The Chalet

On the 30th of June, I went for a Chalet. This is my experiene of the stay thus far.

It was to start at 7.30am, however, knowing how things work, I arrived at 9am. 1.5 hours late but I was still early. Surprisingly, I was not the latest, in fact, I was still too early. I'll explain why later. So the system was the same as per 6 years ago. Checking into my room, I was greeted with a hospital layout. Except that it was worse than class C. I reckon more than 40 people in the room. As the people were gathering for their morning stuff, I knew that I was still too early as I had not missed that. As I began unpacking my stuff, I realised that they were leaving, OK, I'll stay back and guard the room. Soon, everyone had left without me and I was there all alone.

The next few hours was spent scrutinising the ceiling. With my bare back on the bed, I started my bed fam (short for familiarization) After a few hours, the people started to come back and so it begins, catching up and chatting. They had attended a speach whereby the speaker said that for this chalet, we have got to be physically and mentally prepared. Well, I thought nothing of it initially but I soon realised that it was indeed a good piece of advice. An advice that I should have heeded long time before.

The rest of the afternoon of Day 1 was spent looking at the ceiling. Time slowly ticked away as I was being transported to another zone. It seemed as if my soul left me. I had gone into another zone. Was it nirvana? Not really. It's the zone of unproductivity. The zone of inefficiency. It was a tough time for me mentally as my mind was all blank. It's like hitting the emergency brakes while driving. Suddenly all stopped. It was a big slow down from my life outside. Everything comes to a slow now. It is like you smelling some potion that slows everyone down. The kind we see in some Chinese movies. Efficiency is at rock bottom and nothing seems to get done. Reason? They do not need to get done anyway. It's hard to put it in words. It's hard to explain the kind of feeling of nothing. Perhaps someone had cast a spell on me. As I continued to stare hard at the ceiling, my mind was hovering between the awaken and the slumber. Then I suddenly remembered the advice: we have got to be physically and mentally prepared. How true. I was totally unprepared mentally. More was to come....

The first day ended with nothing accomplished. It was dinner and then back to sleep. It's been a long long time since I had seen people sleeping at 8.30pm. By that time, all of class C ward had their lights switched off, it was back into slumberland again. But we had slept the whole day already, how can these people continue sleeping??? I realised that it was not normal human beings we're dealing with over here. And so I slept...

It's 6am and I am awake. Not wanting to be alone, I got everyone up so that I had company. We went for breakfast. It was the dawn of Day 2.

Let me be more specific and detailed about the activities of Day 2.

Sleep the whole day away and more bed fam.

It was the dawn of Day 3.

More sleeping and finally, I had my first duty. Photostating 20 sets of documents. Then back to bed and more bed fam. By now I am very familiar with my bed already. I had been transfered to another dept, so this is what I do now. Seems like there really is a sleeping dept and I got into it.

In the evening, I was honoured to attend a meeting where big shots attend. I was there to take minutes. Things that can be discussed in half an hour, took 2 and a half hours. Planning of how the food is going to reach the masses took half an hour.. Goodness.

OK, so that's the end of Day 3. Oh ya, one of the days I even went out to meet Huiqin and Yuan xing to get my supply of food and reading material. How did I manage to do it. Ha, it's a secret...

Ok, will not blog much about the other days as it's sleeping and more sleeping. I'm gonig off later, to the youth competition.

Tata.