Caprifoliacae

2010-01-17T14:36:00.002+08:00

My links have been cut due to Yahoo! Geocities being closed. I'll try to update the links asap. Not really active nowadays too so prolly no more song scores coming up atm.

Caprifoliacae

2008-05-20T09:41:00.005+08:00

Welcome to my score website.

Well, seeing that josh has linked this blog to his website, i decided to make this a full-time link to some of my sis and my arrangements. Like josh, i'm a anime music lover and i do play the piano as a hobby. btw, I'm not an avid score writer so do not expect fax machine speed updates like josh and the others.

As reiterated earlier in my previous posts, this was meant to be a private website. Almost all my scores were written off other people's arrangement for my own use actually, so pls pass all credit to them for it.

Anata ga ita mori - Tien
Battle of Rose - Spherion
Tomo e - Snomits
Sora wo Miagete - hell_xtremedawg
Start Line - Josh
Yuugao - Tien

Feel free to give me feedback, etc at caprifoliacae2@hotmail.com

More birthdays

2008-05-19T22:16:00.004+08:00

Just celebrated birthdays of 2 friends over this weekend...whew... Well, its not that i don't like birthdays actually, but having to gripe about what presents to buy and organising a happy event for everyone is not really my cup of tea. Nevertheless, these two birthday parties came out well and we had a great time together.

Priscilla's Birthday

This was one of the more interesting birthdays because some people came in Visual K fashion clothing and cosplays off the popular movie,manga & anime, DeathNote. Of course I, lacking even the most miniscule-st drop of fashion finesse, didn't take part in anything above the necessary decorum needed to participate in the event. Anyway, L's double looks almost like the real deal eh? haha..
The second celebration was for my pltmate, jaga. I was quite peeved at the turnout since only 3 of the original 20+ of us came for it. Probable reason was because they heard that their former plt sgt was going to be there too. (in the end, she couldn't make it too) Well, its really sad to know that most of the plt still harbour hard feelings towards our former sgt. They had a good reason to, anyway, since training under her during course-time was hellish to say the least. But, then again, to boycott a fellow friend's party because of her really disgusts me to the core. That aside, we dined at some arab restaurant, al majlis, which served akin-to-western food with ingredients we never heard of in our lives. It somehow tasted unbelieveably good and addictive......perhaps its because one of those strange names was arabic for opium or something... O_o you'll never know...haha..

Well ,for the update, Yes, Japan is confirmed. I'll be fully dependant on my sis, who can at least make out some jap words. We'll be going to hokkaido to find out what royal (holy?) cows make hokkaido butter so expensive & Mt Fuji to find ot why its such a wonderful suicide spot. (relax, i won't try to become a statistic) Hopefully, i can share some interesting pictures when i return. =)

Belated birthdays

2008-04-26T22:48:00.004+08:00

Ah... April's drawing to a close already! Time really seems to pass faster as you get older eh? haha... Anyway, following my 1 day belated streak, here's another 1 day belated happy birthday to Jialing! (And i really should wait till tmr to wish myself a happy birthday today too.) =)
Anyway, i'll prolly be going to Japan soon! yay! It'll be my first time there so i'm kinda curious on how the land of sumo is going to be. Nothing's finalised yet so i don't even know whether my family'll be going to Hokkaido or Honshu or even the Kyushu region and whether we'll be going on a tour or FNE. In any case, we're one up though, since my sis can finally read and speak some simple japanese. hee... (Finally the time to abuse her has come!!)
Code geass R2 has finally started! Not bad for an anime which has a subtle element of chess inside. So commenting as an ex-chess player. =) Btw, mid-years are coming... hopefully my tutee will pull through...sigh....

Tour adverts

2008-04-22T13:58:00.002+08:00

My fmily was plannign to go over seas during this year's June holidays so we started flipping through the Classifieds to see if we could find anything. As most of you know, trying to find a tour or plane ride now is abit late already since most of the travel plans have already been gobbled up at the recent (or rather not so recent) travel fair. Anyway, I did manage to find some interesting bits of advertisements that hardcore tour agents try to sneak pass in order to buff up their offers! Here they are... haha

Birthdays

2008-04-14T09:42:00.003+08:00

Happy Belated Birthday Yun Xin!

Speaking of birthdays, my dad just celebrated his 56th birthday a few days ago. We went high and low to search for a cake at one of his favourite cake shops, Pine Garden Cake Shop, but ended up with a Sweet Secret one because it was closed at mid-day on a rainy thursday. -_-" It was also closed at mid-day on a sunny monday so there's a high possibility that they're closing... -_-"

I bought him a coffee mug which which came in a overly decorated box. Only thing it lacked was a velvet backing inside the box to become some gift for kings or nobility or something.. haha..

More jacfruit pictures! This time with my grandma. Unfortunately, the jackfruit won't be able to get any larger because my dad cut it prematurely so as to spite potential jackfruit thieves! He claimed to have already seen some woukd-be thieves cycling up and down the street looking covertly at the giant jackfruit a few days before he harvested it! ha!

More on birthdays, i attended my NS pltmate's birthday last Sat at a Changi chalet. To my dismay, there was no BBQ!! haha... Instead, we had catered food in abundance with odd things that you don't expect to see together during dinner like sushi and curry. Only a few of my mates went for it so it was kinda sad that we didn't get to meet up. After Uni starts, i guess time would become even more precious again... sigh...

Suzuka,RM on Ichigos

2008-04-05T22:24:00.002+08:00

Ichigos has finally uploaded my song scores on their website! O..k..... not that its really a big thing and i only sent them 2 of my arrangements but well..its nice to know that work has been publicised right? haha....

I need a new alias for guilt reasons. (can refer to my starting few posts to know why...) I'll prolly move this blog soon too.....

The Day of the CoW

2008-03-30T13:06:00.006+08:00

After that depressing post to answer questions regarding my absence during fun-o-rama, here's another more interesting one to explain the aftermath of THE FUNFAIR COW.

As most of you already know, the alumni chipped in to purchase a calf which they enaged a professional chef to roast from 12am to ard 10 am on funfair day. Most of the beef sold well however some semi-cooked portions weren't sold (for obvious reasons) Now....ever wondered how they finally disposed the remainder of the cow?

Just imagined the terror i got from the silhouette of someone carrying a huge black rubbish bag, walking through the gate of my house at night. ha! Other images like one of me stuffing the bag full (of beef actually) into the fridge kinda reminds some of cheesy horror flicks where mutilated body parts are wrapped in those same bags and stored in fridges for future use or disposal!

Well, the shock i got wasn't really far off from imagination when i realised that my dad had brought back 1 month's supply of beef....together with a plethora of other goodies from the funfair. haha.... In order to store our prize, I ended up doing to the poor remains of cow what most 5 year old brothers love doing to their sister's barbie dolls....dismember it! ^.^
In this lesson about butchery, the first thing i learnt was that cow bones are impervious to knives. (As a true scientist, i tested this hypothesis by chipping my cleaver along a length of bone to ensure that this fact was TRULY a fact... believe me... no need to try for yourself) Anyway, to get about it, i had to tediously saw my already chipped knife along the tendons and cartilage of the cow till the meat separated and then rip the bones apart using brute strengh. It was a messy and slippery job..... Now you know why your local butcher's so muscular!!

Well, with that done, i'll prolly have to find a fast way to dispose of it before the maggot-god comes.... haha... Sigh... Sometimes i think too much isn't really a good thing after all.. ha!
Putting this bovine disaster aside, the jackfruit tree in front of my house has started to fruit! yay! Just looking at the picture makes me happy. haha! It isn't ripe it though. According to my grandma, even though it has already reached momumental proportions, it'll be at least a full month before it becomes ripe enough to eat! Meanwhile, she told me to stand guard for potential jackfruit thieves! ha! The last part was weird but jackfruit theft had happened before...... =( I hope they'll leave at least one for me this time... Anyway, here's a happy picture of the humongous fruit...

Lastly, did you all notice seatbelts on the new buses?? Cool ya? That's prolly something put in place after someone complained about (and demanded compensation) after getting hurt on the bus. Sigh... to my thinking its to be another useless white horse feature that people won't use anyway. Just that this time, they won't be able to sue the bus company for such injuries while in that seat! ha!

Our acclaimed 3rd generation army

2008-03-29T21:46:00.006+08:00

I guess it'll be better if i wrote the whole thing out instead of explaining to everyone.

Anyway, I started my day with 3 activities. Tuition from 10 - 11.30am, Take a bus to carnival, reach ard 12.30pm, leave for a friend's birthday Party at 5-6pm with my friend. Well...as circumstances stand, the only thing which wasn't interrupted was my tuition, which went really well. (esp since i had videos of exploding alkali metals to show!)

Well, after tutoring, i took a bus down to Aljunied and took a long mrt ride down college and started walking to AC. Just before i stepped into the school gate, a mobilisation call came. With my camp in Yishun, things were suddenly really inconvenient, since i thought that we were to report back within 2 hours from activation....and for nothing more than a scanning of my 11B. Time then....12.30pm
Not really sure what was going on, i called a friend who mentioned that we were to go back in full battle order (Full Field Pack, Webbing & Helmet in No.4 Uniform) and not merely in whatever civilian attire we were in for scanning purposes. The purpose of the trip back wasn't made known too (but with the requirement of so many items, you'd think it'll be an exercise of some magnitude and time right??) That meant that i had to make a trip home (In Ang Mo Kio) then to camp in 2 hours! And i was stuck in Buona Vista, right outside the school gates. To add to that, i hadn't even packed my field pack yet.

