Where Have They Gone?

2009-04-27T04:10:00.000+08:00

I spent Saturday morning at NUS business school attending a "masterclass", as they called it, which is actually a simulation class to let us understand how classes will be conducted in future. I had initially wanted to try out how long it took for me to get to NUS business school from my home, so that I can plan my journey in future when I study there. It turned out to be a flop, as I was almost late and had to take a cab from buona vista mrt station to barely get there on time. There was a brief introduction by the BBA director and we were then split into groups and led to various rooms for our "classes". My lesson was "competing in turbulent times" by AP Dan McAllister. He was a very interesting person and managed to make the seemingly short lesson fairly enjoyable. Somehow, I'm a little tempted to major in management and study under him. Anyway, after the lesson, we had a sumptuous lunch at the NUS alumni house. I didn't really have the mood to mingle with everyone that day so I just kept queit and ate my food unless talked to. Had to leave the place around 1+ to go home and get changed before heading to timbre for work. It was a really well-spent morning to give me a slightly better understanding of my future university and I guess my greatest takeaway was a NUS business faculty t-shirt, which apparently is quite porular and already sold out for current students.

Went to meet up with the guys for some LAN just now. It has been almost 2 months since I last played LAN with them and it was a fairly exciting session, especially the last game when both sides were super equal and it could go either way. After LAN, we went to raffles city for dinner on chee hoe for his birthday, which is pretty belated by now. Decided to watch fast and furious at marina square after dinner. It was a good movie but something happened in between which got me pretty pissed. Nearing the end of the movie, I had to pee so I left the cinema. Not knowing that there was a toilet within the premises of the cinema, I went straight to the exit door thinking it will probably lead me out of the cinema and to some toilet within marina square. To my surprise, the door was one sided and once it closed, I could not go back into the cinema. Also, the exit door lead me straight out of marina square! The most pissifying thing- There was no freaking toilet anywhere because most doors back to marina square were already locked! I tried to call jenn haur to try opening the dorr for me and guess what? MY HANDPHONE DIED ON ME! Not only am I unable to watch the movie, now I'm unable to contact them as well! I was super irritated, both by the situation and the pee in my bladder. There was only 1 last thing to do. I went back to the door that I exited from and banged on it really hard. Fortunately, after a few minutes, jenn haur walked out and heard me. He opened the dorr for me and the first thing he told me was, THERE WERE 2 FREAKING TOILETS IN THE CINEMA! I couldn't care less and went straight back to the toilet and then back to watch the last 5 minutes of the movie. After the movie, chee hoe and chin yong experienced what I was feeling, a full bladder with no toilet anywhere! I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with the structure of marina square.But on the whole, it was apretty enjoyable day for me! (:

2009-04-21T04:03:00.000+08:00

Last Friday, 17th April, was one of the happiest day I've had in a long time. I finally passed my driving practical test and obtained my class 3 driving license, on the first attempt! It was a really crazy experience. During the last lesson I had the day before and the warm-up before the test, my engine was still stalling and I was still making stupid mistakes I shouldn't be making. I had the mindset that I was gonna take the test a second time, and may the first try be an experience to familiarize myself with the test.

During the first station of the circuit portion of the test, parallel parking, I managed to complete it with much ease. However, when I was moving out of the station, I reversed too much and struck one of the poles down. 10 points gone and I was left with 8 points to spare for the rest of the circuit and the road. Fortunately, I completed the rest of the circuit without any problem and on the way out, the tester tapped the dashboard and I had to make an emergency brake. Instead of slamming the brakes, I accidentally stepped on the accelerator but I reacted really fast and stepped hard on the brakes. I thought this marked the end of my test and it was an immediate failure so I gave up all hopes and really wished to complete the rest of the test and go home. Surprisingly, we went out to the roads and only made a couple of right turns before heading back to the driving centre. I thought I was gonna fail and the short drive outside was only part of the test procedure. To my astonishment, the tester gave me a "pass" with 14 points : 10 for striking the pole down, 2 for wrong technique during emergency brake and 2 for delay in moving off. He actually only deducted 2 for the emergency brake! I can only say he's super lenient and I hope he gets good karma.

So see you guys on the road (as what a fellow testee who passed together with me told me)!

2009-04-15T04:30:00.000+08:00

Just as I'm starting to type this entry, chelsea are leading liverpool 6-3 on aggregate and I've decided to switch the TV off. Once again, chelsea came from behind to put 3 goals (tentatively) past liverpool!

Anyway, I was doing some reflections on myself and I realised I find talking to girls more enjoyable than to guys. The first conclusion people might jump to is that i'm a cheekopek, but frankly, I'm not. I try to brainstorm for the reasons behind this and I start to realise conversations which include at least a girl inside seem to be more interesting. Conversations between guys never seem to drift away from work, complaints and whining about work, more work, complaints about life, more work, bad mouthing certain people and still ends with work. With girls, on the other hand, at least to me, they seem more interested in what happened in our lives be it during or outside of work and are able to share with us entertaining stuff that will add some colour to mundane everyday routine. This is pretty evident in my workplace. More often than not, I see 2 guys with a pint of beer each talking with glum looks on their faces, which usually ends with a sigh followed by a silent period of drinking beer. For ladies, on the other hand, they usually come in threes or more and the whole time is spent chattering non stop, even if it might mean gossiping. I think my life currently is filled with too much of listening to others' miseries and sorrows. I need to start living. So people, when you talk to me, please let the converstaion only include happy and enjoyable stuff. (:

2009-04-13T04:07:00.000+08:00

I just completed a hell week. It was a week of frequent hiccups, arguments, conflicts and mistakes, and the end result is lots and lots of fatigue. It was so mentally demanding that I slept at 6am on Sunday morning and woke up only at 5pm in the afternoon, which equates to wasting half my off day away. This coming Friday will be my driving practical test and I'm really hoping to pass it in one shot to get this huge load of my chest. Hence, I'm determined not to spend any more late nights for this week and to get as much rest as possible.

2009-04-09T14:04:00.000+08:00

My previous post dates back to almost 3 months ago, and this was a really hectic 3 months. It marks the transition of myself from a NSF to a civilian and slowly into a normal part of the labour force. In case people don't know, I'm into my 3rd month working at timbre @ the arts house. It's a pleasant place on the surface, but behind all the good food and great music, timbre is a really challenging place to work at. The pace of work varies throughout the week, and while I may have time to chat with my colleagues on mondays, I may not even have time to drink a sip of water on fridays. I think this enhances my versatality and ability to work in a fast paced environment. My colleagues have also been more than kind, in terms of teaching and guiding me and integrating me into their clique. At the moment at least, I am enjoying my work.

I haven't been watching football for a long time due to my work, which does not allow me the time to watch on saturdays. All I know is that chelsea hasn't been performing like a great club. And yesterday I finally had my well deserved off-in-lieu for my brother's birthday, so I stayed up to catch their champions league game with liverpool, and I'm glad I did that. Chelsea beat liverpool 3-1 with 3 away goals to bring to the 2nd leg. This means liverpool has to score 3 goals at stamford bridge, and how often does peter cech allow you to do that? That victory was a major step towards the semi-finals and I was really proud of the way they played last night.

2009-01-13T21:19:00.000+08:00

I realised I've been so lazy I didn't even bother to update about the 3rd day of Malacca. But nothing much happened that day so I shan't elaborate. Likewise, this whole month has been pretty boring because I've been clearing my annual leave and off before my ORD on 23rd January, which is in 10 days! On the surface, that may look good because it signifies that I have a lot of free time. However, the truth is exactly the opposite, as I have so much free time I do not know what to do with it. In particular, there are 2 things that have been a pain in the ass during this period, namely job hunting and driving lessons.

I have been job hunting all the way since end of November because I have so much free time and I can make use of the time to earn some extra income. However, due to my national service, nobody will employ me as it is against the law. As much as this sounds pretty childish, I have to agree that NS sucks. I know that they have to make it fair that every male has to go through national service but I'm pretty sure many people can see that we have so much extra manpower. No doubt the government keeps mentioning that we do not have enough babies and are facing a shortage of national service personnel, but I can go to tekong and easily pick out at least 100 people that are the "extra" manpower. I understand that many units face peak and low-key periods, and the extra manpower will surface during these low-key periods, so why not allow them to have to freedom to work outside? Make it such that the NS liability is top priority, but in the case where there is a chance, they can be allowed to find employment outside. How far can a normal specialist or enlistee's monthly allowance bring them? Maybe all these seem far-fetched but I'm sure something more manpower efficient can be worked out.

This is not the only problem about job hunting for me. The other problem I hate is the fact that the classified ads always have rubbish jobs advertisments whereby the job offered and the job publish may differ. Pretty often, we'll find ads that are looking for management trainee, admin executive, customer relations executive, etc. I have found out that most of this rubbish is fake, and they're mainly put up by recruitment companies to lure you down for an interview so as to get hold of your portfolio. Sometimes, a trip down and waiting time can take you and hour, whereas the actual interview only last 5 minutes, of which nothing about the employer nor the job is finalised and you're told to go home and wait for a call. This call can take 3-4 months as I've seen from some forums online, and the most mentioned company is r*****t *ex***ss. Hence, I've decided never to go for any job interviews handled by them.

Also, I'm irriated by the kind of jobs that we, undergraduates awaiting matriculation, can do. Most of the time when I look at the ads, people of our qualifications end up being restaurant crews, waiters, admin job, data entry, telemarketers, etc. Not that I look down on these jobs but I believe there can be better opportunities for people like us. Most of the management and supervisory jobs require 2-3 years of management or supervisory experience. In that way, most guys in my shoes cannot apply for them as our 2 years are all spent in the army. Despite complaining so much, I believe I'll still end up in one of the jobs mentioned above. If I did not serve NS, I'll be in my 2nd semester of 2nd year in university now.

As for my driving lessons, I'm getting kind of sick of it recently. Initially I though driving was pretty easy, only the clutch pedal being the problem. It is only after these 8 lessons that I start to realise that it is not that simple. However, it cannot be that difficult either as almost every other guy has a driving license. The factor that makes driving such a bore is probably my instructor. He is really panicky, and always assumes I do not know what I am doing. More often that not, he says things to make you demoralised and which teachers does that to his students? I have since decided to rely on myself for my test on April 17th because it'll be really weird to change an instructor now. Have to live with it.

2008-12-22T01:37:00.000+08:00

Day 2 of malacca began with a visit of the museum. Initially, we were wondering why there was an exhibition called "enduring beauty" when the stuff inside were all about malacca. We finally understood when we reached the top level where there were showcases of people all over the world and their perception of beauty, much of which has to do with causing physical harm to their bodies. Some examples include corsets, inserting needles under their skin, inserting extremely large lip plates into their lips so they look like ducks from the sides, earrings, tattoos and many others. Pretty heavy for such an early morning.

After the museum, we started our day of shopping. The stuff here were generally cheaper than singapore, especially the clothes. They have a lot of factory outlets stores and you can get a decent looking tee shirt for less than 20 ringgit. We shopped till about 1pm where we had lunch at pizza hut at makohta parade. The reason we chose it was because the price of the pizzas there had the same numerical value as singapore, but of a different currency. They even had free pepsi refill! And since this meal was a treat from jenn haur, I shan't complain on the food because the food was more or less the same standard everywhere I guess.

Continued shopping till 3pm where we decided to make a trip to the baba nyonya heritage mesuem to learn more about the peranakan culture, one of my motive for visiting malacca. The tour was an enriching one, and I really liked the way the peranakans used to build their houses. Everything had a purpose and yet it looked really beautiful. I think the visit was appropriate since am watching the little nyonya on channel 8 every night now. Had dinner at a nearby peranakan restaurant. One thing I noticed was they tend to prefer their food spicy and salty, and seldom can you find something bland in their menu. Spent the evening at gepgrapher's bar playing daidee before jenn haur made his way back to hotel to rest while some of us made some last minute shopping.

Reached back at hotel at around 10 pm to pack because there wasn;t much time to do so the next day. Slept pretty late as we played daidee all the way till 1am and many funny names were given to the different rankings we had for the game. This has to remain a secret lest I get into trouble and extend my ord.

2008-12-19T01:43:00.005+08:00

Anyone who has been surfing facebook will know that I was in malacca with the guys for the past 3 days, due to the spamming of the photos and the comments. In my opinion, it was a well worth trip, both economically and educationally.

Chin yong, primero and I stayed over at chee hoe's house the night before to make the trip to golden mile the next day together. It was a crazy night as we spent 9-10 hours in front of the tv playing ps2 games, notably wwe raw vs smackdown and winning eleven. Called in macdonald's delivery at 3am too. We took a cab down to golden mile to take the bus to malacca and the only action from then till the hotel was jenn haur almost late for the bus. From then on, it was sleep, wake up, singapore custom, malaysian custom and sleep again to the hotel.

We stayed at equatorial hotel for the 3 days, which was apparently a 5 star hotel. To me, a hotel usually doesn't matter so much but the standard of the hotel kind of exceeded my expectations. After unloading our bags, we decided to have the famous chicken rice balls for lunch and set off searching for it. We found it at jonkers walk unexpectedly. To me, it wasn't really special and to some of the guys, the balls were a bit more salty than the rice not moulded into the balls. Anyway, it was a cheap meal (56 ringgit for 6 people, which is equivalent to about $4 per person), and it was on yeh hao so I shan't complain at all.

Walked down jonkers walk after that and I really liked the place. It was full of toys that we may have played with when we were younger, shops selling malacca or peranakan snacks, many different shops selling the same kind of souvenirs and a lot of small pushcarts selling cendol. The most important buy, other than the durian cakes and snacks, was the small cane with a rubber hand at the tip bought by me, which will be used for night entertainment.

After we were done at jonkers walk for 2 hours, we decided to scout for the famous cendol which was supposed to be by the river. After we managed to locate it, I was pretty taken aback because it looked unhygienic but well since we were there, we had to try it and it was pretty good la, not the worse of the cendol we had for each of the 3 days there. We then made our way to this sky tower thay had which was similar to the one in sentosa. The price here was about half that of sentosa though, but the crowd was huge and we had to wait a while before we got the chance to see malacca from a bird's eye view. Then we had dinner at the cheap newton food centre, which was somewhat similar to the one in singapore, at headed back to hotel.

The night entertainment was this game where used to be on tv. Don't wanna explain but the punishment was a smack of the butt using the cane with the rubber hand tip. I can't exactly remember who got smacked the most but primero certainly got the hardest smack by me, which apparently left a mark on his butt.

Slept at around 11pm because the next day was crazy shopping day.

2008-12-13T23:49:00.001+08:00

Went back to school today for a supposedly 5 generations of house comm gathering. The turnout was average, but within my expectations. The first generation had only 2, zeya and greg while the third generation had none for half the day till ruth came in the evening. My generation, the 2nd, was represented by jenn haur, roxanne, me, min loong, clarissa, ashvin, andy and joyce black. The 4th and 5th generation had a rather good turnout I guess and I was pretty impressed with them, especially althea, who apparently was the one who organised the barbeque but unfortunately failed to get back fully what she paid for the barbeque. Got to know the 07 batch better but didn't really get a chance to interact with the 08 batch. Hopefully next time we'll get to know everyone better. I'm pretty hopeful for the 08 batch judging from their enthusiam and friendliness, but I think every batch will start off like this. What it becomes at the end is up to each and everyone from the batch.

What I really want to mention is this bastard we encountered on the way home. Ashvin decided to give ruth, tristan and I a lift back home because we were all staying in the east. Along ecp, there was this toyota vios which was travelling really slow along the 3rd lane, approximately 50km/h on the highway. So ashvin decided to go to lane 4 but the vios also decided to change to lane 4 so we followed behind it. We were moving really slow because the vios is following a suzuki swift which was travelling really really slow, also about 50km/h. When ashvin decided to change back to lane 3, the vios decided to follow AGAIN and block our way. Then suddenly, it braked and we also had to brake, before it moved off again at normal speed. Not wanting to involve ourselves in this nonsense, we cut into lane 2 and overtook the vios for a distance, when it suddenly accelerated and overtook us, before cutting into our lane again and braked. This time we had to brake really hard. We decided not to play any more games with the vios and cut back into lane 4, still behing the swift, still moving very un-swiftly. The vios then slowed down to be on par with the swift, and that's when we started to suspect that the 2 drivers knew each other and were playing a fool on the highway. We decided to follow behind the swift all the way till they exited at tampines whereas ashvin decided to carry on to the airport area before making a u-turn, lest we meet them again. So, driver of toyota vios car number SJK 79 Y, hopefully I'll see you tomorrow in the papers, with your lifeless body under a pile of wrecked metal, covered in blood and your family weeping for you. No, I will not be feeling sad for you, but maybe for the car which has probably just been bought not long ago (SJK leh). Oh anyway the driver still had a p-plate, which means he hasn't even drove for a year. Oh ya, if you die, please bring the un-swift driver with you too. I'll burn the "death race" dvd for you 2.

