foOd foR thouGht... *ponDer*
Wednesday, May 31, 2006 9:53 p.m.
haha i wanted to blog earlier but i was just so lazy. so anyway i just want to say a few things!
firstly, i want to thank all my friends for being so MARVELOUS!! esp. kli kang and jasmine. haha thank you so much my sisters are the BEST!
last weds was the gp common test, i dun really want to talk about it haha.. it wasn't as bad as it could have been though. that night after the common test there was xmen3!!! it was a mass unofficial school thing at j8 GV n it was organised majorly by kli!! *pheee-yu-weeet* power woman sia. goood job simei!! =D i really enjoyed myself tt night.
n last friday was the last day of term2! i really really enjoyed tt day too. after school kang kli jas aloy and i went to longhouse for lunch, den to some place nearby for ice cream =D after that kang kli hanyi kenny n i went to kli's house!! im so happy. I FINALLY WENT TO KLI'S HOUSE!! i feel such a great overwhelming sense of achievement (haha ok la im exaggerating abit). we spent so much time and had so much fun playing table soccer there ahahaha and i think i stepped on an an's (her dog) tail at least once.. lol. after a wonderful dinner the 4 of us (minus kang) went for the roman's trail thing. quite interesting la. heh.
hoho ok nvm i want to go n sleep liao. heh. i keep doing other things in between writing this entry tt it's now 6 mins to midnight. haha. anw jiayou simei!! God bless =)
Friday, May 19, 2006 7:09 p.m.
hais i came home from school just now feeling quite sad. and confused. and i'm still feeling very.. err.. i dunno how to say.
cos what kli and guni said just now made sense. i realise i don't have any good friends from my sec school, esp not from my sec 3 & 4 class. perhaps i've really not been making the effort to sustain a strong friendship. perhaps i just don't know how to be a friend.
and come to think of it, i don't even know whether i even have a single really really good friend. when i look back and think of the things i've done for my friends i realise how lousy a friend i am. hais.
what's done is done, though, and there's nothing i can do about the past. but i will try harder from now on. and i thank God for sending me angels from heaven from whom i have learnt, and can learn so much from.
i remember when i was in ri, a senior who had graduated a few years back came back to ri to talk to us when we were in the lt. of all the things he said, this stuck in my head, even till now. "If, in your 4 years in RI, ALL you do is study, then you have really wasted your time." similarly, this applies for rj.
when it's time to leave rj in 6 months time, my greatest wish now is not to have a piece of paper that says 4As 3Ds and an A1. i just hope that i will be able to say that i have made at least one excellent friend; a friendship so strong that i know it will last forever. and i promise myself now, i will work hard, and do all i can, to maintain that friendship.
there is a picture at the head of my bed, and it contains a caption that very aptly goes "Making a friend takes a moment. Being a friend takes a lifetime". how true it is. and i wonder why it never made so much sense before.
and another random thing, i was just surfing just now for some friendship quotes, and these are a few of the ones i especially like.
"I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me. I'd like to be the help that you've been always glad to be; I'd like to mean as much to you each minute of the day, as you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way."
"Keep your eyes upon me, keep me in your sight, Help me don the crooked road, lead me to the light. The road I'm on is dark, I'm not sure if I know the way, Yet with you right beside me, I'm certain I won't stray. Protect me from the world, I know we'll make it through, Give me all the strength I need..... Let me lean on you."
"Most people come into our lives and quickly leave. It is the special few that come in and leave a footprint in our hearts. and we are forever changed."
