In Continuum.

Downward Spiral Of The Night

I believe that after reading the previous post, I must have painted a rather pleasant picture of the orientation I went through. True enough, up to that point in time everything was the good old orientation goodness, with lame games and throat-destroying cheers. But those were all done in the name of fun and friendships, and at least on my part I enjoyed while they lasted. But it was as good as it gets, for the balance of the universe acted even upon the small pocket of students in the remote corner of the island called Singapore, the ones gathered in the eerie atmosphere of the Changi Chalets for their overnight stay.

After a round of games and dinner, we were left to roam the house and the surrounding areas on our own. The mentioning of the letters 'NW' brought along a lot of speculations as to what they meant. But the most common interpretation was "Night Walk", which meant sleeping and bathing were out of the questions for the night, and also the fact that haunted stories roamed the coasts of Changi, it wasn't the best thing to do in the middle of the night for anybody. Still, we placed the thoughts aside as the remainder of the group after Felicia and Joyce left(One for a wedding and the other for her SATs)mingled with the others upstairs in the bedroom despite the rule that boys and girls can't be in the same room together. But the irony was that they wanted us to bond...and I'm sure we know better than to have a mass sex orgy of sorts on our first nights as friends, right? It usually happens AFTER the first meeting, anyway.

We were met with the nice people of Group 11, and though I forgot most of their names, I do remember Preston who just came to Singapore from America four months ago. He was from Texas, and was a rather laconic individual as he stayed in the shadows most of the time, playing on his crushed can of Red Bull and looking as bored as ever. Then there is Sham - the ex-PTI - who had the reputation amongst his team members to have the ability to attract old uncles. There is April, whose Chinese name is May June believe it or not, who's also in Comms as well, and we had a nice talk about everything as more and more people joined us. There was Pamela, who looked really sick and tired despite being an OGL, just totally worn out. But she was nice enough to share her experiences in the school with us, and went 'Hey, I recognize your voice from the room!' during the night walk itself, which I thought was cool. I forgot the other girl's name, but she's the writer for the school magazine. Got to get her contacts somehow.

It was nice, to be amongst such admirable people with common interests and aspirations. And because the night grew older and the people became more restless before the actual night walk began, we started socializing on our own accord without the need for games or cheers. In the room, we invited anybody at the door to join us for a chat, and it was nice to have people go 'Ok!', and then sitting in amongst us just to have a good time talking, interacting and stuff. And people seemed to know my name from everywhere. Everybody came to me and called my name, despite not recognizing their faces at all. They were all from other groups mostly, and recognized me from the game I did earlier as the suspicious guy. I'm not sure if I am happy that I am famous for that kind of reason, but I guess for now it is good this way.

But shortly after 1am, we were all gathered downstairs at the car park where the crowd was, and as we stumbled out of the house all dazed and confused, we were gathered into rows and briefed about the night walk itself. That was when the true colors of the seniors when they kept trying to scare the girls by telling them ghost stories about the place, past experiences, stories they read online and stuff like that, all the while with three candles lighting up the area around him. The stories were so obviously fabricated and polished, but most of the girls were greatly freaked out by the fact that they were in the vicinity of the Old Changi Hospital. The number of hands increased drastically at the question 'Are you guys scared?', before and after the storytelling sessions. To me, I was just bored out of my wits and couldn't wait for the night to be over. They called it a 'Sleepover' when we weren't going to get any sleep, and I hated how the organizers wanted us to bond through such hardships when we were already doing very well in air-conditioned rooms and in the comforts of the beds.

Something ridiculous was how they wanted the people to go through the night walk alone, one by one. I have no issues with that of course, especially after the numerous military experiences whereby I lost contact with the people in front and behind, and trapped in complete darkness in the middle of nowhere and away from any civilization. Those things happened, and I believe that those woods were scarier than the ones in Changi anyway. But whatever the case may be, the idea of walking alone did not appeal to the girls at all. Even a guy raised his hand, telling people that he was the only one crying after such a night walk when he attended one in his school days. But anyway, the idea became even more ridiculous when they told us not to travel in odd numbers according to a Chinese superstition. They say that the odd one out would always be tagged by the evil spirits and stuff like that, bringing bad luck or even death. But isn't the number 1 an odd number too? Or can't those bloody seniors count? Oh, yeah. That's right. To them, 1 is a bloody prime number and not odd. Idiots.

After a short walk to the starting point, we were gathered in a car park and were warned about the infestation of homosexuals and transsexuals in the area. The Changi area has been a common spot for these people to gather together for sexual activities, especially the ones between the same sex. And there we were in the middle of a sparsely occupied car park, surrounded by cars with darkened windows. We were dispatched one by one, and I was actually the fifth person to leave amongst the hundreds. And following the green light sticks, I left the crowd and embarked on the night walk all by myself.

I figured the change in my pocket and smelled the morning air. The moon looked like a giant ten-cent coin again, and the stars looked beautiful from this side of the island. Along the route were OGLs station in the dark, not to scare people but really to facilitate the whole event. But they were scarier than anything else, because it was hard to spot them, and when asked for the password, they tend to pop out from nowhere and it can get pretty hair-raising. One of the bastards actually jumped out from behind a car just to ask me for the password. He screamed 'Beetle!', which sounded more like 'Peter!'. And when he asked why I did not reply 'Juice', I replied 'Because you mispronounced "Beetle", and said 'Jackass' in my head. Bloody retard.