2008-11-21T02:15:00.002+08:00

I had the most ridiculous dream ever this morning when I was taking a nap in camp. In the dream, I was also in camp, and my friends and I were about to book out. The people involved were myself, ming tai, jeremiah, jeremy and apparently my secondary NPCC friend bryan, who isn't even in the same camp as me. So we were going down tekong highway in a freaking trolley, not even a vehicle, and it's pushed by jeremy. So along the way we saw a baby wild boar and jeremy decided to bang it using the trolley carrying all of us. But the wild boar was really fast and escaped into the trees. What appeared next was a white tiger which stared at us. We told jeremy to push with all he's got to escape from the white tiger, which was giving chase but we failed, losing balance and all of us fell to the ground. So the white tiger managed to reach us but instead of biting us, some cheese appeared on our bodies and the tiger started to lick the cheese. The last thing I remembered was the tiger saying, "Don't you all understand?", before the real jeremy in the real world woke me up.

I seriously don't know what this dreams means or probably it doesn't mean anything. I can't believe I even managed to type the above paragraph out because it totally makes no sense to me. But actually, on proper analysing, I've come up with a 4D number that I'm gonna try my luck on this weekend.

2008-11-19T01:19:00.002+08:00

Today was the last day of slacking in a week before I go back to camp for duty tomorrow. Managed to call the private driving instructor to start lessons on December 2nd. Anyway, I decided to heed Joan's advice and blocked of my IC number and address from the identifications in the previous post, lest someone uses them and I get extorted for... I dunno, my autographed Claire's poster?

Anyway, decided to hit the gym for a 2nd time this week and today I absolutely made the wrong choice by going to tampines gym, especially at 7pm. No.1, the gym is so super packed at that time and if I had went 1 hour earlier it would have been much better. No. 2, it was so packed I didn't get to warm up by running on the treadmill so I started without much warm-up and I'm getting a bit of muscle ache. Hopefully that means I'm improving. No.3, they had like 4 machines that were under repair and those were all aimed at training the lats. Anyway, my aim at hitting the gym was to pass my IPPT and chin-ups happen to be my weakest station. maybe not weakest, but the station I have least confidence in. So, my trip to the gym today was pretty much a flop.

Next, I decided to find my mum at white sands to get the 20% off voucher to purchase some stuff from popular since I needed to get mt FTT books. After i got the books and a few pens and stuff, the cashier told me that the books were not entitled to the discount. If the books didn't have the discount, I wouldn't even go to popular in the first place and get the stationaries as I thought it was on the way. So not only the books were not cheaper, I wasted money by making a trip to Pasir Ris when I could've just gone home.

Lastly, the most ridiculous thing. I took the train to simei to grab dinner on my way home. I was in shock when I saw that the whole row of shophouses parallel to the railway was closed for paving of the corridor. I had to end up paying more to get dinner from long john's.

As if the day wasn't bad enough. I had to receive information which were definitely not music to my ears. It's really scary sometimes when someone knows so much about you it feels like they have spies around you or cameras hidden in your house. It's even worse when their spies don't tell the whole story or their cameras have blind spots and they make their own inferences, which are unfortunately incomplete or untrue. I have been trying pretty hard not to walk the same road I've walked before which led me to a dead end. But it seems like it's unavoidable when you're being pushed and forced by someone into that path. Maybe I should thank these stalkers for their actions, and they've allowed me to realise that this path I thought was different is pretty much the same as before. And instead of trying to find a side road to turn, why not just make an about turn, and walk in the opposite direction. It's time to face the music, or these stalkers, in this case.

2008-11-17T23:52:00.004+08:00

It has been almost 1 month since I last blogged and so many things have happened but I was rather busy I didn't have time to update. As a result, I'm finding it hard to actually recall much now.

Never mind, I shall just reflect on what happened today. So I went to CDC at Ubi to take my basic theory test (BTT) for driving. I was pretty confident because of the e-trial test I took yesterday, where I scored 96% for both. So when I thought I will most likely pass, something ridiculous happened that almost made me a laughing stock. I overslept! My test was supposed to be at 10.30am and I woke up only at 9.45am. Was supposed to reach there by 10.15 am so I had no choice but to take a cab. Luckily I was on time and passed it eventually. Maybe a plus point would be there was a pretty philipines/thai/indonesian girl taking the test beside me. ... Final Theory Test (FTT) will be on 26th dec so wish me good luck. I bet many people will be gloating at how these theory tests were history to them but I guess everyone has their own adventure to enjoy and I think it's not dumb for me to bask in my own limelight now. Meanwhile, will look to start practical lessons as soon as possible.

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Went bowling with Joan and Wilfred after that at Kallang Leisure Park. Did pretty bad will scores on the edges of 100 but I guess I shan't complain or both of them are gonna hate me. Wilfred decided to be generous and treated us to Nihon Mura buffet at E!Hub. It wasn't too bad but they are smart to remove the free fruit juice and the enoki mushrooms from their buffet menu because I think they were probably suffering little or no profit from those 2 items. Didn't manage to finish all the food but we weren't charged for it so it's cool.

2008-10-19T14:06:00.001+08:00

Had my ATP range on Thursday because it was a requirement for ORD. It was supposed to be difficult for me because of my high myopia which was he reason behind my PES C status. I myself didn;t find that a problem because my bmt range score was 26/32, reasonable well although not a marksman. However, everyone kept saying how easy it was to get a mraskamn with the new SAR 21 so I aimed at getting that marksman since I had to clear the range anyway. Besides, it's an additional $200.

Unfortubately, my AO told me that there will be no monetary reward for this range because it was a new module and was "non-official". I didn't understand what he meant but there was no use arguing anyway. Besides, I wasn't 100% sure on getting the marksman. So I just went on to do my best and I score 19/24 for day shoot and 11/12 for night shoot. Hence my score for the range was 30/36!!!

This made me even more sian. So I went to ask the conductin officer why isn't there any monetary reward although we did the atandard ATP procedure. He said combat vocations will not get it because it was a service support range. However, because I was from the service side, I might get the $200 but not confirmed. I think the money will be a great help to me because I'm getting a new mobile phone, the new biometric passport ($70), starting driving lessons ($36/lesson), etc. So I have to wait and see if it gets credited into my account soon then.

2008-10-13T13:11:00.003+08:00

Yesterday night, I realised what a blur person I've been. I was researching on university stuff especially those pertaining to NUS Business School when I decided to check out my course again. I was awarded the concurrent BBA and MSc(Mgt) course of which I will be awarded a degree and a Masters degree upon graduation, but all the while I had the wrong impression of the course.

Our BBA is NUS' leadership and management talent programme. BBA Honours programme students who are admitted into the MSc(Mgt) programme need to take 32 modular credits (i.e. 8 modules) over and above the BBA Honors Programme requirements of 160 modular credits to fulfil the MSc(Mgt) programme requirements. That is, they need to spend just 1 more year to complete the master's programme requirements.

So all along I thought my course will last 5 years of which I will do the Masters in the 5th year. Then I started to wonder, "So what's the difference between my course, which is supposed to be concurrent and any normal business student hoping to take the Masters in their 5th year?" This question has been haunting me for the past year as well as when my freinds asked me. I am usually unable to answer. Until I read the following:

An admitted student completes the MSc(Mgt) programme together with the last half of his/her undergraduate programme, and will be awarded two separate degree scrolls with the same conferment date.

It means that I will do my Masters from my 3rd year in uni onwards. And that I will get 2 degrees upon graduation in 4 years, and not 5! Haha, but it also means that I have to take about 6 modules a semester, compared to others who usually take 4. Sianz~

2008-10-12T01:20:00.000+08:00

Went singing with xinyi, jinrui, angeline and longyu yesterday at katong. I initially thought it was supposed to be a farewell for xinyi's who's flying to the states for exchange for 6 months but halfway through I found out that she's only flying in december and we still have 2 months to catch up. Hanging out with this group of friends is different in a special way. I've always felt this way with them and xinyi's blog post yesterday made me feel like typing it out.

It's like other than jinrui, I didn't even have much contact with the other girls in dhs. xinyi was during level camp and the competition we joined together, angeline and longyu I don't even remember talking to them back in dhs. But somehow, we manage to click together better than mymy NPCC squadmates, JC class, bmt mates and my tekong friends. I think somehow, our thoughts are more alike and get to understand each other better. But sadly, we hang out not very often because we are very separated in our lifestyles now and it's hardly simple to find a common meeting date, time and place.

But anyway, I'm thankful for having friends like them because they make me feel like I'm not alone, a feeling I sometimes get when I'm with some other friends. The feeling of being important to someone else rocks!

2008-10-09T18:03:00.001+08:00

Great Cable Ski Monday @ Batam

This is my 2nd time to the Batam cable ski park. Faced with the bad memories from the first trip, where I didn't even complete 10% of 1 round of the circuit on wakeboard, I told myself that I must make full use of this opportunity to improve. And I did! I skiied approximately half of the circuit almost all the time from noon onwards. The only thing I could not accomplish was the toeside tilt right turn which is mandatory or else I will lose the tension of the cable and still fall into the water. There was only once when I managed to do this but still fell into the water after that and the video is on facebook, uploaded by jenn haur. I think I'm gonna make this my hobby. But because it is such an expensive sport, maybe once every 2-3 months is still reasonable.

To anyone who thought I was pro from the photos, it's all a lie. Those are the times when I'm not swimming in the water. I mean, who wants to see photos of me swimming in the water anyway.

2008-09-26T20:42:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I had the most amazing deja-vu. Usually our deja-vu is when something happens, and our mind tells us that this scene supposedly happened before, but it didn't actually happen before. But I was sure mine did, around 1.5 hours ago.

I was on bus number 8 from tampines to ubi when I noticed the seat I was on was rather badly vandalised. I was also listening to radio and 93.3 was playing JJ Lin's "Jiang Nan". I was on my way to give tuition and the time was 8.15pm and I was running pretty late. Thankfully I wasn't late. So after tuition I took the same bus in the opposite direction home, that was when I realised it was the exact same bus. I also happend to be on the exact same seat, unknowingly. As if it didn't feel weird enough, when I turned on my radio, guess what song was 93.3 was playing...

Anyway, I was observing the ads on the bus stops and I realised something. Now that the melamine issue has caused lots of chinese milk products to be taken off the shelf, there suddenly seems to be much more Marigold advertistments at bus stops, especially their milk items. I will actually save the money for the ads because when the chinese milk and dutch lady milk is gone, there really isn;t much choice besides Marigold.

2008-09-25T14:04:00.000+08:00

There's some problem with my left ear these few days, and I have no one else except myself to blame. On Monday, I had my SAR 21 familiarisation shoot. Twice that day, I forgot to put on my ear plugs when firing and I ended up having a ringing sound in my ear since that day till date. Hopefully, my hearing doesn't get adversely affected for the rest of my life.

A lot of unhappy things have been happening in camp these 2 weeks and I don't feel like commenting on them. I hate the fact that people are becoming more self-centered and not knowing how to give and take. Everyday I just have to find ways to counter these people so that life can be a bit better. I'm really glad I just have 120 days more to ORD.

2008-09-12T00:04:00.000+08:00

I've been really lethargic the whole week but I have no reason to be so. I maintain my daily sleep time of 4-5 hours and I do not do much physically challenging activities. I just keep wanting to lie down or sleep the whole day. Luckily it is the lull period in camp. Hence, this morning I realised something, that time passes very slowly when you sleep in camp. Initially that might sound really bad, but it's actually really amazing. Today I slept for really long in the bunk but when I woke up, I realised only 45 minutes have passed. This means that I can actually make my mind think that I slept a lot without wasting much of actual time. Eventually I thought I slept for almost 5 hours but only 1.5 hours passed.

Anyway, I did a simple estimation and I found out that roughly 10-15 people read my blog each day. This is a healthy and good number, because then I can publish stuff that may be targetted at certain people without too many people reading about it. To me, blogs are a way to record my life and it'll be rather sad if you cannot publish certain things because of its consequences. Examples are xiaxue's comments towards dawn yang and the recent danny yeo's comments towards jack neo. Even if you have something you really need to voice out, you have to face so much problems after you publish your posts. I don't really fancy that and I rather it remain this way. Afterall, I'm not even a celebrity, why would my viewers increase?

2008-09-05T23:16:00.000+08:00

Today, I was classfied as a sergeant who has attitude problem.

Mid afternoon, I received a phone call from my IC which totally spoilt my mood for the entire day. He informed me that a complaint had been filed against me, citing I have attitude problems and acting big shot because I am a sergeant. I was totally clueless about this, until I enquired further and he told me the whole incident.

This lance corporal clerk from my office actually filed a complaint against me to my IC, saying that I was rude and unreasonable to him. What happened was I realised that MCs taken for the past few months have not been filed in the file in office, which was supposed to be a standard procedure. Suspecting a case of cheating, I decided to make sure everyone submit their MC within a week. So this clerk came to me and mentioned that it was because the photocopy machine in office was spoilt, that's why they could not photocopy their MCs. Because I was the inventory and maintenance IC for the office, it became my fault that I did not send it for repair, hence they were unable to photocopy their MCs. The truth was, a damage report has already been sent, and there's nothing anyone can do except wait for the repair service to come. I told him I believe tekong ammo magazine office was not the only place that you can photocopy documents, and that shopping malls, neighbourhood centres and basically any office can allow you to do so. Apparently, this was considered rude for that particular clerk and his poor little heart couldn't take it and he has to complain to my IC behind my back.

Now my IC did not even bother to find out the truth and called me, telling me to watch my attitude. I think I should watch my attitude, for I have only 4 months plus to ORD, whereas he still has more than a year to survive with those troublemakers who are easily hurt with strong words from their sergeants. I'm not sure if he cried during BMT, because compared to sergeants from BMTC, I'm probably an angel already. I've decided to do everything the right way, totally by the book, and I believe the guys in office are not going to like it very much.

2008-08-28T16:19:00.000+08:00

I kinda like the lyrics from 五月天's new song, 开天窗, so I thought I should post them here. They're really true and effective in inspiring people during times of despair and disapointment.

是谁说半夜不能吃便当

是谁说彩虹不能长头上

是谁说蓝色就等于忧伤

你看看天空和海洋

顺风时就展开双翅飞翔

逆风时就当成在冲浪

没有风的时候那就让我

开开天窗

2008-08-26T23:46:00.000+08:00

I was rather irritated by something for the whole of today. I took a total of 4 bus journeys (to and from SAF ferry terminal and to and from my student's house) and in that 4 trips which adds up to roughly 1 hour, I saw the "Silkpro" advertistment at least 15-20 times. It's the one which shows Addy Lee talking but somehow they have to use a voice over. I can almost memorise what he says now. That advertistment is always followed by a Paul Anka concert ad because buying the shampoo gives you a chance to win his tickets or something. I don't even know who Paul Anka is. I thought the TVmobile was to provide entertainment to the passengers and I don't think watching Addy Lee's face on screen all the time is good entertainment.

I was so irritated with my student at tuition today that I kind of raised my voice at him and now I feel bad about it. But he does not seem to be interested in math at all and his results seem to make his parents think that I cannot teach. He's happy with a 15/40 in his test which is something I cannot understand. Anyway, I guess I got my retribution for raising my voice at him because now I'm having a sore throat from talking and shouting too much. :(

2008-08-17T13:18:00.001+08:00

Yesterday was Claire Guo Jing's event at Lunar Asian Fusion Bar.

The schedule and songs were almost the same as the previous night at NTU, hence I had to make it special. I decided to volunteer for a stage game where we had to say a song title from her new album with a our mouths filled with coke. There wasn't much aim to the game but I got a chance to stand really close to her and shook her hand. This time it was the right hand. I also got her autographed poster which now completes my collection!

This also marked the end of her stop in Singapore. =( Despite that, I'll definitely continue listening to her songs to prove to wilfred there's no such thing as overdose of her songs.

2008-08-16T00:15:00.001+08:00

I attended Claire Guo Jing's mini concert at NTU today and it was amazing. To be honest, I never imagined myself being a fan or having an idol of which I will spend time queueing up just to hear her sing. Somehow, Claire's voice made me one. She doesn't try too much technics to flaunt her voice, but simply delivers the song with her purest thought, touching the hearts of the listeners, including and especially me. That's why I've attached her whole playlist to my blog.

Seeing her sing live was cool. It was as good, if not better, as listening to her album. Sadly, no photography was allowed. I wanted to volunteer if there was any games related to singing her songs but there wasn't. During one song, she actually walked all the aisles on the auditorium except the small stretch beside me and wilfred. I'm not blaming her because the usher was the one who directed her around. One guy even got to give her a hug, which I guess angered many other guy fans in the theatre. Eventually I got to shake her hand and got her autograph on my album.

During the autograph session, I was deeply disturbed by 2 male fans.

The first one was a middle-aged guy who obviously wasn't from NTU. He had a lot of her albums and wanted her to sign all. Throughout the process, he was ranting non-stop about how much he supported her since she started singing, how he was looking forward to her 2nd album, how he loved her voice, etc. He did all these while leaning forward and had this psycho face. I think that probably freaked claire out a bit that she only signed one of his albums and just kept saying thank you.

The 2nd was a plump guy queueing behind me. He claimed he was from claire's fan club but as far as I know there's isn't a fan club in singapore yet, at least not an official one. Maybe he was the chairperson, and the only member as well. Anyway, everyone was given like probably 5 seconds to talk to her while she signed the album and shakes our hands. This fat guy, however, took advantage of my time by interupting while I was getting my album signed and asked if she could write his name on the album. I didn't even get a chance to say "jiayou" or anything else.

