Stray Bolts

Storms rock. There's the sunshine afterward to look forward to.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

What Happens When All You Have Is OBK Training

Despite the boring-ness and monotony of training for Outward Bound and only being able to interact with the few scholars left during the night because of this, life still, for some reason, throws entertaining things into my path from time to time. Like all the examples below.

I was thinking at one point about creating the perfect drink. And I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I thought, "Hey, since the sarsaparilla root extract tastes so good in root beer, why not make another soft drink totally devoted to the noble root?" And I proceeded to think up the ingredients for such a drink. Of course, carbonated water was a must. As well as sarsaparilla root extract. Maybe additional ingredients should include copious amounts of sugar, perhaps caffeine, and all the seemingly compulsory (for soft drinks, anyway) flavourings and preservatives. As for colour, I decided on a rich caramel brown, very close to black colour. Yes, I decided. This would truly be the ultimate soft drink. Then it hit me. I unknowingly had repeated the ingredients list for root beer. I think the training for that day had been too much. Haha.

Another day, after a round of shopping for winter clothes with my fellow scholar and OBK mate (I came along to play devil's advocate, since he would probably buy everything in his indecision), we went to Pastamania to eat. There was a family sitting at the table right next to ours and the three kids there (all boys) decided to show off to the other two.

The oldest, who couldn't have been older than 13, decided to demonstrate his wide knowledge of the world. He pointed to the bottle of Tabasco sauce on the table and said very knowingly (and snobbishly, in my opinion), "This sauce arh, actually, it's made from the hottest chili in the world one!" Just for knowledge, this is slightly inaccurate as the bottle's tagline reads "The hottest SAUCE in the world. Besides, spiciness is subjective. I think some sambal belacan is worse. But enough about my thoughts.

The second boy, who decided that his older brother clearly had the advantage in smarts because of his greater age, made to demonstrate his incredible tolerance for spiciness. He grabbed the bottle of Tabasco sauce and drenched his pizza slice in it, folded it into a piece that could fit into his mouth and chowed it down, mumbling "SEE? SEE?" almost incomprehensibly due to his full mouth.

The youngest boy, who clearly had already realised that he could not beat his older brothers in smarts or tolerating power, demonstrated the only talent he could. He totally ignored them. In my opinion, this cute dude looking the other way drinking his second brother's ice lemon tea was the smartest and most tolerating of the three, although you're free to decide for yourself.

Then, upon reaching the hostel after training one day, I was forced upon a particularly disturbing scene, as shown by this video.

I think they were stressed out. Must have been the Chemistry Olympiad they were going to do the next day.

And, as with my usual (but not very frequent) pastime, I shall endeavour to answer random questions!!!

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.
"Slow." Apparently, Bella Swan is a woman of very few words. Anybody can lend me Breaking Dawn?

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
Ouch. *Training takes its toll*

3. What was the last thing you watched on t.v.?
Is You Tube tv? If so, then 'Hu is the new leader of China'. If not, then my memory doesn't stretch that far back.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is.
2240 hrs.

5. Now look at the clock.What is the actual time?
2239 hrs. Nice.

6. With the exception of the computer what can you hear?
Tirta, Truc and Surya screaming. Truc and Surya are screaming like the video above, while Tirta is screaming in laughter.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
Half an hour ago. We were walking to the Indoor Stadium and back for fun. Shouldn't have done it in slippers. Blisters are irritating. Some more got training soon.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Truc and Surya. With quite an incredulous look.

9. What are you wearing?
My basketball outfit. Not that I actually play nowadays, but what's the point of having clothes if you don't wear them?

10. Did you dream last night?
Yeah, a particularly interesting dream about me leaping from bottlecap to bottlecap of giant floating root beer bottles trying to escape the imba woman who just happened to have invented a jetpack. Weird.

11. When did you last laugh?
5 minutes ago. At the video.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Bacteria, paint and Surya.

13. Seen anything weird lately?
Didn't I just illustrate that it has happened a lot of times recently?

14. What do you think of this quiz?
I love random questions.

15. What was the last film you saw?
Wall. E!!! Cutest movie I ever saw. *AWWWOOOOOGAH* Caution. Rogue robots.

16. If you became a multi-millionaire over night, what would you buy?
A new laptop, for starters. My com crashed again. I can restore it anytime, but that's not the issue here. After that, a root beer factory? Then I'll give the rest to whomever asks.

17. Tell me something about you that I don’t know.
Depends on who's the 'I' who's reading now. I doubt any of the SJI scholars or the imba woman don't know anything about me. They might even know me better than me.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
I would change it such that I could change more things about the world.

19. Do you like to dance?
Mass dances are cool. Then there's the dance we're performing to the Koreans. Ahn young ha se yo!!! Na nun Malaysia saram imnida. Na nun go dung hak kyo il hak ryun hak seng imnida.

20. George Bush:
Is gonna be replaced soon!!!

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what would you name her?
Sarah, probably. ''God's princess''.

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what would you name him?
Too many names to consider that mean the same thing.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
I didn't really have a choice, now, did I?

24. What do you want God to say when you reach the pearly white gates?
"Well done, thou good and faithful son."

25. 6 people who must also do this in THEIR journal:
Nah, I'm not that evil.

Three names you go by:
1. Matthew
2. Matt
3. Matt Matt (Do you sense a pattern here?)

Three screen names you have:
1. WthameXt
2. yamato24651
3. yugi24651

Three parts of your heritage (the 3 most important parts XD):
1. SJI
2. My book collection
3. Can I include my friends? Coz they're an essential important part of my life...

Three things that scare you:
1. SPIDERS!!!
2. Imba woman in anti Root beer mode (I think I've stressed this quite a few times already)
3. Saw I, II, III, IV and V

Three of your everyday essentials:
1. God's recharging energy
2. Books
3. Friends

Three things you're wearing now:
1. Shirt
2. Shorts
3. Underwear (Hello, kind of a stupid question, much?)

Three of your favourite songs:
1. I Will Bless The Lord
2. High School Musical
3. Womanizer (for its comedic value)

Two truths and a lie in no particular order:
1. I am eagerly awaiting our climb up Mt. Soraeksan (Is that how it's spelt?)
2. I don't detest romance novels.
3. I haven't been sleeping well for the past four days despite the tiredness from training.

Three of your favourite hobbies:
1. Singing
2. Reading
3. Talking

Three things you want to do really badly now:
1. Get Breaking Dawn. It's tough being a speed reader. The easy reading-ness of Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse don't help.
2. Watch some new anime.
3. Bathe. I'll get right down to it as soon as I finish this bottle of root beer. Wait, I shouldn't have said that.

Three careers you're considering:
1. Forensic Scientist
2. Novelist
3. Teacher (this just popped up in my head one day, for some strange reason)

Three places you want to go on vacation to:
1. Nippon
2. Israel (the non war zones, wherever possible)
3. Dreamland (been there so many times, but still not bored)

Three things you want to do before you die:
1. Go to Israel!
2. Memorise my namesake's book verse for verse.
3. Make an impact on everybody I meet.

Three things that make you stereotypically a boy:
1. I can do 11 pull-ups.
2. I'm quite blur at times.
3. I can like a girl without being called a homo.

Three things that make you stereotypically a girl:
1. I take Lit.
2. I talk like my mouth would explode if I stopped.
3. I don't need to solve my problems to feel better, just talk about them to people.