and so the time has come, for me to move on..

would still be blogging, address is: put-your-trust-in-me.blogspot.com
thank you all for your undying support in this past year

will start a new counter over there so really thanks to this 3008 hits that i have gotten. it is by no means a large number and i intend to keep it that way.

Finally, finally, finished my trainee phase. Am officially a field pioneer, able to 'advance & overcome' with obstacles, bridges, mines & demolitions. So its 1/4 of NS down and another 3/4 more to go to ORD.

Finally back from another 3 day outfield camp. What can I say? Shack out! Went 'swimming' by the beach, water level was up to the neck. Was constructing wire obstacles then. That night, which also happens to be the 30th of Aug was Malaysia's national day and from our side, could see fireworks. They have fireworks across a wide area but it was very simple fanfare and repetitive.

Had my 1st taste of playing with explosives on Thurs. Super fun. But very troublesome. Have to run from point to point. Still have 2 more live firing and another demolitions excercise somewhere in Dec-Jan. I'm expecting that to be the one of the highlights of my NS.

Finally i'm left with 2 weeks on my field pioneer course. 2 weeks to freedom! (ok, not exactly freedom but more of it) 2 weeks to that blue beret. But somehow, lost much of my motivation to push myself to do work. Just doing it for the sake of doing it. SISPEC also finished their course yesterday and there're sooo many people joining engineering too! Haha, weili gonna join us there together with derick, zhen fai and myself. So zhun, all kena same vocation. But maybe posted to different fields. Trying to psycho him and another of my bmtc close friend to join me at jurong camp. Hehe.

This coming week should be the most xiong of my whole course, after last week physically demanding tasks, runs on Mon & Wed, IPPT on Tue and SOC on Thur. This week could be our hell week. Mon - Wed outfield, Wed evening return to camp, wash stores & attend briefing on next day demolitions live firing. Thurs still must wake up early and for one whole day would be live firing. Fri still have to wash those stores that we used for outfield. Abit crazy la.

Watched another duh show. Which makes it 2 duh shows in 2 weeks. March of the Penguins! If you like penguins, go ahead and watch it. The scenery and penguins are indeed nice and cute. Apart from that, i nearly fell aslp many many times. The narration is in chinese which sounded just funny.
Spoiler -> And basically the whole movie is just about the emperor penguins who come from all over the continent, following a leader to gather at their sacred place called Ommak in 20 days. Just like magic every caravan of penguins will arrive at the same place at move or less the same time. It is quite a sight to see so, so, so many penguins at the same place.
Once there, they start finding a mate. Since there are lesser males than females, the females will fight for a mate. With everything settled, they start to get intimate. Staying at the place for 3 moons (3 months that is), their egg would be laid. This egg would be handed over to the male to take care of while the females make their way to the ocean to find food for themselves and their young ones when their born.   
And so the females make another 20 days journey back to the ocean and 20 days to come back to Ommak. All these while the males have to fend off the harsh winter blizzards and winds to keep themselves and their eggs alive. Just before the females return, their young ones are hatched. They are still not allowed to leave their parents fur as it would be too cold for them fragile ones. Food comes and now its time for the males to leave for the ocean.
At this time, the babies slowly grow as winter ends. Sun is shining high in the sky once again. After a month plus when the males return, they gather together as a family once more. This time, its goodbye. Each will take their own seperate path into the ocean, the babies will disappear for 4 years before joining up the tradition of heading to Ommak. The males and females will take their leave and probably meet up once again next year at the sacred place, Ommak.

Ok, now i'm learning to better plan my time wisely. Signed up for guitar lessons with Yamaha yesterday, gonna start on 10/9! So now, my sats wud most likely be spent on swimming in the morning, lessons in afternoon (4-5pm) and night time wud be for friends. Sun currently still free for my family. Wanna take up archery or air rifle courses ^.^ And i just missed out on wakeboarding lessons. Darn. Must wait till duno when again.

After dinner with my family last night, met my jc classmates for midnight movie at Cine. Guess what we watched? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! My gosh. The show is just "..." Maybe its just wrong for 5 guys to watch that show together. One of my worst movie experience, bad bad choice.

Deliberating whether to go for Mr Tang's wedding or for a blood donor recruitment programme. More inclined to go for the wedding ba, once in a lifetime. Can get to meet up with my jc mates too.

