I swore I'm up to no good on 9:45 PM

whoo finally back from OT!

oh well, kinda ironic now. as much as i wanted to get down the mountain as soon as possible a few days back, now i feel like climbing it all over again. :/

and something calvin said dennis said really struck me.
"OT will end as fast as it comes"

and true enough, it's really that fast. 5 days had gone just like that. to think just days before OT i was thining how i was going to pass the 6 days of OT. but how wrong was i. weird enough i found myself wishing that OT will never end on the super VIP bus which we took on the way back to SG. things happened regarding this bus trip as well. shall elaborate later on.

just 6 months ago i was in Switzerland, the Alps area. and as we ascended the alps on a cable car, i looked down and i saw a few hikers climbing up the mountain on a trail. then i wondered to myself. "would i ever do it one day". but i recalled i quickly brushed away the idea and thought i was crazy myself to be thinking of endangering myself doing such "useless" things. but i was wrong. though Batu Putih is a far cry from the alps, it still took great amounts of courage especially at the few obstacles whr we had no safety rope and one slip would actually mean either breaking limbs or even dying.

32 people, including me. (in no particular order, just trying to see if i can rmb all the names. heh)
calvin
rachel
kaili
denise
darryl
arkar
faizah
huiyi
shihan
fanny
jolene
jason
sufiyan
josiah
chiaweei
ben foo
big ben
yanni
ivie
yongsheng
siewhwee
alex
zhanliang
wanping
matt
nazri
louis
dhilshad
syazana
jaclyn
jiaqian

MR SEET
MR GOH
MS NG
CHEWIE

whoo that didn't take quite awhile. haha. anyway these 31 ppl climbed a 2131m mountain. Gunung Batu Putih. we owned it. couldn't have done it without my climbing partner. but don't worry ah, i still hate you as of now. i hate my climbing partner. haha. : D

3rd - 8th june.
one of the most memorable 6 days of my life.

like calvin said, i don't think we needed this OT to bond too, but rather to reaffirm the bonds we alrd shared with one another. seriously it did. throughout these few days, it really pushed most of us to our limits, and as a result most of our true colours surfaced. the quieter ones got more enthu. and like ms ng said " our spirits didn't dip. not even for the slightest bit" i believe that's the main reason why all of us could have conquered the mountain. true, the teachers really pushed us like hell, even though we were really going at our 101%, they still continued to pressure us. at tiems we felt really wronged, lke they didn't understand us. but ultimately in the end, we realised if it weren't for their seemingly non-stop pushing and pressure, we wouldn't have gotten to the summit in just 2 days and got down again in only one day. we couldn't, we wouldn't.

3rd JUNE ( SUNDAY )

went for mass in the morning then napped for awhle at hme and reached sch at abt 3 for soccer date. haha seems kinda crazy what we're actually doing hours bef the big thing. but oh well, we did it anyway and i got a few NIKE AIR under my feet. too bad la, i asked for it.

played till around 530 when most of the other ppl arrived. did some last min packing of my mobile food with climbing partner. den josiah had to bigass indian pot on his bag. that took quite awhle. at first we couldn imagine having to do that everyday after taking out his stuff. but in the end, it still happened. all can i say is "josiah, you are imba." haha.

then there were pre-OT games organized by OT chiefs. didn't really joined it. haha. me and rachel went to triple check the equipment. cant afford to miss out anything ah. den sheng came aftwards. he was kinda sick and there wasn't much time alrd so i went to help him pack instead of joining in for the games. HENG ah. think they played some shampoo game and got really dirty. WHOO. but stupid wanping came and rub shampoo on my hair. walao she's freaky la! a true blue bimGo indeed.

oh den there was the halal food incident. faizah left a plastic bag of packeted halal food on the table on the other side i think. i took the plastic bag to her and was still doing some stunt thing. then she took out the first packet and there was like a hole at one corner. (HAHA one corner) and on the table there were like rice and chicken bones on the table. it's bones. just bones, meat co mpletely eaten.

