Outdoor Activity With MAPs!

No, not "maps", it's "MAPs": Mentoring through Adventure Programmes.
We had a cooperation between MAPs and our very own Health Club last Saturday, and I'm very proud, happy and excited to say "I took part!"
The activity of the month (MAPs plans to have a different type of adventure activity every month) was raft building. OK, you hear this and the first thing that comes to mind is probably inflating an orange-coloured, ready-made life-raft with a hand pump and I know it sounds the complete opposite of cool, but boy are you wrong!
The day started of very very badly with me being a good half hour late to pick Farhan up but luckily, mixing with MShern so much has taught me to BE EARLY! Erm, well, I mean at least early in my sense... which would probably be like arriving at plus / minus 10 minutes from the actual time of the program. This is a great improvement as you will soon learn because I do have a reputation of succeeding my good friend ShirLing as the "Late Queen". But of course, since my plan with Farhan was to arrive like 20 minutes before the designated time, we ended up reaching there punctually. I call this great planning by a great mind (me).
Anyway, things didn't work in favour of me at that time too as I was honked a total of 2 times within the 2 minutes time frame it took for me to make a U-turn in front of Farhan's condo *sweats*. Then when we arrived, Pat came too and we were apparently too early as we sat on the bench rotting our epidermis away. First I had to rush out of the house cursing and swearing for being late, then I have to sit on a bench waiting for the flies to eat me... Right~.
OK, I'll cut to the point because currently, I'm sitting in front of the screen laughing to myself because images and memories of that day keep flashing in my head.
After a while, Jia Yuan and her gang came, then the MAPs people came and led us to the Tanjung Bungah Water Sports Centre. Then we ate and yadi-yada... Fast forward!
After all was said and done, Heng Kai (our leader) started an ice-breaking session where we had to throw a ball to someone in the group while calling out his / her name. That was kinda fun but a little boring. Then we upgraded to a game of (I'm giving the name myself) Hula-Cat & Mouse. Why? Because it involves a hula hoop (no idea how to spell it). We all had to stand in a circle holding hands and a hoop was placed on our hands, as in our hand was going through it. There were a total of 2 hoops and one hoop must never reach the other or the person loses. So it all started fine and dandy, the hoop passed through the girls one by one with no problem at all until suddenly, it reaches Farhan! He is the biggest klutz ever, I swear! And the worst part of it : The hoop was going from me to him, so if he fails then I'm going to get stuck with 2 hoops! Well, we all know Farhan is freaking tall compared to me, and since he had to put his head through the hoop, he kept tugging at my hand to get it over his head, and his hand just kept on going higher and higher until I can stretch no more and was screaming for him to stop growing so tall! OK, height problem solved. Then for no reason, I felt myself being tugged from the left side of Farhan to his right and my other hand was still attached to the other girl! I turned and realized he still haven't gotten his stupid head through the freaking hoop. At that time, we were being laughed like hell by the other members and I myself laughed until there were tears rolling out of my eyes and my tummy ached. Luckily though, we managed to get both hoops through us without fail. Hint for future : Don't stand beside Farhan if such a game occurs again.
After that we were divided into 3 teams, played another game and got the party started. The teams were : Farhan and Jia Yuan in Team Poseidon, Me and Lexus in Team Diamonds, Pat in Team Chilled.
We were given 5 long bamboos, 20 short nylon-ropes and 6 spare tyres with no instructions at all to build a raft that would hold 4 team members out to sea, around a platoon and back to shore. It sounds easy right? Inflate each tyre with a maximum of 200 pumps from the hand air-pump, line bamboos up, place tyres, tie ropes, end of story. First of all, we lost count of how many pumps we did for most of the tyres so I think we ended up over inflating them. Then we couldn't decide what shape we wanted our raft to be. Then we were faced with the stupidest problem of all : How in freaking god's name do you tie nylon ropes so they won't unravel?!!?
But all in all, our so-called "raft" was finished in time and it looked uber cool and all. Then each team had to make a sales-pitch to sell our own raft. Being the crappiest person in the whole world, I took on the task of giving a great and magnificent speech about shit like "aerodynamics", "cutting the water" and "stability" and what-not's. Oh, by the way, our "raft" was a square with no sharper points and no extra feature that would make it any more stable than a broken bottle floating around in the ocean. And the reason I wrote the word "raft" in inverted comas is because the thing we built could barely pass as rubbish floating on the sea.
It was a complete and total disaster! Our first task was to carry that thing from the shore to sea, so we picked it up with each of us holding a corner and "whoops~!", a tyre falls off. OK, no problem, just tie it back, right? Then just at that moment, the ever flexible Poseidon passes by us and shouts "Aww~ The diamond sank!". God, I hate those guys.
After repairing our "raft", we continue towards water and nooo~~!!! Another tyre falls off!! Never mind, try again. We finished tying it and join the rest of the crew for a simple water-confidence exercise, no biggie. Then we proceed to bring the "raft" into water and *oh my god* a vessel pops in my head. Another rope loosens! God, no wonder they say misery loves company. But never mind, third time's a charm, right? RIGHT???
Wrong. First, we paddle as hard as possible but we hardly move. We look up and see Chilled like 10 meters ahead of us and Poseidon was twice that distance.
{Thoughts in my head}
OK, calm down, do it again. 1, 2 GO! 1, 2 Go! Woh, look! I think we moved an inch! Oh wait, the stupid wave just pushed us back 10 inches! *toot* Look up again. Good, Chilled is still just around 10 meters ahead of us and seems to be struggling. Now where's Poseidon? Oh my god, stupid Farhan! They're so far away they are barely visible.
Now, don't give up. Poseidon will probably tire first.........Fast forward.
Gosh my hands are killing me. *looks around* "Why am I the only one paddling?!" Never mind, we'll catch up with Poseidon any time soon. I mean Chilled had to quit cause Pat got sea-sick so we ain't doing that bad.
{End of thoughts}
Anyway, the situation didn't get any better with Poseidon finishing 70% of the route while we could barely manage 40%. Then they finished the whole journey and we got stuck at 43%. Then the sun set and we gave up at 50%. OK, the sun didn't really set but I could see Mr. Moon coming out to greet us.
At the end of it, we had to pull pieces and parts of our "raft" out of the sea as unsurprisingly, that thing didn't make it 20% of the journey as a whole object. We deflated the tyres (that part was childishly fun), kept the stuffs and took a shower.
The day pretty much ended like that. The other members went for dinner but I needed to go home so Farhan skipped it too.
If I knew activities were this fun, I swear I would have gone to more camps back in high school. For anybody who missed that day : "Hahahahahaha! This will teach you to not join!".
Next month is rock climbing and absailing at Alor Setar. Please, please and please promise all of you will come!