Tomorrow is the opening ceremony of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games and apparently, 90% of singaporeans are not interested in the least. Well, i saw an articles in the Straits Times today regarding the $hi++y food they are serving to volunteers and I must say, the person who posted the photos has guts! I like that and I can really relate to that, SFI really serves quite sucky food. http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/08/13/online-pressure-forces-sfi-to-improve-dog-food-for-yog-volunteers/

Oh well at least this week they changed caterers all of a sudden to ISS. Their food at least looks and tastes normal.

I'm actually very thankful for the YOG since it gives me opportunities to stay out of camp. Although its quite tiring, but its still better than the life or rather, no-life that we have in camp. We shall see how the opening ceremony goes tmr.



p.s: this quote made me laugh : "a full-time NS man activated to volunteer at the YOG floating platform"

spot the oxymoron

Being in my new infantry unit is really depressing every single day. That's when these verses start speaking to me.


This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. Psalm 34:6


Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7 

Hope I can get a medical review soon. My eczema keeps flaring up now due to the heat and sweat which makes it super hard to do anything =( Till then. jia you. Looking forward to ORD. Every day passed is one day nearer!

Haix, I'm only updating this 2 weeks after BMT POP. What's with army and their legendary love of acronyms. Anyway, I've been posted to a dumping ground. Shall not reveal the camp or unit but suffice to say, I'm a rifleman a.k.a human shield. Basically I'm supposed to run up and down hills carrying whatever stupid weapon I'm assigned and basically be the first to die in the event of an artillery strike or when encountering a tank.

The camp kinda sucks, food is a step down from tekong and welfare is practically non-existent. I heard other units get internet access but I have no such luck. Other restrictions in place include no mp3/media players, no food to be brought in and no use of vending machines. Free time is also a totally alien concept at the camp. Really hate my life. I thought things would improve after BMT. The training is pretty standard, but I'm dreading all the outfields, SOC, route marches which I have had enough of during BMT. Barely survived all these and now I'm expected to continue for another 19 months. Crap.

The Advanced Infantry Training or AIT lasts 6 weeks and its basically section training where we have to learn to fight as a team of 7. Fortunately it's interrupted by the youth olympic games so we get plenty of time out of camp doing grunt work at the marina bay. Oh well it's still better than in-camp. I'm really miserable and depressed everytime I'm in camp which makes every moment out so much more to be desired and enjoyed. Really, if you find your current life boring and wished for excitement, go join the army. It really teaches you how to enjoy life's simplest pleasures. A cup of cool water after tough PT. Clouds that obscure the sun and the cool breeze. The list goes on.

Anyway I have just put in braces on my teeth and have a follow up appt in 6 weeks time. My teeth kinda hurt now and I'm wondering how to go outfield this tues to practice section drills. Hope there's no route march and it ends fast.

This new blog template looks so much cooler =D. Oh man, I can't describe how cool the feeling of freedom is, after 9 weeks of doing stuff that I don't even want to do, having 1 week off is simply the best thing that could ever happen.

POP for 02/10 enhanced leadership batch W coy, sch 3 was quite a simple affair. Had the 20km route march super early, around 5+. It rained intermittently between 4km stretches which rocked as there was not enough time to complete the whole 24km so we got a 4km discount. Furthermore, the whole march was on road, which made it easier somewhat. Had 2 abrasions by the end of the whole thing and wanted to die by 12-16km so I'm super glad we had it easy. The whole parade started around 3.50pm and the first half was quite uneventful, although I felt quite stupid doing the infantry song and roar. But who cares, I'm free from tekong!!!! Well here are the pictures:

Whiskey coy, whiskey coy, whiskey coy, we are the best, we are the champion, and we will always be the one, whiskey coy!

My buddy throughout the whole 9 weeks.

1 last look at my bunk. Its the left-most one with the red sloping roof. Good riddance!

Feeling quite high now as its the start of the week, but posting is coming out on friday. Kinda worried as I was shortlisted for armor recce trooper which involves carrying dam heavy loads and marching for super long distances in small groups. Also IPPT silver is a must to pass out. How to when I can't even pass BMT IPPT. Anyway, I'm praying and hoping for a non-combat vocation. Call me whatever you want but that's what I feel suits me best. I don't think I am able to shoot at someone to kill him in a real war anyway.

