Flying~Soaring through Dreams: Ho ho ho! X'mas is just around the corner...

Just within a blink of an eye, so much time has passed since the first day i attended the OBS, going through the initiation stuff and all, i think i have more or less adapted myself to the living environment here. Struggling to wake up early in the morning for classes, got to bed late every night and prepare to sleep in the class the very next day, eat on time or risk starving for at least half a day, missed the second meal and that's it, you can consider yourself fasted for the whole day. However, it happens sometimes when i tried to eat on time as well. Haha! So there's no telling how soon before the foods were depleted. Also, i have finally finished 3 hours worth of flying session with a very "NICE" instructor who constantly kept me on the edge of my seat during the entire time when i was on the air. Many mistakes were done here and there, and every time i try to correct a mistake, new ones were sure to pop up from all over the places, owing to both carelessness and being nervous.

Anyway, not much to update for now, among the exciting oncoming event 2 worth mentioning the most are the X'mas and also my Tech Paper Exam which fall on 14th December, 6 subjects, 5 hours, all taken in one go, with prohibition to leave the examination hall even for washroom during the 5 hours period. Crazy right? Oh, and we were also assigned to decorate our humble college just to remind everyone within the premise that X'mas is just around the corner. What we did was downright simple and it took us less than 30 minutes to complete everything. Every batch was required to prepare a group performance as well for the celebration on 21st December and we have decided to go with caroling. M0re about it after 21st :P

-Some images were removed due to imminent murder threat-

Oh, it's been a while since i last posted my OBS experience, let's move on to Day 4!

Day 4

Morning usual run, nothing much left to complain anymore. I was feeling like a dead man again, but this time i managed to complete it in 22mins 04sec this time. That was a 2 secs improvement alright! I hope i could at least maintain this for the next few days if not improve. Kayaking coming soon, even though it's just the introduction part, i'm sure that it will still be pretty tough. Blisters formed on both side of my feets from running, and i'm screwed for the next couple of weeks coz it hurts like hell.

Kayaking session was over, a very short one, maybe like 1-2 hours but it was really fun albeit a little bit tiring. I heard that the next kayaking session which would be the advanced kayaking would be at least 6-7 hours long, scarryyyy! Anyway, save that for later. During this short introduction, we were briefed on the proper method to hold the paddle and to kayak properly, to go straight, to reverse, to make a turn, and not to kayak zigzagging like a walking crab. In addition we were also taught about capsizing recovery procedure where everyone is required to capsize(flip upside down) their respective kayak on purpose and carry out the recovery drills. Not very hard, but it's not so easy either...especially when my boat capsized 2 times when we were not even supposed to. Imagine flipping back the boat to upright position and climb back into it from the water, of course with assistance from another kayak.

A demonstration on draining out the water from a capsized boat

Left: Hallooo, anyone going to help me with this?? Right: Take care of yourself ya, we are leaving already!

After lunch, we departed, for the very first time to the mainland to visit the Red Cross Home for the Disabled. Yeah, community service is part of the OBS course and it was a very rare chance to actually leave the island for once and relax a little after these 4 days of tortures. In fact, being able to sleep for 45 minutes in an air-conditioned bus during the ride to the centre felt nothing less like heaven! Nothing much is done today here except for walking around and getting familiarize with the surrounding area, as we will be coming again few days later to do the actual help out with whatever stuff they needed help with :) Talking to the residents, cheering them up, and stuffs are the only things we did for today.

Left: Apparently, 2 people has gone nuts after the first 4 days Right: Mass Knock-Out

It's 5.30PM now, and we are supposed to be doing a 6km run by this time. I did not know if the fate is helping me or something but we are kind of stucked at the jetty waiting for a boat back to the island, thanks to the bus driver which was late to fetch us back home and consequently causing us to miss the scheduled boat ride. What can i say? Awesome right? I seriously hoped we can skip the run for the day because i needed a break. However, as much as i hate running, i must admit that there is something, somewhere inside me that's actually looking forward to the run. Hello Eugene! Are you crazy?!

Oh wait! My unwilling wish was actually granted, although it turned out to be a little different. By the time we were back, it was already dark. So instead of running the usual path for 6km, we were required to run within the OBS compound instead, 3km only but with much higher intensity witha lot of steep slopes to be climbed around. I survived again, though.

At night, we were briefed about the next day activity, which was the land expedition away from OBS ground for 3 days 2 nights. Hmmm! Sounds fun! We packed our stuffs and ration during that night itself and it took at lot longer than expected. It was already well over the midnight by the time we were done with the packing.