These freaks are irritating. But I'm not complaning. I'll be seeing her again in about 20 hours at lunar asian fusion bar for her mini party. The only way to get tickets was either a contest from YES 93.3FM or buy her new version album. The former only gives out 30 tickets over a span of 5 days while the latter is a game of chance as the ticket is randomly inserted into the albums. Between Wilfred and myself, we have 5 tickets! We each have 2 from the radio station and I have another 1 from the album.

This sets up the stage for meeting no. 2 with claire tomorrow! =)

2008-07-13T03:16:00.000+08:00

This week has generally been a good week.

Monday was duty day but there wasn't much to be done so it was slack. The only pro of the day was me eating a whole durian by myself, fresh from the forests in tekong, with compliments fro the grass cutters.

Tuesday was duty rest day and tuition day. However, at around 3-4pm, my student told me he had a fever so I need not go and give lessons, much to my delight.

Wednesday was eugene's enlistment so I took the morning off so I could sleep more and also accompany him to tekong. In the afternon, I went back to the office and gerered myself up for more durian hunting with rayfeal and hock seng. I learnt quite a lot from this expedition. Firstly, durian flowers look like a male's sex organ before it becomes a durian fruit. Secondly, mosquitoes prefer to bite fat people that do not have O+ blood type because the number of bites me and rayfeal had did not even match up to 1/10 of hock seng's. Lastly, animals have the amazing power to break open durians when humans have to use knives. Either that or durians reproduce by splitting mechanism? This one I haven't figured out yet.

Friday was cohesion day for my department. Using the funds we got through the various projects, we organised a bowling and sushi buffet cohesion day at kallang leisure park. I think I did pretty average at bowling with 111, 137, 90, 126 for the 4 games respectively but can be better. In the end, my team or Kalai, Wlfred and myself unexpectedly got 2nd overall.

After that, we had lunch at Nihon Mura. We totally showed the buffet spirit as the roughly 16 of us conquered about 80 plates of conveyor belt sushi. besides that we had countless servings of sashimi, handrolls, chawanmushi, shisamo, etc. The highlight of that lunch was when jeremy accidently ordered 32 sticks of shisamo (pregnant fish) when he actually wanted 8 sticks for everyone to share because each serving was actually 4 sticks.

After playing a few games in the arcade, jimmy, wilfred, mingtai, yangyi and I decided to go singing in chinatown. jeremy joined us halfway through after going home to get his car. Wasn't one of the good days because I had a bad throat from the durians and the time was rather short also.

I thought we were going home after singing, but a phone call from boss got us all to this restaurant/pub/cafe called Bliss in ponggol park. Mingtai got forced to treat us because of his promotion he forked out $60 while I also chipped in $30. The rest toppied it up and we ordered some finger food and opened a bottle of martell vsop. Had a great night of drinking, eating and talking rubbish and ming tai finally did the "merlion" when he downed a cup of martell neat. Reached home at around 2am and slept till 12pm the next day. Luckily I didn't suffer from any hangover But I just kept on thinking it was sunday and it was obviously saturday.

2008-07-08T15:54:00.000+08:00

I am durian crazy recently. I think it's normal since the durian season comes only once a year. I've drank this addictive durian ice-blended from this dessert shop in eastpoint twice in 3 days. And yesterday, I had a super fresh durian. So fresh it just dropped off the durian tree. The authentic tekong durian! Although the failure rate of finding a good ripe durian there is quite high, I managed to find one thanks to a grass cutter's help. In return we had to give him a packet of our lunch ration. A fair trade, for that durian probably cost $10 in mainland.

2008-07-05T14:44:00.000+08:00

While I was having lunch today, I thought of a question which should have occured to me before in the 20 years of my life, but hasn't. It was triggered by a personal experience. The question was, "If I was out for lunch on my own in a crowded coffee shop or food court, how am I ever going to get a place to have my meal?"

I was at eastpoint alone just now for lunch when this happened to me. Leaving from home just to have a meal, I did not bring anything but myself and my wallet. When I finally found a seat and wanted to get my food, my place was immediately taken up within 2 seconds of leaving my seat. Faced with a challenge like this, I decided to risk and just buy my food, hoping to find a seat afterwards. After I got my food, I spent the next 10 minutes circling the whole foodcourt almost 10 times to find a place but to no avail. I was really screwed. there will probably be people who've noticed me walking past them several times with a tray on my hands. I eventually found a small table just enough for 2 people and sat down. At the same time, an old man requested to share the table with me and I allowed him to. This means that I was not the only one that was facing this problem.

I can't possibly use the auntie method of reserving seats using umbrella or tissue paper. Or must I always have some purchases to "chop" the seats? And those stuff might easily be stolen. Or is the situation such that people eating alone cannot eat in, but must take out.

Any suggestions anyone?

2008-06-23T13:14:00.000+08:00

Today was cable-ski day.

I went to Batam and back to Singapore within a short span of 10 hours. It's not for holiday or vacation but for a super cool activity- cable-ski. I've always wanted to do activities such as wakeboarding, cable-ski, windsurfing, etc but didn't have the chance to do so, either due to the lack of activity partners or due to the price of the activity. So when Jimmy introduced this great lobang to me, I didn't hesitate to say yes.

We started off on the kneeboard a few times to get a feel of the cable and the speed at which we will be travelling at. I'm proud to say that I succeeded at the first time of the kneeboard, while my friends on did it at the 2nd time. But when we proceeded on to the wakeboard. things became a disaster.

I thought it couldn't be that difficult, considering that were lots of girls and even an old lady doing it quite well. When the cable came, I was confident that I could at least stand and ski at least 50metres. In the end, I fell face first into the water within 0.5 seconds. After at least 10 tries, I managed to stand up on the ski for at least 50 metres and that was my best record for the entire day. Jimmy was slightly better than me by maybe 10 metres, while Ming Tai was the only one who managed to ski almost 1 full round. We had the choice to return to Singapore on the 4.30 ferry or 7.30 ferry. We initially chose the 4.30 one because we thought we'll get bored after managing to ski a few times. In the end, we regretted the choice because we haven't even managed to ski 1/4 of a round, but it was too late to change our choice.

I can see myself heading back there in a few months time, either with the same group of friends or maybe some other group. I believe the next time will be much better. Maybe can impress girls when I manage to do a few jumps and simple stunts, probably in a few years time.

2008-06-03T23:50:00.000+08:00

Day 3's main activity was actually to visit the erawan shrine where the famous brahma's is. I made it a point to include it specially in the itinerary because everyone who goes to bangkok must make it a point to visit this place and offer their prayers.

I didn't know there wasn't going to be a long queue and we ende up spending barely 30 minutes at that place. Decided to explore centralworld mall next which was even bigger than MBK but the stuff sold there were at market rate so not much goodies can be found.

Had lunch at pizza company which can be found easily everywhere in bangkok. It's a cheaper version of pizza hut and yet the food is equally delicious. One of the better meals we had there.

Walked around pantip plaza and platinum fashion mall for more shopping primarily because it was pouring heavily outside. Platinum fashion mall was another chopping centre where cheap stuff can be found, but mostly catered to ladies. had teabreak at A&W in pantip plaza. Haven't had their waffles in years.

Headed back to MBK for some last minute shopping before heading back to the hotel to pack. Headed over to suam lum night market again for our last night in bangkok. Ordered some sausages and 2 towers of chang beer to entertain us through the night. Most of us drank till our heads were heavy and I was rumoured to voluntarily ask the girl selling sausage to take a picture with me. Actually nothing wrong with that.

Knocked out the moment I reached the hotel and only got up to bathe in the middle of the night.

Day 4 was checking out day and a whole day of shopping at chatuchak weekend market. Got some souveniers and more clothes and accessories at super cheap prices. The place was simply too huge we mainly walked the clothes and souveniers section only.

Went back to the hotel for transport to the airport. Had a super expensive meal in the airport before heading back to home!

2008-06-02T22:51:00.000+08:00

Day 2 of the bangkok trip was the official temple visitng day. We woke up rather late due to the aftermath of watching the champion's league finals the night before. So we chionged breakfast and hailed a cab to go to the first destination- grand palace.

The grand palace is a really big place but mainly filled with tourists. We seem to be the only few not with a tour group which is slighty disadvantageous because we didn't know what building we were looking at and the history behind them. So there were times when we hid behind a tour group to try and catch what the guide was talking about.

It was quite an experience considering there's no such place in singapore to compare with.

Next we wanted to go to wat pho, which was the temple of the reclining buddha but this was where we had a really bad experience. I won't go to the details but we were scammed by a very professional group of thai into wasting some time and some money. We ended up visitng wat pho at around 2pm.

Wat pho was breathtaking. The statue was so huge and magnificent that I was so proud I saw it with my own eyes after seeing it in street fighter when I was young. We donated 100 baht in exchange for a bowl of coins to place into many bowls by the side of the buddha to show our respect.

Next is when I started to get a little annoyed with my friends. A few of them wanted to go back to the hotel to rest and play cards. In my opinion, having paid so much to go overseas, minimal time should be spent in the hotel doing things that can be done back in singapore. I was there to see as many things as I can, even if I didn't know how to get to the place. I guess in the end I made my stand clear and we went on to visit wat arun, the temple of dawn across the chao phraya river.

We had to take a ferry-taxi across which cost only 3.50 baht per person. The taxi was super rocky and unsteady and thus we were lucky the ride took barely 5 minutes. Wat Arun actually looks better from a distance but the challenge of going there was to climb up the super steep flight of stairs to reach it's mid point, and we did it.

After that strenuous activity, we decided to head back to the hotel to wash up before going to suam lum night market. Had dinner at santa's at MBK on the way.

Suam Lum was just shopping and shopping non stop and it's actually like bugis street magnified 10 times? The stuff sold gets quite repetitive after a while but each shop had a different threshold for their goods so it's interesting to try honing your bargaining skills. Completed 3/4 of the market at around 10pm when it started to drizzle. We headed back to the hotel just before it poured and watched a 2nd dvd as our late night activity. That day it was "the hottie and the nottie".

2008-06-01T21:13:00.002+08:00

Finally have time to update about my trip to bangkok from 21st May to 24th May.

Day 1:

Had to reach the airport by 5.30am because our flight was at 7.10am so I had to take a cab there. After check in, we went on to have breakfast because it was really early. After breakfast, we proceeded to board the plane and they have to put the gates for jetstar at the very end because we were a budget airline. But it was ok considering how far people have to walk if they flew from the budget terminal. Jetstar was ok except the seats were super cramp and I doubt I can take it if the trip was longer than 2 hours.

Upon touchdown, we were met by the hotel driver to fetch us to the hotel. The hotel was in the middle of an alley and I think we only decided on it because it was cheap and we were ignorant. After unloading our bags and checkin in procedures, we walked to MBK to begin the shopping day.

MBK is huge. Had lunch at the 5th food avenue which had a system like marche and village, where u tap cards and pay at the end of the meal. The food there was nice but a bit steep compared to other options we had. During the first 30 minutes of shopping, I've already gotten used to the art of bargaining, as you'll definitely get cheated if you don't bargain. The dealers are willing to settle for prices that are about 60% of the price they quote you, even more so if you buy in bulk. We got some clothes and bags and decided to go back to the hotel for a rest.

Upon my suggestion, we went for a full body massage at 200 baht for an hour. That's not even $10. The massage was defnitely rejuvenating, considering we sat like a rock on the plane for 2 hours and walked around MBK for 4 hours before that.

At night, we took a cab to chinatown at yaowarat road for dinner at nam xing restaurant, reccomended by jeremy and my sister. The food was just slightly cheaper than singapore's "zi cha" but it was good to try thai chainese food. Bought lots of goodies to bring back to singapore for my family and my office mates. Ended the day with a dvd in the hotel room.

Day 1 should have ended there, but that night was the champion's league finals and chelsea was involved, and since the lobby had the telecast, we woke up at 2am to catch the match and I can only say chelsea lost to lady luck, with terry slipping at the last spot kick. Chelsea also hit the post twice before that. On the whole, I thought it was a nice match between 2 evenly matched sides. However, I get very irritated when people mock chelsea as a rich club that cannot win trophies. When chelsea don't win, they say that chelsea has money yet cannot win. When chelsea won the league in 2005 and 2006, people say chelsea is rich that's why they win. To me, people can say that chelsea's skills and teamwork is not good, but that totally has nothing to do with money and buying good players. If chelsea doesn't spend, people start talking about how chelsea can buy good players and they don't buy. If you are rich and can have tuition for all your subjects, does that guarantee good results? Yup, so people should let the feet do the talking. If chelsea don't play well or play well, it has nothing to do with the money. And I do agree that man utd has a better season this year but the champion's league finals was definitely evenly matched. Real Madrid is also rich, and they only showed their class this season amd they didn't buy many good players. It takes time for a team to gel together. Anyways, this totally should be in a separate post.

Shall update about days 2-4 in the next post.

2008-05-19T01:10:00.002+08:00

So I turned 20 years old yesterday!

Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday. To give credit, the following are people who gave me wishes via sms, msn or facebook. They are ruth, wilfred, jasmine, desiree, wenjian, swing, kalai, kimberly, xinyi, cheryl, yiting, roxanne, kevin, yeh hao, boon tat, clarissa, zeya, andy, jiaying, christabel, grace, michelle. Special mention goes to jenn haur with an sms from south africa!

Thanks to my sister with the adidas jacket from japan.
Thanks to my brother with a fila t-shirt.
Thanks to my mum for the cake.

I spent the first few moments of my birthday watching Portsmouth lift the FA cup. This has got to be the most boring FA cup in the past 10 years perhaps, with none of the big 4 teams in the finals. Afterwhich, I had to wrestle with this small moth inside my room and I took almost 15 minutes to get it out through the window. My mum will say that it's probably my ancestor coming to wish me happy birthday.

Next I slept the following 10 hours away and woke up only at 12pm to find half my birthday gone. Had lunch, watched some TV and caught "what happens in vegas" online and I thought it was an interesting and amusing show. Cameron Diaz is still damn hot although she's quite old already. Managed to convince my dad to order pizza for dinner partly because I was lazy to leave the house.

Then, we had the usual cake cutting time. Birthdays in my family are usually celebrated very simply with a small cake and maybe a few photos that's all. But I like it cause' it's still nice and warm.

Went out with the guys for coffee and LAN afterwards. Called cheryl out and she brought her brother along. LOL. Then we met john and ivan and 2 random people and we played battlefield together till 1am. Then I got home and started typing this entry.

That's how my birthday was spent.

2008-05-14T00:45:00.000+08:00

This has been an average week so far. There's just one thing that's rather disappointing. Because the commander of my base unit is visitng on friday, we've got to make the whole place spick and span and follow each and every standard procedure, even when they seem really stupid and irrelevant. Quite a few of the guys have thought of requesting to post out but I guess this might just be a passing cloud. Soon, everything will be back to normal and we'll finally be happy to work there again.

Today was a great day. Took an off day from work to relax before my 2 consecutive duties. Met cheryl for lunch at subway near her workplace. It was really cool to see her twice in just a week again after a long while. Too bad now she's attached, I'll probably be seeing her less frequently. But thanks girl for always being there for me. =)

Then on the bus home after tuition, I met yuen siang. It was seriously a surprise and I thought I got the wrong guy. He's still constantly upgrading himself, even on the bus. This time, it was learning the Korean language. Caught up a bit here and there and I think he's a really brave and strong guy, to have picked himself up so quickly. I don't know if I was able to do that.

Anyway, it's 4 days to my birthday. Gonna be 20 soon. But this year is exceptionally dull and I don't feel much. Maybe because in school you'll usually have friends who will try to surprise you or remember your birthday is coming. Whatever it is, I've decided I shan't have a wishlist because it's quite dumb. I won't get much of the items on the wishlist and I'm gonna get those myself from my bangkok trip in a weeks' time.

Well then, hope the remaining of this weel will be fine. I'm not even typing in complete sentences now and that goes to show how tired I am. Nite.

2008-05-11T20:18:00.000+08:00

I really wanted to join the " Hair for Hope" in July where people get their hair shaved to show support for the cancer patients and to experience what they go through during chemotherapy where they'll lose their hair. However, because I work in tekong and might be mistaken for recruits, and because I look like (see picture below), I changed my mind about joining "Hair for Hope"

Thought I might be a better choice for the "Yellow Ribbon Project".

2008-05-10T03:35:00.000+08:00

I thought the month of May was going to be fantastic, as I told many. There are 2 public holidays, my birthday, and my long awaited bangkok trip, of which I'm going to be away from camp for a week. Clearly, I was wrong.

9 days of May have passed and my mood has hit rockbottom. It's the kind of feeling whereby you really hope you're anyone but yourself. Pressure from my camp definitely did not help alleviate this. But much of this has to be my personal problems. I've been a real busybody, trying to stick my nose into every problem and everybody's problems, thinking that that's what a great friend should do, to share a part of yourself without asking for anything in return. But I guess as much as my mind is telling my heart that, my heart is not entirely convinced. But I think it isn't too much to ask for a bit of recongition or acknowledgement. But somehow, time and again, one by one, I've been regarded as a stepping stone, an important but easily forgotten step of a person's road back into the right way. To think about it, after finding a safe spot to rely and lean on, who would even bother to look back at that stepping stone that was the one that led you to where you are. I guess it's something like how a father feels when his daughter is getting married.

