Sunday, October 24, 2004
::SWEEP LEFT!!::
My gwad. Kayaking today was totally crazy. I was caught the train that was too early. The train passed Kallang [my stop] but I refused to alight. Took it all the way to City Hall, alighted, walked the first stretch of City Link before going back to take the train to Kallang. In the end I was a few minutes [as in slightly] late. It seems like I got nothing better to do. Once we got on the kayak [I was seated in front, and my friend at the back] , we [me and my partner] started shrieking and screaming away. We were on a colliding path with this little wooden jetty. It took us quite some time and quite some help to get out of that situation. The instructors were all students, like us. But they were good, good enough to get us [the miserable lost sheep] out of whatever crap we got into. We were already like the last kayak when we first set off. Our other friends were like laughing at us. Right from the beginning, we needed help already. And everyone else was like
gone.
Anyway, we had to move on, and my friend, being inexperienced, didn't really peddle correctly. I was no where better either. We just could not maintain a straight path and always curved to the right or the left. So we had to turn. To turn left, you need to peddle right and vice versa. So we got all confused with the stupid directions and took forever to figure out which side to peddle if we wanted to turn. This was one of our major disabilty. So we finally got under the bridge. And we just kept colliding non-stop with the bridge and other kayaks. And we were literally screaming all the way, making us the source of noise pollution. The instructors kept saying that we were not synchronised and everything and there was almost nothing I could do except shout out commands. My friend was struggling to keep up and we just kept colliding with almost everything. Truly, we were in a state of distress. And the instructors [those that had the camera], kept trying to capture our pathetic state on film. AND we forever have trouble forming the rafts. We almost always was never able to form a raft with the others or were left out of it because we were too slow. And the instructors would have a hard time trying to get us into the right position. More often than not, we would be facing in the opposite direction relative to others. That's not all. There's this capsize drill that we have to practise. Everyone. Naturally I wasn't very enthusiastic about it. I'm not sure about my friend. When it was our turn, we asked this instructor many many questions. "Will we fall out of the kayak?" "What if we don't?" "Why must we hit the hull 3 times?" "Will we drown?" "What if our legs get stuck?" "Why must we hold on to the peddle?" "What if it disappears?" Loads and loads of questions. And in order to capsize, you need to rock the thing quite violently. And we were quite unsuccessful at that. It took us ages [I bet everyone was mocking at us] to finally capsize. And at that instant, I couldn't really bother hitting the hull 3 times or whatever. I just held on to my peddle and tried to push myself out of the cockpit. And my sandals was like falling off, my shorts floating about my legs uneasily, the PFD [personal floatation device] was thrust us and was going to come out any moment and the salt water.. need I elaborate? It was terrible. My friend sort of abandoned her peddle and held onto mine, thinking it was hers. Oops. Anyway, we were screaming away [as usual] and trying to hug the kayak. And the current was like sweeping us off our feet- yes, we could maintain a vertical position and was like floating on our backs. And we screamed again. Anyways it took us forever to get the stupid overturned kayak moving. We were like complaining and groaning away. A hopeless case. After much difficulty, we finally got to shore. We didn't even need to tow a long distance [as compared to my previous experience]. And we couldn't empty the bloody kayak so the instructor had to help us with it. Even with upthrust, it was really difficult to lift. My friend now got into the front position and I the back. I thought this arrangement would be better as I could see her and correct her. But I was wrong. She was rather nervous and hence kept confusing left with right and vice versa. Since we always had to turn and since I was the one shouting commands, I had to repeat myself time after time to SWEEP LEFT/RIGHT before she could finally understand. And before that, she would be peddling in the wrong direction. Anyway, we did improve. And as usual, we rowed towards the Benjamin Sheares Bridge. The water was really choppy [it was going to rain soon and we were near open waters] and so, the waves was rather big. Ok, not as big as those you see in Aussy or Britian, but big enough to scare me to death. Anyway, anxiety almost killed me. I was so afraid that we would just capsize. It seems that our kayak was always parallel to the wave when it should be perpendicular. And we kept drifting out of the boundaries that the instructors set for us. And we were dead tired already. And we kept going out of course. And we had to keep sweeping left and right and doing static turns. But we were stuck in the middle of the river. No choice. We were really the last kayak. The others were far far away from us and had already form a raft near shore. And we were straddling behind. And the worst thing was, we almost collided with the Coast Guards. We could see it coming but we did our turning too slowly. I mean, being as tired as we are, what could you expect? So the instructors were like shouting instructions. And we were getting anxious and confused. Luckily we got ourselves out of the way. It was really after a lot of colliding and bumping before finally reaching the shore. But it was really fun.
And there's a lot of eye candy [people from other schools] too!
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Yesterday I went to Qiao Nan for mentoring. I think I really suck being a tutor. And I'm really upset about the fact. And I did not manage to watch White Chicks either. Some other day perhaps.. But I had a fun time with M.Saint. We went to Suntec and went to dine in Olio. That place has a really good atmosphere. The chicken was pretty good. But I sort of feel that some of those waiters looked down on us because we were wearing our school uniform. Not very well dressed. Anyway, I created a new dish with my leftovers.
Does it look nice? Anyway, it's just chicken skin wrapped in fats and skin and some parsley. Actually it could have looked nicer but I accidentally wrecked it. After that, we went to NYDC to have dessert. Frankly, I wasn't particularly amazed by their mudpie that was described to taste and look good. I still prefer Snoopy Place's. But my friend's brownie looked nice. No fair! All the food she ordered looke better and tasted better than mine! Anyways, we were really bloated after that. But I had today.
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My hands are aching like mad now and my skin is kind of painful. My FACE IS PEELING!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