Faced with such an impossibility, i called my mum, who so graciously offered to drive me home and to camp. Halfway on the journey home, i received news that the time given had been set to 8 hours from activation which meant tt i could go for the carnival and still make it back in time for the exercise........ (if that doesn't spoil your day, i dunno what would.)
After spending a great deal of time packing throughout the afternoon & apologising for not being able to go for my friend's bday, i finally received the last irritating piece of news from a unit that cannot forthrightly tell its NSmen what they require us to do...that this "exercise" was mainly a simple field pack check which lasts approx.......10 mins.

Disregarding the rest, I'm sure you all could tell that something like this would not have happened if i had been told exactly what was going on or had a mobilisation brief beforehand (which of course i never did) which explained about the different calls on 2 hour and 8 hour reporting and the attire involved. If this nonsense is the result of our acclaimed 3rd generation army, i'd rather live in a safer, more reliable place.

Harvey Norman Sale

2008-03-24T10:43:00.005+08:00

Was looking through the papers on Saturday and came across Harvey Norman's "Hardly Normal" Sale!! After looking through this ad, i'm starting to believe it just a little.... =)

Pictures taken during 1 week break

2008-03-14T11:36:00.014+08:00

These are some of the pictures i took at the places i went to last week. These were taken of Tony Roma's at the Suntec City Outlet. I liked the salad, though it can be really expensive for a salad!

           Santa Fe Salad                              Mixed Rib Platter

I also saw some weird things at Raffles City like this shoe with satin backing! ha! The royal purple satin juxtaposed with the trendy sports shoe makes the whole thing even more comical. ha!

    Shoes for Kings!! No less!

Saw this on a bookshop in Plaza Sing.... what are you waiting for? Go buy....

The ACS Story in a bookshop
A MUST for all ACSians eh?

Recently, my dad took the opportunity to tidy up the backyard (with my help of course!) ha! That effectively turned my house into a semi-jungle environment, as we stacked shoot after shoot of galangal for disposal. I skived off for awhile to take pictures of my dad and grandma and of course....the mess we made!

                        House that turned into a jungle

My grandmother went to steam this coconut filling kueh in the morning and totally forgot about it after answering a phone call. Smelling something like a BBQ, i went to the kitchen and opened the pot to find...... Steam-Fried Kueh!!

              Normal Kueh                             Steam Fried Kueh
                    (Before)                                          (After)

Oh lastly....A belated 21st happy birthday to Bryan. Thanks for inviting me and do keep in touch!

         Bryan's Birthday

Malaysia's Elections

2008-03-11T13:03:00.007+08:00

Went to the IT show with my family over the weekend and boy was it crowded! We could hardly even move about in the tide of people however, that didn't stop my dad, who managed to chalk up over $2500 worth of bills. What an achievement eh? ha! Well...most of what was spent was mainly bought by my dad for the school and the rest of the techy gadgets are LDS-subsidised. =)

Anyway, what i wanted to write about was on the Malaysian Elections last Saturday. Why did BN lose the majority vote of the Malays even though it ran racist policies and routed for them for the past 30-odd years. And shockingly, they lost the vote most drastically in urbanised areas like Penang, etc.. Does that mean that the educated, well-informed in society are veto-ing the BN out of the government? If so, why??

To me, as a Singaporean, i prefer a neighbour with a stable government. Like the PAP, Malaysia had the BN in power for a very long time. That strong mandate ensured that the country does not waste time and energy worrying about uncertain leadership nor scare away potential investors. This, i feel, is of utmost importance for any country. The BN may have some faults, but are able to take responsibility for them and improve (albeit slowly) on their weaknesses.

While it is true that BN has some unfair rules like the "bumiputra rights" , but such benefits will stay on with any govt of Malaysia in the near future. My reason being that if such benefits are forcibly taken away by an opposition government, it will cause irate protests from the malay community, victory parades from the Chinese and Indian ethnic groups and may well escalate to racial rioting throughout the country.

So...What can the opposition do to improve the lives of the Malaysians that the current, stable government of BN can't? Critics may point fingers at PM Abdullah for not fufilling his promise to rid corruption from Malaysia but hasn't the corruption situation improved from yesteryears? The pay of the police force has increased and the penalties were raised. Yes, corruption is still evident among the authorities however, you can't say that no effort has been put to quelching it, can you? if not, look at it this way....will an opposition government be able to mitigate the spread of corruption once and for all? Especially with the unrest it caused to attain its power?

Those are just my thoughts but i guess the Malaysian have really given the BN a wake-up call, similar to what Mas Selamat did for Singapore. In short, governments should never be complacent. If there is something to improve, they should do it...and do it in a well-thought out and effective manner.

More BGM

2008-03-06T22:58:00.003+08:00

Added more background music. (only works in IE)

I SO WANT TO LEARN GUSTY GARDEN GALAXY!!!!!

Scone Cafe idea raxed

2008-03-05T14:30:00.001+08:00

Hey! Latest updates for the funfair stall.
The offer for the cafe for funfair got passed to a J1 class. They forked out $400 for it so..... The plan for a scone '05 cafe this year will henceforth be called off.
To all those who offered to help, thanks for that and i hope to see you at the funfair this year. =) Till then!

Tiramisu

2008-02-29T17:18:00.004+08:00

I'm updating alot recently.. Anyway, Tiramisu is available under recipes. i deleted some photos because i accidentally deleted them while uploading the recipe. So...as you can see, there goes the picture of my dearest late catfish. =(

Moonflower

2008-02-29T00:24:00.002+08:00

yay! I finally finished the arrangement. Dunno what possessed me to sit down at my piano and really concentrate on the song. (Usually i'll rather meditate in front of the PPSII) Anyway, Yuugao, or "moonflower" in English, is completed. This was used as the character song for "Yakumo" in the School Rumble anime. Many thanks to Tien T. Nyugen and i should say that i used his arrangements as a primer for quite a number of my arrangemnts thus far. I also changed the bgm again because.......its about time i change the bgm already.
I actually pasted this in the class blog but i guess here's an open invitation to those interested, scone or otherwise (i'm just randomly recruiting thus far..so just support!)....

Regarding this year's ACJC funfair, Mdm Rahimah said that a company was willing to sponsor some cakes and other cafe stuff for the funfair. All they need are people to run it so basically, if you're free on that day, YOU'RE OBLIGED TO HELP AS PART OF SCONE '05.

Currently, she's opening this opportunity to the new J1s but if no one wants it by this Wed, we can actually take it as a stall for Scone '05. It may be kinda nasty but lets hope no J1 goes for it! (They'll have to fork out $400 for it btw..) Its free for us, so relax...

We may need to fork out some money (or find a sponsor! ^.^) to buy some drinks for the cafe but other than that, the rest of the things should be all prepared/sponsored.
Interested/Free people please let me know. This cafe will depend on all your support!

I haven't readied my recipe.... i got the tiramisu data already but... i haven't arranged it >.< Guess i'll do it tmr then.... .For now...songs..songs...songs!

Tuition among other things

2008-02-27T20:06:00.002+08:00

Started doing tuition today. It wasn't a really good start with me confusing the student more than anything else but i guess i can slowly clear thigns up again as time goes by. Sigh... Anyway, that also meant that i've got a new job too! ha! I guess this is way better than slugging off as a clerk and the experience isn't too bad either... i mean, where else can you study (or get forced to study) and earn money at the same time? =) Still... i better buck up in my organisation otherwise i'll prolly get kicked out of the job. heh..
I started adding a recipe section on the blog. Basically, this will prolly grow to become a recipe list of all the dishes i wanna learn to do by myself if i keep up at updating it regularly enough.
My sis will be playing for some wedding thingy at the start of next month. Hopefully it'll be a great success. =) She tied up with Matthew from my NS plt and some other nameless girl from planet earth to prepare over 20+ songs for the event. Its not really worth learning so many songs for the occasion right? But anyway.... its a service to the wedded anyway. Guess they had no choice. =p Somehow, i don't feel my ambitions with the piano reaching into performance yet. This could prolly give one more reason in my favour. heh!

500% profit lamination

2008-02-18T15:56:00.004+08:00

Yay! Got dow nto blogging again! That means that either i got bored of playing PS II or I got bored of something else. But anyway... went to check out the prices of laminating an A4 sheet of paper and woohoo.. .you wouldn't believe the price! Its a hefty $2 a sheet (Plus, i saw the words "no gurantee for good lamination" on the store-front) ha! That's really expensive for something that some of you NS skivers would have been able to do for free while you all were still under the Service. I really don't know why it is so expensive! I checked out from my mum's technician that the selling price of a box of 100 laminating sheets was like... $35. That works out to only about 35cents a sheet. Besides the laminator, all that's needed is just the brainless paper arrangement that even skill-less idiots like me can do. Talk about making profits Pueh! Of course...the issue is because i don't have a laminator in the first place! Hmm... anyone eve tried using an iron to do laminate instead? Wonder how it'll turn out but according to theory, it should be ok, right?? Anyway, if it works, do tell me! heh.. =D
My lunch at Jack's Place did little to put me in a better mood. Food was o..k... but the steak that I ordered came with fries instead of a jacket potato. I miss that surve potato! =( The previous time i ate at Whatshisname Place, I got an incomplete potato too because they ran out of the bacon topping. bleh...
I'm supposed to do some reading up this week but so far, its slow progress... sigh... How doe one study again after 2 years of rotting?!? >.< I need some motivation......boohoohoo...