Sunday, May 14, 2006 9:49 p.m.
the official handover ceremony for odac is over! the batch 21 exco have finally handed over the leadership to the batch 22 exco. it was a really wonderful long weekend, with my batch having a chalet at costa sands (pasir ris) from friday afternoon till this morning.
on friday night, 24 of us batch 21 odacians went on an overnight cycling trip, a first-time for me. we started near midnight at our resort at pasir ris park, cycling around pasir ris before taking a break at white sands, where we decided on our final destination for the night - east coast park. We stopped by en route at tampines mall to pass the chalet key to a few others who decided to catch a midnight movie rather than cycle, before heading for east coast park, finally arriving at the macdonalds there at about half-past-four on saturday morning. breakfast was really a welcome break. we ate and rested till slightly past 5 before embarking on our return journey. We arrived back at the chalet at about 7 plus, and most people went to have a short sleep. i, on the other hand, went to play mahjong. lol.
in the late morning we all went to return our bikes, then walked over to white sands for lunch, very luckily reaching there right before it started pouring, and over there witnessed something i never saw before - it was raining INSIDE the mall, at the area over the mall atrium. something must have been really wrong with the glass roof, cos it wasn't merely driplets of water. water was trickling everywhere on the roof and there was a nice drizzling rain right in the middle of the mall. and of all companies that could have held an exhibition at the atrium, it had to be popular bookstore that day. it was quite amusing, actually, seeing the employees rush to use these large plastic sheets, and eventually a huge tarp to protect their precious books. hahaha..
that night, or yesrterday night, we first had a bbq in the chalet, organised by the J1s, and then the handover ceremony by the beach. it was very heartening to see the J1s put in so much effort to organise the bbq and prepare so much yummy food for us J2s. and during the handover ceremony, after all the exco departments had passed down their symbolic items to our successors, the J1s sang for us a medley of pop songs (with the lyrics changed of course) and it was really so sweet and touching. THANK YOU J1s!!! having been camp commandant of BTC, as well as in charge of their sports climbing course, i've had many opportunities to interact with them, and i've really grown to like my juniors a lot. it's really sad to step down.
but well, indeed, there is some truth in the saying that all good things must come to an end. much as i really hate to leave odac, my ultimate purpose in RJC is still, after all, the big As. and to console myself, there will also still be atc trainings and atc to look forward to, and the climbing session mr leong is organising for the 6 climbing instructors in june. and of course, with luck, there will be an end-of-year-post-A-levels expedition that i'm really dying to have. haha. but for now, i guess it's time to study.
to the whole exco of batch 22, and especially to petrina and gerald tay, the 2 successors of eddison and myself, the training heads, i wish them all the very best. i am sure they will learn and grow much in their term in RJC ODAC, and, of course, have so much fun that these 2 years will be especially memorable to them, as it has been for me. God bless you, batch 22.
ODAC the one, we had fun, just like one big family, in sorrows we care in joy we share. ODACians we are, always true from the heart, with one voice we say... WE ARE ONE.
Sunday, April 16, 2006 6:35 p.m.
wow i've not blogged for a really long time.. just feel so lazy to blog nowadays haha.. but wells todays Easter sunday!! HAPPY EASTER!!
for the benefit of those who do not know what easter is, it is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!! He was crucified and died on Good Friday, and today has risen from the dead! haha a very joyous occasion indeed for all Christians, and in fact, for everybody!
the 1st lvl 2 sports climbing course is over. only 4 more sessions of the 2nd course, and the role of the 6 of us sports climbing instructors will be over. i'm already starting to feel sad just thinking about it haha.. but well, at least we have 4 more sessions to go..
i still have maths s and chem s work to do!! =(
glory to God, glory in the highest, peace to his people, peace on earth
Thursday, March 23, 2006 11:05 p.m.
heyyy!!! COMMON TESTS ARE OVER!!! =D they ended today with such a spectacular chem paper that i think many people were seeing stars by the end of it. and i don't mean bright shining stars that come with a halo. i mean those you get when a bowling ball plonks on your head, those accompanied by the yellow twittering birds in cartoons. it was so difficult!! and i conclude I DON'T LIKE ORGANIC CHEM. i keep mixing up all the temperatures and forgetting which reactions need heating and which don't. So i usually end up guessing whether or not a fire would do the reaction good. and RAH. i spent the most time studying chem compared to the other 3 subjects.
