last night was one of the most eventful nights i've ever had. but lets start from the beginning.
i went to matthew's house in the morning. was supposed to reach at 1030 but i only met heng and mat at the busstop at 11. then we walked to mat's place, which was a long walk from the busstop. we talked starcraft and spoiled coms and ff on the way.
and then we reached mat's place. his spoiled com managed to start up, so we played a 3 player match on the three kingdoms map. that game i didn't perform well. i tried to get an early offensive on heng but it wasn't to be. his defence was too good. in the end i wasted a lot of troops. and mat, turtling up, went carrier rush he was untouchable. then dom called and mat paused the game to go fetch dom. so heng and i screened each other and mat too.
when mat came back he didn't say anything about his screen being changed so we continued. he still killed us both all the same. i didn't have any gta units yet.
and second match; dom played on the com i was using while heng and i went upstairs to mat's room to team up. mat teamed with dom. blood bath map. all zerg. i was fortunate to be able to fend off mat's attacks since i didn't have good defences. i tried the mutalisk trick and managed to pull off something resembling it slightly. i didn't even upgrade to guardians. i made a lot of zlings and mlisks and attacked dom. he surrendered and left and after that mat also left. so i won my first game there.
and then we went for lunch at fernvale. the chicken rice was good but little. and we went back and the spoiled com cannot on. so i and heng fought the computer on blood bath. i did a zling rush and finished off one, while we had a harder time killing the other protoss. and then i played with mat and won. and then i played against mat and lost. and then i played with dom and heng in a ffa 3 player map which i forgot the name, and i did a proxy on dom and killed him totally. only left his command center floating. then i sent my zlots to kill heng but in the end i got countered and i died. and then i played zerg soccer with mat but that was stupid. and then i vs heng in a zling match. i massed more armies than him but in the end he had more defences than me and he did an unexpected drop into my base and so i lost by 3 buildings.
(and now i'm going to malaysia so i'm gonna draft this. continue when i get back.)
so it was nearing 7 as i left mat's place. he kindly sent me to the busstop to take 854. and i totally didn't know how to get to the chalet from there.
(damn i hate blogging with my back to the door. sneak attacks can come anytime. gonna draft this again. blog at late night.)
back to the bus rides... so i took 854 and ended up at shaun's/minpei's 93 busstop, because as i looked out of the window in 854 i saw bus 59 going past in the opposite direction, proudly displaying that it was heading to changi village terminal. i jumped off and crossed the road, wondering and then realising why the place looked so familiar.
i reached changi village at 8.20pm, but the guys were still cooking. so i walked to the chalet, and when i reached the familiar entrance i saw a few houses with people bbqing, and i can't see clearly which one was mine. so i called fred and found out that it was the one on my left, the one which i was staring at for a full minute.
finally, food! i stole a chicken wing and a satay and sat down to enjoy. after eating, jason and i and 7 others walked back to changi village to rent bikes. when we got our share we cycled back. then blven and oliver wanted to rent too so i followed them because they were getting for dean and tiongkiat too. in the end it was 3 4 ppl pushing back 7 bikes. blven the lucky guy got to cycle back and call for backup. and backup couldn't come soon enough. i and jason pushed our share back past the hotel and our hands were really burning when help, in the form of petras, arrived. i gave him my bike and i gladly sped off back to the chalet.
when i reached back they were playing soccer at the playground and making loads of noise. gan and choongboon and joel and oliver were sitting at the top of the slide and the others were trying to aim the balls at them. a headshot earned the shooter one point. jason called it "shoot the gan". i call it mischief. and mis-kicking.
and our antics attracted the attention of another group of chaletists. they were talking so loudly about us making noise and blven became "bueysong" lol. and they appeared to be taking pictures of us on the grass (because we were supposed to "keep off the turf area"), and, always looking to cause trouble, i ran in front of them shouting "taking picture, i want! take my picture!!" and as i was running a flash caught my eye, but it was not from the complainants, but from the top of the slide. i immediately changed direction and joined jason and joel who were cam-whoring. what a cover for me! anyway the pictures are on facebook and if i can get my phone to connect with my com i'll upload my own but that will be in the next post.
so not long after i and gan and jason and jethro went to recon the area and direction which we were supposed to go later. i suggested cycle to east coast (since i didn't do it at the 6a chalet) and most people were ok with that. gan gave us the directions to get to the park connector and we went back, only to find that blven's group had been caught by police for cycling on the roads without proper gear and lights. the cycling trip was almost over.