Belated Valentines' Day

2008-02-16T23:00:00.003+08:00

I'm lagging on my entries again! ahh! So much for getting free time to blog! Anyway, I took mel's address down because she changed her blog to a private blog site. Others like the 2a1 time capsule one are dead and no longer running so that's off too. Added some others (with or without permission.. heh..) like yunxin's blog, which is quite dead too. Also added tien's piano version of yuugao (moonflower) from school rumble onto my sucky bgm player. I'm currently trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to rearrange it to a nicer version. I've been told to change the player to something else since it doesn't work on mozzie but haven't gotten down to it.
Went to my cousin's place to swim today, which was my first time after the dip in BMT. Well, after not having swam for so long, i ended up having to relearn lotsa basics again. The one which i still couldn't get the coordination right again is the Breaststroke. Totally ridiculous how people can swim it into a trance-like state while i strggle at it like a hamster on a diet. bah.. Not going to worry too much about it though...besides, i gave up halfway and decided to leisurely tread water, sitting on floats. =p
Oh, almost forgot... here's a Belated Happy Valentines' Day to all you lovebirds out there!
And Speaking of Birds, a bird decided to build a nest on the string for our kitchen blinds. My sis took a good pic of this and it s on her blog at http://www.xanga.com/hengyuqing/ if you wanna see it. Quite a stupid bird actually, since it only discovered that the nest it was building was in full view from our kitchen window, after it had laid eggs there. Luckily we only eat chicken eggs for breakfast. heh...

2008-02-09T23:06:00.001+08:00

K, with all the festivities over, its time to blog again! I didn't really take lotsa pictures this year. Guess I kinda got scared of taking after witnessing a guiness world record for most number of photos kept by one household, in my house. My sis did take a few though (despite my futile attempts to stop her), and ended up with a few good pics like this..

Anyway, to those inebriated drunkards still gallivanting out there.... 恭喜發財 to you and HELLO! time to sober up and get to work again!!
Just for updates, Joo Kiang flew off recently and Ker Wei's going off after this coming week. Scone Multi Generation Gathering is today so by the time you read this, you'd have missed it already. =) I went to sent JK off together with KK and Chunny. It was quite a small sendoff party but i was glad that the warmth from old friendships was there when he went. Here's a nice photo of us (childishly) posing together...

Hope that you all got your fair share of hongbaos! I guess this is goodbye to the season of oranges, zealous "rat-lion" dancers & GM potted plants. Till next year do we once again start buying too much for CNY only to eat all that junk food throughout the year! Now that's one very Happy Chinese New Year eh?!

Josh is Back!

2008-02-04T11:26:00.000+08:00

Josh anime is back... I pasted on the new link this morning. Its back with vengence i say... lotsa new songs. I'm thinking of advertising my arrangements there but i guess i'll wait till I arrange more first.

On passing away....

2008-01-11T23:12:00.000+08:00

My only living grandfather just died around noon today.

Despite knowing that he had terminal prostate cancer a few years ago, he bravely fought on to live life as fully as he could, setting goals at dates way past what doctors said he had left. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is usually found in normal men in quantities of below 4ng/mL. At around 100ng/mL, the patient is usually close to death. My grandfather endured through with 400ng/mL at the start of 2007. It was only till late October that he starting showing more signs of lethargy though he still made the effort to shop for his favourite sea harms at a naerby Tekka market. Even at a chalet birthday celebration in december where he fell down and injured himself, he cheekily jingled about “falling and receiving 3 cuts” into the birthday song.
His condition took for the worse immediately after the chalet. He had to be hospitalised for multiple fractures due to the fall, and he needed a blood transfusion because of possible internal bleeding. To allay our worries though, he declared, in that bold, loud teochew voice of his, that he was ok and not afraid of death. He proudly showed us that death is but a natural course of life and that we too, should not be afraid in life just because death is approaching.
As if antagonistic to his dire condition, my grandfather defied the natural tolerance of his own body. For even when doctors predicted that he had a maximum of 2 days left to live on Tuesday, he endured and challenged that statement by not letting go till today. My grandfather was a true fighter to the end. The attitidue he displayed, lying in his deathbed, “kiaw kah”ing and just treating the hospital stay as a normal visit despite him being so broken, is undoubtably heart-warming and touching.
Its a hard fact to accept that that jovial, carefree man whom i call my grandfather isn't there for me anymore. But one thing's for sure.... I was glad to have had him as my grandpa. Farewell grandpa.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wake at Blk 105 Towner Road,
Near Boon Keng Mrt Station.
Friends, do inform me if you're going, it's at my uncle's place.

Updates + Hamster News

2008-01-06T12:59:00.000+08:00

With the advent of Finale Notepad 8, I'm now able to churn out the midis for my arrangements. =) Regrettably, Josh song score website is down and there seems to be no fast way to recovery as of now... I'm getting my songs from ichigos currently but there is a noticeable drop in standard. Guess it can't be helped.... Other changes to the blog, i changed the finale link to the notepad page itself. I also changed the bg music again. Just minor thigns lah.
Oh... The hamster that i got was from ACJC. I know there are many people in shock as to why ACJC had hamsters in the first place so to set things straight, here's the story... A teacher initially brought 3 hamsters to school to give away. The recipient was to collect the following day so he kept them in a cardboard photocopy paper box under his desk in the staff room overnight. However, 2 of the smart little critters dug a hole through the cardboard and fled into the dark, mysterious niches of the staff room, leaving only one super dumb hamster for collection the following day. From then one, days were filled with hamsters running the gaunlet through the echelons of bewildered teachers only to disappear into another peaceful sanctuary elsewhere in the staff room. Deciding that this has got to stop, Mr. Hamster Bringer brought a rat cage and managed to catch one of the renegade rodents, which is actually the dumb-dumb hamster living with me now. As for the other fast-and-furry.... Its been almost a month, however, no news was heard from the smart fugitive....
Yup, so that's how i got it. The hamster recipient didn't want the hamster anymore, fearing a "post-hamster-war" baby boom, so i ended up with it. hmm... i think i got a rough picture of it so i guess i'll post it up here....

And if you, for some reason, see the renegade hamster, don't forget to call for H.E.L.P!!! haha....

*This is actually a fire hose reel in Ghim Moh Hawker Centre* So Cool Right??

Welcome 2008

2008-01-01T22:23:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year to all my blog readers! Its the year of the Olympics again...well.. and also for the ACJC fun-o-rama. I guess asking people to buy tickets here will prolly scare off the rest of my already scarce number of blog readers so... just hope to see you there. =D
Even though its still about a month away, I'm really looking forward to this year's CNY. Its going to be held on a Thursday and Friday, which means a full 4 day holiday for the occasion. Thinking about that also means that i'll have to finally stow away the christmas tree that i so painstakingly put out early november. =( Festive seasons pass too fast!
Oh btw, how many presents did you all get this year? I got 3, which was quite reasonable considering how i give off a bad aura about receiving unwanted gifts. ha! I got a good surprise when i even got a card from Soon Hoe!
Well, that aside, do you realise that the number of gifts (physically) decrease the older you get and that the number of online christmas cards and smses increase? heh! Weird... =/
Anyway, here's to a good year ahead! Cheers! =)

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-27T21:31:00.000+08:00

This is a little late but.... Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! =) I've been wanting to write a new entry for awhile now, but i didn't get down to it till now. (obviously..) didn't really do much for Christmas, partially because my grandpa isn't too well. I did take part in those traditional gift exchanges in AC though. ha! Not too bad for my first Christmas after the solitude of NS.
Anyway, Josh's Anime Website is gone!!! =( No more new songs... =( I guess its about time i switched genres for music again. Anime songs are.... well.... sometimes J-Pop songs are annoying. (can't understand them too) I've a song writer to recommended though. Just like how Nobuo Uematsu was the trump of the Final Fantasy series, Yuki Kajiura is like one of the Queens in Anime music. You can try searching for some songs in genduo but she does mainly bgm, i think...
Oh, I tried cooking today too! (after a long hiatus) It wasn't really so much of a want as a need, since it was partially because our store-bought salad was beginning to rot in the fridge, that i starting cooking. Anyway, I tried making Honey-Mustard dressing for it, which consisted of mainly Mayo. ha! It wasn't too hard, following a recipe from the net. All that was needed was Mayo, Honey, Mustard and vinegar. Of course, i ingeniously grinded some actual mustard seeds in to give it a more lustrious and peppery look. =) Overall, it wasn't bad at all!! Even with bad Vege!!
Well, more on cooking, I was thinking about how expensive popcorn chicken was. Its currently sold at some $3 for 10-15 soggy pieces. It works out to about 25-30 cents each, which is a big nono for leftover chicken meat. So...to overcome this, i used (by necessity again, because our chicken had been in the fridge for 1/2 a week now) some leftover chicken meat. I diced it, dipped it in a batter of 1/3 wheat flour + 2/3 rice flour (and a wisp of salt/baking powder), and fried it. To my surprise, the outcome is really not unlike the popcorn chicken that's being sold, except that this one is actually cripsy! ha! It'll be better to add a bit of soy sauce to the leftover meat but anyway, it wasn't so bad either. ha! =)

HK Trip.

