national orienteering
my blog v1.05.08.29

woohoo orienteering rocked. well, other than the fact the we were champions, the competition was quite a fun experience. winning it for vs and arrow made it even more meaningful. (no i am not being forced to say that)

but seriously, national champs. doesn't get any better than that.

on friday after prayers went back to vs to prepare fer the competition. hadta pack stuff the stuff fer comp and me adriel and winston hadta bring home lotsa stuffs cos we had to carry fer the other three members.

ouh and not to forget we pitched a tent in 2 minutes 30 seconds. looking back, i still don't know how we managed to better that time during competition itself. with TWO tents.

the flag off next morning was at the tampines mountain biking trail. met jackson and a few other vj guys there.

first task: sketch of the whole park. woohoo shit. nervous nervous. so then we walked around, walked walked and i sketched

and then when submitting the sketch to the judges we started to panic. the team before us (who very innocently went around the superfking huge place and drew the map themselves kena attacked by the judge.

"i ask you, would it make sense to refer to a map and copy exactly from it" his exact words.

second checkpoint: gongshang primary!! (which if you don't already know, is my primary school) wahaha damn happy sia. so i led the team through known territory. cut through hdb flats and we managed to overtake a few groups lar. come to think about it we actually overtook a lot of teams cos we were like the twelfth team by the time we reached the second checkpoint.

second task: tent pitching. and had to be sufficient for all six members of the group. quite amused at some of the other groups who pitched bashas and army-barracks-like tents. bah, whatever. what matters is, we pitched two tents in less than 2 mins 30 sec.

checkpoint 3 wasnt very near: pasir ris town park. so i led them back to sunplaza park. then there was conflict over the fastest route to get to pasir ris. wenshu wanted the flyover, winston wanted the park connector. adriel, alif and zhi cong patiently waited. i preferred the flyover, so eventually we took that route.

so we walked, shaded by the mrt line above us. the route we took seemed unchartered. and we were soon to find out why: TPE. for SOME reason, it did not occur to us why the road to pasir ris was a FLYOVER. instead, we chose to walk next to the road where it was shadier, only to reach the expressway, then backtracking to walk on the flyover instead.

precious time wasted. then we got desperate and after the flyover, we jaywalked across the expressway entry and we crossed a vast patch of grass next to the road. vast patch sounds contradictory. i'd say it was more towards the vast side.

ouh, and it was no ordinary grass. it was unleveled tall grass. so was walking confidently across it, reminding the other guys to be careful cos the ground was uneven, then fell into a super deep hole. ouh but guess what, the hole was covered in grass which supported and broke my fall.

thats one way to look at it. in other words, i tripped and fell into a bed of tall grass. as in, bed, like, totally surrounded by it. that moment of blurness left me bloody itchy fer the rest of the day.

took us an hour to get to the third checkpoint.

third task: outdoor cooking. well it wasnt too bad lar.

instant noodles

can of sausages

can of mutton curry

can of peanuts

apple

jar of pickles (no, seriously)

oh, then while we were eating another school's gas canister leaked!!! sialah damn scary siaa!! then they panicked like free then me and wenshu went to help hold the canister together. effing scary ah the bloody thing was leaking like free i was damn scared it was gonna explode. it was leaking so much what leaked out was liquified gas ah. well, you now you kinda understand why they were panicking so much.

then after that cos so much gas leaked it was all over us. and i didnt dare come close to any flame. and then catholic high lost their logbook and borrowed ours. we're such nice people...

and then we had some morale-boosting sprite. and we were ready to go.