okay anyway after the dinner we all took turns to use the staff toilet to take our last shower for quite some time. LOL we waited outside the staff toilet for awhle. did some random stuff with matt and zeri. took hockey sticks from the space behind the toilet ad got caught my ms ng. lucky for him or i would have died. haha. den finally got to enter the cubicle. i turned right and almost fainted. LOL. hanging on the right were a fine display of underwear. PE TEACHERS AH. hahahha. went down after that and whiled the remaining time away with carrom. MATT IS ULTIMATE IMBA. he can like hit in seeds like free. (no interhse carrom! nyehnyeh : P hahhaha)

after that mr seet and all the other teachers came down, including a few ppl from PACwest. and we first got to see CHEWIE. LOL. (you find that if you rearrange the letters and add in "a" and "i" you get. CHIAWEEI! okay sorry) this guy came and give us a small briefing on Batu Putih. kinda scared us at first. he said there were supposed to have more leeches than korbu. NEHNEH. but he also mentioned we're the first JC to ascend Batu Putih! whoohoo! okay then after that mr seet asked all of us to recheck our bags and filter off any unneccesary stuff. had our final equipment check and we were off! (on a Singapore Zoo bus -.-)

it was quite unbelievable how were got really really high the moment we stepped up on the bus. played games, sing song, play mahjong, FIX RUBRICS CUBE on the bus then in no time we arrived at the customs alrd. whoo got to use the automated one for the first time. hahaha fun. cleared malaysia customs too after that and soon we were on our way to IPOH.

sat beside CHIAWEEI on the bus and i couldn't sleep for the first part till YONG PENG. and no it wasn't because of chiaweei (duhh). kept thinking of what would happen if i were unable to climb the mountain. how i won't have the will power to push on. and how i would jus slip and fall down and die -.- seriously, i already had such a hard time doing the berkelah falls one while everyone were giving passing remarks like "walao climb this one damn waste time." or "this is nothing compared to Korbu man" . and i had a near death experience at berkelah falls thanks to beloved DS trainer. kinda regretted not getting any offroad shoes but oh well. thought for quite some time and we arrived at yong peng alrd.

4th JUNE (MONDAY)

got down the bus. a few of us felt damn buay song. unexplanable. just had that feeling. walked arnd and saw some flies feasting on the bread they were selling. felt kinda disgusted. then borrowed 3.50 from CHIAWEEI! and bought one bowl of chng tng. talked some cock den boarded the bus again. had this funny feeling on the bus again. it's like keeping a lion in it's den that kind of feeling. urgh. but anyway endured the ride till we reached our breakfast pt. didn't really feel like eating but just grabbed a bite. prata(shredded) with some watery curry-like-sauce. haha quite cool.

den it was a shorter ride up to the lorry-fetch-us-point. met our guides for the first time. they were wearing like crocs and canvas shoes. super imba. first grp of ppl went up the lorry and went off first. had a crash course on how to deal with leeches in that 40 minutes wait. then we got on the lorry along with the teachers and guides. had this pre-climb talk. haha quite cool. and sadly, that was also the last vehicle ride or last bit of civilisation we're gna experience.

did our last min preparations, took out 2 sets of clothes and there, we finally began our long awaited ascend of batu putih.

i got the shock of my life when we started man. my cool no-grip shoes started to fail me even at the first down slope. i started whining a little. (shit) but anyway got used to it after awhile, just didn't expect to bring me much greater hindrance later on. so we arrived at our first rest point, the river crossing part. didn't remember we were behind time at that point but according to the other blogs we were really slow for the first part. so, we were DAMN slow on the first part.

river crossing was quite cool. then waited at the other end for the other ppl to catch up. and me and kaili made our first half-bottle of iced(where got?) lemon tea! hahaha it was damn shiok lah. but it ran out damn fast coz we shared it with other ppl. but it was good to have just a few sips even. whoo. iced(where got?) lemon tea really helps boost the morale man.