2007-12-09T16:41:00.001+08:00

Sorry, i was caught up with something so the pictures came on first! (Hopefully no one noticed the error) Anyway, as to what i said about the dried apricots, its WRONG. I went to HK and finally realised tha they were dried persimmons!! haha! Here's what they look like.... Not a bad description eh??

Nevertheless, it still doesn't look very edible to me. ha! Things really look different when they're dried.... or waxed, for that matter. These waxed geese still had their head on them and for some reason, (if you look closely) their necks are all black, wrinkled and motifying. Its no wonder local stores sell headless geese!

Well, as to more Hong Kong culture, I realised that they are not shy about advertising for usually taboo subjects here. Here are some photos i took of that. There were more advertising for hourly hotels, sex shops (with women standing next to the advert!) and even one of the haemorrhoid clinic on a public bus! ha! (Gosh...who advertises for haemorrhoids so openly??) O_o

Maybe i should have put this picture together with those up there. This picture of this petrified-looking fish was taken outside a seafood restaurant in HK. The poor thing looks as if it went through hours of agonising torture and was finally laid to rest in this eatery's fish tank! I really wonder why it has puffy cheeks when it isn't a puffer fish. (you'll expect bruises on them if you followed my theory eh?) My parents said it was a grouper but i doubt its anything close to being salubriously edible, it being so sickly looking itself! =/

Talking about inedibles... Ever eaten a RED banana?? Well, along with a panoply of other exquisite cuisines, These Morodo bananas give you just that! Its kinda fitting for it to be sold at a supermarket whose motto is "More than food" isn't it? haha.

I guess those of you who watched "Zhen Qing" should recognise the next photo. Yup! Its the famous Bolo Bun or Pineapple-Crust Bun! Its nice to eat on the go & ridiculously simple to make too! Its just regular dough to form the bun and the crispy crust is made up of butter, sugar and flour. Looks delicious eh? =) No wonder they ate it so often in the show!

The Hong Kong Char Siew and other roasted meats are more notable but their traditional Dim Sums are also worth a mention, especially when they contain char siew too! =) Mostly any dim sum restaurant should give you good chee cheong fun w char siew. (its one of my fav dim sum dishes so far) But for a more traditional dim sum eating, there's this place where the waiters hawk their items, not in carts, but in metal trays with slings. Here's a sneak-shot i took.

Ever seen a pissing prawn? *ahem* Not literally, but this one was called that in Mandarin and Cantonese... The more modest English name for it is Squilla.

Overall, there was quite alot of advertising for the Beijing Olympics and the place was much cleaner than i expected. They really did a good job of cleaning up the area quite abit! Near the city area, you'll find almost no litter (leaves included) and their parks all carry signs like these.... (crazily restrictive)

The suburbs are a different matter though, but i guess it'll improve soon. This was taken in Yun Long, one of the New Territorial areas. The rubbish was Actually on the road!

That more or less sums up my trip to Hong Kong. There were other things like giant Buddhas and Guan Ying Mas lying around but i couldn't get them in my miniature camera. Then again, I guess there's no need for that either way since they're so big i reckon if you'd just squint off the horizon, you'll see a wee bit of them already! =)

Hong Kong Trip 07

2007-12-01T23:25:00.001+08:00

Hey all!! I'll be going for my Hong Kong trip tomorrow morning. (Think i'll put on weight again) *groan* Anyway, I should be back home safe and sound on the 7th to resume my deplorable, laidback lifestyle. =D I haven't been to HK since goodnessknowswhen! Ha! Last i remembered of the place was that it was crowded (much like thailand..perhaps worse) and that they sold dried apricots that looked like black donuts with icing sugar on it. Well....not quite to my liking but I guess my brain was partially damaged during that last time because none of my family members recall anything that grotesque.
Its finally december. =) Can you feel the Christmas season?? Endure on, Med peps! 1 more week of school!!

ORD!

2007-11-05T18:59:00.000+08:00

Officially out of NS today. =) Nothing says it better than my pink IC. haha...
Improved some accompaniments to Start Line. Realised it needed some tweaks after playing it on the piano a few times. Can't think of a good ending for it though... sigh.. I guess i'll just leave it up to creativity then.

Website updates

2007-11-01T20:12:00.000+08:00

Uploaded another arrangement, "Start Line" from C.O.A.C.H. It was used as the opening song for the anime Suzuka. This is still the first draft and as usual, i rearranged the whole thing from josh's one on his website.. ha! I guess i should start putting a link there from here. I redid Anata Ga ita Mori's intro abit too. Also added the finale version of the files up with a link to the finale notepad website if u guys want to listen to the arrangements. I can't do them into midi unless i convert them to sibellus 3 files, which i have but am too lazy to use. (finale is more brainless...ha!)
i realised tt i've quite alot of uncompleted songs in my folder too. Looking at them, i really wonder how Mozart and his other great-composer lackeys accomplish dunno what 600+ songs in their lifetime.....and they don't live very long. >.< Its almost impossible to come up with so many different accompaniments for the melodies!!
Anyway, started playing utopia again. I think it'll feel like the stock market...slow growth unless u take risks. And even if u don't take risks, u stand to lose ur investment from enternal factors. bah... i think too much..... Well, enjoy the pieces. =) Go check out how lousy the originals sound at josh's website! haha...Then u'll understand why i rearranged those pieces.

Kujarra III

2007-10-12T21:07:00.000+08:00

Well, usually no idiot would blog about his/her experience at a restricted overseas live-firing exercise but.... well......perhaps no idiot except me. =D
Unfortunately though, i can't say much about the exercise proper due to confidentiality issues but still.... here are some pics that i took over there which i'm 100% certain that i can show to u all. =D (don't scold me for some of the lamer posts...)

Quite tired now, i guess i'll jsut end it here. ha!

VivoCity and K3

2007-09-24T00:27:00.000+08:00

Updated the Malaysia 07 article by putting a singpore "no eating or drinking" pic next to the malaysian one for reference. Interestingly enough, there's a stick of chewing gum featured on the Singapore sign! ha!

Anyway, Went to VivoCity today to meet up with some old friends and celebrate 2 ppl's birthdays. Watched Chuck and Larry too. Its a nice comedy with lots of taboo issues regarding homosexual relationships highlighted. Didn't really understand why they wanted to go through such trouble just for some money and for getting Chuck committed to look after Larry's children.... Guess shows are really just shows sometimes. lol.
Besides the show, we also went up to the rooftop with all the rain-water pools and that's where we saw this interesting sign.... =)

Well, it wasn't really about buttocks (actually referred to disposal of cigarette butts) but i found it quite funny when taken like the way i did. ha! To think that S'pore discriminates ppl by butts! ha! so misleading...
I'll be flying off to Australia this coming tuesday. Flight is SQ 269 to Adelaide, i'll be on SQ 268 back on 10th Oct. Try not to msg me there unless its urgent. ha! I'd hate to be disturbed.... =D In any case, see u folks!! bye!

Malaysia 2007

2007-09-06T20:12:00.000+08:00

These are some of the pictures i took over at malaysia during my trip there. Went there for 4 days from the 1st of the month to the 4th. =) Not going to yak much as usual and instead, let the pictures do the talking. ha!

This one's about some pledge to customers from a supermarket store. I really think Singapore supermarts should have something like this too, ya?? haha..

After a whole day of shopping, what better way is there to relax than to sit at one of these booths and sink your legs into Osim merchandise? This is of my mum btw (she's obviously not one of the scarfed women!) duh..

Oh...ok. I took this because S'pore's version of the "NO EATING/DRINKING" sign had a burger and soft drink. This Malaysian version has what....soft drink, lollipop and even err.. kachang puteh?!? ha! Took this one in their train. Oh, more on their mrts, well...u know that s'pore has those barricades where u tap your EZ-Link? Surprise is, Malaysia has them open most of the time! They only close when the system detects that u try to cross w/o sliding your fare-card in first. Quite cool right?? hmm...prolly S'pore could come up with that in future...

Here is the Singapore version..... Notice the No chewing gum pic! So cool! Heard its because S'pore bans import of the gum but not the consumption of it! ha!

Now..... why would there be a giant chair on top of a building in the middle of nowhere?? O_o Weird....

Manhatten Fish Market: The best place to show off poor talent in advertising food.... Man!! I dunno what to say about these.... haha...

Again on lousy standards!! kk... I deliberately blanko-ed out the actual price of the dodol so that u folks can play at guessing the actual price! =) Good Luck. For Answers: Its the root of RM38.3161. hee...

Nothing much on this one... it Obviously wrong..... Cauliflower chillies and Beet Root corn-on-a-cob. *snigger...*

Yay!! Happy Medeka (independance) Day Malaysia!! =) I never knew that Malaysia had their national day so close to Singapore's day. For those non-Malaysians, Malaysia celebrates theirs on the 31st Augest. As a patriotic move, like in S'pore, citizens would hang up Malaysia Flags around....however....this pic shows what is just considered excessive patriotism!!!

Well, glad that my hols were quite interesting this time round. ha! Come to think of it, This trip was my first one overseas since i enlisted early last year. How fast time flies! Sigh... soon i'll have to content with studying again. no more sai-kang and tuanging liao!! haha!! 60 days,9 weeks to go!! =)

Bottle Tree Park

2007-08-19T20:06:00.000+08:00

Today, i'll be talking about the Bottle Tree Park! Went there earlier today with my family. Its located somewhere near serangoon, tucked away into an ulu side-road. Apparently, they still hung the singapore flag at their entrance despite the fact that almost no-one will see it. ha!