luckily i thought of walking and pushing the bikes down the road to the park connector, so the police problem was solved. antonio tried to mount the bike but everyone booed him and in the end he had to get off. and he mentioned something about banging into shien tah but somehow managed to allow his bike to collapse on top of him and he cried "ahh, ahh" like he got 'banged' and that made everyone laugh.
and we finally reached the carpark and we could mount our bikes. we saw a couple of prostitutes standing and waiting, one of them with his/her shorts so extremely short, he/she might as well not wear any. i thought of asking antonio to go bang one of them but he was too far away.
so we reached the park connector and started on our journey, not knowing what lay ahead, enjoying the night sea breeze.
the first few km were uneventful. i chatted a bit with them, and i seem to get the same question over and over again: "so lum, where are you going?" and i would say "east coast lah!" and the asker would say "no, i mean, which jc?" and that's when the conversation truly starts.
we took a few turns and ended up beside the changi airport runways. all 6km of them. the Never-Ending Road, as antonio called it. it was an almost perfectly straight path our group, 13 strong, became hogs-of-the-cycling-track and chionged down the path. jethro led the pack for the most bit, followed by jason. someone shouted "V-Formation!" and tiongkiat tried to organise the rest but to no avail. i spent the first km or two at the rear of the group, chatting with joel. then i got bored and decided to test my speed, so i set highest gear and chionged past everyone and past the two speeding J's. then i got tired and fell back to the middle, where only shien tah was. i looked behind to check on the stragglers and noticed some blinking lights in a distance. i was wondering what they could be. maybe another group of cyclists. i didn't think much of it except mentioned it to shien tah who gave no response. then tiong kiat overtook and i saw a challenge, so i sped up again and ended up in front again.
then i heard a bell. it was definitely not one of us because our rented bikes didn't have bells. and then i heard jason saying "eh lum!" and i was going too fast to risk turning back, and i was kinda close to the right edge (don't you overtake on the right?) so i kept at my locus, all the time wondering if the cyclist behind me would overtake from the left (because that was the more sensible thing to do since there was a much bigger gap there) and...
BUMP.
the cyclist knocked into me on my right side. i turned immediately and saw him lose the path, running into the non-cyclable grass beside it and forgo balance due to the bumpy ground. he fell forwards off the bike and the bike, with so much momentum, continued moving and brought him and itself crashing into a tree trunk. it didn't look fatal, but that didn't mean it wasn't harmless.
i jammed my brakes and stopped and rushed to his side. he was lying, not moving, saying that he dislocated his elbow. there was a tear in shirt's chest area and slight cuts on his knees. his right arm was bent normally at 90 degrees, but there was an unusual hollow in the elbow. the bike was still tangled around his legs. i felt helpless. one of the man's friends, who was cycling along the road, stopped and dismounted, calling out his name and rushing over to his side.
the rest of my group caught up and stopped, all crowding around the unfortunate cyclist. then his group reached him. a woman, most probably his partner, rushed over, very anxious. and all his friends went over, replacing mine, i didn't know what to do. i just squatted beside him with my hand on his shoulder, apologising.
the sequence of events was too much to fully detail here, so i'll give an overview. one guy called for an ambulance and the medics came to help the casualty. two of them took down my number, including the lady. then he was ferried off in the ambulance while the others waited for their own transport. and the lady sent us on our way. she was very nice, and didn't outrightly blame me for anything (nor did the others) and made me feel slightly better about the whole thing.
and after that we continued cycling, with renewed vigilance but no more incidents along the runway road. i kept to myself for a while, but soon after i opened up and was myself once more. the Never-Ending Road finally ended and we were again in a park area. the pace was slower now, and we were nearing our destination; the East Coast Park McDonald's.
finally! the park connector ended and we were in east coast! the route was winding and narrow at some points. we lost the cycling path a few times and ended up on the footpath. thankfully it was 2.30am and there were no people around. we crossed a small bridge, and i was at the back of the pack with blven and dean.
Clack.
as we entered area G, blven's bike suddenly shifted itself to low gear. he almost lost balance. i smelled a big fat hairy rat, but no one else noticed anything strange. not even blven. he just geared up his bike and continued.
