haha i am back from ASPIRE - the grandfather of all camps. i am back safe in one piece and didnt get attacked by any wild boars or wadever animals haha. was reading last yr's entry..the entry tat i wrote right after december's ASPIRE. actualli my feelings towards ASPIRE dun differ much this time round. but there is one thing that i can confirm. i haf definitely improved alot in this ASPIRE.
anyway...juz a prove of how tough the camp was......
My bag.this freaking bag weighs like 20 over kg la. and i have to carry it for 4 days with the weight not going to decrease at all. i set off and return with the same weight...but i will feel heavier cos my energy level will decrease. yup so cant blame me for having such low morale when i set off haha.ok shall talk more about the camp now.
Day 1the camp starts at 6 in the evening. the timing was kind of weird cos it's like neither here nor there. so we guessed that we probably haf night hike that night. anyway i couldnt slp at all the previous day la. slept at 2am and woke up many times at night. kind of nervous i guess. and i was sian at the thought of going for such a tough camp again.
went to find my bros and we had our final nice meal at J8 KFC haha. i didnt eat alot cos didnt really had the appetite. den i went to 7-11 to get a cup of coffee and made one last call to someone for a final chat haha.
the place to fall in was at a community centre near scouts hq. damn it i should have known what they planned to do la. at first they told us to lay out all our stuff in at the CC's open area. den some tester said "do u think ur standard is statisfactory?i give u all 15mins to run back to scouts hq and lay out all ur stuff." and so i had to grab all my stuff and tried in futile attempts to pack everything in. ended up i had to carry sumthings in my hands and luckily nth dropped out. was kind of shagged alr cos they didnt make their instructions clear. i had to run up the stairs twice cos they told us to change place again. and i thought that everything was over when we managed to get everything right....the freaking rain came and we were told to pack everything and move into the carpark -.- . so i had to move everything again. and i seriously think that having too many leaders-to-be at one place is not gd...cos everyone will start speaking and giving instructions with the intention of showing their abilities..and everything will start to go haywire when they start doing that.
finally at ard 8 they start inspecting. there was this tester hu was damn particular...he checked all my items and item quantity..den started niaoin me for not having the correct quantity -.- . hope i wun get deducted marks for that man.
we were den divided into different patrols. my patrol members were dennis frm tchs, gorden frm catholic high, terrrence sze toh frm raffles and yeejie frm dunman high. nxt we had a first aid test and a SRIT station in hq. the tester den gave us 2 MRNs and told us to start going off for our hike. the hike was quite easy cos the weather was gd. but we had to draw sketch maps of certain checkpts which made the hike quite troublesome. and i was quite tired during the hike due to my lack of slp too haha. the last checkpt was at somewhere near SGH and i was quite tired out aft the hike cos of my lack of slp and the heavy load. was kind of blur already by the time i reached. and aft that we were led to somewhere in the SGH vicinity and into this path where there are lots of tall grasses with height at around my thigh. that was our night restpoint and effectively i had onli 20mins of slp tat night.
Day 2
we woke up and had morning inspection. we had to lay out all our stuff in the bushes..which was quite muddy and some of my stuff got dirtied cos of the mud. we had to do SRIT after that and i think i did pretty well except for some first aid parts. shld haf revised my first aid carefully before i went for the camp. i didnt noe how to treat hyperventilation and that stupid ass tester asked me if i got my first aid cert. stupid ass hu looks like some drug addict should juz shut his mouth man. but think i was also quite lousy not to noe cos it's a very easy treatment. after the morning activities of SRIT and first aid...we were led to a home for the mentally-disabled pple. we did community service there and had to entertain the pple there. not a bad experience cos i rarely do such stuff. the leaders had to get those air freshners to make us smell better man. they kept spraying at us when we were at the home haha. and we had catered food for lunch with packet drinks. luckily i had tat to boost my morale man. we were den given a 100plus each to be kept for the nxt few days.
we had to hike to Pearl's Hill Park aft tat. at there we had to do physical tests and i was quite glad i did pretty well for the run haha. we had to run for about 400m wif our full pack on. and we had to do alot of jumping jacks under the hot sun. was exhausted after tat cos of the heat. and drinking too much water makes u feel tat water is simply disgusting.
a bus den took us to holy sec at punggol. there we did more physical tests and i think i did quite badly in them. i could have done better if not for my blisters and muscle cramp man. but for the first time in my life i managed to do 9 standard pull-ups in one go haha. we were given 10mins to shower after tat and it really helped me to freshen up man. was totally sticky and smelly after all the activities. leekwang had to drop out frm the camp cos of his injured leg. felt quite sad for him cos everyone of us really put in considerable amout of efforts. dun worry bro we will support u when ur time comes ;) with all our resources u will definitely make it haha.
hiked to some ulu part in punggol. i kind of hate punggol now cos there are simply too many places there undeveloped for the testers to make use of. had dinner at some ulu roadend in punggol with no street lamps. den we hiked for about 1.5km further to have our night navigation. it was a place wif many many bushes and we had to bash thru them when doing the night navigation. kind of glad that i got 5 out of 6 checkpts haha. was kind of worried before that cos i forgot to take my pacing and i didnt realli noe how to find the direction when given the bearing onli wif no map. i think tat was one of my best tests la haha. but i got cut really badly by the plants.
we hiked back and had to start building our campsite. and had to do sewing that night. i dun think i did very well for my sewing and also my shelter cos i was very tired already. my shelter was quite jialat cos the groundsheet was damn big and heavy so ended up mine was the onli one tat was not straight and neat.
