Paintball

Paintballing with the Singapore Society was...interesting. I suppose I would have had much more fun if I had gone with my own group of friends but since the society was providing transport and more ammo than if you went on your own, we signed up. It was a really last minute decision and we were to lucky to even get places. About 40 odd people went and it was a typical Singaporean group. Unfortunately the organizational skills of the committee were very lacking. The bus was late for an hour and we were left waiting in the sun (nowhere to sit), half-asleep and baking. The president didn't have the bus driver's number and hence was unable to contact him. They called the group together and announced that they would hire maxi-cabs to cart us off to the place. Hello, cabs are damn expensive here and the place was pretty far; I think it was about 45 minutes drive from the school. 1 maxi-cab could only take about 8 people so they would need like 9 cabs. This could come up to a few hundred dollars worth of cab fee and they even had to ask the group if they could borrow some spare cash after collect $35 from each participant, saying that they would definitely reimburse us. Come on, how does it look for the president to be begging for money from the people?? They could have just gone to the ATM or something and use THEIR OWN MONEY!!! Things like money problems shouldn't be revealed to the members; it reflects badly on you.

Fortunately the bus came but it meant that we were late for the paintballing. I think we were booked for the 9 am-12 pm spot but we only arrived at 9.15 am or so. Plus, the bus driver had stopped us outside the place (it's super ulu and looks like a forest) and we had to walk in and it took us about another 15 mins because it was really far in and the slopes leading in were just killer 70 degrees hills!

We had to queue up to get our attire and number tags. We were already late so the "president" was like rushing us to put on the gear quickly and she didn't put it in a nice way. She was like, "Come on guys, hurry up and listen to the guide. We're already late". Yah, as if I didn't know we were late and as if it was our fault that the bus driver didn't come on time and we couldn't contact the bus driver and also, we had to climb the stupid hills coming into the place. I was really annoyed with her lousy attitude and I never really liked her anyway. This event really showed her true colours.

Going into the terrain, the guide/referee talked really fast and I could hardly catch her explanation of the rules in the game. Apparently, different terrains had different objectives and rules. Oh well, I was there just to shoot people so I didn't really care. The gun was awkward and heavy. It didn't always fire in a straight line so aiming was hard. The terrain was hilly and running up the slopes with my short legs was really challenging. At least I had some fun shooting and yes, I did hit some people. Got hit quite a lot too and it was quite shocking to realise how painful getting hit can be. You get a bruise almost immediately and I had 2 very ugly bruises on my arms.

Running, crouching, crawling, hiding, shouting, surrendering....all part of the game.

Once we put on the helmets, we were all alike except for our shoes and number tags. It was almost impossible to recognise the person beside you. We could only tell who were in the same team by the helmets (ribboned or not). Most of the time I didn't know who I was talking to and I had to keep asking, "Ni shi shuai??". My friend was the best. He told me he had spent quite a lot of time talking to this girl next to him thinking she was me when it was someone else all along.

The referee stopped our games promptly at 12 pm. We had to leave the terrain even though most of us still had plenty of ammo left. We changed, got our valuables back from the office, drank and snacked. I thought we could go home soon because I was exhausted from all the running and sweating and I had slept late because I had been reading Harry Potter. Well, well, well, the bus only came at 1 pm, which meant that we had to sit there, rotting and stinking, not to mention, enduring the second-hand smoke coming from all the chimneys there. I was actually quite surprised to find so many guys smoke. Worst of all, we had no proper food and watching the ang mohs enjoying their pizza was just...horrible. It was obvious that our group had not planned for this event properly. I still don't understand why they had to ask the bus to come at 1 pm when they should have known we would end by 12 pm. At least the bus drove in to pick us up but when it reached the 70 degrees hill, the bus could not drive up and we all had to alight and walk to the top of the hill. Good experience or not? You tell me.....

I can't stand the president even more after this event...

The dryer ate my $2 and David was sooooo unhelpful about it, which makes me even more pissed. I shall refrain from talking to David as much as possible. I'd rather call Marie or Judy instead. At least they are nice and friendly.