First 3 Weeks in Flying College

Here's a little deviation from the usual OBS journal for update about what i am currently doing since i entered the the flying school 3 weeks ago after coming back from the OBS. Otherwise, everything would have piled up by the end of my OBS journal i would not be able to recall them back.

In fact, the previous 2 weeks events were already quite blurry at this moment, so i might miss out some minor point here and there but oh well, never mind. The very week when i came back from the OBS, i have not actually received the photos taken in OBS and our beloved instructors said that they would pass it to us by the end of the week.

So, we planned a meet up and had some drinks together on Friday at Loofed (somewhere on top of a open roof building), in the City Hall area. Obviously, for those who knew me long before, that i was not really into drinking except for special occasions. Of course, this is one of them. We pooled up the money for the party taking 50 bucks from each person and we have 22 persons in total, that's about 1000+ bucks. A lot eh? and I was expecting that there will be some leftover money since there was no way we could spend everything on drinks in a single night. Heck, i was wrong. LOL! Now i finally knew that drinking wasn't cheap. There were jasmine tea, cokes, beers, more beers, some hard liquor and i took all of them moderately. Fuh, at the end of the day i could not even walk in a straight line, dam syok!

Beers, a certificate, and a love letter? Something is definitely wrong...

Oh, have i mentioned about the place that I'm going to stay in for the next 6 months? Well, if i haven't, i am so proud to announce that i had actually hit a jackpot by first, getting a 'proper' terrace house compared to other less fortunate people (those mentioned residents please refrain yourselves from killing me if you read this :P) who get a...ermm..how should i put it..a dormitory style house where 7-8 person is placed into a block consisting 3 rooms in a row and you take care of the distribution in each room. Secondly, my house is directly opposite and one of the closest house to the cookhouse where i'm going to have my free meals everyday. Lastly, and also the best of all, my house is fully equipped with air-conditioner(very rare) and 2 bathrooms with water heaters !!! Woohoo!

Left :Picture spoke a thousand words, AWESOMENESS! Right : Cookhouse cum dorm-style house (upper floor)

Next would be our classes, hmm..nothing much to say about the classes except that the subjects are quite interesting, of course, sometimes boring, most of the time sleepiness will take whatever that's left out of you. The instructors here are very strict but at the same time, friendly :) In every class, there is only a single rule applies whenever an instructor is giving a lecture, that is : 'i-look-at-you, you-look-at-me' rules. Defy that and you shall face the consequences, although nobody has tasted the wrath yet.

Ah, also, we have not received our cadet uniform yet since it took time for the clothes to be tailored according to our unique measurements. And even if we do have the uniform, we still weren't allowed to wear it according to the 'tradition' here which deprived the juniors of certain privileges and inability to wear a full uniform unless they get 'initiated'(formally) or 'mass-bullied'(informal) by the most senior batch before they were officially welcomed to be a part of the flying college's family, with their privileges restored. So, what are the privileges mentioned here? Good example would be the daily meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, juniors were to eat last (leftover :P), and the seniors will get to eat first. For example, if the dinner was to start at 5.30pm, we were expected to arrive only around 6.30pm when everyone else has filled up their stomach. Otherwise, we will be deemed disrespectful to the seniors, which i think was quite logical. According to some previous batches experiences, they weren't even allowed to use the toilet and the vending machines in the college. Luckily, our senior batch this time was understanding and civilized enough not to enforce this 'law' on us. Thank you! Oh, we also have to arrive the earliest every morning to do the opening of the college, and the last one to leave the college to do the closing.

Yeah, everything sounded pretty bad at first but it turned out quite alright actually. I think this so called tradition thingy is getting weaker and weaker with newer cadet batches coming in and it wasn't as punishing as it was once before. We were told that our initiation day would be held in the third week, and that would be the time when we were 'released'. The initiation day would be in the form of a party with some weird/ridiculous task passed to us to be done by and on that day. I think it was called 'ragging' in the past, but for us, it was actually a lot more fun than we expected :) Eating, drinking, running around the area and shouting/screaming at the same time, water bombing (we had to make 3000 water bombs entirely by ourselves :S), series of Q&A session(with penalty if answer as not satisfactory), and to memorize/sing the Kazakhstan national anthem with heavily modified lyrics.

