It wasn't as fun as expected, and some even called this chalet a failure altogether.
I was already at the bus 17 when I realised that oops! I forgot to bring enough money to spend downtown, nearby the chalet. Only 20-odd dollars in my wallet left - how was I to survive the next 15 hours out there with just that little money? Nevermind that, I still managed to survive with that little money - it just takes a little discipline to maximise the use of the cold hard cash.
Let's start from this morning. I got there by 9.30am, hoping to catch up with my classmates so that we can go for a McDonalds breakfast together when they told me they already had their breakfast without me. Oh thanks, "friends", for that empty stomach just to rush there to be with you guys...
Well, I can't blame you guys either - I didn't tell you guys beforehand. Whoops!
So, I survived the morning with just two sticks of Time-Out chocolate, which I bought on the way to Pasir Ris Park to cycle. $8 for two hours, $5 for one hour - which was more worth it? Of course, we aren't stupid people - we rented bicycles for two hours, every man for himself. Trouble is, the bicycle kiosk people didn't have enough two-dollar notes for change for everyone, so they simply gave Leon a $10 note for us to split among ourselves, while they gave away the rest of the $2 notes to the lucky girls. Wanting to save the trouble, I decided to collect the money from Leon later, which actually saved my own butt later on in the day. Thank you, Jesus!
Another trouble came up - the eleven of us were split into two groups, Vanessa, Yu Kwan, Leon and Roy in one group, and Jin Meng, Kevin, Clara, Sue-Ean, Sophia, Shi En and me in another group. Vanessa's group returned the bikes earlier at around 11.40am, with us still cycling aimlessly in the park for fun after peace and joy. After we returned our bikes they told us that Vanessa's group still hadn't returned the bikes and I couldn't get back my IC until they did. What now? We rang Vanessa up, and went back to the bicycle kiosk to notify them and finally getting my pink IC back. Phew.
Lunchtime - I am now left with approximately $12 for both lunch and dinner. Solution? Eat mixed vegetable rice - which is just another name for rice with meat and vegetables which you can mix and match for yourselves. I'm down to nine dollars left. After lunch we headed back to the chalet to rest and recover... but not for long.
By three-plus, we were already good to go for soccer and Captain's Ball. Thanks, Clara, for hitting my spectacles so that it bent sideways at the right side, just at the nose prop, while I was looking at the other direction - that's two hits in my face consecutively during these two days I've been in the class chalet! Well, though this was totally uncalled for, I guess it's about high time that I got a replacement for my spectacles before it becomes too workhardened that it breaks at the joints!
By 5pm everyone seems to be exhausted from all that playing, passing around and shooting, so we headed back to the chalet. On the way, Kevin and I decided to get ourselves some drinks, and it was only then that I was finally found to be completely bankrupt - I bought 3 1.5litre bottles of H-Two-O, Iced Lemon Tea and mineral water, plus my ginger beer, with the last of my money... Luckily Kevin returned me some money for the drinks he asked me to pay for earlier, so I'm not that financially deprived at that moment till dinnertime.
Headed back to the chalet, but by now, the suite was such that there was very little people left hanging around, if any at all... In the end people like Ming Yue, Lavinia and Joan decided to leave as well. No Cheryl, no Sue-Ean, and no Clara too, not to mention no barbecue, apart from the one that we had yesterday? No kick! What happened to what was supposed to be called the class chalet? Why do things until so susak(troublesome), then ending up having kosong orang(literally, "zero human", ie. completely nobody) in the chalet suite?
At least there wasn't without complete hopelessness for the chalet after all, since finally, Ashley managed to show up out of nowhere and join the gang of 4B classmates just as we were about to be demoralised by pure boredom. Finally, things such as suggestions to go for bowling at the E!Hub at Downtown East are coming real fast.
Still worrying about money matters, a supposedly unlikely thing to worry about in a class chalet, we went for dinner at Burger King, and it was just then that I remembered that my $2 was still with Leon! Thank God! Now I have $6+ to spend on dinner. Though it was still fun having all the enthusiastic classmates who DO care two hoots about what's going on in the class, it is so ironic, just 8 of us out here for dinner at Burger King, and whatever happened to the rest of the 32 people who make up class 4B?
According to them, the class chalet last year was a total flop - hardly anyone participated positively in the class chalet past the first day, when the barbecue was in. And it seems that from what Jin Meng was ranting about, it seems that someone within our class has got a lot of money issues yet to be resolved with the class treasurers and Jin Meng being the ultimate monetary victim, whose name I will not disclose, to protect the involved parties' reputation.
"What a flop this is. It's like, nobody's coming because nobody seems to bother wanting to come for this chalet, perhaps?"
"Yeah. Probably the big thing is because of the sheer imbalance of boys and girls in the class.(we have 10 boys and 30 girls in our class)"
"But then I always thought that the girls in our class seemed to be very united one, leh..." I joined in the conversation, still unwilling to believe that this was what's become of class 4B.
"Ha, you've only seen the outside of the girls. Who knows what's between themselves."
"Ah, must be girls' politics again. Gah." I spoke in disgust.
Finishing our junk food dinner, Ashley spoke of going to the bowling alley, and we went there, with Sheng Chao and me coming out of it to go back to the chalet room, since we were bored stiff and unwilling to bowl with them. If it weren't for my super-tight budget, I would've gone to join them in bowling. Even so, would I be embarrassing myself if I couldn't hit any pins down at all if I joined in the fun?
Bored stiff, we just lingered around the place, with Sheng Chao using this same laptop which I use to blog now to play Counter-Strike, while I was out there watching TV and, though down to my last penny, still deriving some satisfaction from drinking ginger beer at the comfort of the sofa and strong air-con. Maybe if I had more money, peanuts would go well with that soft drink while watching TV in such a spacious Executive Suite at Aranda Country Club.
They later came back from bowling, but in the end, nobody played mahjong at all, which obviously didn't do any justice to the mess we created from the tiles, dice and plastic chips for "money", at all. All the girls had went back home, so at the chalet, it's just down to Kevin, Leon and Sheng Chao to stay overnight. Wow, it finally seems that the 4B class chalet became a 4B-boys class chalet overnight...
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