Woke up at 5am, changed, went to school at 5.30, reached school at 6.
We trained for 2 times first. Timing was around 9minutes+, then we listened to a story about CJ11. Heh.
Briefing for a while, then boarded the bus to HTA. Saw lots of schools at the area already competing.
The field was spilt into 2 pitches, each with about 14 lots, each lot containing the necessary things given for us to create a shelter, flagstaff, and gadget.
We were there slightly early, so we checked out the other schools already competing in the lots. Quite a staggering sight to see so many different people pegging and tying and pulling and lashing and whatever.
Went up to the registration hall, shouted a cheer one last time, then went to register and sit with other schools competing with us in that specific time slot.
There was Punggol Sec, Compassvale Sec, Serangoon Sec, and a bunch of other schools just to name a few.
Went into this holding area, lined up in a single file according to lots and sat down. HIHS was lot 3.
Our pockets were checked for any twine, scissors or any other material that could potentially aid us in the competition. Then we were briefed on the horn blasts, safety rules, final notes, etc.
Waited for a few minutes doing stupid communicative things with the people behind me (yo arh yo).
We were led down to our lot, sat down at the edge, waited for all those final administrative things, then we were asked to stand up again.
Countdown was 3, 2, 1. Go. We were the only school that shouted something. =D
Everything proceeded like a blur, faint cries and cheers were barely registered from the supporters to our left. There was a shortage of twine, so we did not have an outer sheet. Spilt twine into two for some parts, re-tied the square lashing at the centre pole cause it was loose, tied four corners with Daryl, grabbed two bricks from the side, helped tie a bowline and clove hitch for the gadget. Last 30 seconds were spent rushing to keep things into the shelter to look presentable and neat, and everyone ran out of the lot boundary when the final long horn blast sounded.
That was it. Roughly 6 months of training, from pitching a tent to about 3 different shelter designs, from that grueling selection training during the first few trainings, to the jokes we used to say when unpitching, to the countless times we pitched and unpitched, trying to reduce our timing. All that boiled down to just 10 minutes.
But it didn't end there just yet, cause there was still the presentation. Presentation went, well, like the Valentine's Day Concert with Second-Class drill badge test combined. Can't really say for sure if it was good or bad, cause some parts were good some parts bad. And I was really nervous cause the judge I was presenting to was probably 10 ranks higher than me or something.
Different judges would just walked around and test our shelter, gadget or flagstaff. There was this hole in the middle of our shelter. =X They would call upon Jun Yuan and me as presenters if needed. Horrid la. It's like giving a speech without any preparation beforehand. 零时发挥 you know? Some judges were nice and actually bothered to listen to what we had to say, others just asked us to answer their questions. But I guess I would begin to feel irritated myself if I'd been walking around under the hot Sun evaluating different schools all morning too.
Don't really know about our performance either. Hope we can get into the finals. Or at least the top 15.
Went back to school after that, and discussed about where we wanted to go next. =)
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