I remember in Raleigh, we were in the first week or two of the project phase in this really isolated place, where there's no running water, no electricity, no phone reception, no relief from the heat. It was just hard labour every day. I don't think I minded that very much. It was just the rules that made me want to strangle myself. All the really really tedious rules and everything about health and safety. Omg. The long-o-clock rule was the absolute worst, the hardest one to get used to. Where you absolutely had to get into longs (long sleeved shirt, long pants and socks) at 6pm every evening, even if you hadn't had a shower and are sticky and sweaty all over, even if the sunset hadn't really made it that much cooler at all. It was tough. The second rule that I think was the hardest to get used to was the always wear shoes rules no matter what. That meant even if you were going into a waterfall or whatever. Shoes or sandals must be worn. It's just so frustrating. I guess the fact that Malaysians have never been the type that really stuck to rules didn't help at all. Well, at least my whole experience going to school has been about bending the rules or just flat out breaking them.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the physical challenge, I enjoyed the hard work. But the rules were really suffocating me. And the fact that the other Malaysian guy, Daryl, was really finding it tough to follow the rules kinda made me more annoyed by it. Cuz when other people suffer, I feel it too. But anywho. We were considering going home after the project phase was over, and not participating in the adventure phase. I guess it was cuz we were both from KK, and we could just call up our mums and ask them to pick drive down and pick us up. It was so easy for us to go home. And I remember that I wanted SO BADLY to go see Denise, because she was home from KL but because I joined Raleigh, I wasn't going to get a chance to even see her at all before she had to go back there again. So yea, it was so so so tempting to give up. But of course, in the end we both decided to stay.
And closer to the end of project phase, I was talking to Dec (from Reading) and this subject about going home came up. And I think I asked him whether he would pack up and go home if it wasn't a 15 hour flight home, but just like a couple of hours drive. He said, "Of course not. Because then you'd feel like crap. Cuz you'll be thinking, 'what if I stayed till the end, what would it have been like'". I dunno. It might not make sense to you, but. To a person who's quit stuff before, who has thought about quitting stuff even now, that's just such a simple reason to not let your weakness win.
00:09 Tue 26/2/13
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