Now I'm at the middle of BMT. Field camp is now over and up next is SIT test. I'm not going to really bother too much about it as its a selection tool for command school. I just want a non-combat vocation where I can do better than just going outfield. Honestly, I have no interest in and am not fit at all fighting frontline. Field camp sucked but at least its over. I just calculated that there is about 2 full weeks of training left. Really looking forward to POP-ing.

Feeling kinda moody as its bookin day and I can only come out 7 days later. That sucks but at least it means the following week is only 4 days long. Maybe 3 if SDC visit is on that week. I just hate route marches mostly.

And about the recent controversy about City Harvest Church's donation collection methods. I feel that they are misleading people when they say that giving donations to the church results in greater results. What makes it different from an investment scheme? God wants us to give out of our love for him as everything belongs to him in the first place. If we expect rewards for our offering we are no different from money grubbing scum. Does he even need our money in the first place? God does not want us to be rich on this earth as our treasures are laid up above in heaven. This world is not our home. If we happen to be rich it is a blessing, not an entitlement. Mega churches are really enticing people with the prosperity gospel and it makes me sad when people fall for it. Are they really saved? I hope so.

Back to the topic of NS. I really feel encouraged by the grace of God. Truly I wouldn't have made it through field camp and 5 weeks of NS BMT if it were not for God's mercy and grace. What a friend we have in Jesus!

Well, its been 4.5 weeks since enlistment. Have more or less adjusted. Whiskey has been better then I expected. I mean, at least its not Raven or Ninja. Still, we had ~3 sort of severe punishments for things such as being late or bunk dirty. Anyhow, the halfway point of BMT is coming. And that's field camp. For 5 nights outfield, we'll be doing loads of crap. Don't exactly wanna think about it and ruin my long vesak day weekend. But God has been quite good to me. I've been emo-ing for my first 3 weeks there over the lost of my freedom and all the crap I had to do. Mostly got over it but it still sux every time there's training and I cant keep up, esp route marches.

Poor ppl got confinement and guard duty this week. Really pity them. But that's army for you. Which is why care for soldiers is last on their core values. Hope I can survive next week. Ppl having their field camp this week were dam lucky. 4 days only and it didnt rain at all! Oh well, I heard if ppl faint they *will* be nicer but since my batch are all silver NAPFA and above, I don't really think that will happen. Am going to pray that nothing bad happens and we all can deal with the stuff they throw at us.

Sigh, with about 17 hours to go before going to tekong, feeling uber sian-ed. Only thing to look forward to is this sat labour day. Incidentally, tmr is exactly 19 years and 1 month since my birth.

The gov so good to me, giving me new haircut, new home, new friends, new clothes and free meals with allowance sommore! Which other gov so good? But then, every year make you come back for training, while other foreigners are faster, cheaper and better and can work more productively! Song bohs? Rly sux man.

Anw, I've gotten two offers so far, 1 from NTU and 1 from NUS. Now gotta really think dip dip as to which course to accept. NUS more prestigious, but more competitive, and its not guaranteed you will get your choice of modules. Hostel and residences also so hard to get. But at least its nearer than NTU. On the other hand, NTU seems more relaxed, has a somewhat newer campus and its 4 years direct honours course. Really confusing leh.

Been working for 2 weeks alr. And I've been thinking heavily about life these few months. After nearly dying, it really changes one's perspective. And right now, my take is that I'm wasting my time. While I have 25 more days to enlistment, I think at least in NS, I will be learning something. While my work now is not stressful or tiring, it is boring. I feel no sense of accomplishment or achievement at all.

While the pay is decent, ($6/hr) the ppl working here are mostly older than me and seem to have held the job for quite some time. I can't see myself doing it on a long term basis. And its only been 2 weeks! No wonder Shu Ning quit after 1.5 mnths or so. Im counting down everyday to the last day of work and as of now its 20 days, with 14 days of work remaining. Another thing is if I had went in on my original enlistment date, I would be having my POP soon. Haiz

Today is yet another boring day. Ytd was Good Friday and there was nothing to do. Today I wanted to go to the pixar exhibition and someone ruined my plans by saying he was sick, there will be many people there etc. WTH la. It was something I've been looking forward to all week after being transferred to another department which I don't really like. Then I get this kind of crap.