but anyway, after the paper we had a class outing and i really enjoyed myself tremendously!!! of course not the whole class went la haha kang kli tracy arthur matt zhangxing valene shan aloy and i. 10 of us. haha we went to cafe cartel to stuff ourselves silly with food. mostly meat and i feel like a carnivore now. and i gobbled up so much bread too.. actually we all did. the moment we stepped in they gave us one pile of bread. and then we finished it so fast we had to keep asking for MORE BREAD. and EVEN MORE BREAD. i think common tests make people hungry. and cafe cartel horh now they charge service charge leh!! so they provide table service. ROAR. i'd rather save the 10 percent and i walk to the cashier myself to order. hohohoho..
and after the pigging 7 of us went bowling! hahaha.. sadly val shan n zhangxing didnt want to bowl. omg i laughed so much during bowling. during dinner tracy was telling us how, the last time she bowled, she and jasmine were fighting for last place, and in the end, jasmine got 25 while she got 26. so we very nicely put her name first on the list. she picked up the ball, walked to the lane, threw the ball, and we all watched as the ball rolled very slowly towards the pins as if by slow motion, and lo and behold, it was a STRIKE!!!! hahaha what a good start man the very first ball played we got a strike!!
lol it was a damn fun class outing. now we have nothing to worry about except the time we get our results back hahaha.. but i still have so much odac work to do! sports climbing lvl 2 course is next weds!! and we've not even thought of what to do yet!! shit. hahaha..
Sunday, March 12, 2006 10:21 p.m.
cluster ex rocked!! lol i'm being real jasmine and have not blogged for a long time cos i've been so busy. but i must write about cluster cos it's a really significant expedition for me, as the group leader for group 2. this, in brief, is what we did.
Day 1: travel from RJC to foot of Mt. Ophir, hike from foot to base camp.
Day 2: base camp to summit, back to base camp
Day 3: hike from base camp to foot, coach back to Singapore
initially i was very afraid that i would not be able to facilitate the group well, and my group would be very stoned and bored most of the time, like on that training at bt timah hill. thankfully, though, they bonded pretty well together, especially the girls who quickly became good friends. and even though i wasn't exactly an excellent GL, i felt that i did a decent job.
on the second night, after the summit climb, i could tell that all my group members, and in fact, all the participants, had enjoyed climbing ophir despite it being very physically demanding, and nobody had any regrets going to ophir. this positive response really made me feel that all the hard work the J2s put in to plan the expedition was, after all, worthwhile.
oh my god my eyes are closing. i'm really really tired. and that's partly because of my role as one of the food i/cs. we only managed to sleep at 12+ last night, and the food i/cs had to wake up at 3+ this morning to begin cooking pancakes for breakfast. with a hundred people to feed it's really no easy task. even with all 5 frying pans out and 5 people cooking simulteneously, we barely finished cooking the pancakes in time for breakfast at 615am. yawn.
ok i'm really tired so i shall end soon hoho. just would like to thank all my group 2 members, sweeney, yanhui, olivia, xunqi, priscilla, sara, karthi, wenyuan, ilmi and amjad, and of course my fellow GLS charlene and colin. it's been a great experience, and i feel that i've really learnt a lot from this expedition. and as always, though it's already my 4th time climbing mt ophir, i once again realise that the experiences i went through and the lessons i learn are different from the past 3 times, and each time i come, i take back something new. if given the chance and the company, i would gladly go for a 5th, 6th and even more climbs of mt ophir. so don't bother asking "not sian meh" hahaha..
and well, this marks the closure of cluster expedition 2006, the last expedition that we will be doing, besides the assoc ex which only involves 7 J2s. very sad that we have to step down from ccas soon, but well, all good things come to an end. for now i'll try to upload the cluster photos and i'll have to somehow cos my group members also want the photos hahaha..
goodnight!! it's really late and i REALLY need to sleep.
