed by hc, then a whole day with 01-06, then nyaa, and today was hc training.
i owe about 3 blog posts now, 1 for vc, 1 for hc, and 1 for that super long thursday.
and i think i trained too much, starting to feel an injury in my right leg now, and my left leg's injury hasn't totally healed. need to be more careful from now on.
and who would like to sponser me? =D tri stuffs are really ex
i owe about 3 blog posts now, 1 for vc, 1 for hc, and 1 for that super long thursday.
and i think i trained too much, starting to feel an injury in my right leg now, and my left leg's injury hasn't totally healed. need to be more careful from now on.
and who would like to sponser me? =D tri stuffs are really ex
Friday, June 5, 2009
Venture Camp!
If you are looking for finger-licking good chicken to eat while sitting on the sand and defending the chicken from the stray bloodhounds eyeing your food, Pulau Ubin is the place to be. But before we get to that, we shall go back 1 day in time, to the start of Venture Camp!
To quote Zhongjun, "finally a reporting venue in the west..." And the honour goes to Mayfair Park! We were told to report here at 8am on Saturday, 30th May, and although the place was semi-unknown to many (except people like Zhongjun of course), most of us managed to report on time for the horseshoe. After the reorganising of groups and a quick inspection (and lots of ionised water droplets for me), Sup was to lead us to the start of our close terrain navigation. Fastforwarding past the boring and tiring walk along the long stretch of tar known as Rifle Range Road, we reached our start point/1st checkpoint and were told to look for a control card, which was a white piece of paper with 01's group emblem on it. Zhongjun lived up to his skills, and in a fashion where he would have said, "My gold orienteering not for nothing!", he found the cunningly placed control card, which was stuck on a random tree a few meters in from the road.
The next few hours up till 3pm was spent in Macritchie, where each group split up in search for even more cunningly placed control cards. My group, which consisted of Anurak, Soham, Leonard, Tak Wei and myself, stayed true to the purpose of this entire activity and practiced the skills we learnt, which was in essence just dead reckoning. There would be 1 navigator, 1 plotter, and 3 pacers, and we rotated the roles after each checkpoint. The basic navigation went something like this: After walking 100m in a straight line, the pacers would stop and shout "100m!". Hearing that, the navigator would say out the bearing we were walking at for the past 100m, and the plotters would plot this on the enlarged topo map version of Macritchie. Of course, this was the ideal case and what is desired does not always concur with reality. Often it went something like this: After walking anywhere between 95-105m in a direction thats off by a few degrees, the navigator will announce the bearing which is incorrect and the plotter will estimate the bearing and mark it out on the map. This was a perfect recipe to get lost, but being skilled venture scouts as we were, we managed to find the 1st checkpoint, although it was a good 70m away from where we thought it would be.
We reached the next few checkpoints in similar fashion. Note that reaching the checkpoint does not mean finding the checkpoint. This being Macritchie with all its crevices and revines and us not being people with GPS devices, it was fairly impossible to find a control card even though we know it is within a 50m radius of where we were. Sad to say, the first checkpoint was one of two checkpoints that we actually found on our own. One of the other checkpoint was somehow lost or eaten up as Zhi Xuan, who was following my group, could not even find it. Another checkpoint was skipped simply because the time we took searching for it was too grosteque. And the last checkpoint was found first by Sup's group, and we conveniently went to where we heard them shouting. The final checkpoint, however, was worthy of mention. We knew it was along a road, and we knew it was about 200m from a junction. Hence we paced that distance, and just as we reached the 200m mark, we turned left and immediately could spot the control card. This was an amazing feat compared to Francis's group, whom I heard took a long time to find the card, and who also tried to scam my group into believing its at the top of some random hill. Too bad! My group was just too good.
----------------------
ah screw it, takes too long writing properly. oh that was inspired by nyaa lesson, haha
some fun stuff that happened during close navi (note how soham is in all)
1. soham was plotting. after a break he said he couldnt find the protractor. a while later someone found it in his bottle compartment.
