beyondness of singing
i swear, kbox is the king of bad english today. it was bad enough that fish’s hot honey lemon drink came in a mug that said "kbox, beyondness of singing" today, but every single one of the staff there was wearing a jacket that had that same slogan in big print on it. but even with that, steven cheukho fish janice and i had a pretty enjoyable time singing together for the first time in a long while! jono was quite left out of the whole thing, but i’m sure he was still thoroughly rather amused with cheukho’s antics. of course, the rather often use of ‘rather’ by a certain someone today was one of the main things we were laughing abt all day (:
it was a pretty rather last minute decision to go for the kbox thingo after our suki sushi buffet, but i think i had one of my most enjoyable outings with the group today. we were supposed to go out with fish to eat and stockpile before his outfield to sanyongkong, while i just came out of that shithole so this was supposed to be a treat of sorts for me as well. but in true fish fashion, he didnt even realise the thing was on until 5minutes before 12, and even then he suggested that we cancel the buffet thing and watch wolverine instead. obviously, the rest of us were too annoyed with him and too hungry to take his offer up, so we decided to proceed with the buffet anyway, which fish had no choice but to join in when he finally arrived. the wolverine movie outing was then postponed to tmr in view of the kbox thing today, and that’s fantastic cos i was desperately looking for ppl to watch the show with me. (btw cheryl, thanks for offering your free time to accompany me when nobody else wanted to!)
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back to operation sacred odyssey. it was a long long camp, 5day 4nights of pure tekong goodness. i was in the forward support group (fsg), and part of the ration team with joash and zhi zhuang, among 2 others. that meant that we reached tekong abt 8 hrs before everyone else, and we were the last group of ppl to leave sanyongkong on the last day as well. there was also the minor detail of having to wake up abt 2 hrs before everyone else everyday to collect breakfast, so how much rest we get is heavily dependent on how early we get to sleep. usually our nights end at 11 and we wake up at 4 to move out to collect breakfast, so you have a rough idea as to how much rest the ration party actually gets.
being part of rations was psychotic. having to fill up 120 jerrycans on the first day, each of them able to hold abt 20l of good ol’ h20, meant that we had to do some insane lifting and carrying. we had to load up empty jerrycans everyday, fill them up with water, before unloading them back at different locations in sanyongkong for our poor thirsty friends and instructors. not to mention having to fill up insulators with ice, mix syrup water in cambros, and the loading and unloading of ration boxes so that nobody goes hungry. the tonner rides from sanyongkong to rocky hill camp were the worst part, mainly because the route was so bumpy that everything loaded at the back of the tonner had a possibility of toppling and just sliding ard the floor. after a while, you realise that it’s no use putting them back upright cos they’re just gonna fall again, so you just give up and try not to fly off the seats yourself (which happened. thrice.).
the best thing i learnt from my experience was that as part of the rations party, you have to guard the cambros of water. this meant that at least 1 person had to stand guard at the drinks table for like the 2 hrs allocated during the meals, not allowing ppl to fill up their bottles with drinks and scolding ppl who kept taking more syrup for themselves and leaving less for others… sigh. i honestly have no idea why we even have to do such things sometimes.
but truth be told, i did learn a lot. how to be deadly efficient, how to load stuff onto the tonner properly, how to prioritize and cater to immediate needs asap… many logistical lessons. and honestly, we were doing this all for our friends. if we dun give them their food and water on time, or when/where they need it, they’re gonna be the ones that suffer in the end. responsibility counts for a lot in our job scope, and i guess i was reminded of how impt even little details can be when we’re dealing with a huge group of ppl. so even though our camp was a shithole, even though our bunks were disgustingly dirty and messy, even though we had less rest and we did more work than the regular trainees, even though a huge beetle landed on my shorts in the 4min i took to shower and refused to come off until i pried it off with a broken tile... we did pick up valuable skills that we’re gonna require in the future.
so good luck in sanyongkong fish, hope you enjoy yourself there. bunks are bloody clean now cos we freaking cleaned up the entire place before we handed the camp back over, so damn you and ocs. slackers.