OPHIR!! =D
Wednesday, February 22, 2006 10:58 p.m.
wahh i'm so tired. today was the first sport climbing session for the level 1 course. it went rather well i think, quite a success. and after the course mr leong showed us some cool advanced stuff about multi-pitch climbing and all the different types of anchors hohoho..
i've been so unbelievably busy these days. finishing my homework seems an impossibility. unless perhaps i increase my work efficiency and have about 3 hours of sleep a day. which i don't want to cos i want to sleeeeep.. hahaha.. ok i shouldn't be wasting time here blogging anymore! i need to go do some more odac stuff!
the 2 things that take up most of the time in my life now are studies and odac. but i'm not complaining la cos i think odac's really great and fun, and i learn so so so much from odac. haha ok back to work... bye!
Sunday, February 5, 2005 5:36 p.m.
oh man it's already past 5.30 on sunday evening and i still haven't gotten any homework done. and i'm still here blogging. omg CAN U BELIEVE IT. but actually considering my work record, i can. there's so much more work to do in J2. i suddenly feel that my J1 year was such a stroll in the park. In J2, not only have my teachers become more particular about doing tutorials, i now have an additional 2 S papers to contend with, and so much work in odac to do. wah.
yesterday the 7 of us rock climbing instructor wannabes (cynthia, hulin, elissa, yeye, shuting, hongchew and i) went down all the way to bt. batok for our rock climbing training. we spent our whole afternoon there practising conducting the school of belay, and then practising lead climbing. it was really tiring, but thankfully nobody was injured. cynthia fell really spectacularly though, it was lucky she escaped unharmed. and hongchew nearly murdered hulin by falling on top of him, but luckily both also escaped unhurt.
in brief, what i'm actually doing is, i'm training to be a rock climbing instructor in order to teach the j1s their levels 1 & 2 rock climbing. the J1s will not have external instructors teach them, as the J2s had last year, but instead the 7 of us will teach them the required skills, and mr low will certify them. a little disclaimer though, i will not actually be a certified qualified instructor like mr low is. i will only be able to teach them the skills, but i will not be able to certify them. well this rock climbing instructor thing is really time consuming, yet i hope that i'll have learnt and benefitted much at the end of it all. i hope all 7 of us will enjoy the opportunity and benefit much from it.
haiyah i realise im talking alot of rubbish and i hope whoever's reading this entry is not yet snoring and drooling all over the table. lols i want to go read the newspapers! hahaha i think i'll do my homework later. i hope i have the discipline to.
Wednesday, January 25, 2005 9:28 p.m.
heyy.. im tired.. as usual.. and really behind on my homework. again as usual. haha this entry is mostly about btc la. even though it was over like 3 days ago, im only blogging about it now cos i dunno why i just couldnt find time to blog earlier haha..
on the whole, i feel btc was a success!! =D thank God for that man. the weather was excellent. except the rain on the second day la, but thankfully it only lasted about an hour haha.. the activities went fine on the whole too..
im quite relieved its over actually. planning it nearly gave me a nervous breakdown, what with all the probs with the logistics and the money. i remember there was one day just before btc that i really really felt so stressed i nearly cried. i don't recall ever feeling so stressed before. and i remember the conflict with the quartermasters. and all the work i had to do on top of my schoolwork. the chasing for and looking through of proposals. the many meetings i had with charmaine all the way since early december last year.. it was hectic.
but now that it's over i realise that although it was tough, it really let me learn so much about planning and organising things. how to have a very very detailed plan for all the manpower involved and disseminate information such that everybody knows what's going on in order to ensure everything goes well. how to anticipate possible problems and plan backup programs for everything. how to think of every minuscule detail and be as niaopok as hulin. in short i've really learnt so much from being the camp commandant of this basic training camp. i've probably learnt more than the j1s themselves haha..
so thank you very much all of you wonderful odacians!! you've really helped charmaine and i so much. and especially for all those who gave me words of encouragement when i was feeling so stressed. thank you so much, you really made my load easier to bear.
sadly, though, i didn't get much of a chance to interact with the j1s. hopefully that will improve though, during night hike. and im looking forward to cluster too. mt ophir!! haha ok nvm i think i shall go off to attempt to do some work. seeya!!