Had my 1st outfield last week. Went to plant landmines. It was bad! Raining for all 3 days and we had no choice but to wear wet socks. By the end of the day, our feets were all wrinkled up. So many potholes in the ground and some were innocently deep and the mud water could reach even up to our knees. At least its over. One for field camp and a live range to go till the end of my course and i'll be getting my beret real soon.

Since it has ended, I suddenly seemed to have too much time on my hands. Apart of me seems lacking. And to make up for it, I play games, watch tv and go out. Damn, really no life. Must find more friends to go out with me. Not sure if it any consolation but now that ndp is over, its full swing training from next week onwards. Booking back in camp tonight. Have got to prepare stores tomorrow for our field camp next week. Friday's our company outing and would be at Siloso Beach. -_-

It sounds pretty silly, but oh well. A whole group of guys. Don't really want to imagine how wud it be like. And from next week onwards, it would be field camps after field camps and excercise after excercise. All the outfield crap and life firing are gonna start soon. Boo hoo.

First up, mines on Monday~ ;]

Finally NDP is over and done with. I cant say for sure how well done is it but at least i contributed all that i have got. Then there is the closure of a chapter in my life. Let me just say at least it ended on a rather ok note.

Had my 1st taste of ugly singaporeans yesterday.
Situation: Almost end of NDP, all wanting to leave to avoid jams.
Venue: Just below the stairs behind my barricade
Time: 8pm onwards

Ugly Singaporean 1: " I need to leave right now, my baby is feeling sick."

Me: "I'm sorry Sir, but the fireworks would be starting in approximately 2-3mins and i can't let you out right now and there is also anoher round of fireworks after this."

Totally shagged out after last night preview. Didn't watch the show for the 1st time cuz was tasked to check tickets. It was E most slack job but super sian. I was in charge of the last pigeon hole (left most) of blue sector. Luckily I had mentos to last me thru the night. The only worth mentioning part of my job was that my area is just beside the celebs make up point. Haha! So i got to see Kym, Adrain, Vernetta, Sharon, Gurmit n Khairuddin. Plus.... special apperance of Cai Chun Jia, Rui En n Taufik! Stars just look glam, even without much make up. E rest of my army friends quite jealous. Muahaha.

Booking back in again tonight. Think my company sucks. Everybody else got to book out Fri and go down to Padang on Sat but us, have to stay in. And everybody go back on Mon but us again, on Sun. Freaking sucks. Not enough rest at all. Damn.

Oh, about the cat, it has left house. Not sure what happened but should be because my mom open e door and it fled thru the gate. It's an orangy-brown cat. And now my house got a whole tub of cat food wasted.

Not sure if doing NDP is a good thing or bad thing. Once it ends, its back to 5-day work week for me. But also to more serious training. 2 upcoming field camps and a live range. Should be getting our blue support berets on 9th and that would be where my course ends.

As I'm typing this, I have got a cat on my lap! Haha. Its quite different from all other cats and i suspect it belongs to someone. Nevertheless, my dad and sis brought it back home yesterday. It was actually a horrible beginning. They left the cat locked inside the toilet and it shitted in the basin, left shit stains all around it too. And I had to be the one who picked up the shit. Zzz. Disgusting. But this time round, it was more guai. We left it to roam the house the whole afternoon while my family is out and it only dirty the basin by shitting there. I'm pretty amazed. No where else was left messy. It even knew how to tear open the bread packet to eat 2 slices and its cat food bag cuz my dad forgot to leave food for it to consume. Now its lying on one chair with its head on my lap. Soo cute!

Finally done with all my NE shows. Yesterday school was great. No problems whatsoever. Teachers were very pleased with my performance so am I. Heh. Achievement. Am really going to think hard if I want to be a teacher in future. Giving it serious thought. Probably teaching either Pri or Sec level. Shall go read up on it at MOE webby.

Made changes here and there to my blog. Do give me your comments! Thx!

OMI gosh. What am i doing this? Typing a blog entry on a Wednesday afternoon when i'm supposed to be in camp! Did i go awol? Siao! Of course not. Haha. i merely am having a nights out, meaning can go out of camp for the night. However, i had to send placards to the school i'm in charge of this weekend so left camp earlier, yea!