Anyway, the place is more like a fishing cum vegetable farm. Its kinda like divided into two with the plants near the entrance (prolly in a bid to make the place look like a flora paradise) and the ponds near the rear. I guess another reason why they had the fishies at the back was because a good many of our aqua-folk died and stayed floating on the water trying to escape cruel, hyperactive children fishers. They were so evil....tottering around in the water gleefully,scaring the wits out of those poor fishies. ha! Didn't want to spoilt ur image of the park so i took one of the adult fishing ponds instead.

Ah...on to the plants....The reason why the place was called such was because of these weird trees with bloated trunks.

Its weird but what makes them so amazing is that they appear to have almost no leaves when young! ha! They grow like bamboo shoots without the shoots! heh... =p The place specialised in other fire-hardy crops too like palm. (there were tags on it which said that it was a protected species of plant!) The park shipped it in from Queensland which was really quite cool because i didn't know these palms grew there! ha! You'd only expect such things from Malaysia ya? Anyway, the canopy formed really made for a good photo shoot for my mum and dad... aww.... so sweet! ha! Really liked this photo...

ha! Well...more on my dad... he was really quite funny, cracking jokes with a straight face. Think he almost sounded like goei! haha! Anyway, here are 2 corny ones.

On seeing a small snail on a palm tree,
dad:"Oh! They even ship in the Queensland Snails!"

On seeing a caucasian man with a boy,
dad:"Hey! There are even caucasian here...or wait...maybe he's albino because his son is dark-skinned!"

ha! to end this off... here's one of me looking lost! lol!!

Blog Song/Score Update

2007-08-12T00:47:00.000+08:00

Just updated the score section of the blog. Made some changes to both "Anata Ga Ita Mori" & "Sora ga Miagete" with help from my sis! =D Came up with a new arrangement for "Battle of Rose" from the anime Rozen Maiden. Currently only a score for 2 pianos was out on Ichigos. Dunn oif there are other sources but anyway, its awaiting editing/vetting from my sis so it might still sound a little funny. ha! (If anyone wants to hear it, i'll send the Finale file over. =p)
There's also a new soundtrack, "The Light Before We Land". It has a dark undertone....like "World of Midnight". I like the intro though.. ha!
Currently, i'm working on another arrangement, "Tonari no Totoro", bettter known as My Neighbour Totoro from Ghibli. The original piano collection is damn nice. Its written by Joe Higarishi or something. Here's a video of someone playing the song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRMFafXgg6Y
The playing style (classy) reminds me of the type used in the "Loss of Me" piano collection piece. U can listen to it at the soundtrack section of the blog. =) Yup, that's all in this update.

NDP Part 2

2007-08-11T11:00:00.000+08:00

I decided to post up more pics because i simply dunno what else to write! ha! Anyway, all these were taken during the last 2 sessions of ndp. Lotsa nostalgic memories with even a graffitied cardboard promoting NDP and Kujarra III, which is my unit's upcoming live-firing exercise! haha!! Pictures speak best for themselves so just browse through.... =p

The Cardboard thing! haha! It was wedged on top of a NEWater bottle! ha! So Patriotic!

Oh... forgot to mention but the previous Saturday was the actual competition date of the WCG! They occupied an entire lvl of exhibition space with tons of coms and people who came cosplaying as their favourite game and naime game characters! Here's one of a World of Warcraft (WoW) Night Elf. She didn't really move around much throughout the 1-1.1/2hrs i was there. I guess twas becuase her pointy ears and huge bow were abit too fragile for the crowd there. ha! I wonder how often would night elves break their delicate bows and bruise their larger-than-life ears if they were real!! =X ha! *evil thoughts*

Arab videoman! Kinda reminds me of this other one...

This is of inuyasha (from the anime inuyasha...duh) at a different cosplay festival. Also taking video! ha! So cool!

Last one... this funny,fuzzy-looking thing was actually a mike! wow!! Never knew they had those kinda weird equipment for NDP! =)
Recently went for another scone gathering....in my no.4! ha! Too bad i didn't have a choice because they made us come in that for NDP..WHICH BEGS TEH QUESTION!! Why couldn't we come in red shirts and jeans like all the other helpers! stupid organisers...bah... yeah, i'm sure they have their reasons all prepared & sweet-talks well-rehersed.... Ah well, shouldn't be bothered about petty issues anymore.... 3 months! ha!

NDP NDP NDP!!!

2007-07-22T21:46:00.000+08:00

So far, i've been faithfully going for NDP rehersals every Saturday without actually blogging much about it. Well, here's a blog that's dedicated specially about NDP. =) To best illustrate how this year's NDP is going at its new location in Marina Bay, here are a plethora of high quality pictures that i took over the last 3-4 sessions i attended. Enjoy!

Primus, an artillery tank

I took this just before having to stand at attention for the National Anthem!!

This is the vehicle i'm supposed to push if it breaks down.... -_-" Corny job but "essential" (for NDP, at least)

The red sea of the NDP audience. They're noisy!!

I think they were focusing on the display panel. I took it because it looked cool with the Ferris Wheel (S'pore Flyer) in the background.

The F-16 Salute after the National Anthem. I was abit slow even though my camera was already on and ready at my side.... -_-" F16s are just too fast! *Reflects on my SQN's 37 year old AA guns*

The mass contigent make-up of the NDP. Looks cool on TV but on closer inspection, one can see lotsa fidgeting... (especialy from the Air Force, i was told... haha)

This was purely a lucky accident!! And i will swear off any Photoshop edits to make the Commando unit stand out ok! Besides, i wouldn't know how to use it to that extent. ha! Quite cool eh?? =)

Ok...i got a little naughty and decided to take a sneak-shot at these bridesmaid performers. The thing about NDP is that for their performances, the costumes used are always so skeletal. Worse, the designs are a pathetic attempt at the futuristic with lotsa vibrant, mismatched colours that make u wonder why such a tender at the performance went through in the first place. ha! Dunno how many of u agree with me but critics just have to take a closer look at the framework-outside-the-material skirts of the bridesmaid performers to understand what i mean.... kinda frustrating to see resources so badly spent!
Anyway, after NDP ytd, i lost my wallet on the way home!! =( I told my dad and we spent over an hour searching for it from bus depot to depot until a kind soul called and said that her father found my wallet at the bus stop where i boarded my bus home. I really thanked God for such honest people and collected my wallet back. I guess that was truly a lesson i'd remember from now on. Always check that my valuables are with me when i'm going from point to point. yup... If one good thing happened from the incident, it'll prolly be that after the ordeal, i managed to get the girl's hp no. ha! =) Now....being happy about that doesn't really sound like me ya??? HMMM..... MUAHAHAHA!!!

New Arrangement

2007-07-16T13:00:00.000+08:00

Just finished watching another anime series, Full Moon wo Sagashite. Its basically a sob story about this singer who has throat cancer. The story ties up much of the plot and background nicely but what brought the show to success was prolly more of the music! ha! It has many many sentimental and emo pieces and thankfully.....josh's score website hosts a few of them. =) As usual, i didn't really like some of the arrangements and decided to rearrange some myself. Still working on a few but for now, Sora wo Miagete is out. I wrote a shorter version from the original from hell_xtremedawg and i didn't edit the right hand at all. Still can't really get the chords on some parts but i guess it'll do. I'll post up newer edits if i make any in future. Piano enthusiasts, feel free to d/l and play.
Watched harry potter ytd together with nich, goei, marc, ze lin and tatt. Haven't met some of them for ages so it felt great to finally find some time to get together and chat like old times again. The show wasn't as great as i expected but it was still as breath-taking as the previous 4 during the fighting scenes. One thing i found quite frustrating was the use of characters around harry who like....have totally no part to play in the story. Take ginny for example. Always there but no lines... kinda sad, don't u think? Luna's becoming a favourite. Watch to know why. =) ok, that's about all for this week. I'm involved in NDP, which prolly means no more free Sats till National day! sob!

POSB disaster!

2007-06-30T22:26:00.001+08:00

Today after the funfair, i decided to go to an ATM booth to deposit some money. (The funfair didn't really have much worth spending on) ha! Anyway, i just wanted to try out how to deposit money. Never done it before, you see.... Well, all went well until the machine went "kuku" and gave me an "error in transaction" notice. The darn thing proceeded to return me my card and kept the change, which was my precious deposit! =( No receipt came out and i was left stranded there with a queue behind my back. haha.. I did what any sane person who just got robbed in broad daylight do. I Panicked! I started calling my dad for help and at the same time tried to look for things to copy that might aid me. The instinct to kick the machine and pry the deposit slot open was rather overwhelming i would say, but luckily i was still compos-mentis enough to do things calmly. All in all, i felt like a fool, holding a phone and scrutinizing the stingy machine amidst holding up a crowd of eager POSB aunties who always appear impatient but are not necessarily in a rush. Fortunately again, my mum was nearby and came down to help me with a call to the teller to get them to settle the deposit instead. Sigh.. Never expected to get into such trouble, it being my first and prolly my most cautious time i'm using the ATM. Oh well... hopefully this wouldn't happen again....at least not anytime soon would be nice.