Sunday, January 15, 2006 10:46 p.m.
haha hi! i've not blogged for quite a while. been too busy i guess, ever since school started. it's been pretty hectic, probably the busiest i've ever felt in my life. with so much odac work all of a sudden, BTC planning, skills booklet, J1 sport climbing course, and of course academic work too. the teachers are all becoming as niaopok as hulin about tutorials. ok la maybe not as niaopok as hulin (it's hard to be =P ok jkjk), but definitely much more niaopok than last year. so this probably means i need to do at least a bit of my homework before going for tutorials. torture, considering my record last year.
well yesterday was the sentosa orientation for all the new J1 odacians. i'm so glad to see them. but it made me feel so old. hahaha.. and suddenly i feel like a great responsibility is resting on our shoulders.. that of imparting to the J1s the skills we have acquired in odac, helping them get to know one another better, introducing the outdoors to them and hopefully igniting a similar passion for the outdoors in them. we were once the juniors, but now we have juniors of our own to set a good example for. and seeing the juniors really reminded me how little time my batch and i have left in odac. btc, cluster, assoc ex. thats all we have left. i don't want to leave odac.
well but the sentosa orientation was a success. haha i think the J1s enjoyed themselves. i hope they did. and i hope i was a good group leader to them. but all in all i certainly felt it was a good success, and i had fun as well. kudos to deborah and yanzhen, the event i/cs.
of course, yesterday was also a very special day for me. 14th jan 2006. exactly a year since sth happened that would change me life forever. and so coincidentally the sentosa orientation happened on this very day. i have fond memories of my sentosa orientation last year too.
i pray for stronger faith. i want to be a firm christian. I don't want to backslide. God bless me. and i pray for all my friends too. and for btc. be with me Lord. Amen.
Friday, December 30, 2005 10:49 p.m.
i feel so blessed to have so many wonderful friends. haha yesterday fati and minah did sth that touched me very much. knowing i was feeling sad, they gave me a BIG surprise!! they called me and asked me where i was, and after i said i was at home they hung up, so of course i was ?????. after a while they called me again to tell me they asked my cousin to leave something outside my door, and told me to open the door. when i did, i saw this big tub of cookies & cream ice cream right outside!!! hahaha... not suspecting anything, i closed the door again, and after a while, i found fati and minah outside my door!! lol they bluffed about my cousin la, come to think of it i should have realised then, cos my cousin's away for camp.. peng. hahaha so i asked them in and we ate abit together at my house before going downstairs to eat again, but finding the laksa stall preparing to close for the night =( so we borrowed the million dollar baby vcd from the shop downstairs and watched it at my house till like almost 11 before they each went home.. haha thank you so much fati and minah!! i was really touched and you 2 really made my day =D
and of cos my sisters kangkang and kli and jas, i also can tell they care alot for me =) all these people are really angels sent to me from heaven. thank you so much for your love and friendship!! =D
Wednesday, December 28, 2005 10:33 p.m.
hey aha i went windsurfing today with hulin vera cynthia huiting yeye and jasong. the wind was quite strong today, so it was also more challenging. well all of us went out much further than we had ever been. but i very humji, especially at the beginning, so whenever i get abit far out i'll just turn back and try to get closer to shore. but some of my friends very exciting man. drama.
jason, i don't know how he did it, but he went out pretty far, and he got blisters on his hand and his back got strained pulling the sail up. so he couldn't get back to shore. and huiting who didn't know jason was hurt tried to sail to him and teach him how to sail such as to get back. when she finally managed to scramble the windsurf to him, she realised he couldn't sail and tried going back for help, but by then they were so far out that the waves rendered her unable to get back either..
elsewhere, more trouble was brewing.. cynthia also found herself slightly too far away for her liking, and unable to get back. and to her horror and amazement she found herself face to face with a jellyfish which she initially thought was a plastic bag, and she was stung by it, but thankfully it was very minor.
in the end, those who managed to get back to shore had to return to the office and ask for help, and they sent out the rescue boat to bring jason huiting and cynthia back to shore. and apparently jason had drifted out so superbly far that when the rescue boat came the person asked him "do you know how far away you are? by boat it takes 10 mins". my goodness. thank God for the rescue boat service. haha..
hmm eunice having concert today.. hope it goes fine haha all the best!! but i know she'll play beautifully =)
Monday, December 26, 2005 11:19 p.m.
today's the saddest day of the year for me too. things just happened so suddenly and unexpectedly i didn't know how to react. i didn't expect it at all. is this the best way? could there have been an alternative? i really don't know. all i know is that i'm really sad this had to happen. sorry. and thank you.