then we continued up the path. this time it was much harder alrd. there were never ending upslopes. i know i have weak will power and this was when it started to kick in. there was this really steep upslope. and i had really good climbing shoes so it was damn difficult lah. plus all the stopping now and then, hahaha. was quite frustrating. but luckily there was kaili. haha. my outlet for all the nonsense i said. really made me feel better when she was there. argh, i know i shouldn't blame my shoes la, but at that point the only thing i could give an excuse for were my shoes. oh well. learnt a lesson anw. finally got up that steep upslope and it was down to more winding lengths of trial to cover. had quite a few rest points and got our order shuffled up.

lunch point at some slope. at that point i was really feeling damn shitty. kept whining to the ppl around me how it was the "saddest day of my life". it was like my first ever OT and it was so mentally straining. harboured that thoughts till dinner at night. lunch was quite sad. nono it's not the food Is but me rather. wasn't really used to the conditions yet so i didn't really eat at all at that point. just told myself to endure. it was quite cool too when we first used our ponchos for it's real function. lol.

carried on after lunch. kaili got rather pale halfway and i got damn worried. she kept rejected water from my hydration pack also. haha but after that with my persuading powers (yea right), we illegally made our own rest point coz the grp behind were too far behind so we decided to stop for them(yea right yet again). drank up and ate a little and she was felt better! yay! we continued and soon it started to rain again. had to use our torches to locate each other. quite freaky actually. the trial got really slippery and that was when i started to do the treadmill-like actions. HAHA sufiyan! it was 4 at that time and it was almost pitch dark. i asked the guide along the way and he said we won't be able to reach our planned destination (the cave) bef night.
felt really demoralised at that point. bt the rain sort of woke me up and i just tried to push myself to carry on.

there waS one point at which a fake message of "rest point" was passed down. it lightened up our morale for awhile. but after we realised there wasn't any rest point, we got really demoralised and frustrated. this kind of joke cannot anyhow pass down one lah! haha nvm, it's over anyway. a test of endurance, really.

finally reached the campsite (some open space just enough for 10 tents). it was pouring la. was feeling super shitty at that time bt i knew i had more important stuff to take care off. brushed off the shitty feeling and got things going. rachel and i called for all those with tents. we quickly allocated all the tents and started to pitch the tents. i think we did quite a good job, considering all of us being so mentally exhausted and overwhelmed with fatigue. good job guys!

whoo i'm really proud of us too. ms ng said we were comparatively more efficient! :D:D haha okay nvm. but it was the first real test for us la. though we make a big big blunder by giving mr seet the broken tent poles (SHIT damn paiseh), we still managed to handle everything . OKAY WHATEVER WYEMIN!

after all the tents were up we got down to cooking. me matt and zeri went down to the water pt to collect water for the indian pots and to refill water. the trip down was okay but with the indian pot half-filled, going up was really super back-breaking. but it was a good sense of satisfaction, knowing that the soup was our effort! (OKAY WHATEVER WYEMIN!) went down to refill water again. didn't know why the 2nd time down was much harder. returned up to the campsite and food was ready! shared a mess tin with matt and zeri. the food was really comforting lah! super well down all food Is! it was really good to have a warm meal when it was freezing cold. suddenly all our morale became quite high after the food. haha wonder food.

then it was mass changing session in my tent. my tentmates:
(HAHHAA FAIZAH 3 lines see! nyeh)
Arkar
Josiah
Sufiyan

walao i love my tent man! (haha but i love the ppl in the tent more) the deep heat mass rubbbing session, the jelly! (thanks sufiyan), the insightful comments, the random food, and most importantly the love. haha i rmb telling them that thay day was the saddest day of my life. it soon didn't apply anymore because of them. oh oh, and the highlight of the night! sufiyan took out 2 vitasoy packet drinks. then i started the CHEERS thingy. we did it and i dno why we went overly excited and squeezed out sme onto the tent. LOLOLOL! then we *screamed. the thing was we didn't know ms ng's tent was just behind us. got told off by her but inside our tent we were umchio-ing like madness. HAHAHHAA! then i asked for the time coz i wanted to talk till 9.59.59 then once it reached 10 flat we keep quiet. but too bad it was 10.04 alrd. the other funny thing was that we agreed to sleep aft awhle. then 5 seconds later. everyone started snoring (not me of course la, if not how i hear). damn cool! think i fell aslp aft awhle too.