Preparing water-bombs to kill ourselves

Hmm, very nice plan indeed. When come to the party day itself, we screwed up the song because none of us memorized the song, not a single rehearsal and we only relied on few sheets of printed lyrics using font size of proabbly 7 or 8 and each sheet shared by at least 3-4 persons. And just as we thought we will be bombed to death, the seniors actually started grabbing 4-5 bombs each and hurling them at one another, thus starting a massive war among themselves. Still not comprehending the situation, we only stared and laughed our ass off. Of course, it would be our turn later :P A lot of foods ordered! Yum! KFC, Pizzas, Nuggets! FUN! Finally, we do not have to be the last person to eat anymore!!

Preparation and awaiting guests & VIPs!

Finally, but not least, we have had an inter-batch street soccer competition just a few days ago. Even though i was not playing, but I still went for a watch just to cheer on my buddies(steady lar...) :D. I think they could have won the first place if it wasn't because of some disqualified case due to some dumb reason, but never mind that.

Day 3

MAN! It's only Day 3! Another stupid morning jog of 2.4km. I felt like i did worse than yesterday, clocked at 22min 06sec. I was running crippled like an old man, and the last one who reached the finishing line. Haha! At least I did it.

Breakfast was horrible, i am not going to even attach any photo of it here. Pain from yesterday was even more excruciating today. So pain that it literally took me more than a minute just to remove my shirt. Those who were more observant and sympathetic offered to assist me in changing. =.= I told them i was fine though, thanks anyway :P Hope that the pain will subside eventually, but looking at the current condition now i guess it's hard. Otherwise, I can't see how am i going to move on.

Breakfast was over, now it's time to get ready for boat rowing. I bet it's gonna be tough, oh well..i guess i'll just do whatever that's thrown at me and try not to give up. First of all, we have to prepare the boats (kinda upgraded version of 'sampan'). Then push it all the way out to the launching bay which is so very slippery i almost fell a few times. I think everyone was suffering the same trouble. Once we were at the launching bay, 2 boats were launched at a time so that we would not crash into each other (the boats weren't exactly that light you know?) There will be 4 main rowers + 2 paddlers + 1 helm (captain who will be in charged of giving direction; kononnya) + 1 rudder control (left and right steering a the back) + 1 'kelefeh' = 9 people per boat. Yes, there were 3 boats altogether and it's ultra packed. These roles will be rotated throughout the journey for the next 5 hours. Apparently main rowers would be the most shitty roles, paddlers not so bad, and the last 3 people who do nothing will get the chance to rest. Me? I rested most of the time. LOL! Oh, my boat's name is Stinray VIII.

After launching, we were off to row and row and keep rowing forward until we hit back our starting point. Yes, around the island. My first role was to be the helm! Woohoo!

Random photos taken not-by-me after launched!


My boat! I was the paddler by the time the photo was taken :)


Lunch time! Everyone rafted up by holding onto each other boat to prevent separation.


Left : Hello ferry! (Waving towards the passengers) Right : Danger! Stay away from the rocks!

We have been clearly instructed not to row too near to the coast especially rocky area because we would risk losing control and ram into one of those and damage the boat or get stuck in between those rocks. However, i must say that i was very impressed because one of our boats tried to pull a stunt by rowing over a narrow passage between two chunks of big rocks, luckily without any incidents. When questioned, they said that they wanted to take the shortcut. Fuh! My guess was that, we have almost reached the destination by that time so i guess everyone couldn't wait to get home :P

A very dangerous maneuver. Please do not try this at home.

FINALLY, rowing was over, around the Pulau Ubin, covered at least 20km. Ben rowed from beginning until the end, NON-STOP! Respect!I felt like drag to the team because i couldn't do much. Arms hurt like hell. Still, thanks to our strong rowers and team determination, we were the first boat to make it back in 4 hours 30mins.

Da finishing line! Beaching up!

In the evening, i miraculously complete another run, this time round it was a 5km run. Of course it was no easier than yesterday, tired as hell. Tomorrow will be a even longer run. F*ck!

CPR briefing during night time was funny, even though many of us took it lightly, upon second thought, i think that it's really important as it could actually make a difference between life and death, and even by learning this seemingly unimportant lesson could actually improve the odds of saving someone's life one day.

Tonight's activity ended late, i slept at 11.30pm. I have never appreciated sleeping so much in my life before, and now i know how important it is to be able to sleep early. Anyway, good night, another one day over. Still aching all over.

Mood : (Hellish)^2
Day's Left : 18