It started off with a swimming outing which Gilbert had organised. We invited Ivan along but he said it was too far and so I suggested a beach outing at Sentosa, which was near his house and he agreed. We went on for the swim with Gilbert, Jeremy and Tze Siang, which all of them supported the idea of the beach outing.
The scheduled date was two weeks after and I started calling people from my department. Some people (Jianwei, Reuben… etc) agreed spontaneously while some refused to give an answer. Those who had important appointments had declined immediately and I believed they would support the idea if they were available.
I was sure if there were girls going, then most of them wouldn’t hesitate to give me a reply soon. This was one of the most disgusting facts about human. Also, some of them most probably wanted to see who were going before deciding, which meant that if everyone had the same thinking, nobody would eventually go. How selfish and inconsiderate. The dirtiest thought would be agreeing to go if there wasn’t any other available date.
Though a few people had agreed to have the outing, all along it was only me who tried to get people. It wasn’t tough to ask around, but tedious, and it certainly had inflated my phone bill. However, my ideas of getting everyone to enjoy and interact outside working hours to improve relationships drives me on, braving alone the lonely path that I was taking.
I tried hard to get people from other departments. The nicest guys (Sam Toh, James Tan) from IWTC agreed without any delay, while the ORDed personnel Wenhao made my day too. I tried the administration office’s Alex but he wasn’t free. Tech Store’s Andrew was having his birthday party, whereas 2LT Lee and Kelvin weren’t around. I invited Wenjun from IDDS but his guys weren’t free I supposed. I approached Weijian from OSTC but he might have tuition session and since he didn’t reply me on the very day, I didn’t bother him. As for the CDT guys, Kevin and Yiwei were interested in the first week but had a quick change of mind on the second week, which disappointed me a lot, and basically the rest of the guys weren’t sporting at all.
Even though I had confirmed the time and place to meet by the beginning of the second week, some people had repeatedly asked me the same question for more than twice. It just added on to the burden of my phone bill and my sanity when I was already busy with stuffs. I also faced problems with listing out of the people going, that I was asked so many times.
After all shit, the actual day rained to my discomfort. Reuben arrived before me and followed by Wenhao. Next was Gilbert, followed by Jonathan unexpectedly. I called Benjamin and he told me he had messaged Sem that he wasn’t going anymore. Someone had long ago told me that he wouldn’t go but I refused to believe he would break his promise. We proceeded to have lunch while waiting for the rest and Sam arrived soon after we left the MRT station.
Meanwhile I tried to contact the rest. Jeremy was out of reach and Ivan refused to come. Rehan told me he was going to take a shower and would drive down after that. Whereas Tze Siang, I didn’t have his number but I predicted he would “put aeroplane”. As the rain stopped, we went to buy some bottles of mineral water and went to the bus terminal to meet Chua.
I wanted to play somewhere in Sunsetbay but Gilbert wanted somewhere quieter, where we moved on further down in between Sunsetbay and Mahalo. We started with playing frisbee. At first was just throwing around and we started into playing monkey. There was lots of fun with all the interesting people around – Chua dashing like a bull and Gilbert’s child-like screaming. James arrived later, followed by Jianwei. Then, Chua told me that Jeremy wasn’t joining us anymore, then I realised why he hadn’t even asked his female friends on the previous day as he promised. By then, I guessed Rehan had broken his promise also.
There was a sweet girl in black bikini facing the sea, who was reading a book. After staring at her back for very long and sometimes her face when she turned around, I asked Sam to go along to approach her to take a photo. However, Sam thought I was just kidding and didn’t bother about me. As we started playing volleyball, she left with my itchy heart.
It was a good day, with clouds covering the sky and therefore it wasn’t hot at all. I didn’t really want to take my camera out because it seemed gayish to take photos when we had only guys in the group.
Some of them wanted to go for cycling but I decided not since my body was sandy, my bag was heavy, on low budget and that place wasn’t nice to cycle about with so many vehicles. Wenhao, Sam, Jonathan and James left for cycling while the rest of us stayed to continue with the volleyball game. Reuben left soon urgently.
As they returned, Jonathan, Wenhao and James had something on and decided to leave first. It was then I realised time had passed by so fast during the enjoyment. It could be a better day if I didn’t have headache at the back of my head. Sam explained it was due to heat stroke and I guessed so too since my body was lack of water with my illness.
It was very tiring to play with newbie and my injured knees couldn’t take me on to a long level of endurance like in the past anymore. I took a rest and walked to the Sunsetbay tentage to chat with Andies (2 times Andy). Walking around, I failed to see any babe.
The remaining of us, namely Jianwei, Chua, Gilbert and Sam went to Seah Lm food centre for dinner. Though almost all of us ordered the same chicken rice and Jianwei had gotten an extra plate of fried oyster, it seemed like we were feasting. The night was cool and it was nice to hang out with good people.
Gilbert and Jianwei wanted to go for singing at somewhere in Chinatown, Sam and I had agreed to join them, but however, the remaining slot was from 10pm to 1am, which was quite late. I wanted to invite them over to my house after that, so that we needed not worry about the transportation fee, but the messiness and dirtiness hesitated me. Then, we departed at 8.30pm.
It was a good outing after all, even though the supposed small fourteen strength group ended up with only nine of us; at least it made me realise who were the nice, the non-sporting and the bullshitting people. However, it had left a huge impact with disappointment, which severely hesitated me to conduct another cycling outing at the East Coast Park two weeks after.
It wasn’t fun to keep pestering people to go to somewhere to enjoy themselves. It made me look more like a clown when I was trying to do them and others good. Alone, it was difficult to make things happen.