I guess it all boils down to my own busybodiness. I should just be responsible for my own life, which itself is a mess right now. Got to pick myself up before I even have the right to be a stepping stone for others.

2008-05-03T14:40:00.000+08:00

Recently I got to know that my OC received a complaint about me. Puzzled as to what mistake I committed and who complained against me, I made a call to my OC to enquire and also happened to read the e-mail sent by the complainant. It was then when I realised who childish some middle-aged man can be.

Last saturday, I on on duty and got to know the day before that OCS was returning a heavy return of ammo at 0830 hours. Hence, I did my best to rush up to the office to take over the duty to avoid delay to OCS booking out. When I reached the office, they have not arrived and were uncontactable all the way till 1015 hours. Thinking that they might have changes to their plans and that it was a saturday, I changed into my slippers and singlet to take a quick nap because I had not slept well the night before. In the end, they arrived at 1100 hours and declared to us that they were rushing for the 1230 ferry out. I told the ammo IC, a MSG, that I'll do my best. Hence, I decided to reduce delay and went up with them to the storehouse in my singlet and slippers along with my duty partner. Before that, I noticed that he had much general stores in his vehicle and a mixture of different types of ammo which were both non-compliances. I made known that I'd have to issue him a booking but he told me to give him a chance. I agreed and told him to separate the ammo as well as unload the stores, but I guess the former fell on deaf ears.

Upon reaching the storehouse, I realised that their return was messy and massive and I told him it'd be quite difficult to be on time for the ferry out, and he was quite unhappy. I also opened a box and found the mixed ammo still unseparated. As a result, I issued him a booking form for the non-compliance. He then started telling me all sorts of rubbish about how he was from MINDEF, how much he knows about training safety and all but I turned a deaf ear to him. As long as he's in my turf, he listens to me. The final result, he got a booking and also missed his ferry out.

2 days ago, I received a call from my IC and OC telling me I got complained of "improper attire" and I never thought it would be the OCS guy. The despicable thing was he sent the e-mail without my notice and behind my back. I only got to see it when my OC forwarded it to me. The fact that he sent that also meant that he probably started planning for this "revenge" from the moment I booked him. How childish can a man almost in his 40s be? Taking something totally unrelated to the original context to get back at me, someone young enough to be his son. I'm not afraid of him. On the contrary, I'm really full of pity for such a guy who has lived almost 40 years and yet behaves like a small kid, attempting to play "tit for tat" but probably failing miserably. I do not deny the fact that I was wrong in going up in my singlet and slippers, but it was genuinely to reduce any form of delay to them. Look at what I got in return?

Luckily, no action was taken against me, probably much to that MSG's disappointment, as to my OC, I was totally right in booking him and that complaint was a small and totally irrelevant matter. I think that this event only goes to embarass him and did nothing to me.

2008-05-02T02:38:00.000+08:00

The past 2 weeks have been really busy with duties, audit and project presentation. Lots of pressure handling the big shots that come from everywhere. At least I'm having a 4 days' break thanks to labour day.

As a result, I decided to make a trip back to VJC yesterday afternoon under jenn haur's invitation to join in the sports day fun. At the same time, I was planning to collect the dance concert tickets from ruth. However, My excitement was dampened by the security guards at the main gatre because they refused to allow ex-students to enter the school on the basis that they cannot tell who are ex-students and who aren't. It's quite obvious that many ex-students will turn up for these major school events to show that we still care about the school and the feeling I get is that VJ do not welcome us. That is certainly not a nice gesture. In the end, I decided to just change pass and identify myself as a visitor so i can enter the school.

Sports day this year seem more dull the previous years. As a matter of fact, it seems more and more dull by the year. But one thing really surprised me- Cheerleading. I'm glad that cheerleading has become an important and permanent event in sports day and it's no longer looked upon as a chore like a few years back. At least I feel that the participants are enjoying themselves in the process. I've always liked cheerleading because everyone looks so energetic and lively, even though some of them might be forced out, and they make me feel alive. I was particularly impressed with the VJ knights, the official VJC cheerleading team. they seem rather professional to me with their dashing contumes and sweet moves. One girl caught my eye when she had this amazing abs that looked really sexy when they lifted her up. I believe many people would agree with me that the cheerleading segment was indeed the most interesting part of the day's events.

My house, Draco, made rather good improvements too.
Cheerleading - 3rd (we've always been bottom 2)
Overall Girls' - 4th
Overall Boys - 1st
Overall House - 2nd

In the end we did the usual 6 mass dances which really brought me back to the VJ days I had about 2-3 years ago. That's when I cannot agree more that schooling days are the most fun. Sigh... 266 days to ORD. LOL

2008-04-14T14:02:00.000+08:00

AHHHHH! I can't change the song on my blog. Sickening. It's been there for almost a month.

I've been teaching tuition for 2 weeks now, 4 lessons, and I seem to have learnt a lot in the process. I've re-understood the mathematics I didn't use to understand back in secondary school and I've also discovered new technics for both myself and my student to understand the topic better. At the same time, I'm becoming bewildered at how some people can have the "want-to-do-well-and-not-study" attitude. In my opinion, a person who wants to study and do well may or may not achieve good results, but someone who doesn't even want to study will never achieve good results. Good thing my student is only aiming for a pass as it lessens the burden I have on myself. But I do not think I'll allow myself to settle for that. No doubt I took up the job for the extra cash each month, but it will be terrible if I disregard his studies as any of my top priorities.

Sometimes, when I'm really free, I start to think about what I'm doing, and I cannot answer myself, at least at this present moment. If there's any goal I'm looking forward to it'll have to be my ORD on 23rd January 2009. Other than that, I think most of the stuff I'm doing is because I have to be doing things. I'm turning 20 soon, and I don't think I have much to boast about under my name. I'm not exceptionally good in studies, nor athletic, not super popular among friends nor outstandingly good looking. This is probably because I didn't have a goal for the past 20 years of my life. I did not work towards achieving any of the above mentioned. To be frank, I see this in many of my friends too. I'm hoping university life can bring a change to all these., to bring a change to my life. But that will be in 1 year's time. As of now, I am only looking forward to next month, of which I turn 20 and also have my bangkok overseas trip. That can probably inject some excitement into my utterly mundane life.

2008-04-01T12:17:00.000+08:00

I just got bitten by a small black ant-lookalike organism about the size of a drop of sweat. In a few hours, my arm became swollen to the size a papaya. To think something as small as that can cause such agony to someone who is a few thousand times its size. I really think Singapore should use this as an example during national parade to show young Singaporeans how powerful Singapore can be. As if now, it is the size of a small mango.

2008-03-21T15:34:00.000+08:00

I'm already feeling the pressure just 2 weeks into my promotion to 3SG. I think it's exceptionally difficult for the service side because we don't usually have a commander-trainee relationship, unlike the sergeants we see at BMT. We see each other as colleagues and in my camp, even more as friends. That's why it makes it all the more difficult for me to establish a firm stand when it comes to work. I think the fact that I became really good friends with all of them was partly a mistake knowing I was going to be promoted to 3SG. Nowadays, if I had to be firm and tell someone off for a mistake, I'll usually get "wah... 3SG big lor, change already lor." And if I allow poor work and performances to carry on, I'll usually get the blame because I'm supposed to be their "superior". It's rather difficult to strike that balance, which makes it even more challenging. Thus, I'm striving to earn the respect I deserve and not fear or hatred from the guys in my department. So much work for a puny $100+ increase in pay. Well, when life throws me a problem as such, I've got to grab it by its horns and wrestle it to the ground before it knocks me off my feet. Got this line from some movie I forgot when.

On a side note, I've decided to start a new hobby or rather go back to an old activity - kayaking! In fact, I'd like to try doing sea sports on a frequent basis in the near future. Activities such as kayaking, windsurfing, wake boarding or even jet ski. But it's quite hard to find like minded people who're willing to fork out the money and time to participate in them with me. To be frank, it's not that expensive. $40 for a three year membership and the rentals are all under $20 for a day. Maybe I'll have to try them out myself to rekindle the flame in me before I have the ability to psycho others to join me.

I might be starting to do tuition too. Not confirmed yet.

Today is Good Friday. let this friday be good. LOL.

2008-03-16T18:16:00.000+08:00

It's a sunny and bright sunday afternoon but i'm choosing to spend it in the comfort of my air conditioned room listening to songs and using the internet. I kind of enjoy doing this once in a while instead of getting myself occupied with friends trying to find something interesting to do as a motive for going out. I woke up at the earliest time for a sunday this morning to go to the family day carnival at my sis's workplace with my mum, dad and brother. I can't even remember when's the last time I went for such family day carnivals and I have to admit I was kind of reluctant initially. My mum's enthusiam convinced me to give it a try and I'm glad I did. There was a great variety of food ranging from kebab to prata and thai stone stove. The games were really simple stuff we usually see at pasar malam but they succeeded in getting my interest. The games with the kids on stage and the performance of the snake charmer was rather interesting too. In all, it was a morning well spent.

2008-03-12T14:15:00.000+08:00

After a year of enlistment, I'm finally promoted to 3SG. However, I am not particularly proud of it. The fact is I didn't earn it. There are about 10 other guys in the office doing similar job as me everyday and they do not get promoted to 3SG because of the difference in vocation. This is not to say that I am not happy about it, because I am bloody happy about the pay rise despite it being only a $140 increase a month. At least now I get some pride when talking to assholes who like to put people down with their rank. The sad thing about promotion is that everyone is asking for a promotion treat. This technically cancels off the first month of the pay rise. But it's ok, because I have superb ninja skills and can siam as long as possible.

Today I had to make a trip down to the traffic police HQ in Ubi to record a statement for Zhilin's accident back in January. I found it super irritating for them to demand that I make a trip all the way down to tell them stuff that I can't even remember properly myself. Moreover, it was raining cats and dogs, probably the heaviest in this year. The IO even made me wait for almost half and hour before deciding to see me. I thought he was asking a favour from me by asking me to record a statement as witness for the accident? Where is the sincerity? Luckily my aunt was working there and I could call her and talk a bit. But the process was rather ridiculous as they ask stuff that no one will notice when travelling in the car. Questions such as "Did you notice any vehicles parked at the side of the road?", "Do you know what speed the vehicle was travelling at?" and " What is the distance between your vehicle and the lorry in front?" were asked, and I didn't dare to guess because I was afraid of making a false account. The whole lame process lasted for about less than 15 minutes of which 12 minutes was him typing away on his computer. But it was a cool experience. The number of injured people in the traffic police HQ and the number of people paying fines was huge. This shows how poorly the conduct of motorists in Singapore are.

Going to bed now. Having duties on the 10th, 12th, 14th, 17th and 19th in a row can really kill if coupled with a lack of sleep. That's like 5 duties in 10 days.

2008-03-01T09:26:00.000+08:00

I am actually supporting local music by using daren tan's song on my blog. LOL

Anyway, yesterday I met one of the most ridiculous sergeants in tekong, I think his surname is Chua. It just furthers highlights my point that many paces in the SAF do no have quality control and rank is not a good gauge of ability, especially for specialists and enlistees level. The scenaraio was that my department was taking our usual vehicle up to the ammo magazine and at the same time pegasus company was boarding the tonner for their IFC. So it ended up that either one of their drivers or vehicles was unavailable and they wanted to share a vehicle with us. We were kind to agree, only to meet with a rogue such as Chua. From the first look, no one will guess that he's a sergeant, as he looks like the average punk who hangs around in void decks during school hours because he got thrown out of school. So kalai and me went to the front seats because we were on duty as the recruits started boarding at the back. I realised that he was the only sergeant around and deduced he'll be sitting with thr recruits at the back as they needed someone to watch them. Surprisingly, he decided to try his luck at sitting in front and I totally gave him a really hard time because of the simple fact that I don't like him.

Chua: (opens door and points to the back) Thank you.
Me: (understanding what he means but feigning ignorance) Welcome. (and attempts to close the door)
Chua: Aren't you supposed to sit at the back?
Me: Aren't you supposed to sit with your recruits at the back?
Chua: These are my recuits. (obviously not understanding what I meant with his pea brain)
Me: Ya so sit at the back. We're on duty, so we always sit in front.
Chua: But the driver needs a vehicle commander right? (once again insulting my intellegence by expecting an answer)
Me: Ya, we can be the vehicle commanders.
Chua: (using his last tactic) So you expect a sergeant to sit at the back while u corporals sit in front.
Me: (seriously pissed already) Ya.

Bear in mind throughout the process, he was talking like a gangster and in a "beng-ish" tone, as if we were responsible for the loss of his already pea-sized brain. But as I thought everyone was waiting for us to settle our dispute, we decided to give in to him and went to the back, only to realise that it was packed to the brim. This doesn't make sense as we were doing them a favour and ended up doing ourselves a big disfavour. So I purposely refused to board the vehicle until the last second and even my colleagues felt it was ridiculous that Chua was sitting in front. What was the final solution? I sat in front with their PC and Chua was sitting at the back closst to the end of the tonner, simply because they needed a SERGEANT to be at the back and being the only SERGEANT around, he gets to do the honours. Trust him to try to dispute with me.

So the whole morning I was already very pissed off. Ironically, when I reached the office, their ammo IC was already waiting quite a while to draw ammo, largely delayed through their own wonderful SERGEANT arguing with a CORPORAL. I admit I'm a very calculating person, so I decided to take more revenge. When I entered the office, I refusued to hurry into issuing ammo to them. Why must I hurry for them when they didn't even show a bit of gratitude for us giving them a lift? So it was another 20 minutes when I decided to issue to them and I specially warned the ammo IC that I will book them should they return with any problems that I can book them with. I got to know from her that Chua was notorious for his antics, hence I decided to forgive him a bit for his mental retardation. Also, when the ammo IC returned with the ammo, I decided not to book them although I could because she wasn't the one to offend me.

Moral of the story: Alan is nice to people who are nice to him. Rank is not everything and I think Chua left his courtesy at home.

2008-02-22T13:34:00.000+08:00

Saturday was sending szeling off at the airport to melbourne for her pursue of dentistry in australia. The plane ended up being delayed for 3 hours and we couldn't stay to see her walk through the gates. I think many people are going to miss her nonsense and every-cheerful attitude. All the best in melbourne!

On Monday we had a tekong dinner to celebrate CNY at Roland's Restaurant at marine parade. Initially, I thought it would be rather boring but I was rather wrong. There were games to invlove our whole department and interesting performances to catch on stage. We ended up winning 2 of the games and everyone at our table got 2 free movie passes.The food was so-so but the quantity was pathetic. For dessert, we ended up getting 1 tablespoon of yam paste each. The downside of the day was wilfred getting the side of his car damaged by the ridiculously narrow rod at roland's carpark. Also, on the way home, we almost got into an accident because his contacts were irritating him and we dashed past the red light. Luckily, nothing terribly bad happened.

I've always known teaching someone is hard, but teaching someone who is unwilling to learn makes it much more difficult. I experienced 2 of these examples over the past 2 days.

Firstly, my father told me to teach him how to send e-mails because his superior was mocking him as he was computer illiterate. Hence, one night, I specially took some time to teach him how to send e-mails and even created an account for him. However, it was evident that his attention was not exactly sending e-mails. True enough, after that, he asked me to teach him how to bet on soccer matches online and even help him find the pictures for the edison chen sex scandal. I was seriously pissed and disgusted. Sometimes, I think that if he really gets sacked because he doesn't know how to use the internet, it'll be his own damn fault because he doesn't take the initiative to learn. Only has himself to blame.

The second case was my colleague aaron. He is actually more senior than me, but he was from another depot so they have a different way of doing things. He once told me to teach him our way of doing things because he wanted to learn, and I foolishly believed him. I was told he was posted out from his previous depot because of poor attitude but I rejected the idea initially because I believe that was others' opinion of him. But in the end, I had to agree with them. Doing duty with him was almost like me doing duty alone but with twice the work. I had to check everything he did for fear of mistakes, because they happen rather frequently. Moreover, sometmes the things he do are so against the procedures I think they might get both of us charged. However hard I try to teach him, he'll push them away and claim that he'll settle everything at the end of the day. How do you expect someone to believe you if you always give that standard of work? I always have to end up clearing his trash and I realised that my february duty is much tiring than the past duties. Luckily, I do not have duties with him in march. I find him an okay person to work with if he just changes his attitude at work. Unfortunately, that has not happened for the past 4 months.

To make matters worse for last night's duty, I had to most irritating sergeant doing duty at my office. His name was 3SG bernard lo I think. Throughout the 12 hours duty he did, he came into our office at least 20 times, all without knocking despite us having a notice at the door telling them to KNOCK AND WAIT! He could come in asking for this, and come in again 5 minutes later asking for that. What was most irritating was him coming into the office at least 8 times as early as 5.45am to tell me some nonsense such as "the light in the ammo magazine is spoilt, do I have to write a report?" I should have just made him write and tear it up in front of him. And when the vehicle for the recruits came, he had to tell me. When he unlocked his rifle, he had to tell me. When he was locking up the rounds, he had to specially wake me up to watch him do it, despite me telling him to just lock it up and I will check before he leaves. Even when the time came for him to leave, he had to call the wrong number to ask for his vehicle and ended up staying half an hour more, extending our agony. This further proves my point that it does not mean you're better than others if you're a 3SG. Everyone's road is the same after bmt. If you get into SISPEC, as long as you don't screw up, you get promoted to 3SG and you get to be the commander of people who may even be superior to you in terms of character. I have seen so many examples since I'm posted to tekong. So I totally do not see why people can be su proud that they are a sergeant when it simply does not mean anything. To myself, getting promoted to 3SG basically just increases my allowance although I am doing the same work as everyone in my department.

2008-02-11T17:10:00.000+08:00

Hurray! My blog has reached 10000 hits!!! Actually I think I myself might have contributed to 1000 hits myself but whatever it is, I regard it as a rather good achievement.

And CNY has come and gone. Every year I feel the same way, that there is usually so much hype about CNY but when it comes and leaves I don't even feel the impact it has. This year especially, as NS has spoilt many of my visiting plans, I've only visited the usual 2 places until now. I haven't went to any of my friends' or teachers' houses to get more ang paos. And to make matters worse, I've lost $13 on the 2nd night of CNY gambling at my grandma's place. Not a great start to the rat year I suppose. But the feeling of togetherness and the noise and laughter experienced during the gatherings always seem to make up for it. I think the worse thing that happened in this year's CNY is my duty on the 3rd day, where I have to go back to tekong ammo magazine to stone for a whole 24 hours. Well, but it beats doing duty on the eve or the first 2 days. So, I'm not complaining, at least not a lot.

2008-02-11T03:17:00.000+08:00

The best thing that can happen after returning home from a tough night of duty in camp is to relax and have a hearty breakfast and having some time to yourself. This did not happen to me this morning. Being nice, I called home to ask if my father wanted breakfast and so I got him carrot cake. Not only did I not receive a word of thanks, he started complaining about how I forgot to get a fork for him. Then he went on about how the quantity has been decreasing while the price remains the same, saying how the vendor can now sell 6 packets using 5 packets' quantity. Throughout the whole process, I was so fed up I didn't even bother to reply him. That was when I realise silence was the best way to deal with an irritating person whom you wish could just shut his mouth up. My father never fails to embarass or irritate me. He can't hold his liquor well yet he likes to drink and utter rubbish afterwards. Just 2 nights ago at my grandma's place, my uncles just complained to me how irritating he was, teching them how to gamble and talking nonsense loudly. Luckily, he was knocked out soon after and went on to sleep. I cannot imagine what will happen if he continues like that the whole night.

This is such an anger-filled post but I just got to get it off my chest.

2008-01-28T14:36:00.000+08:00

Woah, my blog's 100+ visits more to 10000! Good job everyone. LOL

I wonder how many times I've mentioned this in previous post but I've fallen sick again. This time I'm pretty sure there are several reasons. Firstly, during demolition works at pasir laba demo ground from 8am to 1pm, I only drank less than 500ml of water. After which, we had to walk a ditance out to the bus stop in long 4 uniform and under the blazing sun. Secondly, after I got home, I had to leave house to join the guys for a game of LAN which lasted till midnight. Next morning, I woke up early because the guys from tekong wanted a meeting to discuss some stuff. After which, I rushed to parkway to meet the guys again to shop for stuff for szeling's farewell bbq later in the evening. During the bbq, I got scratched/bitten by a heartless cat while trying to feed it satay. Maybe I've gotten some sort of disease such as mad cat disease. Later after the bbq, we crazily went to play LAN again until 3+am. Throughour the process, the guy opposite me was smoking and I was totally breathing in 2nd hand smoke. Not only that, he was wearing shades when the place was so dark and he looked almost 40 years old. Wonder what he was doing. So I got home and slept a wink before going to michelle's birthday lunch today. Got kinda addicted to the karaoke machine and started to sing a couple of songs. And michelle's place and only be described as "big" and "posh"!

So I kind of did the above mentioned stuff over the past 3 days, with minimum sleep and severe lack of water. No wonder I got sick. Now I know what to do to get me an MC!

Off to sleep now as I begin my 2nd week of MAATT course tomorrow. Hope I recover before the CNY.

2008-01-25T13:31:00.000+08:00

I was thinking about lots of stuff to blog over the past few days but I've been really lazy to blog. So I shall lump them up totally in 1 post. The reason why I am so tired is due to the fact that I am attending a modified advanced ammo technical training (MAATT) course for these 2 weeks. To me, the course is a total waste of time and we go through it for the sake of going through it so that we can be promoted. The "instructors" cannot even be bothered to teach and all we do in class is try to sleep or play games without getting caught. To put it simply, we are doing everything except for studying since in the end, we'll pass the course almost certainly.

Something I wanted to blog about for really long: I hate people who snore when they sleep! To me, people who snore are seriously irritating, especially when they are your duty partners in camp. Snoring is causing discomfort to others without causing any harm to ourselves. The SAF encourages us to have 7 hours of sleep, but how is that possible when you seem to be sleeping next to a generator machine? I think a made a mistake above. Well, I do not actually hate people who snore, I hate the act of snoring because I know it's something natural. So I thought of a couple of solutions. Firstly, the SAF can check if a person snores during body checkup and if he does, he'll become PES S, and all PES S enlistees will be put in the same company for them to snore each other to sleep. This can ensure that the other people who do not snore get their rest in preparation for tough training. As for the PES S company, they can start to understand how snoring affects others and maybe try to cure the snoring by whatever way. Also, people who are PES S should be only doing overnight duty with PES S people. This is to make sure non PES S soldiers can be alert during their duties and not be affected by lack of sleep.

Also, I hate people who walk really slowly. This excludes those who are old or medically unfit to walk fast. In places like MRT stations, common pathways or shopping centres, what reason have you got to walk slowly? Not only do you block the way of people who are rushing for time, you are also forcing others to walk as slow as you which is bloody sickening. Thus, I have planned a wonderful solution again. From now on, people who walk slowly have to walk at the left half of whatever pathway there is. If they walk slowly on the right side, we can complain to the authorities because they are road hogging and they can get a warnhing or fine because of that. This actually helps to improve the economy as the amount of time saved by having people walking faster leads to increased man-hours and thus increase productivity of the nation. besides, the fund collected from fines can go into the community chest. That's killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Fabulous idea!

2008-01-08T17:34:00.000+08:00

I am really confused right now. Let's say I know of a secret. I found it out myself without anyone telling me.
If I keep quiet, everything will remain status quo. However, it will be really unfair to some people deeply involved, people who are close to me, people whom I love.
If I investigate and eventually let it come to light, I think it will really be a huge issue. many people will be hurt but the truth will be known.
Usually I will not hesitate to choose the latter, but this time it's especially difficult. Extrememly difficult because I think it could stir up my life a little bit. I just hope when the time comes, I will have the ability to deal with it. :(

2008-01-06T18:43:00.000+08:00

Friday was the BMTC Gala Movie Mania at Lido. 2 free movies, namely national treasure and I am treasure, free snacks, lucky draw with LCD TV and PS3 as prizes and a day away from camp. Sounds good but as we already know, the SAF is not so nice. For the first time ever, I had to wake up at 5.30am to go to orchard lido to watch a movie because we had to be there at 7.45am. If we were too late we probably have to deal with a strained neck after the whole day's event. But eventually, I think this was one of the best cohesion events I've attended. The entertainment wasn't that bad and I was lucky I did not watch the 2 movies beforehand.

Went to far east to shop for clothes and shoes after that and randomly took a couple of pictures. As it was Kalai's birthday, he was present in every picture.

Us not ready before the shot, and it goes to show how short I accidently got my hair cut.

I always look shocked in pictures I don't know why. Maybe it's because Kalai paid only 50% for his river lsland sweater and got his ears pierced (both sides)!

Finally a decent photo.

2008-01-04T15:57:00.000+08:00

As of now, 2008 seems to be a great year for me. It's only the 3rd day and I'm already getting started on some of my resolutions.

To manage my finances, I specially drew up a savings plan last night to make sure I save some of my NS allowance every month, This is resolution #3.and it's to finance my expenses come ORD when I'll stop getting allowance from the SAF. When that day comes, till I get a shop, I'll have to live off myself. Took really long to draw up a notebook to record my savings and expenditure with the use of my lousy phone's calculator. Now I know how hard financial planners' brains have to work. Right now my savings is pathetic but I hope after this plan goes into action it'll improve.

Yesterday I received a spendid surprise. My MAATT course is scheduled for 21st january and my name is in the nominal roll. This means come 21st january, I have to go back to school of ammo to attend a 2 week course for my promotion to 3SG. This is precisely my resolution #4. Somehow, I don't really like the place but for that extra allowance every month, I'll do it.

See, 2 resolutions underway and it's only the 3rd day of the new year. I can see this year is going to be great.

Anyway, these's going to be a BMTC gala cohesion outing at lido orchard tomorrow where we're all going to watch 2 movies back to back. I can't imagine 700+ guys going to lido as early as 745am to watch movies. But I'm not complaining because I'm in a good mood.

of reflections and resolutions part2

2008-01-01T18:41:00.000+08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Just got home from countdown at marina and watching the fireworks. My new year's eve was spent running around for ruth in the afternoon and with the guys at night. Went to play LAN too and it was my first time playing battlefield 2. Not bad a try. Rushed off to marina area at about 11.15pm and was super shocked by the amount of people there. I haven't seen so much people there in my life. Kudos to the police for maintaining order as well as the SMRT staff for making sure everyone gets on the MRT home safely.

Anyway, time for new year resolutions for 2008.

1. Learn the guitar properly and not to let the guitar collect dust by my bed.

2. Start an exercise regime to keep myself fit and to fall sick less often.

3. Manage my finances properly to make sure I have enough for university when my income will be cut off.

4. Successfully attend MATT course and be promoted to 3SG as soon as possible.

5. Improve my language that has been mutilated by NS by reading more books.

6. Improve my complexion.

7. Make new friends everywhere, and making sure my old friends remain close to me.

8. Learn a new skill although right now I don't know what it should be.

Ok, Shall stop at 8 since it's 2008. Well, actually they were taught on the spot so they're subject to changes. So tired now I'm going to bed!

of reflections and resolutions

2007-12-31T18:00:00.000+08:00

It's about 22 hours to 2008, and I thought it is always good to do some reflections and new year resolutions. I'm not sure if it'll be long, just see how much I can think of.

Reflections
Some major events that happened in 2007 include:

Enlistment! - began 2 years of national service that, despite countless brainwashing attempts by the SAF, is still a waste of time.

A Level results - achieved rather good results with 4As but B4 for GP. Just slightly better than I expected, but I was really glad and relieved nonetheless.

Passing out from BMT - Posted to school of ammo for 3 months of ammo tech course which i still think is useless.

Got accepted by NUS and NTU - both for business course but I chose NUS for various reasons, including scholarship and prestige. However, I was rather disappointed I wasn't offered the FIREfly scholsrhip of the STB scholarship for NTU. Well, my uni life is set for now, unless I decide to change it.

Contact lenses - No more spectacles when I leave more than 1km from my house. Expensive buy though, with my own money.

Posted to Tekong - where I will be spending my remaining 1.5 years (12 months + as of now) of national service. Met several new colleagues whom I will be working with during these time. I love meeting nice new people.

Physio - had a short spell on physiotherapy session for my knee at CGH.

Facial treatments - My love-hate sessions at New York Skin Solutions started late in 2007.

That's about all the more interesting stuff that happened in my life in 2007. Despite these, I guess I've definitely learnt some new things and made many new friends.

Yucks, suddenly I feel so tired I'm going to bed. Update later...

of a hectic christmas week

2007-12-29T19:00:00.000+08:00

Been a really hectic christmas week.

Monday was a family party/gathering at my place because my mum happily volunteered our place as the venue this year. Ended up getting the whole house so busy cleaning up and preparing. But I think it turned out alright and everyone had fun. The bad thing is, now my aunt wants christmas to be held at my place every year. And the highlight was the present exchange where each of us had to get a gift not exceeding $20 to exchange. I bought a shoebag to exchange and ended up getting a $20 cash voucher for capitaland malls. I think vouchers are the most practical but least sincere and least creative gifts ever.

Tuesday was CHRISTMAS DAY AND I had stupid duty back at tekong ammo magazine. Well, it's not that bad considering it was my first time going back to camp in 12 days. But of so many days when there weren't any movement of ammo, there had to be one the following morning where I had to wake up at 6 plus because my duty partner hock seng refused to wake up after several wake up calls. Unlucky me.

Wednesday was another busy day. Set off for the 2nd facial appointment at OG albert new york skin solutions. I seriously doubt the usefulness of the facial as time goes by as my face just turns super red after facial and I have to endure the pain during extraction. There isn't much obvious improvement in my complexion. Ok I'm talking like a vainpot here. And wilfred made an amazing buy. A GPS FOR HIS CAR! THAT'S LIKE THE FREAKING COOLEST THING HE OWNS NOW. Now we can travel anywhere without a street directory and we started to abuse it by having it tell us the directions to every single place. Ended up shopping at bugis then junction 8 to try to spend my $20 voucher. In the shops where I wanted to get a shirt, I couldn't use the voucher and shops which didn't have any nice shirts happilt accepted the voucher. So it's still unspent till now.

Thursday was karaoke session with Joan and Wilfred. Popped by my favourite Teo Heng at Katong which is dirt cheap. But I think my expectations are rising as I was highly unhappy with the sound quality of the mikes. However, I think joan has a sweet and nice voice while wilfred has a husky but not sexy voice. Quite a cool combination the three of us. Joan terrorised us with oldies but I am unable to obtain the embarassing video I took of it.

Afterwhich we decided to make a trip to rochester park making use of the GPS because accaording to jeremy, the place had really beautiful scenary. We didn't even know where it was but later arrived at rochester park safely which was off buona vista. There was not any freaking scenary to see but lots of seemingly haunted houses and construction sights. My most ridiculous trip ever. There were a few restaurants which probably served food at "rochester prices". Not wanting to mak a wasted trip, we took some pictures.

The indian guy that took this shot was amusing.

Friday was PTSSU cohesion lunch at SAFRA Toa Payoh Badminton Court?!?!?! We were tasked with fetching ma'am maureen with her 2 cakes to the venue as well as serving the VIP during lunch. We completed the first amazingly and smoked our way throught the second, cuz the VIPs rather serve themselves. And I was randomly sabo-ed to go up stage to do some stupid dance with some guys and in the end won a stupid cup as a consolation prize. Then I got another prize from Mr Eric for helping to serve, which turned out to be 4 sticks of candies... Overall I think It's rather ok though the food, entertainment and venue can be improved... LOL

Afterwhich we went to Far East to do some shopping and for me to catch cheryl and her pretty friend, jasmine. Ended up spending a really long time at Lido topman because they were having a 50% sale. I desperately wanted to get something but the jacket I chose made me turn out like a tellytubby. Totally spoilt my mood after that and in the end only wilfred got an amazingly pinkish/purplish shirt.

Met the NPCC gang for dinner at night and to meet the new cadet inspectors. Great catching up session as usual.

Lastly, the picture for the last post...

2007-12-23T19:09:00.000+08:00

It's 3+ am now and I'm feeling rather bad. Today was winter solstice or whatever you call it when we're supposed to eat tangyuan. But my mum decided not to cook because my sis went to batam, my brother went out and I fainted on my bed after going out for the whole day. Now the tang yuan are in the fridge... Never mind, knowing my mum, she wouldn't let them go to waste. We'll probably just eat them tomorrow...

This has been a busy week entertaining many different people.

Tuesday was my cousin's wedding dinner at sheraton towers. Posh hotel but the wedding was rather simple. Only highlight was probably my cousin forgetting to thank her parents during the speech which angered many of the uncles. To me, she probably just forgot but the older generation always think differently. Well, in the end she made up for it by adding on to her speech midway throught dinner.

Wednesday was slacking day at home. Had dinner with wilfred and minyan then went out with the guys for supper at katong followed by bowling at the new kallang leisure park. It used to be our hangout place. But sadly, too long a queue for bowling so we decided to try the one at lavender introduced by yeh hao, in the end it was closed down already. We ended up at marina square but decided to chiong the arcade instead of bowling. Reached home at 3am.

Thursday was haji and my date with joan. Met jasline for the first time at the bookfest at suntec. I realised all the warehouse sales at suntec are all lies. Totally nothing to buy. Went marina square to catch movie then went back home already. It's probably the earliest day I've reached home the whole week.

Friday was meeting swing at suntec for lunch. I think I probably have the prettiest insurance agent. and she's really sweet to specially meet me to pass me gifts from herself and the company. Then I went xmas shopping by myself before going home to faint on my bed again.

Saturday was a busy day. Met cheryl the princess for breakfast at parkway. realised she's changed so much for the better she's so attractive now. and for that, I've promised to post her picture on my blog.

so that's cheryl. yup yup, and she's so nice to follow me to somerset for me to meet up with the house comm mates before she left.

So the house comm met up to welcome joyce back to singapore. and now joyce has green hair and a french boyfriend. How cool is that? We went to party world ktv orchard to sing and the one thing that stunned me the most was daryl's choice of songs. Totally random. But it was fun la, house outings are always fun! Took some nice pictures with jenn haur's posh camera and I'll update them asap when I get them.

off to bed...

2007-12-21T17:02:00.000+08:00

I just went through some of my old photos and I found a couple I thought were really nice.

OCIP 2005- an experience I'd never forget...

Best times in DHSNPCC- yiting, yuhuan, me, kaming, yehlin and jinfeng...

My grandparents and the 13 cousins, forgot whose b'day it was.

Looks like a poster for "friends" sitcom

At joyce's uncle's place in malaysia, the morning after bbq

2007-12-19T07:30:00.000+08:00

I chanced upon these pictues at the STOMP website and I thought they were hilarious.

I think this was found in japan. Why did dry tissue become "paper handkerchief of the universe"???

I saw this a couple of times but this was probably pasted rather badly. Now we all have to "bark with OCBC."

The STOMP writer was really sarcastic. For people who want to say "friend rice", you can find it at airport terminal 2 canteen.

of a visit to the zoo!

2007-12-19T07:19:00.000+08:00

Otters love to sleep on each other.

I am touching the babirusa's butt! (babirusa means pig-deer)

wilfred and joan with the babirusa's skull!

I managed to snap this stylish picture of her.

Kangaroo loves me!

We couldn't manage to get the pygmy hippo to face us, so we took with the fake one instead.

wilfred soooo looks like our nanny!

This photo with the lioness looks photoshop-ed!

I have the lioness between my fingers

After tha rain, still with the lions.

What an apt background for "whale-fret"

I think we wanted to take with some animals in the background, but the only animals we got were 2 wet humans.

Wet, but fun, day... I thought the entrance fee to the zoo was less than $10. it turned out to be $16.50, really expensive for simply looking at animals. Well, it's main motive was to attract tourists and not singaporeans like us who can't find an alternative way to spend a day. But because I can't remember my past trip to the zoo, this outing was quite an enriching and fresh one.

2007-12-16T17:20:00.000+08:00

I thought having sore throat was bad enough, now I'm having flu and a bad cough altogether. And it has to be within 1 week of my road trip to malaysia. Please let me recover soon.

And my mood this whole week has been emo, emo, emo. I don't know why I wanted to type this post but I just felt like typing something out. It's really ironic when I become a listening ear for someone for a long long time, and when the problem is finally over, I'm not used to the feeling. It's like I wished that the problem is still there. Just like if there were no sick people in the world, doctors will be jobless. That's kind of how I feel now.

And I absolutely hate it when people ask me to keep a day free to go out, and even up till the day itself no details of meeting time or place has been settled. And it's even worse when you have friends who take 6 million years to reply an sms as if they were the busiest man on earth. Maybe they should get a pager instead? Or maybe snail mail might be faster?

of Heroes, Tuition and Facial.

2007-12-14T16:28:00.000+08:00

The reason I haven't blogged in 2 weeks is that my computer was down for a week and I haven't been feeling well this whole week. Even my sis has come down with fever. It must be the few days of continuous rain followed by super hot yesterday and today. Now my voice sound like a a mating frog, rather sexy according to jeremiah.

Finished Heroes season 1, not too bad but rather confusing as it went by. It's like almost every character has powers la. But I like the mind reading one by Matt Parkman, let's me know what my friends are thinking and whether they are lying or not. haha, Beware, my friends...

Started giving my cousin charmaine tuition for math. Quite a good experience since I might be planning to give tuition after I ORD. needs lots of preparation works and patience. which reminds me, ORD in 1 year 1 month!

Went for my first ever facial session at new york skin solutions on monday! It was totally unforgetable. At first I thought facial was paying a lot to lie down and relax and yet still leave with a nice face. I was wrong! Initially with the massage and mask it was really nice, but when it came to the extraction of pimples part, it was hell! I screamed softly and even teared because it was so freaking painful ok. I even saw bloodstains on the wall beside me which was super disgusting. In the end I left with a redder face which according to them, will heal in a few days. All the things I have to do to save my face before it gets out of hand...

of recent shows I've watched

2007-12-01T17:41:00.000+08:00

I am freakin addicted to Hebe's new show, 斗牛,要不要!!! Her character in the show is super cute, as a spoilt traid leader's daughter! However, the bad thing is that she actually kissed Mike He! But never mind, I know it's just professionalism to produce a good show. It's ok... Everyone, This is a must watch show! You can find it all over youtube and tudou!

Also, I've watched 2 other comedies recently, namely "I pronounce you chuck and larry" and "knocked up", both of which are largely disappointing. I still prefer the first few "scary movies" and "american pie" kind of comedies, totally brainless yet funny. The ultimate is still "40 year old virgin"! Please bring these movies back...

of 2 crazy nights

2007-11-28T08:32:00.000+08:00

The past 2 days have been crazily fun and havoc!

Started off with wilfred fetching jeremy and I after duty for breakfast at geylang! had my favourite youtiao and soya bean at yong he again and it still rocks. Didn't know where to go after that so we decided to drive around and we ended up at sentosa. Saved on $12 of entrance fee after jeremy lied to the staff that we're members of yatch club, when we didn't even know where the yatch club was!!!

Then we decided to try the luge. which was like some cheap kind of go-kart, and the sky ride, which is like a cheap kind of cable car. But they weren't cheap! Taking 1 luge ride and 1 skyride cost us $9 each, and I only decided to take it because I saved $3 on the entrance fee. This is us on the skyride...And I look super unglam because I didn't know we were going so many places!

Next, we let wilfred drive us to IMM for lunch before having him drive us round and round because he can't seem to find NUS. We decided to fetch joan home from NUS which was clearly a wrong decision... LOL. when everything was done and I was finally home, it was already almost 5pm. And i realise everything we did, other than breakfast, was decided on the spot and not beforehand!

So at night we went to johor in jeremy's car which is again a crazy outing! He was driving at almost 150 km/h at TPE after entering from tampines and when returning from malaysia, I experienced 200 km/h on a rather empty AYE. I didn't believe it when he told me, and now I believe it, totally!

The JB trip includes:

1. chaging money at the money changer where there was a guy high on drugs trying to get money from us. Apparently after he failed, he tried to wipe our car windows to demand money. Of course we just drove off.

2. buying dvds at cheap cheap unbelievable prices!

3. drinking liang teh where the extra "powder" we added is more expensive than the teh itself.

4. eating lok lok! it's this kind of roadside steamboat and bbq thingy which is embedded in a van. It was really nice and it's a pity singapore doesn't have it.

5. lots and lots of crazy driving by jeremy!

By the time I reached home, it was already almost 2am and I still decided to go to camp the next day to finish my work.

Yesterday was equally crazy. After returning from half day's work in camp, I sat on my bed for only about 1 minute then I got knocked out totally. Woke up at 6pm to realise I'm just in time for my night out. Wanted to go O bar for a few drinks only to realise it was closed. Like the website totally gave the wrong information. I'm so gonna condemn the place already. Ended up at the private party at MOX bar and bianco which is at some ulu place in tanjong pagar. Met a few familiar faces there such as lydia and mingtai and his cousin. And his cousin was my primary school good friend gifford and we couldn't recognise each other at all! Singapore is such a small place.

Now I really need to stop having these crazy nights. Firstly for my health and then for my wallet. ciaoz~

of a horseriding joke

2007-11-22T16:27:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I told a joke I thought was interesting. So I'll share it here.

Alan: How long is it from perak to JB?
Jeremy: Wah, 起码要 5 hours!!!
Alan : Wah Jeremy, 你会骑马 ah?

Get it?

of going to sentosa AGAIN

2007-11-22T15:16:00.000+08:00

I have been to sentosa more times in the past month than my whole life put together I think. I have been there 4 times for belaying work, 1 time to cafe del mar and I went sentosa today again. Today's company was ashvin, amanda and lihua. So we decided to go to play voleyball and lihua arrived with a ball that's less than half filled with air. Luckily, with my charm (LOL), the lady at a mizuno shop helped us to pump a non-mizuno ball free of charge!!!

So upon arriving at sentosa, there was this group of kids that keep staring at me. Then they started waving and wasn't sure if they were waving at me until I saw someone familiar. Then I realised they were from dunman NPCC, about 4 years my junior. I'm actually shocked that they still recognised me and I'm truly glad they actually still have their own outings. That's exactly the culture we'd wanted to create. So, I'm really happy to see them today and it made my day!

So after walking like for years, we saw a court that no one was using and with 2 bikini babes tanning at the side. Thinking that it's because it's too far and no one wanted to walk there, we thought our work has paid off. After playing only for 10 seconds, we were scolded because the court is only available for rent and not free. There's no free lunch in the world~

So we ended up playing anyhow with the super awfully hard ball until amanda's fren saw us. They wanted to join in our game and afterwards we had to play frisbee with them. So the deal was made and we played volleyball for a mere 10 minutes b4 switching to ultimate. Turned out all of them were from RJ frisbee team. but they were friendly people and we has a great game, at least to me. However, I'm deeply regretful that I accidently kicked sand into a guy's eyes and he was wearing contacts. Luckily there's no big problem. I kinda enjoy playing ultimate frisbee but only if it's with pro people. At least the friesbee doesn't fall that many times.

So frisbee at sentosa, anyone??? Quick ask me out...

of my irritating NS life

2007-11-15T18:56:00.000+08:00

Nothing much to update for the past week except for the fact that I'm rather irritated by my NS life. Of the only 8 days that I'm going to camp this month (3 days leave, 7 days off, 7 days duty off, 1 PH, weekends, etc), yesterday was the third and the amount of work I'm doing is almost equal to all the work I did for the previous month! It doesn't help when you have an incompetant superior and uncooperative departments. I think I've finally understood the "arrow" method usually employed in government sectors including the SAF. Everything that my IC was supposed to do ended up with me, just because he forwarded the e-mail to me with 2 words "please revert". And even on my off days he has to call me and ask this and that, not giving me a break.

Adding on to my misery, stupid tekong has to organise a cohesion event on friday night where attendance is compulsory except those on duty. So I, who has an off day on friday with the intention of going out at night, have to book in specially to attend the cohesion dinner. I thought cohesion is supposed to be a happy event, but they're making it so unhappy by having it on a FRIDAY NIGHT, which most people use to catch up with friends or take a break at home.

Ok, enough of ranting. On a side note, Hebe will be starring in a new drama about basketball soon. Sadly, it's going to be shown in taiwan only for the time being. I'm so going to get it as soon as I can find it online or when the DVD appears. Muahaha, maybe I'll change my blog wallpaper to her!

of an unfortunate roadblock

2007-11-09T08:13:00.000+08:00

Here I am eating instant noodles at home because I just busted my budget these few days. Dinner with S27 on saturday, dinner with primero and gang on sunday, the stupid new handphone bought on tuesday and the boardgames session yesterday just sort of killed my budget meant for the whole of november.

Yesterday was cool! Supposed to have a mini bbq at primero's house but it was postponed because of the girls. So we decided to just head out in primero's car without a destination in mind. Ended up in clarke quay area to check out the night scene on deepavali eve. The stupid central mall has a stupid spiral leading up to its carpark on the 4th floor onwards which, by the time we reached the 4th floor, got us all dizzy. But it's cheap nonetheless.

So we ended at at theis pitstop cafe playing boardgames until almost 1am when we decided to eat somemore at simpang bedok. The unfortunate but surprising thing happened. On the entry to ECP, the traffic police had a road block and we were stopped. Whatever happened is best forgotten but we ended up learning a rather expensive lesson. First time I encouter a roadblock in my life but I think it's because it's a public holiday eve. So we carried on eating a very late (or early?) supper and I reached home almost 3am. Shag Shag Day...

of a new phone

2007-11-07T13:43:00.000+08:00

I bought a new phone today! It's actually nothing to boast about because it's just a phone for me to tide over the remaining months of my national service. However, it's exciting because I bought it with my own money! So this happened because the original half-dead phone I was using is now completely dead. So my phone evolved from

It's a LG KG270 phone, which I think is probably the only few non-camera phones still on sale now. Apparently, it's produced in the 3rd quarter of 2007, which means it's a rather new phone. LG is quite smart to produce this phone to cater to the sad NSF that are either serving or going to serve soon. It's freaking $78 w/o line somemore. Just that there is a stupid print of "FM radio" on the front cover dunno for what?!?!?! But well, the radio might be the only cool thing this phone has since it does not have games, mp3, camera or bluetooth. Just hope that it can last the remaining months og my NS without giving me problems.

of dinner with itango

2007-11-01T14:51:00.000+08:00

Last thursday evening was spent with amanda, ashvin and lihua. Had dinner at some Thai restaurant followed by coffee at TCC which had some art gallery in it. Despite the pleas of the staff for us not to take pictures, we continued to take.

The mocha cake we ordered which the waiter pronounced as mo-cha. It ended up having a green tea taste which made me think whether mo-cha meant green tea in japanese or something.

Nothing much to update actually. Just a photo to end it off.

The fact that I chose this photo is because it's really taken further away which won't amplify the bad state my face is currently in now. Someone actually said my face looks much worse than a few months ago!!! Help!!! But anyway, the background is a statue of a bird near raffles place which I guessed it's name as "the bird". Guess what? I was right!

of back pain

2007-11-01T14:39:00.000+08:00

I usually sit on the bus or ferry slouching with my knees pressed against the back of the seat in front. This position is very comfortable, except that sometimes it gives me pins and needles when sitting for a prolonged period of time. Today, I felt the impact of doing this. My lower back just above my butt has this sharp pain whenever I exert force such as lifting stuff or even sneezing. I'm worried it might affect me when I'm shitting in future. LoL. But actually, this might give me a chance to go back to CGH to see the pretty physio that used to treat me for my knee a few months back! But seriously friends, don't sit like that anymore because it places pressure on the lower back. I remember we used to have lots of education in primary school about good posture when sitting, etc but as we grow older, we're expected to already know these but in fact, our posture gets worse. Hope my back recovers swiftly and doesn't further postpone my ippt or else I'll probably remain a private my whole NS life.

of belaying at sentosa

2007-10-29T02:53:00.000+08:00

Friday was taking off day to go to sentosa to help jeremiah with some belaying work in sentosa for some company's annual cohesion event. However, a couple of things happened in the morning which made me feel like it's gonna be a bad day.

1. I was supposed to wake up at 5 am but I stopped my phone and alarm clock when they rang at 5am and ended up waking at 5.45am.

2. I bought a popiah from the simei 7-11. The popiah was from the hot snacks section but the popiah was freaking cold. Wasted my 85 cents when I threw it away.

3. The 1.5liter mineral water I bought was spilt on the bus on the way to sentosa and I got my butt wet.

4. The dress code was supposed to be khaki pants but no one told me. I ended up being the only person wearing board shorts.

However, it didn't turn out to be as bad as I expected. When we arrived, we were roughly briefed on how to belay and it was rather easy to me because I attended something like this back in VJ. After that, I went up to try one of the high elements obstacles while jeremiah belayed me. He tried to pull the rope really tight so that I'd lose balance but luckily I completed it safely. Before we knew it, the participants started to arrive and that was when I realised they were all adults ranging from late 20s to late 40s and most were PhD holders. Also, a large portion of them were from China! But it actually went ok la, just that all they were rather rowdy and uncooperative at times. So the whole day activity started and adding up both morning and afternoon's participants I belayed approximately 25 people. The price to pay is sunburnt forearms, forehead and nose and an ugly tan line caused by my shades. other than that, my right bicep is now slightly larger than my left due to the belaying. But at the end of they day, have to agree that it was fun and enriching!

The following is what went on after the session...

Everyone was tired...except me, trying to squeeze out a smile.

woohoo! Abelised! *inside joke*

Nicest Shot!
(L-R) Top: Jeremy, Jinming, Emmanuel, Me, Songxin, Jeremiah. Bottom: Kevin, MingTai, Michelle.

of betrayal

2007-10-11T03:11:00.000+08:00

People always say you never know how to cherish something until you lose it. In my opinion, people do not cherish something until they throw it away. When we cherish something or even someone, we will do everything within our abilities to protect it such that we won't lose it, and the fact that we lost it is because we did not put in effort to take care of it. What I am trying to say is that a relationship, doesn't matter boy-girl, boy-boy, girl-girl,etc, is very fragile and without proper maintainence, it'll probably just go missing without us noticing it. I would not do or say anything that I think will inflict negative pressure on a friendship, especially one which I cherish a lot, but yesterday one of my good friends did exactly that to me.

I usually present myself to others as a jovial and fun-loving person that cracks jokes about others and doesn't mind others making fun of me. Once in a while, I could sense that this was dangerous. People think that jokers and clowns are always happy, that they do not have any worries or any secrets that they hope to keep in the dark. One of the elements in life I cherish the most is friendship. And the betrayal of your friend is the worse and most effective way if you want to spoil a friendship. Yesterday, I had the trust I gave a friend betrayed, and despite it being regarded a small matter, I was really disappointed and hurt by it. No doubt everything can be simmered down by a "just joking only", but how many time can we joke about things? There will come a time when a friends revelas something to you that he wants to be kept secret, and is it considered a joke to purposely let it out just to see if that frien can take this joke? I initially had a lot to say but right now my mind is in a blank. So heck it!