LIFE SUCKS. FML

How does it feel to be 19? Nothing extraordinary for sure. Today seemed like any other Sunday, except that the date was 28 march. This means that 19 years ago on this same day, I was thrust into this world. So far it doesnt seem that special though. I don't feel particularly happy or sad. Just thankful that I made it this far, since I almost died last month. I have much to be thankful for actually and this proves that God does take care of his own.

So maybe I already have everything I need, as I have received the greatest present I can ever receive from God, his love, mercy and salvation. Praise God.

YAY! Another major milestone in life over. I'm talking about A level results which came out on 5 Mar. Strangely I didn't feel as elated/anxious over this as I did for my O' levels 2 years ago. Except maybe for some heart-pounding here and there. In any case, my results were seriously run of the mill. Could have done better, but I'm already thankful it wasn't much worse then I feared. 78.75 rank points I hope can get me into faculty of Science @ NUS hopefully. I heard of people with (much) worse results than me so maybe I should be counting my blesssings. Still, a string of B's don't really look that impressive... especially that darned C for H1 Geog. Overall 22/08 did quite well as a class I suppose although the IP classes (naturally) did better.

On a brighter note, I already got upgraded to PES B (again) 11 days before my scheduled appointment on 24 Mar but they moved it to 15 Mar so I hope they send the enlistment letter for April intake soon.

Argh! Friggin pissed with the whole stupid way CMPB and by extension, MINDEF do things.

The story?? Here:

So after the fantastic events of 4 feb and taking painful long time to recuperate, I felt much better. So went to get the memo/letter from my doctor at the ENT centre, SGH. And thought this meant that I was well enough for enlistment. Then I went down to CMPB hoping to get an upgrade on my PES. Waited super long there and guess what? Stupid MO says he got to see me in 1 month again and refuse to upgrade me. WTH la. And all because of this one line in the memo: "He should refrain from strenuous exercise for 1 month." So the MO thought it means I'm not fit for enlistment and want me to wait 1 month, till 24 Mar. Stupid because the next enlistment is in april which is 2 months away!!! By that time I will fit already so why can't my PES be upgraded?! NO WAI!!!! This probably means I won't be scheduled in time for april enlistment. Which means more wasting time at home and finishing NS even later. And going in with all the poly, ITE ppl. No offence to these ppl but I will feel dam left out. Sianz!

Now the only thing is to get a new memo from my doctor and make him say I'm fit for enlistment. Hopefully then the MO will upgrade my PES and schedule enlistment in time for april. Otherwise I hope they can still get me a place in april in 1 months time. ARGHHHHHH


And doomsday is now just 6 days away XD.

The suckiest day of my life happened on 4 feb. Following a tonsillectomy (removal of tonsils) on 20 Jan, I thought I was on the way to recovery after 12 days or so after 2 follow up visits to the A&E department of SGH, Then, the bleeding started. Thought it was nothing serious as it would stop after a while even though quite a bit of blood would come out. This happened for 4 times every alternate day until the climax on 4 feb. Which is officially the worst day of my life.

Apparently some massive internal hemorrhage developed and blood was leaking from the op site into the stomach, which eventually was expelled through the mouth a.k.a vomiting. I think I lost about 1-1.5 liters of blood, which is no joking matter,. (I passed out for a few minutes or so) Ambulance had to be called at 2.30am in the morning. (my first time riding one) Reached the A&E dept of CGH, then had my throat vacuumed to stop the bleeding which was uber traumatic when you keep puking blood every few minutes. Eventually had to go for emergency operation to cauterize the bleeding part. Subsequent hospitalization for 3 days with transfusion of 2 packs of blood. Finally now on the way to recovery but my enlistment on 6 Feb had to be delayed. Downgraded to pes D awaiting medical review. Which basically means I'm going to waste 2 months of my time while I go for another checkup and reschedule enlistment, hopefully sometime in April with the last JC batch. All I can say is, it sucks to be me on the 4th of Feb.