Monday, December 26, 2005 9:34 p.m.
hmm. thanks for everything my dear. this year has been really wonderful with you. and for that i really want to say a big THANK YOU. God bless!! Take good care of yourself ok? stay happy and stay healthy =) *huuggggs*
Sunday, December 25, 2005 11:54 p.m.
there's only 6 minutes left of christmas! haha well i really enjoyed tonight. i went out with fruit family! ok well not everybody was present though. shuyan kli kang jasmine and wooch were present at the start, but after we ate kli went home to accompany her mum, n shuyan went to meet her special someone. so only kang jas wooch and i were left. but we still had so much fun!! hahaha we went to clarke quay and walked along singapore river, then since kang and i brought sparklers we had A LOT between us so we arranged them in the shape of a christmas tree and lit them all together. it was so pretty! it turned out nicer than i expected it would hahaha..
after that we went back to orchard again to 'soak up the christmas atmosphere'. well there wasn't much of it la, and it was so CROWDED. actually there isn't really a big deal about christmas at orchard road.. we simply walked all the way from orchard to dhoby ghaut and decided to return home.
OH YAH OH YAH i must write about the minimelts ice cream dispenser machine. we saw one at liang court and OHMYGOD it was SO COOOOL... the wonders of technology. hahahahaha kang jasmine and i were so excited to see such a cool machine that kang took a video of it doing its job using her camera. (ok i admit it isn't really THAT cool. it was just us being suaku. but it was really my first time seeing such a machine)
oh christmas is over liao. happy boxing day! lol.. hahaha i hope everybody enjoyed their christmas, experienced the love of christmas, and felt the love of Christ, the reason for the season! belated MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
Sunday, December 25, 2005 2:44 a.m.
wow it's 2:44 in the morning. haha i just returned from church. i liked today's (i didn't know whether to use this morning or last night. so i settled for today) mass!! Fr. Stephen celebrated it and oh i really like him. his homilies are always very interesting and he speaks very clearly with very good english and he sings very well too hahaha.. i just felt so full of joy during the mass. thanks be to God!
i attended the mass with marian. it's been about 3 months since i last saw her, and that was in a hospital. good that this time i'm seeing her in a church haha.. God bless you marian!
after the mass fati and i decided to walk home hahaha so we walked from church to her house in bishan, then i walked back home alone in toapayoh. somehow it just didnt feel like 2 in the morning to me. probably cos there were more cars in the road than usual, and i didn't feel tired cos i slept in the evening yesterday. anyway i just really enjoyed tonight, from attending the mass with marian, to walking home with vera. hahaha
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!! N THANK YOU FOR TONIGHT!!
Amen.
Friday, December 23, 2005 5:41 p.m.
hey! i just came back from odac exco meeting just now. yesterday i went to watch chronicles of narnia! it was really really good and i enjoyed it tremendously. highly recommended by ME. it's abit funny, quite exciting, and very touching. and not confusing. i didn't read the book but i still understood it. GOOD show.
i'll be going for charismatic prayer meet later in ctk church, after dunno how many months of not going. but once school reopens i don't think i'll be able to go again. hope tonight will be a good experience! and thinking of charismatic i suddenly thought of marian. must catch up with her again sometime soon, it's been a while since we last saw each other.
guni going for cruise.. enjoy yourself dear!! =D
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 9:38 p.m.
hi! it's been a long time since i blogged. and there have been weird people who i don't know tagging on my board.. anyway today i went to pulau ubin! recce trip for btc. we're expecting a whopping 80 plus J1s coming in next year, and add that to the J2s and teachers, we're going to have more than 120 people altogether. that's a nightmare to plan for. and today we only found one campsite that looks like it's big enough to accomodate all of us. so i hope we'll be able to use it and not arrive to find another group already using it.