2007-06-29T17:27:00.000+08:00

Ahh...What a tiring week. Well, besides the usual stuff we did, my platoon had to get ready all the exercise equipment again. =( Yes.. its another xiong exercise over the next week again and this time, we're going out together with our neighbour platoon. sigh.. No consolation in that though, in the end, us, being more senior, somehow just end up doing more and over our share of the work. bah... i hate how the world uses us free labour twits.
Anyway, aside from that, i finally had my LAST chance driving in my instructor's manual car today. (Its last for a reason) =) Kinda nostalgic, especially when i recall all those times i stupidly stalled the car because my clutch foot was sore. ha! Thanks to u guys who prayed for me & good luck in your driving too.
I updated my BGM again. Its mostly piano solo pieces now because that's all i ever search for to play nowadays. I reworked the score Anata Ga Ita Mori too to include an intro as well as a few fine-tuning tweaks in the melody. I kinda hate the left-hand starting portion but don't have any alternative ideas for it as of yet. Hopefully i can improve it soon. =)

This Past Week

2007-06-24T21:13:00.000+08:00

Got sick again!! Just caught a minor cough but its been ruining my appetite, which is bad since i like to eat. bah... Its prolly all because of the hectic schedule in camp over the past week. We had a driclad to touch-up, a BBQ to plan and carry out and some K3 training to do. Well, its partially due to live firing, but somehow i feel that the tempo in camp seemed to have picked up over the months rather than tone down despite having only what?? 5 months left in NS life. Come to think of it... .next week ain't going to be better with more mock up training and preparation for a week-long exercise the week-after. =( Can't wait for these few months to pass and my wishing good riddance to NS. ha!
Oh, forgot to say, Victor just went to BMT about a week and a half ago. Hope he'll eb fine, especially with all the dengue alert and all. Speaking of dengue, its getting ridiculous but people in camp have been making suggestions that we walk around in long no.4 everywhere we go. I mean, firstly, the camp is not a declared hot-spot and secondly, people out there like your regular singlet-sandals uncle don't get bitten even though they wear minimum clothing! Don't they know is so damn bloody hot in long no.4? bah... Hope they don't implement and enforce such things...
Oh lastly, heard ACS (BR) is having a carnival again this year. Its to be held this Saturday, 30th June. Should be the whole day from 9am to 6pm again. I'm thinking of going so do tell me if you're deciding to go too. Alright, that's all i guess....

June Life Day

2007-06-18T23:41:00.001+08:00

Had my platoon life day today at sentosa's siloso beach with lotsa games and humour. I guess the one thing that must be present for a pleasurable life day is good weather, with puffy clouds to block away the sun. =) Anyway, we played the usual games any idiot would play at the beach, for instance, beach volleyball, frisbee and soccer. Basically, simple games that involve people running around naked and hollering at the top of their voices. Of course we had THE platoon favourite activity too, which was to randomly drag each other into the water even if the intended victim is twice your size. Forget the little injuries like a bruised shoulder, scraped knees or sand in eyes. Who cares about people who get hurt when overall "everyone's" having fun?? Well, that mentality persisted till i nearly drowned after some bugger hooked his arm over my head and used me as a portable floatation device. Wow..."life" day sure is exciting eh?
Anyway, enough on that, i managed to take some nice photos while everyone was high on something other than alcohol. Why do i say that? Its because twits like these two decided to take a landmark photo next to a dustbin... Really speechless...

Ah! This one's a really favourite, partially because someone in my platoon really has buck-teeth haha!

Its kinda like an evil spoof of him or something. =) Oh, well...this pick-up guaranteed safety but looked to have crashed into some trees... kinda ironic...

Well, so that's a rough idea on how events turned out. Quite typical of people with the dreaded NS syndrome eh? ha! 5 more months to endure through....

Lucky Lucky

2007-06-05T11:36:00.000+08:00

haha! Haven't been posting for awhile due to the lazy bug. Anyway, my dad finally bought his new watch. (he was eyeing it for over a month!) Its the expensive TIMEX one which manually winds up everytime you wear it. The coolest part about it is this "power meter" which tells you how wound up the spring is. It goes from "L" to "H" which is like the petrol gauge in the car. So interesting eh? My dad decided to buy it partly because the salesperson had good service sense and partly because there was a discount offered. =X Well, my sis and i thought that the watch would be of better use to either me or her, us being pianists. (Just imagine me wearing the watch to play piano) The gauge will never hit "E"!! haha! But then again, it was what my dad wanted so no chance.
Anyway.....we ended up with the watch and 2 chances at a Lucky Draw (it being the Singapore Sale season) which won us a $400+ IPod Video as well! =D ha! Lucky me! Come to think of it, i've never had much of a lucky streak up till now. I've never won any lucky draws, TOTO, 4Ds, bets and even Monopoly games! But on that day, i realise that God still treats everyone fairly in the end =) Hopefully, with my new "toy", NS life will be more tolerable. (5 more months to go!)
Recently, i arranged a new score again. I know its been super long since i last posted up a new song score but anyway,i did this one became i couldn't stand the incongruities in the original one at alphatrance. I'll post mine up soon its called "Anata Ga Ita Mori" from Fate/Stay Night. Dunno how many of u watch that anime but oh well... its a nice song. =D Fellow pianists feel free to download and play.

Random Pictures

2007-05-20T11:08:00.000+08:00

These are some really stupid things that happens during tests and examintions. =)Prolly due to stress and a complete sense of hopelessness for passing the paper... ha! These two are part of my mum's collection.....

And this is what happens to fishes which don't drink enough water..... They get SAUSAGE LIPS!!! bwahaha!!

Kinda disturbing if you ask me.... Eww!!! I wouldn't wanna eat that fish! yucks...

www.Accidents.MID

2007-05-06T09:08:00.000+08:00

Came back from field camp last Thursday and boy was it exciting. Apart from the usual tracking and shooting part of the exercise, lotsa mishaps happened with the frequent rain and the plethora of potholes lining our roads. Over the span of the 5 days i spent outfield, these were the things that happened. 2 tonner crashes with 1 equipment being damaged, 1 tree fell during a heavy downpour, blocking the road to the cookhouse, 1 tonner got stuck in mud at the deployment site and had to be towed out using a crane, 1 tonner kept stalling on the expressway back to camp and 1 platoon-mate got backpain. (possibly from sitting in a tonner that went through one too many potholes for him to take!) ha!
Somehow these few days at the start of May have been rather ominous not just to us but also to units elsewhere. An example was that on the way back, we saw a total of 3 military vehicles & an ambulance being towed back from i dunno what. The number of accidents was just crazy...
Miraculously, no one got severely injured throughout the whole unfortunate episode of disasters which is prolly something to thank God for. Hope that the weather will improve by the time my next exercise comes. It'll really be disasterous if someone goes "opps" during a live-firing exercise and something blows up. Nah... don't want any of that to happen now would we?
Lastly, does anyone know a good place to book a badminton court around City/East side? I'm a nitwit past my area. ha!

Ramblings..

2007-04-21T19:16:00.000+08:00

Finally learnt how to edit a matroseka video enough such that it can be uploaded with its subs onto youtube. haha! Literally took me the whole week with lotsa help from my tech-savvy cuz and www.videohelp.com to get the appropriate programs to convert the file to avi format, shrink it, hard-code the subs into it and cut it up so that it doesn't exceed the 10min max duration allowed for videos on youtube. (Of course, that wasn't what i initally did, which is why it took so long!)
Went out with friends for lunch today and somehow i wasn't so happy to spend time out of the house even though i've sorta been cloistered indoors for more than a week considering this was my block leave. Sigh... I guess its partly because the thought of having to book in again tmr morning makes me want to spend the remaining time i have left as fruitfully as possible or something... Forget it... i'm just probably self-centered and i feel that i shld do what i want to do when i want to do. Horrible eh?? haha...
I'll be out for a long exercise from after next week on. Oh, and also, early happy birthday jialing! Know you don't read blogs but its for other OG members to find out and sms u something on the day itself. ha! =)

Similar Books??

2007-04-19T23:56:00.000+08:00

I'm a Terry Goodkind fan and so i was realyl surprised to see that Ian Irvine's series of books had starkingly similar titles to the ones i was reading from Terry!! haha!! They're both fantasy stories too!! Wonder if the stories are similar too but haven't gotten down to buying Ian's books. Currently reading Forgotten Realms series anyway...
In case you can't tell... Terry Goodkind's 2 books are "Stone of Tears" & "Faith of the Fallen" while Ian Irvine's series is called "Song of the Tears" which has a 1st book "Fate of the Fallen" lol....

I spent my leave watching Code Geass. Its prolly the first anime i found that has a main character who wants to take over the world!! (and is portrayed a lunatically sinister about it) Quite a fresh plot rather than the common altruistic heroes you see on most any other show.

Sarah Chang

2007-04-08T21:34:00.000+08:00

Went to Borders on Saturday to look for books but ended up wandering to the music cd section and i couldn't believe what i saw! I know this is abit off but I really REALLY thought our dear classmate Sarah started an album! The violinist Sarah Chang really looks like Sarah Cheng!! haha!! I can just imagine Sarah going into concerts and performances in future too!!
Haven't blogged for a long time and its prolly because i felt down from failing my driving & missing my IPPT gold timing. (Somehow i managed a 9.48 timing which was like... 3 seconds from gold...zzz) Anyway, said that i'd take some photos from my new cam so here's the first few. As you can see....its not very good at taking through plastic. Quite disappointed that there's so much reflection on the photo despite my painstaking efforts to shield direct light from the cd cover when i took the photo. Oh well... at least it still focuses properly. One of these days i'll prolly go seek photography lessons from Daryl. ha! Then maybe i'd be able to take good photos.
Btw, this tuesday is my dad's birthday & Friday is Yun xin's birthday and next thursday is Alan's birthday. Something like that lah... I sorta memorised April's babies because i am one of them!! whee!! And i'd be able to get free off on that day!! double yay!! Well.. Year 1 is ending for Uni already so just hang in there!! Med students, another 5 years to go!! bwahaha..