Remember I said the ndp parade was sucky? Oh well, maybe i'll take back 50% of what i said. Instead, i would say its very much dependent on the crowd. The crowd for NE Show 2, the most recent past Sat was superb! There cheered, sang, clapped almost anything that they were asked to do. The atmosphere was great, compared to the 1st show. Though i did more things this time round, running around doing logistics stuff, i felt that this time round's parade was more suscessful. So, maybe the actual ndp wouldn't be so boring afterall, all you can do is to actually watch it yourself =p

On the point of leading those primary schools to the padang, and after today going to Casuarina Pri to deliver the placards, suddenly I thought of teaching as a career. It struck me that my Chemistry course in NTU probably wouldn't go anywhere so teaching may not be so bad afterall. I think i do have the patience to teach and nuture our young ones. So i decided to give teaching a try, after my NS that is. Therefore in Mar 2007, will apply for relief teaching and get a feel of it. Actually i could have been a teacher before i entered NS, but they gave me my approval letter a tad too late.

After going to the school, went to POSB bank to have my damaged debit card replaced. Told instead that i have to call the customer service hotline and have them send me another. Zzz wasted my time. But the customer service lady over there was very nice. I applied for the new global blue atm card instead and she promoted me a savings account, Save-As-You-Earn account. Looked through the phamlet and thought why not? Anyway money in my bank surely kena spent away, so i decided to go ahead with it. So now i have another account. Every month a complusory $70 will be deposited into it and this account will mature after 2 years. Suppose to be a 10% for 1st year and another 20% after 2nd year. Hope will have at least 2k in this account after the year of 2 years. =]

So this week is the end of CEC, some friends would be leaving us for the different course, which i think is abit saddening. You have to go through making new friends and adapting all over again. But some people still feel that that is the better choice. For me, i have no choice. Field pioneer is here for me to stay. Jurong camp for the next 1 year plus. But to quote something from my PC Joel*, "it isn't that bad right?". Pondered over his words, and yes, it isn't so bad. Ever since i started NS life, that is one thought i kept repeating to myself. To me, no matter how tough a course can be, as long as my commanders are nice and understanding, i dun mind gritting my teeth and getting it over and done with. Joel's a great Platoon Commander. If not for him, think i would chao geng and get out of pioneer course and be a clerk or something. My Platoon Sergeant, i really duno how best to describe him. Sometimes he can be very nice and smiling, chatting with us. Other times, he would tekan like mad, knock it down as though free one. But i admire him for getting hands on when we're doing our outdoor practicals. He really does get involve with helping us set up obstacles or showing us the correct way to do something. It's something that other PS doesn't do and i always look up to commanders who does work with his men. My 2 sergeants are also not too bad.

Not sure how many of you had received my sms regarding this address book that I'm creating, but i am creating one. No, it wouldn't be an online one. No, the idea did not struck me due to the recent emails of online address book. i had this idea sometime after i started out in BMT but always didn't have the heart to do one. This time round, with the luck of some spare white paper at hand, i decided to stop procastinating and actually get down to doing it. So far i have amassed 50 names. Am still trying to get the contacts of friends at the mean time. Shopping around for a very very nice book to fill all those names in. Thought of putting it in birthday format, so i'll have a page or two for the 366 days (including 29th Feb), which i hopefully i can find people to fill them all. heh. Abit ambitious to me, but nevertheless it's worth a try. I did not make it an online thingy cuz it too 'electronic'? To me, i'll rather receive a birthday card thru snail mail anytime rather than an e-card. So that's me. And i believe in doing the same for others. So i'll try, key word: try, to get it done asap and soon i can send out birthday/xmas/new year or whatsoever cards when i'm free in camp! Support my clause! Send cards to me too! Email me your address and birthday if you have not given it to me also! Hehe!
Here's my add: Blk 515, Pasir Ris St 52
                       *sms me for my unit, security reasons la....
                       S510515

Also did some maintence on my blogsite. Very lazy to change the template so it should be here to stay for some time. Removed the non-existent picture and changed the bottom of the window, which i did it with the help of my sis.

Back to spending some time with my PSP before returning back to camp. Have got an out camp run tomorrow which should be at Marina, think they're crazy. Today just did SOC half dead already tomorrow still got those kind of crap. Zzz.