Well its 2010 now. Happy new year to all =D Anw, life hasn't changed that much. I'm currently slacking before enlisting next month =.= Tried to find a job but srsly, can't find any that have a hiring period of only 3 weeks or so, even in the temp jobs section zz. I was so bored today that I went out with my sister and her classmates to some of the poly's open houses. It was quite interesting as I have never been to any poly's open houses. Even though I wasn't an O lvl student I still went to take their free stuff lol. Feels a bit cheapskate but wth la. I went to see what and how poly students learn and it is quite diverse. They learn much more interesting stuff such as film and media studies as well as engineering, chemistry, biomedicine, and even forensic science. Interesting, but I think it's more worth it to do it at a higher lvl, i.e University. Now counting down the days left to enlistment. Haix

A new year is dawning. Christmas is just over, I've just come back from the US. Woot! The trip was a blast. Took many photos and went to so many different places. It is a nice place to live for sure although Singapore is still not bad for its sense of security. One thing the US can do much better than us: Service standards. Service staff there are definitely more polite and helpful. After 16 days there I find it quite hard to adjust back to life here. Anyway there's also not much to look forward to in the next year. A tonsillectomy and enlistment are in the works argh.

Seriously wondering what army life going to be like. although I think I'm not really looking forward to it.

Yay 1 more paper till the end of A levels on 3rd Dec, although I've been slacking since my unofficial last day on 23rd Nov. On that last day this piece of paper is finally useless I so can't wait for it to be over so I can go on my US trip =D. At least theres 1 more month before ns so I can hopefully get a job or something. These few days have been quite boring, went out on fri with Sam, Andrea and Atika to Bukit Timah hill. It was so tiring! Then went to Raffles City for lunch. Tmr will be attending Mr Gan's wedding reception. Holidays rock =)

I know at this critical juncture 1.25 weeks before my first A level paper I should be studying. But I decided to blog now after reading Lavina's post about the last day of sch. Well it was 3 days ago but it seems more like 3 weeks. The last day of sch was well not really the last since I have to go back tomorrow for mock bio and gp lessons. But the stuff that the teaching staff wanted to communicate to us was that we decide our future. That day, 26 Oct began with assembly. Funny how ppl sang the national anthem louder that day. Then it was time for the last cohort meeting. The VP tried to encourage us that our prelim results didn't matter much. What matters is the A's. She showed us results of our seniors that despite getting S'es and U's, getting 3A's or more is still pssible in the actual exams. After that was the farewell concert which I'm not going to elaborate much on except that our class seemed to be the only one not getting any last words or farewells from our STs. (unless you count those generic to all [insert subject] students) When the concert ended I just stayed behind for a few photos and left to eat lunch with SC.

That was my "last" day of TJ. I remember the first. Actually it was nearly 3-4 years ago when I was in sec 2. SC told me about TJ's IP program and I was sort of interested. Even though I said I would apply I was lazy and didn't get to it. Fast forward 2 years and it was after O levels. PAE still existed then and I was sent to MJ. While not my first choice it was ok and I hoped that my actual O level results would eventualy let me enter TJ. MJ was not a bad school at all but I hated the travelling and the fact that I had little friends that did not compel me to stay even though my PAE class were quite a nice bunch. I will still remember 08S305. It eventually dispersed and nearly half the class went to different sch's after that. When the actual results arrived I was quite anxious. I did better then prelims though - but still not enough to enter TJ. I immediately started the appeal process. SC was freaking lucky. He appealed for PAE AND JAE and got in both times! The first day of JAE was weird for me. All the ppl I knew well in sec sch left for other jcs, leaving me alone. It was a weird experience for me since my PAE class had sort of disbanded and I felt kinda lonely. The next day however, during lunchtime when I was slacking in the library instead of participating in orientation, I got the phone call that told me I had been accepted. I almost screamed with joy but it was the library after all. What happened next was that I had to rush between MJ and TJ. Luckily they were quite near each other. Well, what happened next is history.

22/08 has been and will always be my best experience in TJ. The dynamic bunch of people having such close friendship through thick and thin, PW, teachers leaving and our class events will never be forgotten. That basically made my experience in TJ all the more better. Despite not having the PDP I wanted and not having any leadership roles I will remember TJ for 22/08. Leaving it will not make me cry, but at least there's something to look back on.