New Camera

2007-03-11T21:52:00.000+08:00

Have you ever seen an overhead bridge so jammed with people that you can hardly breathe? Went to the IT Fair at Suntec City yesterday and boy, was it packed! The fair itself spammed 3-4 floors of the convention centre there with companies ranging from IT Savvy Sony to the totally out-of-place Osim. (I still dunno why they decided to sell massage chairs there...) Anyway, we went there because our old cameras were causing us so much trouble and also because we wanted to see my cousin, Victor, who somehow landed a job there for a measly paycheck. >.<
After an hour of trying to squeeze through human meat shields, we finally reached the Olympus booth. It was quite fast from there since my sis had already researched for us which camera to buy. Well, of course we decided to try out the features on the display set but it was more fiddle and twiddle than actually testing the camera because cameras nowadays weren't made for dinosaurs.
To cut a long stroy short (i have to go back to camp in 20 mins) we finally settled on a weird Olympus model which was all-weather capable but can't handle underwater shoots and a Canon IXUS 75 which i chose for a multitude of features i can't type in 20 mins alone. (it looks like Goei's camera i think!) ha!
From the crowd i saw, i guess it really does pay to know what you're looking for at an IT Fair. We could've started wandering from Nikon,FujiFlim,Canon,Ranger and whatever other camera company booth for an entire day without ever finding what we want. Anyway, hopefully i can find some nice scenes to take for future entries.....prolly will help liven my floundering blog. =) Till next week! whee.... (38 weeks of NS left)

Lunar New Year

2007-02-20T22:40:00.000+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year to all!! I wonder how much you all got in ang pao money. haha! Haven't checked my ones yet but my sis says that the amounts are really weird this year. (she usually gets the same as me) Anyway, as with almost all previous new years, we (over-) bought a monumental panoply of new year goodies for idunnowhatreason because we also go through the trouble, or rather, sadistic excitement, of stuffing would-be visitors with a plethora of home-cooked food too. Here's a pic of the hoard of new year snacks we bought!!

I'm starting to find the New Year tradition a bit awkward. According to what my dad says, the correct custom is in "visiting". As in, its not enough that you visited so-and-so and exhanged wishes & oranges among other things.That so-and-so should, by right, come over and visit you at your messy place too. That ensures that the correct formal greetings are exchanged in the correct atmostsphere or something. To me? I think the extensive visitings are to fill up the boredom of 15 days of public holidays some other places have for the new year and also as a clever excuse to force lazy youngsters like me to clean the house for a change.

Speaking of cleaning, i was completely shagged out last saturday trying (actually coerced) to do some last minute spring cleaning. Dunno how my grandmother did it but she outlasted me that day, watching TV in her room when i've already hit the sheets, falling sound asleep. Bah...sheepish about it but oh well.....

Here are some pics of the reunion lunch we had on New Year eve plus a special shot on the loh hei that became table tapesry after we were through with it. =p

Hope you all had a great start to the New Year too. =) Cheers!!

New Car, The Airwave

2007-02-20T00:51:00.000+08:00

Hey!! Sorry that i haven't blogged for some time. I was just plain lazy again and procrastinating because i wanted to get my photos uploaded for the blog posts that i'm currently typing. *ahem* Anyway, its good riddance to the old Toyota Lite Ace and a very wonderful new year for the Airwave!! Yes! My dad finally got a new car so don't expect to see the white "mini bus" in school anymore! =) Btw, backdate this post to the 14th. My Dad went out with my Mum on Valentine's Night to do...............you know............ collect the car?? (and what were you thinking??) Not really sure how much he paid but the car's full of gadgets not unlike those in good-old James Bond movies. For one, there's a stylish retractable sun/moon-roof, complete with homely birdshit murals on the glass after the first day home. Then there's this cool panel that displays everything from movies to radio stations to rearview camera during reverse but without a single poke on how to use it. The nice part about it though is how the display can actually move to reveal a secret compartment behind which houses the CD or SD card its playing from. Looks super high-tech though i wonder how long the mechanism will last with no-brainers like me and my sister ard. ha! Here are some photos of the panels in question. =) The car also has a weird 7 gear system which i feel is a stark example of how lousy this car is. After all,, other cars make do with 5, why does this one need 7? O_o Overall, the car seems very smooth and easy to drive. It'll prolly be an incentive to pass my driving sooner (if i could). ha! As for now, i guess i'll be content to sit in the back seat, smell the reminents of headache-inducing toluene from the fresh leather (its not called the Airwave for nothing...damn stinky) and count down to my ORD. Sigh.. why is ORD so near yet so far?? =(

Borders...what a bother....

2007-01-22T13:29:00.000+08:00

Ooo....its so frustrating!! I was supposed to go buy a book from borders after my seemingly unproductive driving lesson this morning but after plodding through smelly crowds all the way there, i realised that the book was out of stock! =( Sigh... what made it worse was that the lousy assistants there didn't even know whether the book was around or not and kept asking me to wait while they searched through shelves i already scrutinized through for a past hour. I mean like...hello.... i may be myopic but i still can see books on a bookshelf ya?? =( I was hoping to be able to buy the book today because my mum had an online discoutn voucher which gave a massive 40% discount! *gasp* It expires on the 25th and i heard that the book will only be in stock next weekend. (that's the 27th) There are also NO OTHER borders bookstores in Singapore which, well, adds to my considerable misery.
Anyway, you know those old blizzard games like starcraft & Diablo? ha! My platoon mates recently started playing those games again to curb a deadly NS disease called boredom. Then again, when it really comes to a time to play games with friends, there aren't many which you could call good and lesser still for those which you could call free. Most of those epic MMORPGs like WoW, RO and what-not dungeons,dragons,etc require users to pay a monthly subcription fee to play the game while LAN games require originals. Not a very wise idea for a group of gamers like my mates, who'll prolly game-hop every week or so. ha! As for myself, i'm glad that i have other hobbies other than gaming. (piano, reading, etc...) It somehow reassures myself that at least, i engage in some more productive activities... ha!
Oh, i finally managed to watch Death Note II. It was.....intriguing! The ending managed to wrap up the story with the disposal of all the death notes, which ultimately returned life to normal again. Only part that didn't really fit was that misa (the cute TV girl) got away scot free despite her killing of so many people using the death note. I found the portrayal of her room weird too.... My sis was talking about blood red bedcovers while i picked on a plethora of dishevelled gothic-lollita-type dolls either in cases or otherwise, strewn about the room. Too scary to live in to my thinking. =/ Overall, the show was good though. And L won the game after all.. .haha! =X

Gathering & the SPF

2007-01-14T00:52:00.000+08:00

Just came back from my parent's new year junior college (or was it uni) gathering at sentosa. Actually, this would have nothing to do with me had the organisers not decided to ask everyone to bring their kids along... We went to one of those obscure golfing clubs there to have dinner. The adults sat at one table, happily catching up with the times while we,unfortunate children, sat at another like strangers at a posh restaurant.
NS had never been a better way to start a topic! Apparently, my father's friend's son was in the same batch of recruits as me and also one lucky enough to be transferred to the SPF (S'pore Police Force) immediately after BMT. ha! That gave me some common ground to break the ice on and besides, the stories he had about everyday occurances was interesting. He's a police officer now and handles lots of bizzare cases when the public calls in. Some of the stranger things i learnt was the idiosyncrasies of the different racial groups when confronted by the police.
Lets use the situation of a fist-fight.
For the Chinese, at the first sound they hear of a police car coming while in a fight, all the members involved will break up and dash for cover.
For the Malays, the fight will only stop when a larger group of police arrive....like 3-4 cars.
While for the Indians, they will continue brawling like caged lions no matter how many police arrive at the scene.
I guess that's why it seems that more malays and indians commit crimes than the chinese. ha! Chinese know how to hide. =) Anyway, this was just an observation on his part... dunn oif its actually true. haha!!!
Oh, one weird case he mentioned was about this molest case where the victim actually offered to reenact the scene for the police to see! haha! It became more embarrassing when they found out that the victim was a friend of one of the officers there! =X
Another case was about this loanshark who sent a runner to vandalise the house of a debtor. You know those "O$P$" signs using red paint. ya... Anyway, the runner did it....on the wrong house!! When the loanshark found out, he felt so guilty that he went to clean up the mess himself.......just when the police got called to the scene. 5 minutes later, the police came and arrested the loanshark. haha! I think the runner got away, which made it even more hilarious...
Oh, and the SPF ppl use pistols for range! And the range target is only about 20m away as compared to the 100m for our rifle range. So unfair! =(
I guess the gathering wasn't so bad after all....me and my sis made new friends, friends we prolly won't see again till the next year, but friends nonetheless... Oh, Lastly, I decided to change the songs on the blog just for entertainment sake. =) Go browse through them when you have the time. Hmm... gtg now.... Sigh.... still got guard duty tmr. Hope for a fast week and quick ORD! hee!!