2. i asked where my permanant marker was. soham felt in his left pocket, and went like ohh shit. he remembers dammmm clearly he put it there, but somehow just couldn't find it. i asked him "does your pocket have a hole or something?" he went "oh ya shit...". and at the end of the hike, he found it in the netting of his long pants
oh well soham is just funny
going back to after close navi, we hiked to our night point which was the bamboo place. along the way we sang random songs until we forgot the lyrics, then switched songs! a dam good way to moralise yourself, but of course you need people!
night point was with zhongjun and leonard. we first chose an area to be our shelter, and we were thankful it didnt have ants, unlike some other (the suanning group) people. then we started a fire first, which was RATHER easy considering the amount of tinder and firewood we have. zj did the preparation, leonard did the cooking, i maintained the fire. we somehow managed to cook everything, including the rice! first few times in camp i could actually cook rice, except like ac or whatever la of course. for our shelter we did a basha like thing and covered it with leaves, but yea it was quite fail. oh well its more for the experience anyway.
sentry was siantry la. except i koped 1hr of zj's sleep and i had radio with me. hehe
the next day was pretty slow moving. in summary, we had a run from tampines to changi (8km), and a few ppl dropped out, but most made it alive. then we cooked lunch at the jetty, before proceeding to ubin!
thanks to the manymany firewood which we had cut during the preps, there were friggin lot of things to carry. we walked a short distance to some random beach, and prepared to cook our super delicious restaurant standard dinner! first up was digging an imba dig hole that could cover me, then dumping newspaper balls and kindling in, and laying tons of firewood on top, followed by balancing the pebbles we brought on the firewood. then, using a fuse that was soaked in j1's magic, we lighted the whole shit up and the fire was just hugeeeee, about a billion times bigger than my night 1 fire.
while all these were happening, people were also getting ready the food to cook. we wrapped them all in alum foil, then when preparation was done, we extinguished the flames, spammed the food inside the pit, and covered the whole pit up.
after i forgot how long of pitching bashas, the j1s took the food out and we were rewarded with a sumptuous dinner that also invited the ubin stray dogs. ya the food was more imba than cooking with mess tin, and certainly more imba than day 1 dinner.
rest of the day was spent lalaing, roasting marshmallows, and watching hioksupzihengamos suan themselves. i officially declare myself retired from the biggest suanner gang, hiok can take over my role. ironyirony. and night 2 was friggin long and cold cos we ended activity at like 8+, and had all the way till 7am.
the last day we had batch talk, reflections, experience sharings by j1s and zhi, and the final activity. we had to say a dream, a fear and a change. and of course one thing we would like to say to our batch
"I WONT PANGSEH" - Hiok Yang
everyone shall remember.
and of course mine: I hope we stay in contact forever.
01-06 is fantastic. They are my closest group of friends, they will be my closest group of friends, for up till NS at least, I won't know what will happen after that. Even if I get an accident and get a concussion and lose part of my memory, ask me who 01-06 is and I will remember. What sort of sucky life would I be leading now if I never knew this batch of amazing people?
To quote Zhongjun, "finally a reporting venue in the west..." And the honour goes to Mayfair Park! We were told to report here at 8am on Saturday, 30th May, and although the place was semi-unknown to many (except people like Zhongjun of course), most of us managed to report on time for the horseshoe. After the reorganising of groups and a quick inspection (and lots of ionised water droplets for me), Sup was to lead us to the start of our close terrain navigation. Fastforwarding past the boring and tiring walk along the long stretch of tar known as Rifle Range Road, we reached our start point/1st checkpoint and were told to look for a control card, which was a white piece of paper with 01's group emblem on it. Zhongjun lived up to his skills, and in a fashion where he would have said, "My gold orienteering not for nothing!", he found the cunningly placed control card, which was stuck on a random tree a few meters in from the road.
The next few hours up till 3pm was spent in Macritchie, where each group split up in search for even more cunningly placed control cards. My group, which consisted of Anurak, Soham, Leonard, Tak Wei and myself, stayed true to the purpose of this entire activity and practiced the skills we learnt, which was in essence just dead reckoning. There would be 1 navigator, 1 plotter, and 3 pacers, and we rotated the roles after each checkpoint. The basic navigation went something like this: After walking 100m in a straight line, the pacers would stop and shout "100m!". Hearing that, the navigator would say out the bearing we were walking at for the past 100m, and the plotters would plot this on the enlarged topo map version of Macritchie. Of course, this was the ideal case and what is desired does not always concur with reality. Often it went something like this: After walking anywhere between 95-105m in a direction thats off by a few degrees, the navigator will announce the bearing which is incorrect and the plotter will estimate the bearing and mark it out on the map. This was a perfect recipe to get lost, but being skilled venture scouts as we were, we managed to find the 1st checkpoint, although it was a good 70m away from where we thought it would be.