5th JUNE (TUESDAY)
and no susu,yuan and faizah, nothing happened at all okay! i totally forgotten until you mentioned in my tagboard la! all that was infront of her was zhanliang and lots of vegetation. nothign else! don't talk nonsense! hahaha

sorry that was some inside stuff.woke up feeling super lethargic. high high inertia. but still unpitched the tent and quickly got ready. mr seet then gave us a really insightful pep talk. he said he had never climbed a mountain and not reached the mountain bef. and also if we fail to reach the summit by day we would have to spend an extra day on the mountain. i dno why but i think what he said really woke most of us up. "eh you all are allowed to encourage one another know" . that really triggered off what happened too.

immediately after we started, there were non-stop words of encouragements coming from everywhere. i believe that was why the guides said our group of ppl had the best teamwork and spirit ever. i couldn't agree any further. though there were some ugly instances like when a few of us got split up from the group in front and there were some frustration, but it didn't make our spirits falter.

we had to make up for 2 hours which we lagged from the previous day. even though there were less rest points on this day. the trial we had to cover were also much much longer and harder. there were also more life-threatening obstacles like the bouldering part to overcome, we still did it.

there wass also this point when the first 3 groups (incl me and kaili), ivie's and shihan's group were quite in front. and there was this point when we had to clear 2 mini caves. out of nowhere, we heard shouts from in front that there were hornets. though we couldn't really see what was happening, the tension was there. i really went down on my knees(hornet attack pose lah! don't think too much) and covered my neck. then the front groups called us to backtrack to the open area. after awhle the guide came back and opened an alternative route for us. we then crossed this bouldering thingy to the other end. from afar we could see ms ng and mr goh being badly stung. there was a super huge bump on mr goh's leg. wah damn poor thing. couldn't have imagined if it really happened to us. got me thinking for quite a bit. self-sacrificial man the teachers. but it soon changed when i heard ms ng muttering "why didn't it happen to u guys" when she walked pass us. didn't think she really meant it that way la but..

we knew the summit was nearing. there was this point it was just a flat open area on top and we actually thought it was the summit. in our hearts, we knew. we knew the summit was nearing. looking up we could see there wasn't much left to cover. we knew we were reaching the summit. our morale got really high. we just kept going on and on. we didn't care about the stupid mud. the splinters in our hands. the bloody thorns (grr). and on we trudged on.

soon enough, WE REACHED THE SUMMIT! whoo. there came this ecstatic feeling. we just exchanged high5s with one another. wah the feeling.. damn shiok. haha. then i had to keep my excitement coz i knew the tents were impt too. same routine again. pitched up the tents again, but this time we were really slow. haha. cant blame la, everyone so happy. and it'd be an ass of me to be a killjoy, telling everyone to have sense of urgency that kind of thing. but in the end we still pitched up our tents and the food ppl cooked our food! was quite messy at that point. everyone started camwhoring. den we had pasta! whoo it was quite shiok. then jolene decided to make this milo pasta thingy which tasted quite good actually. LOL. it was dark alrd. me josiah and arkar went back to our tents to change while they were having this reflection thingy. came back out and joined them.

it was really good la. the bonds we shared, can actually sense it dur the reflection period. all the exchanging of thanks. whoo damn shiok. finished up and retreated back to our tents.

we had our jelly before sleeping. ppl around our tent kept eavesdropping on us lah! but it was quite cool la, talking in the tent. the same thing happened. the other 3 fell aslp really quickly. dno why i always take a long time to fall aslp. but anw i did after awhile

