I went to the dentist - which isn't very interesting unless you consider the stupid conversation I was having with the assistant, some old auntie who can't resist a little chat. So we were kind of talking in Mandarin.. but I'll translate it since it's more convenient.
Background knowledge: I went to postpone my appointment from 30 May to today because of CCAL Camp, and I told her over the phone. And I went late for dental today, around 10 minutes or so.
Auntie: You just came back from camp is it?
Me: ?!!
Me: I came back long ago.
Auntie: Oh really? How was it?
Me: Okay la. Wasn't too bad - there was the sun, the sea, and the jungle.
Auntie: You went into the jungle?!
Me: Ya why not?
Auntie: Safe or not? What if Indonesia there got bad people come and catch you?
Me: (amused) We went in groups, then there are also teacher instructors.
Auntie: But teachers won't know the place well. If they get lost then got bad people come then how?
Me: Err.
Auntie: Indonesia so big, got a lot of bad people.
Me: ..the teachers came before, so they should be quite experienced. Anyway we are such a big group, bad people won't dare attack us.
Now on the topic of jungles - you could say that I was kind of lying. After all, if there were big groups of terrorists, I think they would have pwned us in the jungle. This is their turf - not ours. Plus the Indonesian foliage is not something you can play around with - it's much crazier than Macritchie which is arguably Singapore's best idea of greenery.
Let me give you a rough idea. This is what NOT to expect:
You get some wide trail with a clear path demarcated, and looks damn good for running. It's kind of like Macritchie only it's not because I'm lazy to find a picture of Macritchie.
What you get for Bintan is like:
Cannot see anything + low visibility. I think they just wanted to prevent mad Cross Country idiots (like me) and psycho Canoeists (they run a hell lot too) from having their own Bintan PT in the morning. If you ask me, any form of PT on this island in the jungle will just be Pwnage Time. Go in and get pwned by wildlife. PT will be Probably Terrible.
Back to the conversation..
Auntie: That's all? You go for how many days?
Me: Four.
Auntie: So you all spent four days in the jungle?
[Really.. sometimes don't know what these aunties are thinking. But then again hard to blame them - it can't be much fun sitting in a freezer they call waiting room for one whole day.]
Me: No la.. also got other activities. (then gasp realised my Chinese starting to CMI)
Auntie: Like what?
Me: Err rock-climbing.. basically climbing. Up walls and structures and stuff.
Auntie: Wa so fun ah. Not scared fall?
Me: Got safety precautions. We have.. uh, ropes. (told you Chinese really CMI)
Auntie: Oh okay.. then did you climb?
Dentist: (popping in) You can come in now.
Me: (softly) Wa heng ar..
Basically from here I guess you know that we did some climbing, though that was for High Elements. Which brings me to the point of naming the activities. Why call it "High Elements"? I didn't know the Indonesians were so "on" about learning Chemistry - although from the campfire (where we all got bloody roasted) it was kind of evident they didn't know much about heat control. Like latent heat which also involves Fizikss but never mind.
So instead of tall structures and stuff in mind, I was thinking of something else when I read that we were going to do "High Elements".
No?
Then similarly, Low Elements would mean something like:
Not my fault if there was any misunderstanding - if there's anyone to blame, go blame RJC Chemistry Department for their constant drilling of these little tables into us. Turned out the "elements" were just random structures built for sadistic pleasure. And everything was made of wood. Tsk - what age do those Indonesians live in now, eh? Still thinking that "wood" is an element. I thought that was a thing of the past and I thought that it was part of ancient Chinese beliefs.
But ANYWAY. That's not the point. The point is that we just went around playing with these wooden structures and oh, there you go, that made up the other half of our activities in Bintan.
Sigh now that I'm back here facing the REAL elements, I can't help but think back. And by the way the dentist like totally tore my lips apart today when she carelessly decided to pull something out from my mouth using a super sharp instrument. Well my lips happened to be in the way, and after my careful choosing of colours of braces it turned out all red. What the heck - now this is what I call a waste of time.
So what do you do when you have such a boring life like this?
Go to sleep. After all from the TCS Rule - "if you find it offensive, we'll make it more offensive", we can derive that "if something is boring, let's make it more boring." zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
-------
Note: Despite all that I said, I really don't have anything against our Indonesian neighbours nor the local dentist. Because a main ingredient of talking cock is bitching, and therefore I have to focus on their 1% (okay maybe more) screwed up bit rather than the 99% of normal stuff. Ya believe it or not - I've nothing against them. Don't believe your problem.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment