One last post for '07

Finally! another 365 days has gone by.

this year was quite busy and many things happen. Especially in army, lots of training jam packed together and doing lots of crazy stuff, unimaginable too.. Like climbing Mt. Biang. My bet is no one will ever forget that 3 weeks in Brunei suffering the harsh terrain, enduring the elements. it rained everyday ok! AOH or Army Open House was once in a life time experience, i will look back at this AOH knowing hey! i was part of it if i ever visit the next Open house. Of course not forgetting some skills training like coastal hook on pulau seletar and 32 km route march truelly round pulau tekong. 24km was jus a shorter march around the island.

Personally, i met this wonderful girl whom later on became one important person in my life that i don't wish to ever let go. Her name? Suky of course! My darling. Candle of the Soul campfire was hmm... an unforgettable one, all the days and hours spent to put it together. Hopefully in time to come, more such projects? Officially a part of SMU now. can't wait for school to start. All good things aside. Lost a GREAT uncle to cancer, still gripping with the fact he is no longer around =( i really miss him alot. God, take care of him okay? i need to find a closure.

Moving ahead, i will be in taiwan for training for a month, the last fight before ORD just before sch re-open for me. I know, all the kids are starting sch in 2 Jan. And slowly, i will take up piano teaching. and re-take driving lessons and perhaps work towards a music diploma. well.. i leave it up to next year to slowly plan for everything.

Final note, I heard about the last guard leaving SQS band. That's the end for alumni band and main band. So breaking all contacts with the school. Hmm... I need to play in a band somehow otherwise... good bye to french horn. What really happen, i am not too sure, but going to find out the truth.

Well! I wish everyone a blessed and joyous new year ahead. I leave you with a picture taken during the Sentosa outing on Christmas eve.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Blessed X'Mas

First of all, Wishing Everyone a Blessed Christmas and a Joyous New Year ahead.

Since everyone has flew down under to enjoy themselves with the Kangaroos....

Suky and myself decided to spent X'mas or rather X'mas Eve at Sentosa. A day of digging, scrapping and moulding sand. Head down to Vivo to catch the usual Sentosa Express, long queue for the tickets. But luckily 2 ladies bought extra tickets for their friends who couldn't make it sold us the tickets. haha.

Got down to the beach, changed and picked up a few sandcastle building tools then picked a nice spot to start building. Decided on building a plane, so slowly we moulded the fusalage then the wings, the horizontal stablisers then the tiny vertical stablisers. Suky added a few details such as the engines. I dug a trench around the plane and wrote our names on the sand.

Weather was nice and sunny. With an occasional dark clouds that never saw any rain coming. Cool! tried to get a little tan to no avil. Or maybe there is but can't tell the difference. So..! after sandcastle we went down to the water. but from where we were, seaweeds line up along the shore so, well... abandon plane! move to another spot where the seaweeds don't block the path. go inside, play water. then later play a little vball.

by then... stomachs are growling. hop onto the sentosa express back to vivo. On the way back, saw this gigantic x'mas tree on top of vivo. reached back then go see the tree up close then dinner was at SuperDog. American HotDog. Another nice fastfood. Highly recommeded their Chill Cheese Fries. Not spicy at all even when the name suggest Chill. Dear shopped for her mum's gift then home sweet home!

Thanks Darling for this wonderful day. and the gift was great. I will use it when the opportunities comes. Nothing beats celebrating christmas with you this year. =)

Auf Wiedersehen!

random photos 2

Same picture in Black & White

Auf Wiedersehen!

Enchanting Gold Class

ever want to know what's like to fly first class? or perhaps a prelude to the services airlines offer without leaving the ground. okay, was out with Suky to catch Enchanted at GV Gold Class Vivocity after having lunch with my family to celebrate grandma's birthday.

Was actually late in meeting Suky before the lunch. Sorry my dear. well.. thanks to the whole family fighting for 1 bathroom. Anyway, lunch was pretty good, lots of food as usual. Got to try self-made popiah, pretty fun. Always see people wrap for me, now i get to try. So after lunch, zoomed down to Vivocity.

Okay. Gold Class. What was it like? Upon entering the door, you will be treated as a previllage customer of GV. the staff awaits your arrival. Greets you upon first contact and guide you into the cinema. The cinema itself is jus like any regular cinema minus the rows and rows of seats. Seats comes in pairs with a table in between. Pressing the call button, a service staff will attend to you orders for snacks and drinks. Curious enough to try, we ordered 2 glass of Ice lemon tea @ $4.00 each. Wow..! Food are pretty expensive and most of the patrons are the expats well to do enough to splurge on such luxury for their family. $30/seat mutiply by 4 (2 adults n 2 kids). do your maths.

Seats came in pairs but were spaced far away, so we snug into 1 chair, lift the leg rest up and get ourselves cosy to enjoy the movie. Each seat does come with a blanket to keep you warm. Now now, where do you get such service for a regular ticket to the movies. Not forgetting to mention that there is a lounge within Gold Class for you to sit in, snack a little and wait for your movie to start if you arrived early.

Gold Class. A Great Way to watch movie? You get my thumbs up.

After the movie, we had dinner and shopped around vivo. dear gets a top from Zara (hope you like it), while i got a classical music magazine from the bookshop PageOne which includes a free CD in almost every issue i think? Well, that's all we had for 1 day of fun and pampering... I will post on other days event shortly.

Auf Wiedersehen!

random photos

once again, i will upload some fav images captured when i was free to wander around with my cam. location should be familiar to all musicians. one day n one night. the second image's effect was created using the long shutter mode without using flash as it will cause overexposure of the image. Use a tripod or place camera at a stable place to avoid handshake.

Auf Wiedersehen!

End of another hurdle

quite a busy week. with lots of outfield and little sleep.

Sunday - took up last minute guard duty. so morning with dear was cut short but still manage to cook a little then i rush home to pack and head back to camp. saw no one at home when i got back for a brief pit stop. shift duty was jammed pack because next day got "mission"

so the next day was very irritated with people in camp. i am trying to get some much needed rest when ppl shout to collect some outfield equipments, then returning to bunk, lie on bed not more than 5 mins ppl call again.. this time i gave up sleeping. pack, change, lunch, camo on and out i go! soaked in rain when i reach the start point. its pouring like crazy so i got wet real fast. then came the sun then the mud, lots of them in fact. okay, this is actually my one and only exercise with the TNI.

next 3 days is preparing the targets for live firing. at one point got really angry when i got accused by ppl for something that i have not done. haiz, i can't stand the tone of it especially when it comes from someone that sits around and does nothing all day long. oh well... climbing up knolls and from a high vantage point i overlook the western area of singapore. pretty cool to spot a few familiar places e.g. NTU. windy up there too! in exchange for being sunburn. i didn't get to sleep much these few days, moving out was really early, breakfast was late and stuffs..

no doubt 1 of the few busy weeks in army, it jus makes me want to be home more to be with everyone like dear, parents and all uncles and aunts. losing 1 is painful, missing all makes it all worse.

next week on leave. have not much plans yet, a few movies to watch. long time never been to the movies with dear already. time to catch up with what's on the silver screen.

Auf Wiedersehen!

can't wait to be in SMU

i am going to uni! weeee...! NSmen Jamboree was interesting. a few dance performances, i don't know if they did it on purpose or what, the dances was seductive. maybe to seduce all guy in the auditorium? haha. a little self introduction from the President, Dy President and Deans from the various schools.

then later on had a breakout session with Dean of SIS in a classroom setting. Saw a few guys previously from NP ICT. i think the session was about an hour long la, with the seniors Yr2-4 sharing their life in SIS. what interest me is the overseas exchange programs and business study missions, get to visit google, mircosoft, apple and a few other big IT coporations. hmm.. i really want to go whenever there is a chance to.

really getting into the culture of SMU where for every questions there are no fix answers and challenge any ideas you want. it a flexible approach to learning unlike the other schools where A is A. anyway, i can't wait for school to start now! another 9 more months i think.

Auf Wiedersehen!

crazy work weeks

sorry for the lack of updates for the past 2 weeks. let's roll back until the last entry.

finished ATEC stage 1 already. scored pretty well, the highest score the umpire would give, but sad to know it doesn't please the higher ranks. okay, in the first place, my section was suppose to take part in 1 evaluation but quote from my PC "i don't know if you are lucky or unlucky" we went oufield for 2 days in a row while other did 1 outfield. doing 1 extra evaluation that we weren't really prepared for. we just did our best because its a last minute thing from higher command.

Bro's birthday was the weekend after ATEC. good to see everyone because long time never see them already. everything seems returning back to normal but there is still that sense of something missing. i know what is it, but i shalln't mention. kind of hate a no-brainer from my father's sister-in-law for mention something right in front of me with a SMILE. you see, i used sis-in-law instead of acknowledging her as my aunt. really a no-brainer. overall, it great to everyone, truely missed them so much.

over the same weekend, platoon outing to Seoul garden to celebrate PC's ORD! great fun to eat, talk and crap a lot. they headed to Zouk after that, i didn't join them even though i heard many fun stories. well.. i am not the clubbing type of person. so yeah, count me out. crashed out at home after that crazy ATEC. remembered how black face i was before and after i went outfield, i am not angry at stuffs, i am just tired. haha..!

last week was a short work week, but deepavali ended up doing guard duty. this is what happen when no one volunteered and so i was kindly asked to do it. but never mind, to save one's self from spinning in circles asking around to volunteer, i took up the job. 24 hours shift, but have a rubiks cube to keep me entertain when i was bored. haha!

10km run before the guard duty at ECP. finished the run but didn't meet the timing required. i don't care, i ran and i finished the race. try again next time bah......

okay, booking in camp tonight. that's all for now.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Ratatouille in Reality

It was just another normal Sunday where all men from my company booked into camp, except timing was no longer the usual 2200. We have been given an extra hour to hang around outside in the civilian world. Even though we were tired because it is already way pass bed time, we were still upbeat and joke around and poke fun at one another. Well, perhaps it just a way to conceal the fact that we are stuck in camp for the next 5 days.

Lights off! time to hit the deck and doze off to a very cold night as the sky began to pitter patter and rain through the night. All were like spring rolls, wrap in our "thick" blankets. Night time do really fly pass really fast and soon phones and alarm clock began to rang. Wakie Wakie! Droopy eyes, slowly one by one drag themselves off the bed, grab toothbrushes and toothpaste and walk towards the toilet. The walk seems so long but soon, we reached!

Back in Bunk, we prepared to fall in. In our t-shirt, shorts and shoes. But wait, something gone missing. A good buddy began to shine his torch in the mist of darkness so as not to wake the others up who are trying to catch that extra minutes of sleep in search of that something. One by one, we started to do the same and all looking for a common item. Socks! Our socks mysteriously gone missing. Time and tide waits for no man, quickly we grab another pair of socks, cutting short our early morning discussion.

The whole day left us puzzled... Who stole our socks? Was it a prank? I concluded that it could have been a rat though, and its looking for something comfortable and able to keep him warm. It was a cold night after all. The day went passed, night falls, lights off, hit the deck!

The next morning, as I dragged myself out of bed, i saw a little creature running acrossing the room, it was a mouse i concluded. The same situation happen again! Oh no! if its a prank, it was a nasty one. This time round, we were rushing for outfield and we were preparing our gear to move out. Until a fellow platoon mate came in to investigate, well, he was curious. Silently, he squeeze in to a tight corner of our bunk, were we stored extra beds and mattress. And hit Jackpot! we found the pile of socks. Our missing socks! we swept the pile out to clearly identify it, and within that pile we found 3 baby mices. Poor mices, wonder where is their mummy? Sorry that we have to destroy the nest, it was a nest nicely stack with socks and roof made of a running vest.

To be continued....

Auf Wiedersehen!

getting back to school

hmm... quite a routine week other than one day outfield. well, actually was half a day la, the other half was suppose to go on recce mission, ended up spending the whole afternoon sleeping in 5-ton. rain was the cause of it. so basically in the 5-ton is i stare at you and you stare at me. haha!

did lots of singing. got to learn a new song. army song la, written in bahasa indonesia. tongue tied, having problems pronouncing those words. so when singing as a group i will jus go blah blah blah blah and hope that the singing session would end super fast. got hari raya celebration in camp. overall was fun except that my coy is a bit wet blanket la. haiz... never mind.

i am so addicted to Sudoku now. after playing on my friend's DS. very fun and challenging even though it drains lots of brain energy. getting a hang of it, now is to work on my timing. my first puzzle took about 30 mins plus though... haha! anyway it was found within a game to train the brain, created by a japanese professor.

Oh.. got email from SMU, its about the NSmen Jamboree. wee.. looking forward to that event la, its suppose to be a matriculation exercise plus a little performance by the undergrads and interaction with the Dean and Profs. my first step getting back to school and kiss good bye to army. 11 more months to go...! argh!

Auf Wiedersehen!

oh no! i am older..

last sat celebrated my birthday. this year, quite tone down. Morning received a few greetings, 1 from my late uncle, oh well.. it was actually my aunt using his hp to send. it was the first message i read when i jus woke up, lying on the bed half awake. one moment i thought i was up there! haha.. well.. can't thank you enough uncle pat! =)

Dinner with Suky and my family, food portion was HUGE!! thank god we didn't order a set meal each of us because we ended up having trouble finishing what we shared. haha! oh yah, there is this waiter who serves dishes with his super large arm that can bear the weight of 4 large plates. hmmm.... i rather not build those arm size. otherwise look out of proportion. So after that, finally after soooo.... long we got Donut Factory! Wee.... Still got to queue but quite fast to get our nuts!

Thank you Dear for the present. it was beautiful.

Sunday was dragged out by my 2 ever "wonderful" buddies for breakfast. and then a pool session following by lunch. nice catching up with them, hearing their ever scandalous life. hehe! hey bros, reading this, u know i am just kidding rite! =) borrowed a few CD in fact is many cds from joel, Dvorak, Mahler and Beethoven DVDs. Cool! slowly listening to it. oh.. Dvorak no.8 is nice!

back in camp, busy with revision for our evaluation stage 1, stage 2 will be in Taiwan next year. Ooo.. can't wait to go there, but haiz... its 1 freaking long month i heard. nvm.

Spent the whole of yesterday stripping the horn and scrubbing it. i mean whole day. took some pictures to document the whole process.. looks cleaner now, jus need to season the horn now. its MINE for NOW!

from left is the valve that just took out from the horn, middle is half way scrubbing it and to the right is a cleaned valve. yah, u still can see some alge on it. best way i think is still get it to chemical clean it professionally. a short horn stripping lesson after alumni band on friday, that's why i ended up getting home late. so to all dearest horn player what you been playing are horn infested with alge unless! u regularly clean the horn.

Auf Wiedersehen!

amazing grace

Auf Wiedersehen!

A good fight, a finished race

this week i learnt a lot about a great man's life. have been running in and out of camp for compassionate reasons. well, my uncle called home to be with the Lord. surely going to miss him a lot since he was one of an inspiring figure in my life. He is no longer around, but the memories will be kept locked within me. Someone once told me, don't just remember him, remember the memories and the moments together.

"You have fought the good fight,
you have finished the race,
you have kept the faith.
Now there is in store for you the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord the righteous Judge,
will award to you on that day-
and not only to you, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:7-8

Till we meet again in the house of the Lord my greatest Uncle! =)

Auf Wiedersehen!

Post AOH

last wed a post AOH celebration was held. Quite a simple affair la, some speeches by highest rank personnel. thanks here and there, then there was food. lots of food. espically my platoon who took a mountain high of cheese hotdogs and i was the "choosen" one to carry it.

every pair of eyes stared at me as i walk around carry that plate, ready to serve the ever hungry platoon. haha! so after that, nights out! wee.. went to jurong point. kinda felt like an ass for not going home since it was so near. went to toys-r-us and drool over the boxes of board games. yah, board games.

over there also got those foam swords, squeeky hammers and plastic helmets. fooling around with those toys la, reliving our childhood days. see... how much stress we can get in camp, and this is how we release those stress... haha! ok, got to admit we are crazy. but it helps to surpress the pain and fear inside me.

other than that... nothing much, head back to camp for more Risk and Scrabble... Wee...!

Auf Wiedersehen!

AOH 2007

coming to the end of my long break from AOH '07. last weekend was a quite busy, but manage to see my loved ones at AOH even though weekend burnt! yah, 5 days of standing, bending, teaching and explaining people how to play computer game. sometimes have to endure girls screaming and yelling when they got 'shot' and whinning when they are not winning at all. haha...

most of my time spent is teaching small kids la, all my friends prefer to teach young girls. haiz.. can see them flocking towards them when they are playing, clearly seen all the wolves tails coming out of them and the sharp edged teeth and claws ready to pounce on them. you know what i mean la. i can't be bothered. there are many other people needs to be served.

the young kids quite fun to play with also. i will never forget the expression of this small boy who burst his balloon while the father is enjoying the game, ignoring his son when the son calls for his attention. so... to up hold the image of SAF, be service-oriented and friendly, i play with the kid lo. he is so cute....

once in a life time experience. never to do it again for a second time. sure to be something that i will missed greatly.. oh by the way... 1 YEAR TO ORD LO!

Auf Wiedersehen!

i am as strong as the weakest link

been very down lately. things are not as they are used to be.

visited a close relative at the hospital. i shall not mention names. very sad at how his condition worsened, totally lost for words when i saw him la. haiz... but he is more optimistic about his recovery and i pray to god for his speedy recovery. he wants to have a beer drinking session next week with my dad man! =) when we wanted to leave, he stopped us, wants to watch EPL with my dad, but its friday and yet he is too weak to realise its friday. haiz... well, we did stay a little longer keeping him company and give all the moral support we can.

the fight with the illness has been more than a year already, and still why can't the virus jus surrended and admit to defeat. urgh..! can i jus go in and fight them off? i jus wish i can do something. feel hopeless when i can't help.

Am i strong mentally? I asked myself. During exercises where it runs throughout the night conquring the most difficult terrain, lack of sleep. i always tell myself to stay away and never fall out. Climbing up Biang, i tell myself i must get up there at all cost. No doubt its takes alot of physcial strength to overcome it. but mostly its all up there in the brain. so am i strong in the end?

I am as strong as the weakest link

Auf Wiedersehen!

disorganise

never update for awhile already. life's been ok ok in camp. National day was well.. spent away from home. so the next day was at NTU watching SSO's campus concert. hmm... i enjoyed it quite a lot. actually, been drowning myself with lots of symphonies and concertos la, hear too much of R&B in camp already. Although i try hard, but couldn't appreciate that genre. =)

Hmm.. I am missing my horn man, after listening to SSO lo. But then, the horn tone was not the idea tone that i am aiming to achieve. it feels great to be able to play like them one day lo. hope it comes soon enough. I WANT A HORN! hehe..

Okay, Sunday's violin masterclass is totally screwed up. First was the ticketing, i felt the salesperson could have took the initiative to ask what kind of tickets i am want to purchase since there was tickets for individual classes and a seasonal pass which entitles entry to all classes la. So, when i mention that i want to get the individual tickets, obviously next is to ask which classes instead of putting me off by telling me that tickets are sold 30mins before start of class. Bad start to the masterclass. Next was a printing error, which i doubt so, i suspect they change the venue and well... without informing people. there wasn't any signage to indicate anything.

So! the masterclasses that i attend is to whereby the organisers specially invite students to perform while a prof would then advise, suggest and teach the students infront of a group of audience on the particular topic its conducting. Haha, this masterclass is sort of a walk in clinic for musicians. well, at least the prof was able to conduct some impromtu lesson on violin techniques la. At least i walk away with my questions answered. phew..!

Weather at night was screwed up, raining cats and dogs at NTU, so for the fear that i will be late, i took cab to camp, ended my camp was freaking dry and i am super early. Conceed defeat to murphy's law, i book in lo, about 2 hours early. haiz... oh nvm.. I love the army.

past 5 days was training to prepare for Army Open house. We are in-charge of the LAN gaming so what we did was to play games and play more games. haha! actually i falling sick soon from playing games. have this puking and coughing sensation as i play. perhaps not used to the quick motion generated from the games. well.. more prep to come until the actual day. I don't have the exact details of the open house. so for those who are interested to come, pls find out yourself from adverts la. okay!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Jigsaw Puzzle

u know, i actually started on doing a jigsaw puzzle. hmmm.. amaze at how fast i actually manage to get it piece together. i didn't have the confidence to finish it when i first started it. well that's because i don't always fix one. about one in a decade perhaps.

i find it amazing at how the jigsaw puzzle are piece together. constantly working out the odds of getting the right piece at the right place. think about it, jigsaw puzzle is just like life, sometimes it just manage piece it right the first time, sometimes it takes a little twist and turn around to fit in to the pieces beside it, and most of the time you won't even know where that piece you picked up from the box belongs to too until another piece tells you so.

i know it seems out of place to write this entry, but just too many things are happening recently and my mind seems pretty messed up. well... end of the day, the most important thing it to be happy and contented with what you have. =)

Auf Wiedersehen!

another outfield

this week had outfield. AGAIN. i realise i am begining to hate it. and i am losing appetite eating combat rations. Eww.. okay la, can't be help, i ate that for 10 days while in brunei k. sick of it.

but everytime an outfield makes good training for me to survive in the field whether as a military personnel or civilian next time. hmm.. seems determine to do my Everest Base Camp trek in the near future. my dream. Did nightwalk also, found it no kick at all man! after what i have gone through in brunei. pretty easy walk except for the lack of sleep coz the nightwalk is from 2359 to the next morning to complete 2 missions.

End of outfield, we had a parade to turn ops. That's that... next 2 days really slack and slack, especially today where i can sleep until i don't want to sleep and 100% willing to volunteer to clean arms and do stores. haha! Oh... i shall learn to love outfield again. Soldier!

Auf Wiedersehen!

another week

its another week of normal training in camp. i shall not say much. monday on leave so accompanied Suky to NTU for her medical. we did something erm... out of the norm.. haha! read her blog. then meet the guys at army market. i feel so cheated buying the ground sheet. well.. its better than signing 1206. Whoever that fella who took my groundsheet.. ha! i pray that water will seep through when it rainings heavily ah! (even though its brand new!). Ate sinful stuffs, chocolate fondue la! oh my god..... nice nice, especially the home made ice cream.

friday, when to meet dear after her concert at NYP. its such a kick to be able to eat $5 macdonalds.. Oooo la la...then saw my bro who attended the concert, i couldn't make it in time la. and a few alumni's, np band ppl.

Saturday was at esplanade, last minute change of plans. saw lots of kids streaming to the NDP preview. Sakae sushi was nice, but haiz.. should have waited for the seats near the sushi bar, quite incovinient to call waiter to take order. i rather self-service. anyway, i got 3 new CDs! Wee... my ear is dying to listen to some music. or rather new music.. haha! am enjoying it as i type. ok ok, that's all folks! =)

Auf Wiedersehen!