6th JUNE (WEDNESDAY)

the coolest thing happened in the wee hours in the morning man. all 4 of us woke up at exactly the same time at 5. all of us were freezing cold so we decided to take out our sleeping bags for the first time.

woke up at 7. high inertia again. unpitched our tents. went to the "toilet" with them and saw a pile of **** in the middle of the road. walao. damn idiotic. took lots of group pictures while waiting for the guides to get ready. they took a really looong time and when we started to set off we it was alrd like 10.

wah this day of descend was really really bad. my shoes were whoo and my muscles were alrd aching like free. the first part we descended we took a really long time. we were supposed to take less than half the time we took to cover the same distance but for the first part we actually took abt the same time.

mr goh then gave another impactful talk. sped us up alot. from then on, it was all chionging. but the thing was, the trial never seem to end. after a long way down and some straight trial, it always seems to repeat itself. it sucks really.

we arrived at the fake summit at about awle past noon. it was really bad. we were super off schedule and to be able to reach ground zero by DAY seemed impossible. my muscles were aching like crazy and i didn't have anymore faith with my shoes.

there was this point at the vertical descend. i got a eally bad cramp while trying to look for a foothold. and mr seet on top was like "eh you don't xia suay (go ask arnd for the meaning) my shoes like that la". then i replied "i got cramp nw and this shoe super no grip" then he said something really hurtful "cannot climb still want blame shoes somemre" . walao i really cant understand what they're thinking la. cramp alrd still want rub it in. HAHA seething inside. (inside joke too)

oh well, at least it fired me up (in a good way la). there was this point i just chiong and don't care. i really wanted my lunch point, which they claimed was an hour away. haha and on t he way something really funny happened. kaili lost her front marker and behind our group, darryl's lost the group behind too(jaclyn's) so the 4 of us just lac lac trek to the lunch point. it was damn cool! (though wrong) there wasn't any pressure at all. the first time we really got to enjoy nature and just relac. haha.

then we finally reached the lunch point and it was 4. : had a quick lunch and our aim was to reach the river crossing part by DAY! we really chionged the remaining part. then came our final rest point bef the river crossing part. saw some ugly scenes too but nevermind. it's all part of growing. haha. the behind ppl were really quite far behind, at least 5 mins and i got super worried for them. i think i went mad screaming for them every 10 seconds to check if they were coming.

carried on to the river crossing and reached soon enough. whoo, never felt so happy with just river water. haha. collected a bottle of batu putih water. the guide told us we were just half an hour away from ground zero! elated to the max ah! and knowing there weren't anymore obstacles for us to cross, we got really high and just practically chionged our way out. got dark at some point and had to use our torches.

after what seemed like forever, we reached ground zero! haha i think the feeling was even better than reaching the summit. exchanged high 5s and hugs then we got worried again fr the ppl behind as it was really dark so we didn't know if they could have made it out not. anw all of them did. whoo happy happy.

had a head count then took a lorry back again to the campsite. i was super in pain i dno why. my legs didn't have blood and it just felt super shitty. i really regretted coz i missed out on all the stars thety claimed were like free and the emo talk. argh. wasted la. then the lorry arrived at the campsite. had to carry down the bags which was terrible. i felt like dying. lol. walked a distance tot he actually campsite.

this day was the worse of all. rachel wasn't here yet so i had to get things going by myself. got my act together and organised the tent pitching. we did. the 2nd group came and tent pitching was quite smooth overall.

got to bathe afterwards. couldn't really see in the super dark toilet so just tried to clean up as much i could. talked cock outside the toilet den went back to our tents. haha waited for quite a bit in our tents till food arrived! OMG the food was heaven la. didn't have such "good" food for damn long. plus coke as well.

had a small small impromtu gossip session (hehe) with some of the guys then retreated back to our tents. on our way back, another funny(okay it's funny for us but i don't know otherwise) incident happened. screams were coming out from huiyi's tent and apparently it was so loud till the guides(some distance away) chionged all the way to the tents. the teachers woke up too. according to them there was a leech and ms ng had to pull it out. bad incident.