We reached the next few checkpoints in similar fashion. Note that reaching the checkpoint does not mean finding the checkpoint. This being Macritchie with all its crevices and revines and us not being people with GPS devices, it was fairly impossible to find a control card even though we know it is within a 50m radius of where we were. Sad to say, the first checkpoint was one of two checkpoints that we actually found on our own. One of the other checkpoint was somehow lost or eaten up as Zhi Xuan, who was following my group, could not even find it. Another checkpoint was skipped simply because the time we took searching for it was too grosteque. And the last checkpoint was found first by Sup's group, and we conveniently went to where we heard them shouting. The final checkpoint, however, was worthy of mention. We knew it was along a road, and we knew it was about 200m from a junction. Hence we paced that distance, and just as we reached the 200m mark, we turned left and immediately could spot the control card. This was an amazing feat compared to Francis's group, whom I heard took a long time to find the card, and who also tried to scam my group into believing its at the top of some random hill. Too bad! My group was just too good.
----------------------
ah screw it, takes too long writing properly. oh that was inspired by nyaa lesson, haha
some fun stuff that happened during close navi (note how soham is in all)
1. soham was plotting. after a break he said he couldnt find the protractor. a while later someone found it in his bottle compartment.
2. i asked where my permanant marker was. soham felt in his left pocket, and went like ohh shit. he remembers dammmm clearly he put it there, but somehow just couldn't find it. i asked him "does your pocket have a hole or something?" he went "oh ya shit...". and at the end of the hike, he found it in the netting of his long pants
oh well soham is just funny
going back to after close navi, we hiked to our night point which was the bamboo place. along the way we sang random songs until we forgot the lyrics, then switched songs! a dam good way to moralise yourself, but of course you need people!
night point was with zhongjun and leonard. we first chose an area to be our shelter, and we were thankful it didnt have ants, unlike some other (the suanning group) people. then we started a fire first, which was RATHER easy considering the amount of tinder and firewood we have. zj did the preparation, leonard did the cooking, i maintained the fire. we somehow managed to cook everything, including the rice! first few times in camp i could actually cook rice, except like ac or whatever la of course. for our shelter we did a basha like thing and covered it with leaves, but yea it was quite fail. oh well its more for the experience anyway.
sentry was siantry la. except i koped 1hr of zj's sleep and i had radio with me. hehe
the next day was pretty slow moving. in summary, we had a run from tampines to changi (8km), and a few ppl dropped out, but most made it alive. then we cooked lunch at the jetty, before proceeding to ubin!
thanks to the manymany firewood which we had cut during the preps, there were friggin lot of things to carry. we walked a short distance to some random beach, and prepared to cook our super delicious restaurant standard dinner! first up was digging an imba dig hole that could cover me, then dumping newspaper balls and kindling in, and laying tons of firewood on top, followed by balancing the pebbles we brought on the firewood. then, using a fuse that was soaked in j1's magic, we lighted the whole shit up and the fire was just hugeeeee, about a billion times bigger than my night 1 fire.
while all these were happening, people were also getting ready the food to cook. we wrapped them all in alum foil, then when preparation was done, we extinguished the flames, spammed the food inside the pit, and covered the whole pit up.
after i forgot how long of pitching bashas, the j1s took the food out and we were rewarded with a sumptuous dinner that also invited the ubin stray dogs. ya the food was more imba than cooking with mess tin, and certainly more imba than day 1 dinner.
rest of the day was spent lalaing, roasting marshmallows, and watching hioksupzihengamos suan themselves. i officially declare myself retired from the biggest suanner gang, hiok can take over my role. ironyirony. and night 2 was friggin long and cold cos we ended activity at like 8+, and had all the way till 7am.
the last day we had batch talk, reflections, experience sharings by j1s and zhi, and the final activity. we had to say a dream, a fear and a change. and of course one thing we would like to say to our batch
"I WONT PANGSEH" - Hiok Yang
everyone shall remember.
and of course mine: I hope we stay in contact forever.
01-06 is fantastic. They are my closest group of friends, they will be my closest group of friends, for up till NS at least, I won't know what will happen after that. Even if I get an accident and get a concussion and lose part of my memory, ask me who 01-06 is and I will remember. What sort of sucky life would I be leading now if I never knew this batch of amazing people?
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