Alright that concludes this megapost.

WOW! I managed to NOT blog for 1 whole month. (Not that I like blogging anyway) Well in 1 month prelims came and went. Tmr will be the day of reckoning to see if my inverse-studying law that says the less you study the better you score actually works. Anyway it has been quite a crazy month. F1 was in town recently..... natural disasters are wreaking havoc on 10% of the world's population etc. Anyway my life still has been quite boring, but it could have been worse so I'm not complaining. A's are really around the corner now and I think its time I start memorising stuff and understanding them. I compared the old AS AO level syllabus with the 'H' series and I'm kinda glad now that we're taking the new syllabus. The old one was insane! Mechanics in maths? Food Chemistry in Chemistry? How did they cope? Oh right...... they didn't have PW or SPA.....

I kinda feel lousy at the moment since I don't think I have achieved any of my goals set out. SC is training hard in preparation for NS and I'm just lazing around =( And today I meant to thank the person who found my wallet but I felt embarrassed and the oppertunity jus slipped away. Feeling really bad about it now =_=

Time to buck up. Its now or never.

What is this world coming to? Everyday in the news more and more retarded stories keep coming up. First I saw this article about how a teenager in the USA was charged for recording 20s of a Transformer's movie (which totally sucks btw) to show to her brother. And the people involved felt that the cinema was a "victim" . That's right, they will lose $18.6 bn from her 20s recording! And apparently theres good and bad stealing. WOW!

The second article comes from the Straits Times, about how our really close neighbour cant seem to make up its mind whether Muslims can attend a concert sponsored by a beer company. This is not really news, since they have a long history of proposing something and then changing their mind. Recall: Teaching using English, SG cars and MY petrol etc. Anyway, I was more incredulous at their suggestion that they have a "first world" democracy while Sg has a first world mentality but third world democracy. Give me a break! The political situation in MY definitely sux more than in here. They have democracy? Thats what they call by blaming their loss in elections to everyone else? I don't even want to talk about their NEP. Its about as effective as a waterproof sponge.

Anyway about more serious stuff, prelims are like in 2 weeks or so. I know that its pretty late compared to other JCs but I still havnt internalised some maths concepts such as complex numbers and graphs. At this rate I think I can only scrape by a C to B average. Really need to get my rhythym back. Think I'm also going on hiatus for quite a while. Don't really think anyone will miss me anyway.

Today was a really tiring day for me. Although it was supposed to end at 12.30pm I had some geog talk conducted by a Prof David Higgins from NUS geography department giving a talk at 4.20pm about landslides. It was sort of interesting learning about some new techniques that geographers use to map cliff faces and see the impacts of landslides. Quite a bit of stuff was repeated from the A level H1 syllabus but it was quite informative. We had a sharing session with some 2003 seniors after that. That has motivated me to get an A for H1 geography and my other subjects. Also, there was pizza! There was also an interesting comment about speeches. Apparently good ones are like skirts, they must be long enough to cover the essentials yet short enough to catch others attention. I loled at it.

Ok now on to slightly more serious stuff. There is approx 100 more days to A levels and I must so start preparing. I must get serious now since its like the last lap. I guess I'm like the 2nd type of person mentioned by the senior. I feel stressed that I'm not feeling stressed enough about the impending A levels. This is seriously getting me worried. And I have a chemistry concept test tmr that I havn't even prepared enough for. Dang it.

Extra: Anyone wants to send their name to mars like me? My name is erased for privacy purposes since I'm not like most people who are willing to post all their personal details online which sort of explains why I'm nt really into social networking.

This is horrible. Liverpool vs Singapore. What a disaster, 3-0 to liverpool. Seriously wuuuuttt! And dang it, this is distracting me from my homework. Really can't seem to get anything done over the weekend. Then there's bio PQ to do again and chem concept test coming up. Really sian-ded from all the work and stuff. On the brighter (dubious) side, A levels are coming in 4 months time. Target this time is AAA/B at least. Must........... get............... back......... to.............. work.




Edit: Liverpool is up to 4 goals.
Further edit: 5-0. Think they will beat Man Utd's score last time?