n oh yah. I HATE MOSQUITOES. irritating bloodsuckers. i think i suffered at least fifty bites today. but i managed to kill 5 mosquitoes too. HAH. the itch was really terrible just now. but the good thing about mosquitoes as compared to some other insects is that mosquito bites don't really leave any lasting damage. the itch goes away after a while and even the swellings have gone down.
hais ok i still have BTC stuff to busy myself with. may God bless charmaine and i and all the ppl working with us!! i hope BTC will be REALLLLLYYYY GOOOOD.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005 10:52 p.m.
HAPPY 11 DEAR!!! hahahaha.. anyway i just came back from LISS today. then i immed went to ps to meet eunice for dinner. hahaha..
LISS was not bad. well though i'm a bit disappointed i didnt receive any gifts, i still do not regret going for this retreat. i think it has definitely helped my faith, and i got to meet a few more ppl from other parishes n make a couple of friends. well i shall not talk too much about it here. and i like the church of IHM. it's very beautiful. haha out of point.
Tuesday, December 6, 2005 8:46 a.m.
I'M BACK!!!! after spending 12 days in Kota Kinabalu, i'm finally back home! seeing all the familiar places, having all the material luxuries once again.. but i'm still very sad the expedition is over. now we will move on to a very different phase in our odac life - being the seniors instead of the juniors, leading instead of following.. anyway, i shall write briefly about my expedition, so if u're not very interested you can stop reading =)
note: in this entry whenever i use KK it refers to Kota Kinabalu, not Kerdang Kerbau. lol
Day 1: travel to Senai airport in JB, then flew AirAsia to KK airport. took a coach to Kinabalu Rose Cabin (KRC) to stay the night.
Day 2: travel to Kampong Kiau Taburi. slacked around the whole day and made some souvenirs for the kids
Day 3: at Kg Kiau. walked to the pri. school the students attended. it was a looong loong walk.
Day 4: finally were able to start what we went there for - help construct the nursery. at night we also conducted a party for the children there, during which there was a blackout. haha..
Day 5: travel to Tambunan Village Resort Centre (TVRC) to stay the night and rest for Mt Trusmadi
Day 6: took a 4-wheel drive to the start point of Mt Trusmadi, and hiked 6km to our campsite (it was a helipad hahaha)
Day 7: heavy rain the night before. abandoned summit climb. descended to some hut very near the start point to rest and dry our wet stuff.
Day 8: hiked back to start point, and took the 4-wheel drive back to TVRC to collect our stuff, then took vans to KRC to stay the night and rest for Mt Kinabalu.
Day 9: started climbing Kinabalu. 5 hour trek to our lodging for the night. the girls stayed in Laban Rata (which had heated rooms), the guys in Gunting Lagadan huts(about 10-15 mins climb from Laban Rata, since there weren't enough rooms at Laban Rata, and which did not have heated rooms).
Day 10: Kinabalu summit climb. my group made it in time for sunrise! descent to Gunting Lagadan to take our bags, then to Laban Rata for lunch, and then another about 4 hour trek down the mountain. went back to KRC to collect our belongings, then to Trekker's Lodge, which is in the town, to stay the night.
Day 11: white water rafting!! we went to Kiulu river instead of the planned Padas river, as the excessive rainfall made the river volume of Padas too great such that Padas was considered too dangerous. stayed another night at Trekker's Lodge.
