Welcome to my Dark Horizon

Saturday, July 21, 2007

This post will be quite long and may bore u as it is mostly just my own feelings and experience during the 5 day 4 nite OBS course. It may be quite short or perhaps too short to some of u, especially the ones who entered and experienced the OBS course with me. Ps: this is going to be like an essay, feel free to leave when you're bored.

Personal feelings: OBS totally sucks!! Meaning: we suffered alot there but we endured it thru, its wad i'm proud of. All those self-achievements and doing things i can't even imagine myself being able to do it.

Relieved: Feel really good to be back home comfortable. I know alot of u will say u'll miss ur watches. Well, i do so too. But stop lying to urself, would anyone prefer to be back dirty, eating can food, sleeping in tents now at OBS. U may think otherwise, but my answer is no.

Learnt values: Endurance, self motivation and teamwork. Although ppl would say that there are alot more, but i feel that these 3 are what i learnt most throughout this whole course. Land expedition and sea expedition are mostly about endurance and self motivation. Food for thought ( everybody's saying they're dying and can't do it anymore, but in the end, all of us still did it, isn't these 2 the key values?) Even simple things like waiting for ppl and waiting for the talk to be finished requires lots of patience which is like endurance i think. As for teamwork, no man's an island, u can't do everything urself, be it pitching tents, packing stuffs, cooking food.

Finally to the activities and experience:

Day 1: was appalled at the conditions. Please dun get this wrong, but in the end, i feel that its because of the poor food and living conditions that we achieved so much we thought we could nvr do. Learnt all the basic stuffs like belaying, pitching tents, cooking, tying knots.. Also did the trust fall, it really requires trust in ur watch mates to do this.

Day 2: Did the tripod, first to went and complete, and belayed the most throughout i think. One of the high points after the lethargic feelings at the beginning. After that went kayaking, learnt all the basic stuffs about kayaking also.

Day 3: Land expedition. Carrying stuffs weighing over 20 to 30 kg (actually i'm not quite sure about the weight, may be exaggerating to u, but i swear its heavy) in our bags on our back walking long distances for hours. Trained our endurance.

Day 4: Sea expedition, was the sea ex leader (sweeper). But i shacked my duties about 3 quarter through. Sorry melvin and sharman. We really thought u all wun come back to be sweepers also anymore as u all were in front from about halfway through the whole journey, so i just pia to the front, not sylvia's fault. Endured and motivated myself telling me that its not that far and instilling strenght in myself (mostly by bluffing myself though) which gave me the strength to paddle right to the front few. I apologise to a few ppl, Sylvia (for capsizing causing u to be so scared, Melvin and Sharman (for assuming and leaving u all behind).

More about sea expedition as it is a really mind instilling experience, perhaps its because it happened just yesterday. I feel that ppl should learn to control ur own emotions more, everyone is tired and frustrated as we all paddled the same distance. Nobody really has more rights to be pissed and frustrated at another. Control ur emotions is the main point in this paragraph, be it like distracting ur own thoughts and singing to urself(which i did during the passing bags thing). Shouting, putting on a frowning face and letting ur own feelings out will only demoralise others.

Day 5: Packed, admin staff, and left finally. (:

On OBS:

Although i think it sucks throughtout(my true feelings), but i have to admit its a good experience as it tests our mental and physical strength seriously. Imagine paddling a kayak for 9 hours and enduring thru a thunderstorm with huge currents at sea, carrying stuffs weighing so so so heavy in our bags on our back walking for about 6 hours pitching and sleeping in tents in the dark forest(although i really didn't sleep much, quite a few ppl know i think), not bathing, eating crap stuffs.
But it really teaches us wad is hardship and made everything we did in Singapore look like a piece of cake. Its hard to say by words, u really have to be there to experience it to know what it really is like. Solving out own troubles and problems through teamwork.

I'm so proud of mine and everyone's accomplishments. Really so proud... And my watch -- Amundsen, thanks everyone.

Labels: ests our mental and physical strength seriously