But because forgiving takes much lesser effort and feels much better than hating someone, I have decided to forgive! But I hate it when you forgive a person and he or she still keep on apologizing because that makes me feel bad and I don't think the person who was in the wrong has the right to make me feel bad. So all is well now... peace!

of "secret"

2007-10-08T12:34:00.000+08:00

I just caught Jay Chou's "Secret" a few days ago and I think it's one of the better movies I've watched this year. I finally understood why he told the viewers not to reveal the "secret" to others who haven't watched the show because it'll probably spoil the whole feeling of watching the show , as it did for ming tai. It's one of those shows, just like 200 pound beauty, that can actually touch me and it set me thinking on having a girlfriend. Haha! Now I'm in love with the soundtrack of the song, the female lead and the storyline of the movie. Kinda unexpected from a newbie director like him. But yup, it's a great movie and everyone should watch. It teaches you not to reveal other people's secrets as you don't know how much harm you will actually do to the person involved. It kind of also sets you thinking how much will you sacrifice for love?

On the contrary, I've been experiencing a lot of the hate feeling recently.

We hated our friends in primary school for being stupid and getting poor results.
We hated our friends in secondary school for being ugly and ah beng or ah lian.
We hated our friends in JC for being overly concerned with getting good results for A levels.
We hated our friends in NS for chao-kenging and wayang-ing.
And recently, I've been hating a person for having the lowest EQ ever. The last time I felt this way was also in NS whereone of my platoon mate had the lowest ever EQ, even lower than the person I'm talking about now. To me, that's why I hate a person and not because he has some medical conditions. We shouldn't outcast someone for the latter reason because that is just being an insentitive bully. But the act of being really unhygenic, especially when it concerns his medical condition, is something that has to do with EQ and I hate him for that too! I really don't see him changing in the near future!

Lastly, Pictures....or Picture, rather.

of wilfred's sins

2007-10-02T13:29:00.000+08:00

Wilfred is a sinner! Today he caused me to sin so much.

Firstly, he caused me to go shopping with him instead of letting me have a well deserved sleep at home, thus wasting my energy.

Secondly, he made me travel from simei to tampines then to pasir ris and back to tampines again thus wasting my money.

Thirdly, he influenced me to buy something so that my trip out will not be wasted.

Then, he wanted us to but a couples shirt which is really weird. (I didn't buy it in the end, he did!)

Lastly, as a result of him asking me to go out, I bought a pair of FILA shades which is probably the 2nd most expensive thing I bought with my own money this year.

So, you see, wilfred should really be punished for sinning so much.

of a great outing

2007-10-02T13:15:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in weeks. Initially I thought it would suck, but as I've always said, things happen when you least expected it. When booking out after saturday's duty, emmanuel and I missed the 8.45am ferry and we had to take the 10 am ferry. That's 1 hour of sitting down and doing nothing. So because of that I had to rush home to change and everything because I was running late for the house comm lunch.

And on the trip frommy house to city hall, rox told me that there's only 5 people that'll turn up because the rest backed out. THIS IS SOMETHING I HATE MOST BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE OBVIOUSLY DON'T SPARE A THOUGHT FOR ROXANNE, or any organiser. But anyway, when I arrived, the kushinbo booking has been cancelled so the few of us had to decide where to eat and we really took a long time. Eventually we had 7 people having lunch at NYDC which wasn't so bad. Then debbie joined us after daryl and ashvin left and we continued to some HK cafe for tea. The weird thing about these 2 meals was that the conversations were all revolving around andy's high pay, kaixiang's social night, who's getting attached and who's breaking up and how this girl or that girl has become prettier or uglier. The details shall be kept a secret!

Then I accompanied debbie to tampines while talking a lot on the bus before going to bedok to meet yiting and kaming for dinner. This time, our conversations revolved around my work, kaming's 6 weeks sailing trip and yiting's special one. haha, and wonderful kaming gave us presents as well as treated us the dinner. I actually planned to spend more than $50 on meals that day but ended up spending less than $30. That's an unexpected bonus too!

Anyway, HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY!

of promotion and a stupid sergeant

2007-09-28T13:17:00.000+08:00

I am super pissed. At first I was told I didn't have to pass my ippt to get promoted to corporal but I have to pass to get promoted to 3SG. So for these few months I've given a damn about all the ippt dates and instead just concentrated on when the date of promotion will be. Then on 260907, when almost all of my coursemates were promoted to corporal, ming tai and I are still privates. When we called to enquire, we now have to clear out ippt to be promoted to corporal, which means I have to find a suitable test date when I don't have duty to take the test. Afterwhich the results will be submitted to some place then only then will I be promoted to corporal with a pay rise of merely $70. I am pissed not because I cannot pass my ippt, but that I was lied to and kept in the dark for so long, when throughout these 3 months had a chance to take the test anyway. And then everyone is asking, "eh Alan, why still private?"

Not that a higher rank meant that you are a better person. Today at 0645 hrs, a bloody irritating sergeant did something to make me hate him forever. At first he woke us up to draw ammo so I told him to give us a minute while we get the vouchers ready. So he assumed that we'd take a long time and started to take our night snacks for the previous night to eat. Then when we were ready, his stupid mouth was still chewing the stupid night snack and stupidly had us waiting in the rover for him. Then when he finally stupidly got into the rover and we went to proceed to the ammo magazine, we reached a point where the recruits probably closed the safety gate by order of the RSM. As it was not locked and the stupid sergeant was sitting in front, i told him to go and open it. Still chewing his stupid night snack, he told me to open it and insisted it's locked. I reluctantly agreed and as I was climbing out the back of the rover, I slipped on the slippery step and fell to injure my left knee and my arm. But the stupid sergeant still did not exit the vehicle to help me open the gate. So he incurred my wrath and I swore to book him if he made any violations. I opened the gate and we went to the ammo mag and blah blah blah... He, still chwing the stupid night snack, couldn't even count the rounds properly. If his handphone rang, I swear I'm gonna book him and report to his OC and my OC. Luckily for him, it did not. How I hope he was eating the poison dettol cupcakes we prepared for the monkeys the previous day.

of a great joke

2007-09-28T07:15:00.000+08:00

CHELSEA LOST A MATCH TO MAN UTD

MAN UTD LOST A CUP TO CONVENTRY...

GO CHELSEA!!!

of becoming introverted and poisoning monkeys

2007-09-28T06:51:00.000+08:00

Can people actually change from being extroverted to being introverted? I think it is possible and I'm perhaps a rather good example. A few years back, I would have proudly said that I am an extrovert, a bit too extroverted actually. But recently, I realised I'm becoming more self-contained and afraid to meet new people. I prefer to be alone or with a few friends rather than a whole bunch of people. A good example will be how I managed to finish grey's anatomy series 1 and 2 and half of prison break series 2 in approximately 1+ week. And how I now prefer using friendster and facebook to communicate with friends rather than msn, which I have on all the time I'm online. What will happen to me when I go to NUS in 2 years time, when most of the people I meet are probably strangers? I think I can just die and be a pathetic antisocial freak who'll always be found in the school library!

Anyway, yesterday was an amazing day because I found a new future career for myself. A monkey exterminator! Realising that there's an increasing amount of monkeys around the ammo magazine office, Kevin and I came up with a great plan to kill the monkeys. Firsly, realising that they seem to eat anything we left outside, I decided to throw a piece of mosquito coil at them and true enough, a pack came running after it and started to fight for it. But after some sniffing, they realised that it wasn't edible (monkeys are smart after all) and discarded them. So the genius me went to look for expired cakes that's in the forsaken fridge and I found one that was almost a month expired. But I thought it wasn't good enough, so me and Kevin decided to add dettol into the cake and throw feed it to the monekys. This time, we managed to trick them and a few monkeys gobbled the dettol cakes down. Having a deep hatred for monkeys as they always overturn the trashbin and making us clean the floor, I came up with an even more vicious plan. i took a can of green spray paint and sprayed the cakes green and threw it to the monkeys. true enough, they still gobbled the "painted cakes" down as if they were heavenly. but we realised we actually attracted more monkeys and did the right thing by retreating into the office. haha. After that, I didn't really see much monkeys anymore and thus I conclude that I have killed a few monkeys by poisoning them with poison cakes. (The animal rights group are coming to get me.) This is a fine example of "making an example of a few dead poisoned monkeys to warn the other living monkeys".

of blogging

2007-09-21T13:15:00.000+08:00

I was just watching a discussion programme on channel u which talks about blogging. Actually I was attracted to it because xiaxue and steven lim, the 2 at loggerheads, are both guests to the show. However, the show gave me a few insights about blogging. One thing that set me thinking the most was why do some people blog? For xiaxue, as much as she denied, it was pretty obvious it was the fnancial reward behing all the advertistments that are in her blog that's spurring her. For steven lim, it's obvious he just wants attention. For me, I think I blog because I want to let my feelings out. I want to have a platform for me to type stuff that people who are interested can read and those who are not don't have to read. Although sometimes I use it as a tool to scold certain people, but It's because I wanna let it out of me rather than wanting the person to read it and feel bad. In short, I blog because I want to blog and I don't care if anyone read them or not. But to those who do, thanks!

2007-09-13T13:52:00.000+08:00

Time passes very fast recently, since the recruits are having their POP this week. Life is slowing down work is getting lesser. Things seem to be progressing very well. However, I dunno why I always feel there's something missing in my life. Why do I have so much time to sleep at home after my duty all the time? Why does everyone else seem so busy except for me? When we have no time, we complain, when we have too much time, we complain also. That's so typical of Singaporeans, and since I'm one, I have the right to do so too.

I don't know what I'm trying to say in this post.

of falling sick AGAIN

2007-09-10T12:37:00.000+08:00

Have had a rather busy and tiring week. Much of it has to do with the much talked about topic recently, the NSF Dave Teo leaving his camp with his rifle and live rounds. As a result, the security has been a bit tight around ammo work and the duty officers like to go up for stock checks. And I guessed I kinda came down with flu and cough AGAIN! I really don't know how long this has been carrying on but it's I'm getting really fed up over this on and off falling sick and recovering cycle. Even kevin and ming tai has fallen sick so I guess it has something to do with the ammo magazine environment. Also it might have something to do with my hectic schedule towards the end of the week.

After wednesday duty, I had to rush to meet swing to settle my insurance stuff. Then went home to catch some sleep before going to katong for karaoke with the ammo dump guys until 11pm. had some supper before going home to sleep at 1am. Went to work the next day and had a meeting until 7pm after falling out. Rushed home to bathe before meeting primero and gang for supper plus midnight movie at lau pa sat and plaza singapura. Slept at 2.30am and still reported for another duty on saturday morning. Had lots os returns and stressful issues to handle and ming tai was sick, so it was basically a one man duty. I guess this fully packed schedule contributed to me falling sick as well.

of my last physiotherapy session

2007-08-29T07:53:00.000+08:00

I've always believed that things happen when you least expected it, but today was the day I actually saw it coming true in a long while. I had a physiotherapy appointment which I was super reluctant about going. I was told to do my stretches at home regurlarly but I didn't. I was also told to buy insoles for my flat feet and I also didn't. When the appointment was nearing I tried to fall asleep so I'd have an excuse for missing the appointment. When all else failed, I had to drag myself to CGH. To my surprise, the cute physio I was under had gone on leave, and the stand-in physio was even cuter. But apparently, she was new and kinda unexposed to many tricks I could pull off. Hence, after lots of bugging and ensuring that my legs were alright and that I did not need a follow up, she reluctantly allowed me to be officially discharged. YAY! No more physio!

of When You're Gone

2007-08-23T15:23:00.000+08:00

A super touching song that's my absolute favourite now. Sets me thinking whenever I listen to it. The MTV especially. There's this part when an old man is missing his dead wife and that totally overcomes me. I can never imagine myself living alone if my future wife were to leave me early. Hence, I'd rather die first. I think missing someone is such an indescribable feeling I wouldn't want to experience often.

Avril lavigne- When You're Gone

I always needed time on my own
I never thought I'd need you there when i cry
And the days feel like years when i'm alone
And the bed where you lie is made up on your side

When you walk away I count the steps that you take
Do you see how much i need you right now

When you're gone the pieces of my heart are missing you
When you're gone the face I came to know is missing too
When you're gone
The words I need to hear to always get me through the day and make it ok
I miss you

I've never felt this way before
Everything that i do reminds me of you
And the clothes you left, they lie on the floor
And they smell just like you, I love the things that you do

When you walk away I count the steps that you take
Do you see how much i need you right now

We were made for each other out here forever
I know we were, yeah
All I ever wanted was for you to know
Everything i'd do, i'd give my heart and soul
I can hardly breathe I need to feel you here with me, yeah

of stamina and campus superstar

2007-08-23T13:56:00.000+08:00

I am so freaking tired now. Yesterday was the first time I ran in almost a month and I started with 4.5km straight. I finally understood the effect of fallin sick for such a long time on my stamina, such that I fell asleep the moment I reached home until about 10.30pm last night. Then this morning, I had to go all the way to Pasir Laba, which is like the oppsoite end of Singapore from Tekong to do stockcheck for them. And their storehouse is roughly 10 times larger than the one at Tekong. By noontime, I was already super half asleep. I really wonder why I am so less energetic nowadays. I wasn't like this in school, even during the A level period. I think I'd really need to invest time in sports from now on or I might just become an 80 year old in a few years time.

I remembered! I want to talk about campus superstar! It's a show I've been really following since the start, primarily because I kind of hope I was able to participate but I sort of just passed the age. Now's it's reached the finals this coming saturday and there's someone I'm rooting for. Please support Keely Wee.

She's cute, pretty and most importantly, she sings well. Also she's from the same secondary school and JC as me. She's also my grandsenior in draco house comm although we don't know each other. Please support her! Catch the finals at 7.30pm this saturday on channel U. Heard they'll be pulling a crew to VJ as well. Now I hoped I was one year younger.Anyway, I was reading the campus superstar website and I was so amused by the comments made by viewers towards the contestants. Firstly, some of them scold vulgarities at them like nobody's business. This only shows that the few years of life they lived have done nothing towards making them a civilised person. When they criticise someone as "sing like shit", they forget that they themselves don't even make it to the competition. So do those who comment "sing like feces from diarahea"? And lastly, I think that if you want to scold someone you shouldn't make yourself sound like a joke. Someone actually said, "you not popular lor, shawn has more population than you!" LOL, I think he wanted to say popularity.

The 7pm show and 9pm show on channel 8 have ended and now the shows at those timeslots are pretty boring. So c'mon friends, let's go out for dinner to pass the boring evening time away.

of Prison Break, Friendshp and AHM

2007-08-21T12:48:00.000+08:00

I've started to watch prison break for a while now and I'm already halfway through the first season. I know I'm like almost a year slower than the rest of the world but initially I wanted to watch because the dvd was just lying in a corner of the office. But I'm starting to get hooked on it. But there's something wrong with the plot I think. Michael wants to save his brother because his brother is innocent and he doesn't want his brother to die. But in the process of him saving his brother, so many other innocent lives have sacrificed. By the 12th episode, at least 5 other innocent lives have been lost. Using those to save his brother, isn't that a bit dumb?

So saturday was bryan's b'day celebration at east coast. I was rather disappointed with the attendance, especially of the NPCC people. Only 5 people, including me, turned up. And only 3 of his classmates turned up. I think this only further proves my point that people are gettting more and more self absorbed and do not treasure theri friendship with friends. I insisted on not changing duties with my colleague because I wanted to attend it, but those who didn't attend just gave a bland excuse of "cannot make it". But I don't think I should be harping on it as it really isn't my problem, as long as I treat my friends right.

6km run tomorrow and army half marathon this sunday. Better start to take it seriously, Alan!

New Skin + Amanda's B'day pictures

2007-08-19T03:07:00.000+08:00

So as you can see, I've changed the skin for the blog. These few weeks have been really busy but I'm glad it's all over. The ammo magazine should be back to normal routine work. But these few months have got to be my sickest months, falling sick again and again. Sore thorat followed by cough, then fever, then flu and then sore thoat all over again. So my next wish is for all of these sickness to go away. =)

So the content for the first post after renovation is amanda's b'day celebration at manhattan fish market. From the last post, we can tell that amanda's face has been smashed into her tiramisu b'day cake and that gave her a dashin new eyebrow design.

I think from now on I'll try to post more pictures. Since a picture paints a thousand words, if I want to type 2000 words, I'll just have to post 2 pictures!

2007-07-23T12:07:00.000+08:00

People ofen argue about whether we should do a job because of the money or because of passion. In the army, I have no choice. There's neither high pay nor do I have passion for anything that I'm doing now. But then again, when left to no choice, we might end up doing it because of friends. That's the reason why I turn up for work everyday now, besides wanting to avoid being charged for AWOL. I know this is very pessimistic of me, but I can't help it as NS has really started to become a chore. I really hope it's because this month of July is cursed and that it passes quickly. I cannot imagine what it'll be like for this to continue for the remaining 1.5 years of my NS.

In other news, Chelsea beat Beckham's LA Galaxy 1-0! What's with all the hype about LA galaxy when they've lost their first 2 friendly matches?