Day 3day 3 started wif a very long hike to punggol jetty. i think it was about 2-3km but it seemed extremely long cos of our heavy load and the big hot sun. and our water was running out too. at punggol jetty we had more first aid and SRIT tests. we were den transported via a speedboat to coney island - the island of the wild. there are monkeys and wild boars in the island and we were warned about them. we had to build a natural shelter there and i think mine was quite ok cos i managed to get nice big leaves..the shelter was quite strong too. and we did SRIT and knots test under the hot sun wif no wind at all. i did pretty well for the knots despite feeling that i was about to faint anytime. and there was this patrol that were punished for taking their own sweet time. they were pumped with their full packs on la. luckily the testers gave us grass jelly drink aft the activities. it was simply shiok to have a big pack of cold drink esp after such tiring activities under the hot sun. it was simply refreshing after using the packet to wipe my face and neck.
we had backwoodsmen cooking in the evening. was damn happy that i used only 2 matches to light my fire. if u guys recall i used 13 matches to start the fire last december so i was realli very happy this time. but i think my cooking wasnt very well-done cos quite alot of my food were not cooked -.- . the chicken was damn hard to cook cos we were giving one whole chicken and the rest of the food i didnt realli concentrate too much on them..ended up quite lot of them were not fully-cooked.
at night we had to do night pioneering. had to do a catapult by chopping down trees. was damn tired and mentally exhausted. finished everything at around 3 and my eyes were going to close by themselves after tat. i den went back to do my survival stuff. saw a 10cm centipede when i was doing my stuff. was quite freaked out by it cos it was rather intimidating to me. end up i had to start a fire at my campsite using my solid fuels. but i cldnt be bothered about maintainin it so it went out when i was about to slp. it was also emitting lots of smoke for sum reasons that i was unsure of. maybe i burnt sum weird log or it was cos i threw my wet wipes into the fire after using them haha. and my water catchment was quite sucky too cos the nxt day i saw lots of little cockroaches in my messtin -.- .
Day 4the last day was quite shitty to me. all the bad things happened to me and i seem to be damn suay man. we tested out our catapults and my patrol's one broke after the 2nd try -.- . and den we had to do our vertical and horizontal ropes. i couldnt climb the vertical rope at all cos of the rope burn on my hands. damn it i know how to climb ropes since pri 4 la and now at the time when i need it most i couldnt climb it. and worse i worsened my rope burns when i came down frm the rope. and in the end it affected my horizontal rope performance too. was damn pissed after that man.
we went back to punggol island at around noon and there muhammad, one of the scout testers, told us the story of a biscuit and that we have to share circle of knowledge..juz like the round biscuit tat we were goin to eat -.- . were given a BIG melon to eat after tat and i thought we had to hike back to bishan cos the testers were like all giving us morale boosters. i took a big piece of melon and was damn shagged at the thought of having to walk over 10+km back to hq. the testers den gave us our first MRN..which was the MRN of the jetty tat we were in, and told us to give them the MRNs of our house. den they said from our 1st checkpt to our 2nd checkpt we were allowed to take any forms of transport. and ended up they told us that our 2nd checkpt's MRN was tat of our house -.-. the whole camp ended there and it was damn abrupt cos we didnt change back into our uniform or had any proper fallout.
haha i duno why but everytime when an ASPIRE ends i kind of miss the testers there. i juz suddenly haf the feeling that they are really nice to us and cared about us. despite them saying those crappy stuff and niaoing us...they are still very concerned over our benefits and welfare. at the end of the camp me and my bros walked back to thank the testers cos it was our 2nd and last time to go for the camp.
and we went to kallang KFC to meet up at night. we start at KFC and end at KFC together haha. leekwang shiyang changliang weepin came to meet us and the 9 of us starting talking about our camp life and laughing about everything. it's these moments that make me feel that joining scouts was never a wrong decision.
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i think i did much better for this camp compared to last year's. to be able to pass would be the ideal scenario...but failing to pass it wun make me feel too upset or disappointed la ( i hope ). cos at the end of the day i know that i have learnt alot more thru all these experiences which will help me alot in the future. i got to know new frens thru this camp and also strengthen the frenship wif my bros thru this camp.
this might be my very last major scout activity that i will ever participate. thanks to all hu have encouraged me along my way and to those hu have helped me. thanks to all my bros for helping me out. though it was rather gayish to spend my 2 wks of holidays mostly wif u guys...it was still a wonderful time spent wif u guys. brothers forever! =)
Once a scout, always a scout.