after that we really went back to our tents. josiah and i had this competition to see who would sleep first. sufiyan and arkar slpt long ago. LOL. aiya i think i lost coz he slpt while i couldn't fall aslp again. it was bloody stuffy and hot and clammy and whatever you can think of. it just sucks. haha. i endured till about 2 till i couldn't take it then i unzipped the tent from the other side and stuck my head out. i tilted my head up and WOAH. there was tis spider the size of my palm or arkar's palm or nazri's palm. LOL damn freaky. zipped up the tent again and just followed josiah to the toilet. came back and fell aslp. dno why. it's just weird. lol.

7th JUNE (THURSDAY)

same thing again this morning. but had to hurry coz the bus was leaving at 8. packed up den chionged up the bus. after an hours' ride we arrived at the caving area. didn't really enjoy caving till the water part. oh and also the funny scultures part. LOL. took a few stupid pictures outside the caving area and left.

then we had our lunch! ZOMG. heaven X10 ah! it was a real buffet. curry chicken, hot dog, veg, drinks. whoo dman shiok. then we took a lorry to the white water rafting area. HAHAHA the stupid lorry trip! dhilshad made it seem like a game whr we had levels and bonus round thingy. then we had to dodge branches and leaves( real one not virtual) . sufiyan got a nose job. i got quitesick after seeing all the blood thus i didn't really enjoy the whole lorry ride.

WHITE WATER RAFTING IS THE BOMB! the highlight of the whole OT man. it was super fun! my group's name was POWER(from dhilshad). i got really high during the whole rafting session according to them. haha. damn fun what! what to do. : D

there was a briefing before we got down to the water. they thought us what BOOM-BOOM was and all the safety precautions, what we were supposed to do in an emergency and everything. then they introduced us to our group captain. HAHA. we had a really bad impression of him at first coz he was qutie stern and looked damn fierce. but as we went along he changed. LOL. people change ah cant help it. exhilarating to the max. lol. we kept cheering like mad and trying to do this whack the paddle into the water thingy. then there was a rest pt halfway and we tao-poked mr seet! HAHAHA. damn funny. a lot of nitty-witty details along the way which i shan't elaborate. it was just damn fun lah! the ride itself and the company. whoo. bestest.

took the lorry back again and this time it was more fun coz there wasn't blood anymore. whoo. the scenery was shiok man. then we arrived back again and showered. then another bus ride to Ipoh parade which we took turns to look after the bags. had dinner at mary brown. cheat money one. haha.. walked arnd with the other ppl after that then went back to the porch. boarded the bus. luxury bus. damn shiok. haha. got quite emo at the start then after that it became a chain gossiping session after that. chain because the gossips were passed in a chain ( like DUH).

8th JUNE (FRIDAY)

along the way had post-OT withdrawal symptoms. didn't want OT to end. argh, to think at the start i was having such thoughts about OT. i wanted OT to end soon at the start. oh man. all that we've prepared to hard for OT fr, it's all over. oh well. reached VJ at 6 plus. most slpt till abt 8 when washing up would start.

allocated the ppl for the washing and planned abit with rachel. then ms ng wanted to talk to the 6 of us for reflection alrd. we opened up quite a lot to her and a diff side of ms ng emerged. (:

mr seet debriefed all of us after that. it was really really insightful. ODAC is a club of future leaders with hihg expectations from teachers. and we would use all the mental toughness we learnt through OTs and camps for our future endeavours. we will succeed we will.

then washing up started. i got kinda frustrated but over alrd. don't care. haha.

WHOO i finally ended this post. LOL. took me super long! time finished : 5.53pm 12 JUNE.

hahaha my post owned all of urs! WHOO. okay la it's the content that matters. but i'm super relieved i finally finished my post. and i really didn't mind including all the small small details coz this is definitely one memory i wouldn't want to forget.

ODAC. Redefining adventure.

Rock on.