2007-07-18T15:40:00.000+08:00

I'm feeling more tired by the day and having certain muscle aches here and there. Hopefully I'm not suffering from dengue fever. Apparently some block near my flat has 7 dengue cases in a block which means my flat is also included in the dengue blacklist. Haven't fell really sick for a long time and somehow I actually missed the feeling. The last time I fell rather sick was when I was 16 and I had gastritis a few days before my english prelims. Had to be admitted into hospital and it was then I felt care and concern from my family and schoolmates. Somehow people only remember their friends when something, good or bad, happens.

Attended my first physiotherapy session yesterday and I have to say it was really lame. Other than the fact that the doctor was cute, nothing there was pleasing. They didn't have time for less serious cases like me, and sent me to do stuff like riding the bike for 15 minutes and simple stretching exercises while they are busy with other patients. The worst thing is, I must go back in another 3 weeks time and I am supposed to do the exercises at home. After that, I caught Harry Potter with amanda, ash, lihua and chi heem. It's seriously not as bad as many people say it is, probably because I haven't read the book. But I thought the scene of Harry kissing the china girl was a bit redundant and that the ending was rather abrupt. Nice movie anyway.

A few of us decided to go singing after work today. That was when I realised a secret party world ktv hidden in loyang point. Wanting to test if my voice has receovered since that horrendous last singing outing, I decided to join them. In the end, it was estimated that each of us had to fork out $17+ each for 4 hours, when i usually paid less that $10 for 3 hours at katong. However, I decided to go ahead partly because of peer pressure and partly because it was to celebrate a senior's ORD. Initially, I kept feeling that the $17+ wasn't worth it, but as it went on, I realised it was one of the best session I've been too. I learnt how much fun a group of 6 guys can have at a ktv. Apparently, there is a curse that whoever posted to tekong ammo dump will breakup with their loved ones within 3 months, and it happened to 3 of them present. I won't be affected because I do not have a girlfriend! Nevertheless, the 6 single guys sang our hearts out and it hit a climax at the last song, when we decided to drop the mikes and sing it together, 6 men in 1 voice. it was SHIN's Tian Gao Di Hou.

因为我有我想要的朋友
你是我最想要的朋友

During that song, I really felt a brotherly love that we shared. I understood that we are really blessed when friends are there for you to share sorrow and fun.

2007-07-11T00:23:00.000+08:00

Went to visit the specialist regarding my knee and ankle injuries at Changi Hospital yesterday. They're still kind of not recovered since my injury 1 month ago. According to the doctor at the polyclinic, it's just a sprain and will recover soon. When I insisted it's not and it bloody hurts sometimes, she couldn't do anything buy refer me to a specialist. So the specialist was a female and she kinda did everything with my two legs but weirdly it didn't hurt. She must have thought I was malingering and trying to fake an MC. Then suddenly, she sat on me and pulled my leg up but it still didn't hurt. In the end she decided to conclude that my muscles were kinda stiff in my left knee and right ankle because I couldn't stand on my right leg. Now I have to attend physiotherapy every fortnight and probably do the same exercises my mum used to undergo. I think they're not much of a probalem because I even ran 6+km today. Hopefully I'll end at 1 therapy session. Anywa, the doctor wasn't hot or else I might've let her sit on me longer. Just kidding!

On a side note, someone suddenly returned my identification cards after I lost them about 1 year 2 months ago. My brother said she left them at the doorstep and I was supposed to contact someone called Lisa should I receive the cards. Thought this might bring some surprise for me but it just ended up that her brother found them somewhere in Tampines. I lost them in bedok anyway. Maybe the thief met with some mischap in Tampines! I basically but most of the cards up because I've already gotten them replaced a year ago.

Duty tomorrow, Friday and Sunday!

2007-07-03T01:12:00.000+08:00

Today something good and something bad happened all together. I was supposed to collect my school graduation cert from Chien Wei at parkway and have lunch together. Unfortunately, after lunch, I left my graduation cert at the food court. This was the bad thing. The good thing was, after about 15 minutes, I received a call from someone who sounded like Miss Jancy. "Hello, Alan ah? Someone found your school graduation cert at the food court in parkway. She's passing it to the information counter. Can you please collect it now? Aiyo, why liddat? Be careful next time ok?" was what she said. And I did so after my karaoke session, which I will come to later. As promised, the cert was at the parkway information counter with everything intact. To whoever the person who found and returned it, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Not that my cert is of any use to anyone other then myself.

Talking about the karaoke session, it was probably my worst ever. I was actually croaking and having my voice broken in almost every song. Shouldn't have suggested singing when I'm having a flu. well, promised not to reeal too much about this sad sad karaoke session. Must go again when I'm better to redeem myself.

THE WEATHER IS FREAKING IRRITATING. THE AMOUNT OF SWEAT I PRODUCE ON MY WAY TO THE BUSSTOP IS AS MUCH AS WHEN I PLAY SOCCER ON A NORMAL DAY!

2007-06-20T12:01:00.000+08:00

I just completed my 2nd understudy at Pulau Tekong ammo magazine. If you are doing a duty, you'll work for 24 hours followed by a whole day off. But a understudy means a 24 hour duty followed by another day's work until 5pm. Luckily it's not as busy because the recruits have just passed out, but it still took a lot out of me because of the replenishment of stock this afternoon. 2 more understudies to go before duties start! 3+ more months to corporal!

Anyway, for those who watched "Just Follow Law", you might remember an old woman acting as Fann Wong's mum. She said she had a blog called laozhabor.blogspot.com. Guess what, it really does exist!

http://laozhabor.blogspot.com/

2007-06-14T14:00:00.000+08:00

So today was the end of my ammunition tech course and I got my posting today. I'm posted to Pulau Tekong to manage the ammo there. Not a bad place, considering it's in the east and a stay out unit. And in a while's time I'll probably be higher rank than 75% of the recruits that are enlisted. Anyway, today was probably the first time in school of ammunition that I felt it actually had a human touch. Firstly, the grumpy old man actually smiled and joked and he was actually the main influence in my posting to tekong (I was supposed to be posted to HQ anyway). Secondly, they actually organised a farewell mini party for us with food from four leaf and old chang kee. But as usual, we had to do the cleaning up. But this time, the sergeant major ensured the perm staff didn't cut our queue like they've done everyday for the past 3 months. Wasn't a bad day spent there today, in fact, it might actually be the best day there in these 3 months. Hoping to see what my new vocation have for me tomorrow and to all my coursemates, all the best in whatever you're posted to!

P.S: Buy i-weekly this week because S.H.E is on the cover and Hebe is damn damn cute!

2007-06-13T14:01:00.000+08:00

Events for the past week haven't been much, hence the lack of updates. Probably the most notable thing is that I've started to learn the guitar, on my own, without musical background, and without a guitar. Well, I haven't got a guitar because it's largely dependant on my posting which will determine where I'll be for the next 1 and a half years.

I've just completed the attachement at Pasir Laba Ammo Depot which means I'm coming to the end of my course, which also means I'm getting my posting soon (which is tomorrow!). Quite excited as to where I'm posted to. Arguably the most important factors are the distance from my house (if it's a stay-out unit) or the people and stuff I will meet and learn there (if it's a stay-in unit). Either way, I hope the rest of my NS days won't go to waste, like what has been going on more or less for the last few months.

2007-06-03T22:36:00.000+08:00

I think my blog has started to become a weekly update kinda thing.

Good news! I have been awarded the NUS Business Study Award, which has almost laid the last tile in my path to accepting NUS. I'll be studying a concurrent BBA (Hons) and MSc (Mgt) degree in NUS which will probably last for 5 to 5.5 years and the award will cover the tuition fees for the first 4 years. No doubt it's a big difference from the Global Merit Scholarship I'd hoped to get, but I guess this is much better than nothing, considering it saves my family $24,440 over the 4 years. Maybe I'll still try for some other scholarship next year.

Anyway, Saturday was special day for DHSNPCC. It was our 45th anniversary and I had to make it a point to attend the occasion no matter what. Being involved in DHSNPCC from 2001 to 2006, I have seen it come a long way in many different aspects. Of course conflicts and difference in opinions have sprang up during these 45 years, but an undeniable fact is that we have improved. I couldn't agree more when I viewed the 45th anniversary video and I was very touched by the fancy drill performance they put up which comprised for cadets from almost the whole unit. So for students in sec 1(especially so for DHS), who can't decide on what CCA to join, join NPCC.

Anyway, I've been on a shopping spree recently. Though not usually considered an avid fan of reckless splurging, i witnessed myself committing that very sin over the past 2 weeks. A great excuse will be the Great Singapore Sale, and I tell myself, "If I don't buy now, it'll just be more expensive after the sale!" And hence, I predict more of the spree to continue in the coming weeks! =P

2007-05-22T13:58:00.000+08:00

Today was a good day and a bad day. It was a bad day because I had my NUS interview and it didn't go well. It was definitely more enjoyable than the previous interviews I had attended because it was more of a two-way thing where I shared my opinions with the 2 interviewers instead of them asking me question after question. However, I was totally speechless when they asked me," What do you know about NUS business school?" I knew I should have read up on it but I didn't. So, I decided to tell them everything I didn't know about NUS business school and turned it into an information sharing session. They were quite nice to give me comments in the end which made it an important learning lesson for me. I wouldn't harbour too much hope on it too but it still contributed to the bad part of my day.

Talking about this, I suddenly remembered something I wanted to say. For an interesting read, try the novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I really enjoyed it very much.

Anyway, today was a good day because I've gotten my pair of contacts. But they had to come this week when I am already not feeling metrosexual. I tried them on nevertheless and it was kinda difficult at first. But I'll get used to it. Don't mistake me for Jay Chou when I go out on the streets in future without specs. Haha, just kidding.

2007-05-22T13:42:00.000+08:00

Alright this is kind of late but I TURNED 19 ON 18/05/2007! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Besides that, there wasn't really much of a thrill the past week. Life goes on for me, a soldier from 6am to 7pm on weekdays, and a civillian at other times. Had dinner with amanda on tuesday, with joyce on wednesday (joyce's leaving...ahhhhh sad sad), had a cool hair cut on thursay and on friday I grew one year older.

Sunday was a really cool day because I scored 2 goals for school of ammunition football team as we glazed the street soccer court in marine terrace. Well, we didn't actually thrash them but we still managed to beat a team of middle aged adults twice. Youth is such an asset. But this was a small matter compared to what happened afterwards.I rushed down to Singapore river with ashvin to support the itango team in the rafting competition but we were a bit to late. We actually were in time to catch them coming in last but I guess what's important is the experience and I guess they really enjoyed the journey. Afterwhich we had dinner on a random corridor because we had no place to sit. that was when I was tricked to leave the scene to "buy lunch with amanda" while they set up the place. When I returned, they started singing Happy Birthday and even bought a cake and a spongebob squarepants boxers and a CD for me. I admitted I was touched but I don't cry at instances like this. Thank you lihua, amanda, jingyuan, chi heem, jiahui, ashvin, chin hao and newly made friend aravind. After lunch, jiahui, lihua and chi heem tried the G-force reverse bungy at clarke quay and it was hilarious because lihua was wailing like a little girl and chi heem and jiahui didn't seem to be affected by the ride at all. It was an expensive experience though.

2007-05-10T13:27:00.000+08:00

There's something really wrong with my blogger I'm really hoping this post pulls through. Anyway, I think recently I'm going through some kind of metamorphosis. Firstly, interviews have started to make me realise that my English language sucks. That is why I'm starting (or restarting) to pick up reading. Just finished a book titled "The Husband" by Dean Koontz and I'm currently starting on the popular "Freakonomics". Hopefully these reading will help me improve my English. By the way, I shall be trying to type in good English in this blog too. Secondly, I wonder why suddenly metrosexuality is getting to me. I've made a bold move and went to make my first pair of contact lens a few days back. Well, a change of image is always good. Thirdly, as a reinforcement of the above point, I decided to get some kind of exfoliating foam to help salvage my skin which is in a really bad state recently.

Anyway, today my dad came back exclaiming, " Good news! You got your third interview!" I immediately thought it was my FIREfly 3rd round interview which I so desperately want. it turned out he made a mistake and it was the (well, also highly anticipated) SAFRA card. rom now on the most expensive ticket I'm going to pay for shall be $8! Add that to free usage of the swimming pool, freebies and perks now and then and really cool events, I think the SAFRA card is a rather cool card to own. Talking about interviews, I have this feeling I'll end up with no scholarships and only NTU business as my only offer. Somehow, I hate NUS (still). They made a mix-up of my scholarship interview and also the business course I applied for and somehow they just refuse to answer any question I sent them. As for SMU, maybe I can give it some thought and maybe apply next year.

On a side note, I've been crazily infatuated with Avril Lavigne and Hebe recently. Hebe's looks and Avril's songs keep appearing in my mind. I think my ideal girlfriend will be someone that has a bit of both girls! Well, change the "I think" to "I hope".

2007-05-01T13:31:00.000+08:00

I am getting really fed up with something. Why is it getting so difficult to organise a small damn outing? First of all, the most common reply will be, "see first, who's going?" Is everyone becoming so anti-social that they must know exactly who are going lest they end up in the same outing as someone they dislike? In the first place, if everyone replies the same damn thing, how will I know who is going at all? Then again, these's this stupid problem of last minute withdrawals or otherwise known as "pangseh". Just because you are not the one organising, you find it really easy to just give the outing a miss without wondering the problems created for the organiser. Can you imagine a group dinner ending up in a threesome date? The ultimate thing I hate is people telling you how much they want an outing, pleading with you to organise one just because they're lousy. Well, take it as a compliment that maybe you have good organising skills. But in the end when the planning is done, this individual turns around and say how busy he or she is and how sad he or she is to be missing it. I mean, the world doesn't revolve around you alone. If you want something done, do something. if you want others to help, appreaciate it. Finally vented out all my bloody anger, and I guess i probably won't bother organising anymore stuff in future.

By the way, I think the group of 4J guys I hang out with has the greatest efficiency. On saturday, after a call from primero at around 9.30pm and the 6 of us were already at jalan kayu eating roti pratha and murtabak at 11+pm. i could never have done this with anyone else.

2007-04-22T17:25:00.000+08:00

Good news today! I got accepted by NTU business! Somehow it doesn't really excite me as much as I expected myself to be. Perhaps I've long treated it as an avenue for me to fall back should all everything else fails. Still hoping I can get the FIREfly scholarship to take me overseas, but my fingers are slowly getting uncrossed and I'm getting more and more unconfident. Hopefully it'll come around my birthday as a perfect birthday gift!

Anyway, I really feel NS is becoming more and more of a drag. I hate the feeling of knowing you'llhave to wake up at 5.15 am the next morning, travel all the way to bukit timah, stay there till 5.30pm, come home and sleep and that's how your life proceeds every single day. I feel that I'm really wasting this 2 years away. So friends, save me! Whoever is free please help to drag me out of this life. A simple dinner on weekdays or any activity during weekends would be cool enough. By the way, I've already started to pick up reading again so that my brain doesn't deteriorate to that equivalent of a baby by the time ny national service ends.

Man Utd just drew 1-1 with middlesbrough! I don't know if I should feel happy or sad. Happy because it gives Chelsea a chance to close the gap to 1 point. Sad because I lost yet another of my bets. I really should stop placing bets with Singapore pools. I've lost almost everytime I do it. This really isn't my gambling year. Shall save the money to buy more books or maybe pursue my guitar ambition which has yet to be embarked on.

2007-04-20T12:11:00.000+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXFHYx7uXuA

Go and Watch! House Comm video for Musicfest 2007! Should've won!

2007-04-18T12:07:00.000+08:00

Finally have time to update because I took the day off for the FIREfly scholarship interview. The interview today went kinda bad and I guess if I ever make it through I must be a really lucky guy. Firstly, everyone was trying to impress the assessors so much they kept talking and giving suggestions, regardless of whether they were crap or constructive. I just stood there without contributing much. When we reached the second stage where we had to brainstorm for a new industry Singapore could venture in, everyone had something written on their paper except mine. When presenting, everyone tried to speak up regardless whether what they were saying was crap. When we finally reached the prepared presentation, I thought my presentation was ok but I was stunned by the assessors questions and just stoned there, squeezing a rubbish answer out in the end, of which they commented, "well, that's looking from another perspective as well." She could've just said," that was crap". In all, the interview is really a nightmare for normal people who think before they speak and I guess if you're the kind who really dare to speak up about anything then you'll find it interesting. But looking back at the interview assessment, it was really scary because everyone was so fake but I guess it's just the way it is. Well, at least the main in-charge of the whole day looks and sound so much like Jamie Yeo it makes the day quite sweet.

I rushed down to the cathay after that to try and catch some action for the free cone day at ben and jerry's. The queue was scary, stretching from the shop at 2nd level all the way to half of the third level. Security guards even had to be employed to maintain order, especially at the escalator. well, I managed to cut the queue of over 100+ people because cheryl was scooping ice cream! That was whn I realised the scoopies(or what they call it) at cathay ben and jerry's all look quite pretty, of course with cheryl leading the pack! Guys should really check the store out.Haha, just kidding.

Back to mugging, update when I'm free.