CLACK.
the gearing system of blven's bike was seen hanging off the chains. no amount of pedalling could get the damned bike moving again. as i inspected it, i found that the gearing system had totally broken off. it's only bolt had come loose (that explained the sudden change of gear; the first "clack") and then dislodged (the second clack). i sent blven to look for the bolt, but in the end jethro, with his ultra-sharp eyes, found the thing.
so i tried to screw it back, but found that it needed an allen key (those hexagonal screwdrivers) and try as i might, the bike grease and my weak hands could not work together to screw it in. also, as i felt the edge of the affected frame, i found that it was jagged. something must have broken off and caused the system to fail. by setting the shifter back to high gear, it must have strained the bolt and thus popped it.
again, the entire cycling group was stationary after 15 minutes of being unable the screw the gear shifter back, i gave up and washed my hands. good thing there was soap there, and it took most of the black stuff away. then i went back to the group. blven was trying to get a cab, at my suggestion, but no company could send one. it was so coincidental that his bike broke down right in front of a carpark, with a name too. it was carpark G. at least that was something of a landmark.
finally we got a cab. antonio and oliver and some others wanted to continue to the macs, but it was, according to jason, more than half an hour away and to get back would take a longer time too. by the time blven went off in the cab, it was past 3 and i estimated that going back would take about 1.5 hours. there was a lot of discussing and time dragged on.
3.10.
3.15.
finally they accepted my suggestion to rush back and grab a bite from the changi village hawker center. so we set off, in the direction we came from. after 10 minutes we came across a pit stop, which had a vending machine. someone wanted to stop to buy drinks, so i called the entire group to stop. in the end almost everyone bought a bottle of water. antonio got himself 100plus, while i just borrowed water from the others. it was a 5 minute pit stop. good thing they weren't F1 pit crew.
the journey back was quite uneventful. back on the runway road, we had a water break. antonio's bike fell over and his chain came loose. i didn't know he was so drama. it wasn't as serious as blven's, but he acted as though his bike broke in two. lol. tiong and i fixed it in a jiffy and we set off again.
the journey back took about only one hour plus, but they stopped at the hawker center to tabao nasi lemak. i bought a 100plus. then we cycled back to the chalet, too tired to care about police patrols, and parked our bikes outside the house.
i went in, washed my hands, went upstairs, and squeezed in between frederick and gan on the bed.gan kindly offered me a pillow and a blanket. i lay there, physically tired but my brain was still replaying the night's incidents. then dean came in and talked to fred about them too. dean didn't blame me for knocking that cyclist down, and tried to explain it to fred. i personally wouldn't have blamed dean if he was involved (or anyone else for that matter) but, well, you know me, i didn't feel too good about it myself. my eyes were closed and i was still, so no one knew that i was eavesdropping (until now, that is). dean's words calmed me down, and i drifted off to sleep. with my specs on. i'd forgotten to take them off before i collapsed on the bed.
i slept at 6am, same time as the first night at the 6A chalet
i was woken up by something at 8am. but it was too early and i was too tired and so i went back to sleep.
at 10 i was woken again, this time by rustling on the bed. they wanted to move out. but andrew and dean were still logs, so i went back to sleep.
at 11, i had to move. shaun wanted to push back the beds. i helped raise the sleeping beasts by playing the stupid air strike warning on my phone. blven said those two could sleep through a war. but at least they opened their eyes.
then i brushed my teeth at the sink because i didn't want to hog the bathroom. i packed my charger (yes, this time i remembered) and then set off with dean, shaun, frederick and blven to subway for brunch. it was 12pm.
i had an italian b.m.t. with h&o bread, toasted and with only lettuce and with the cheapo sauce. i shared it with shaun. and it tasted so much better than the one i had on FLL day. hint: i'm not a fan of veggie.
then got on 109 to white sands with them and i found out that i was the first person from 4G to get 6 points. at least, according to fred. and dean noticed that it was those who sat behind the class that performed better than expected, and fred brought up the shock painted on my face that results day for a laugh.
at pasir ris mrt we parted ways. i had to sit the entire way back alone. this time i didn't see sam. and i reached home and bathed and started blogging.
--************--
i noticed signs that night.
there were 13 people setting out to cycle.
13 is unlucky.
we were met with 3 unfortunate incidents.
we stopped in area G, in front of carpark G.
we were left with 12 men
12 people left, 3 incidents.
12 divided by 3 is 4.
4G
--************--
think about it
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