Day 12: free & easy day! did a bit of shopping. in the evening we returned to S'pore in the same way we went to KK, except, of course, in reverse. we arrived in RJC at 130am this morning (technically already day 13). stayed the night in the weights room, and came home in the morning. i just reached home about 1 hour ago! haha..
anyway all in all i enjoyed the trip trememdously. although many (i mean really really many) things did not go according to plan and many changes and on-the-spot decisions had to be made, we as odac experienced so many different things that we had never experienced before.
in Kg Kiau for example, we planned to complete the construction of this nursery that some poly (i cant rmb which one. it's a singaporean poly though) started. unfortunately though, when we arrived there was a funeral going on, and we were unable to begin construction till the third and last day we were there. so during the second day we were there we walked to the pri school the children attend, and it was really no stroll in the park. it was 3km (nearly 2 hours hike) each way, and since Kg Kiau is halfway up a mountain and the school is all the way at the bottom of the valley, the road is inclined at an average angle of about 45 degrees all the way. the walk to the school was fine, of course, since it was downhill, but the walk back up was so tiring that all of us odacians were exhausted by the end of the climb. to think that the little children there do the climb everyday to get to school (no wonder i didn't spot any fat people around, unlike in S'pore =p). that night, charmaine (boss =P) commented that she would try to stop complaining about the walk from J8 to RJC. lol.
Mt Trusmadi taught us a lot, gave us many first-time experiences, and made us go through a tough decision-making process, even though we did not get to summit it in the end. firstly, we experienced the bloodsuckers (leeches). then we experienced the rain (on all the expeditions we've been to so far, the weather has always been extremely kind to us. this time however, all the rain came down at one go. haha..). and also we experienced what it was like to fail to climb the mountain.
ok now maybe i should explain why we abandoned the summit climb in the end. firstly, due to the cold nights and wet weather we had the first few days, several people were already sick. secondly, the night before we were supposed to summit, it rained and rained and all the older tents (including my own) flooded. only about 3 tents(all the new Coleman tents) were dry. as a result many people did not sleep well, and some had barely 3 hours of sleep. to make things worse, most people had their sleeping bags soaked, and even if we managed to summit Trusmadi, that night many people would freeze and not be able to sleep well, and fall sick or sicker. thirdly, the summit climb is an extremely tough 12 hour trek, and we would have to set off at about 6am in order to try to return before dark. at about 630am, however, it was still raining and we were not fully ready to set off. fourthly, we still had Mt Kinabalu to climb after Trusmadi and we would rather increase our chances for Kinabalu since it was the "more important" mountain we set out to climb. anyway, that night when it rained, benny hulin and i went to mr low's tent when ours flooded, slightly past midnight. mr low's tent flooded too later anyway hahaha... and we were exploring mr low's equipment and i was supremely impressed by this watch that told, besides the time of course, temperature, pressure, altitude, and it has a digital compass too. cool. and just for the record, our helipad campsite was about 1580m above sea level. lol.
at kinabalu, the view from the summit was phenomenal. the mass expanse of granite in the plataeu, the sun rising and turning the sky red, the clouds below me, and the city way below.. wow. and amazingly, all 45 of us (38 students and 7 teachers) who went made it to the summit of kinabalu! only my group made it in time to catch the sunrise though.. but it's still an amazing feat! never before have we been able to reach 100% attendance at the summit (except of course at Panti when we camped at the summit). even the teachers were expecting that some would not be able to make it due to illness or altitude sickness. it was tough, we had to wake up at slightly past 1am, have breakfast and set off by 230am (we were slightly late and only set off at 240am). and i was woken up at about 0020 by yeye's moans and groans cos he had a splitting headache. it was challenging no doubt, but ultimately WE STILL DID IT TOGETHER!! =D part of the reason was that the weather was tremendously kind to us for the kinabalu climb. it was dry, and not as cold as it can get. it was still cold nonetheless, with the temperature at the summit at 6°C when the sun had not risen.
white water rafting was bloody fun. we got a relatively simple river though. Kiulu river is only a Class 1-2 river. Padas would have been much more exciting (it's Class 3-4). but if they deemed it dangerous ohwell...
haha ok this is a reaaaallllllllyy loooooonnnnnnnnnnnnng entry. its been almost 2 hours since i started writing haha.. in short i encourage everyone to go climb kinabalu and try white water rafting!! they were really the highlights of my expedition. i realllly reallly enjoyed myself, and i'm so sad that now i have to start my hol homework soon!! =(