A car came down the driveway in the dark, and from what I heard later on from Ben who was three people in front of me, that car belonged to a group of homosexuals who were having sex in the back of the car. When they spotted Ben, they started the car and left, only to be met by me at the bottom of the slope. Because their headlights were bright and I couldn't see the driver, I thought it was one of the seniors and actually waved into the mirror. How embarrassing. I could have been grabbed by them and pulled into the car, who knows? When you are desperate you could do anything.

So I journeyed on, and as the journey came closer and closer to the end, I realized just how over-rated the night walk was. I mean, after all the ghost stories you would expect it to be a little scarier, or at least have that atmosphere. But there were lights everywhere and civilization. Part of the route was even through the Changi Board Walk, where I was about two years ago watching sunrise with the guitar club folks. Everything was man made, and because they were, it greatly decreased the effectiveness of the whole night walk. I got bored after a while, and most of all hot and humid. I wanted to strangle somebody in the dark, but decided to quicken my pace to finish the whole circus act as fast as possible, all the time cursing under my breath.

I walked too fast, and managed to catch up with ShiYi and Brian at the front. The cheap tricks by the seniors in the dark didn't scare any of us, but perhaps just the eye-rolling actions that went on in our sockets. We finished the whole night walk in a matter of minutes, and to be honest I was totally underwhelmed. Bored out of our wits and tired, we occupied the beds upstairs and started talking to the people who 'survived' the night walk. We shared stories about our lives, and Azah - or however way you spell his name - told us stories about the times he spent in the police force. The suicide cases which he handled, and the dead woman whose skin was ripped off her back due to dried blood...and so many more gory stories. Come to think about it, police force stories are interesting, but sick at the same time. Army stories are interesting too, but fun. I prefer the latter, any day.

The morning came swiftly after everybody finished the night walk, and we had a sort of de-brief in the car park before some of us were let off. This is when the seniors' really became true bastards, when the head of them all kept yelling at the people who booked cabs to go home earlier than everybody else. I mean, a successful orientation is probably an orientation whereby people don't want to leave, and wants to stay for more, like I felt after the SRJC orientations. But if the people are leaving before you want them to, it probably shows that your orientation was a failure. The only reason why not a lot of people chose to do that was because we were in the middle of nowhere, and thus harder to escape. From all the conversations, people actually enjoyed the first part of the orientation but not the latter part, the part without the sleep and full of snobbish seniors.

To tell you the truth, we could have not paid for the orientation and not come at all. Despite the big bold word you guys printed on the letter that said 'Compulsory', a lot of people did not make it for the orientation anyway. We were not obliged to come, but we came anyway. And there you guys were, treating us like army recruits and shouting at us like we were dirt cheap. I didn't mind a bit, since the boys must have been used to those. But the girls were clearly turned off greatly by their acts. You guys didn't have to lock our bags up in the room to prevent us from going home, or threaten to confine us to the chalet until the lost remote controls were found. Because seriously, who the hell would want to steal bloody remote controls from a chalet? You guys probably were too stupid to find them, and then we were taking all the blame for wanting to go home a little bit earlier, because the night activities sucked.

One of the seniors went 'I have a car, and I live in Pasir Ris! I could have drove home but I stayed here with you guys! Do you think it is fucking fair for me?' And then I thought, you live in Pasir Ris, and that is merely down the bloody street from the chalet itself. Ten minutes, or fifteen at the most, by your car and you will be home. But people live as far as Boon Lay and Choa Chu Kang, and you didn't hear them complaining at all. He actually had the cheeks to say that he lived in Pasir Ris, as if it was all the way in a distant province in China or something. The truth is, there are people living further away than you fat fuck, and it's not like your menace and pretentious anger could scare the sensible part of the crowd. Because really, to hell with your bloody orientation and piss on your fancy Toyota. It's just a bloody Toyota, you didn't have to fit it into the end of every sentence. Come back again when you get a Mazda or something, perhaps you will gain that tad bit of respect. Bloody schmuck.

I took a bus out with ShiYi to Pasir Ris, and then from there I took an early cab home. On the way back, I talked to the taxi driver about his shifts and stuff like that. It was a pleasant talk, and interesting to note that neither of us had any sleep last night as his night shift lasted from 8pm on the previous night. But I succumbed to my exhaustion, and told him that I was way too tired to talk to him. He laughed, and we wished each other a good sleep before I slammed the door shut.

I guess the departure of Felicia and Joyce was the turning point of the whole orientation. Not to say that they have some mystical powers or whatever, but it was merely a benchmark of worse things to come. It was a deadly downward spiral all the way down from there, and by the end of the it all nobody seemed particularly excited about the whole event because we were so drained and tired. It could have been better if they stretched out the events into a couple of days or so. But by cramming everything into one day, you then give excuses like 'Oh, we have a schedule to meet'. So 9/10 for the beginning of the orientation, and 4/10 for the rest of the night. Good that Felicia and Joyce escaped those hours, because in the deep night they lasted almost forever...