i want to stand with you on a mountain

And a mountain we scaled indeed. As many would know, monday - wednesday was spent in the lonely little mountain of gunung belumut in kluang, johor. I would not do a blow by blow account of what we did because you can refer to many other sources for that. For me, one thing i wanted to achieve for the expedition was to be a good, contributing member for the expedition. Although i felt i had spent much of the time zipping around helping the QMs with the odds and ends that needed to be done, i kinda regret not being able to spend more time with my group. Am also quite guilty that it ended up with them cooking and those in comm eating and that they had to wash up also. So to my group B1, you have really been an understanding and great group. Shall spend more time knowing more of the members in it. For ODAC, i think batch bonding was something that most of us hoped would be improved and most of us felt had improved through this camp. Be it the time spent for the bus ride, the super high campfire or the time spent on sentry, all these contributed to us knowing and understanding one another better. And although batch bonding wasnt exactly an "official purpose", i'm quite glad it was achieved.

Of course, there were the many problems and challenges we had to overcome and some hiccups here and there, some bigger than others. But i believe all these contribute to making this an experience, even the bad things. And hopefully, we can learn from them, and make the next expedition a better experience.

And i think the most worthy way to remember this expedition, to do justice to it, would be to jot down, in this little corner of cyberspace, certain memories and events that i hope i will remember when i look back at MAC 06.

I will never forget...

• using the mega orange bag as a bolster on the journey there
• the songs we sang with james strumming the guitar
• the very pro looking logistics tarp
• the fried rice and the variations that the different groups had
• the 猜拳 that me and gerard played to finish the fried rice
• the sand in all the dishes
• the rowdy malay boys near the toilets
• the damn screwed up mess tin that sand treatment could not treat
• the midnight palm readings by bi hui
• the eviction from my tent by gerald tay and gavan
• the extremely cramped but otherwise deep sleep in gerard's tent
• my attempt to toast bread using the gas lamp
• the smoking guides (not the 01, 02, 03 kind)
• the songs sent on the way up
• the spring water
• the summit that had absolutely nothing on it
• the army rations
• the cola sweets
• charlene and her owned ankle and meiting and gerard for the time we spent bringing her back
  
• gerald tay and his pickup line
• the odac song
• the "truth and truth" game
  
• the "comm meeting"
• the bomb milo and equally bomb pancakes
• the feeble attempt to destroy the styrofoam boxes
• the "blakang lobang"
• the "customs examination"
• the people, every single one of you all.

To all those who probably did not make sense of that list, all i wanna express is how much this expedition meant to me and hopefully future, more adventurous expeditions will bring greater meaning to each and every one of us odacians.