Parade ~Fin~

2007-01-06T19:30:00.000+08:00

"Welcome to the ADOC Inauguration Parade. What you have just witnessed was the transformation of the 4 marching contingents into the letters A.D.O.C, representing Air Defence & Operations Command. This...blah....robust...blah....dynamism...blah.... unity....efficiency.... "
Well, finally, after a month of exasperating rehersals, the parade is finally over!! haha! Say goodbye to sweat-soaked, migraine-inducing peakcaps!! Say goodbye to lead-weight rifles with lasers that don't even work! Say goodbye to sticky glamour gowns & thin satin pants!! ha! Guess the only thing i liked about the uniform set was the clackity boots! So fun! Someone could turn into a professional tap-dancer just by wearing them. They're shiny and slippery on cement floors, which means that you could basically do moonwalks and breakdancing easily in them. haha!
Anyway, the parade lasted about an hour, but then again, it was not that it was a complicated one to start with. We waited super long for the 4 dignataries to arrive. bah... think it took at least 20-25mins before w egot to move again from our stationary positions. By then, one of my friends had a migraine, another had pins & needles in his left foot. ha! It was a wonder how he managed to move or better, do the march pass, which was our finale for the event. I was a tad disappointed that the media decided not to show our amateurish drill standards to the world though. =( I expected at least a sweep over the ceremony but all they showed was Mr Teo Chee Hean's face and the new logo...
Oh btw, Happy New Year!!! I just realised that this is my first post in 2007! haha! Quite an exciting year, or so i'm told. For my side, its NDP participation and live-firing to die for. (just kidding) For my sis, its her last term and prolly start of her masters, if she chooses to take it up. Oh, if i haven't told you, that idiot of a SISter got A+ for everything she took! What kind of result is that! wah lau... Guess i'll do what brothers do best to congratulate her..... Go annoy her! bwahaha....
You all can go congratulate her at http://www.xanga.com/hengyuqing/ or just use the shortcut at my links section. =)

Songs Galore!

2006-12-31T00:37:00.000+08:00

Gosh.... i'm addicted to bridge!! Ended up playing it at almost every family gathering for the new year.ha! Turns out that i hardly get to interact with anyone because of that but somehow i don't care... bridge is fun and i'm getting quite annoyed explaining to everyone that i'm in army now and have no life at the moment. Yup...
Recently, i really got into the music craze... Went on a frenzy sourcing for new songs & scores just to broaden my super limited piano repetoire of only FF & some other ceremonial pieces. So anyway, i scoured josh's anime music collection as well as gendou to find a few of the nicer songs that i cannot paste here coz of site property infringment. =( But anyway, go find these...
For scores,
1) Dust Trail from Soul Link
2) Yuuki no Tsubasa from Memories Off
3) Omokage from Shaman King (Jazz)
4) Spirited Away songs!!
For songs, i only got an idea from the cut versions of the songs in the anime openings or endings itself but these are ok.... Pastel Pure & Sonata Blue from Maria ga Miteru (Classy pieces), Chiisana Hane Hirogete & Negai from Ah! My Goddess (Country-type, Irish) & lastly, Falco from Law of Ueki.
Dunno how long will i go on searching for songs but it seems that i'm finally moving out of the FF series of music. Don't see much point staying with FF songs anyway since the main composer, Nobuo Uematsu, left already. =( sigh... I wish that i can compose songs just 1/2 as good as his.... haha....
Oh, before i forget!!! Happy New Year!! Today's the LAST day of 2006 already!! so cool! Its been a fast and not-so-memorable year but still great because its passing now means that i only have 1 more year of NS left to serve!! hehe!! Really looking forward to collecting my pink IC again and laughing at my poor cousins and my juniors!!! bwahaha!!! then again, maybe i won't be "that" bad and symphatize with them after all....

Family Christmas Party

2006-12-25T10:15:00.000+08:00

Gosh... finally its over!! I never knew that planning/running a party was so exhausting! Somehow it felt like i started working since i woke up and never ended till the wee hours of the night when my nightmares of piles of dirty dishes to wash and a plethora of leftover food to clean up stopped. =( I guess that now i'm starting to understand why nobody would overtly offer his or her house for the class christmas party tmr. ha! (i guess that explains why noone here wants to be a maid either!)
Anyway, besides christmas, we celebrated my grandfather's birthday with a D24 durian birthday cake too! ha! Think he's turning 80+ this year already but he's still super corny and does weird things once in a while like playing with charcoal for the barbeque! haha.... Here are a few more pics... Yup, we had the party at my place and we didn't really clean up the house so therefore, i tried to disguise the mess by taking close up shots. =) This one's of my sis and my cousin, Lina. Didn't know when i took it but yeah... my sis got pranked!

This is of my uncle and my other cousin. Guess you can tell that he's in army too by his hair or rather, the lack of it. hee!! Sure does remind us of old days eh??

Oh well..... Since this is Christmas, Hope you all enjoy yourselves today! For those who have been lazy like couch potatoes....go sms all your best wishes NOW!! bah... What's christmas without the well-wishes, smiles and all?? *grumble* Anyway, have a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

No.1 RSAF Uniform! =p

2006-12-17T23:14:00.000+08:00

ha! finally managed to bring the complete set home to take a pic! Looks quite good on me eh?? hahaha!! The parade is on Jan 5th. Some change of name ceremony for Chong Pang camp and i'll be forming part of the Guard of Honour. Its actually kinda weird that 4 VIPs (CoAF,Def Minister,CDF,ADOC Comd) are coming for the event since its quite a trivial one. Well... anyway, that's about all.... i got a headache from christmas so i won't comment further... bah.... *oww*

The Cage & Parallel Parking

2006-12-14T20:49:00.000+08:00

Had my platoon LIFE day today. Its something like a day we take off work bi-monthly in order to relax and have fun together. However, due to the tight december schedule and the work that needed to be done in camp, we only managed to have the afternoon off to ourselves. =( Though most of us were tired, we were obliged to visit The Cage in Kallang. ha! At first glance, the place was like nothing more than delapidated red old shop-houses in a fenced compound.. Think that impression was due to the perennial rain because the atmosphere completely brightened up when we entered to see a netted street soccer court, complete with bouncy rubber carpeting! Wish i could show some pics on it but i went straight from camp. (and in camp, cameras are a no no no...) It was fun playing soccer there, especially since you can't really get hurt from falling because of the carpeting, nor get knocked out by accidently running into one of those cushioned walls there. I think the most dangerous thing there was prolly either the whizzing ball or a loose ankle. =/ Hmm.. despite all the bells and whistles, i don't think anyone would wanna play there because THE BOOKING COST IS A CRAZY $50/HR!!! O_o i'm stil lthinking about why we decided to play there when we could've had a happier game, with fuller wallets, at a regular field in a sanguine park. bah...

Anyway, nothing much else except that i started learning parallel parking!!! woohoo!! seems that i'll soon be ready for my not so soon driving test! =D And oh... I realised that parallel parking really feels like playing arcade! (you know those daytona games??) You have to do so many things with the clutch and brake and that's on top of peering 360º to ensure that you don't hit anything. haha.. my instructor took me to a dead-end road to practice, using 4 poles which he magically materialised. =/ At first, i had a hard time maneuvering because my instructor just gave me a basic set of rules to follow, after which, he stepped out of the car.....and started wiping it with a cloth whilse gesturing for me to practice!!!! haha!! weird instructors... Anyway, i got the hang of it after awhile but when i tried the same tricks on my dad's car later, i ended up either too far from the curb or too close to it. O_o bah... luckily i didn't bang anything though... haha..
Oh, just today, i sat in a taxi and saw him over-gear an under-powered engine, turn without signals & stall the car at a junction. Now, how's that for cheering up your morale after a hard day's practice at driving, eh??

Answers to the chess puzzle!!!
(1st one: 1.Kf1 if 1.... Kxg4 if 1.... Kh2
. 2. Qg5++ 2. Qf4++)

(2nd one: 1.Ba8 if 1.... Kc8/Ke6 if 1.... Ke8
. 2. e8(Q)++ 2. Bc6++)
if you don't understand me answers, ehh.... go learn chess.. haha!! gtg now!! ciao!

Chess Puzzles

2006-12-12T21:03:00.000+08:00

Goei prodded me to update my blog again.... bah.... didn't really feel like writing so i decided to upload some chess puzzles to ponder about!!! =p ha! Hope you guys can solve it.....well, if not, answers will be out next week. =) ALL ARE FOR WHITE TO CHECKMATE IN 2 MOVES. WHITE STARTS FIRST. Enjoy....

Eragon

2006-12-02T09:06:00.000+08:00

Hey!!! Eragon the movie is coming out!! haha!! So happens that i managed to read the series because my bunkmate brought it to camp. =) Its quite an ok story with some twists. Not as immense as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (that eccentric guy is nuts) but still deep enough to show up the different languages of the different races. Oh, if you didn't know yet, the story is about this young boy who chanced upon a dragon egg while out on a hunt. Surprisingly it hatches for him and he goes on to find out more about the ancient dragon riders & the current state of the world, finally realising that he, prolly as the last rider, will hold the key to ensuring the unity & survival of the different races in their world, Alagesia. =) If you ever get the chance, go read it.
Heard of a class outing soon... =p ha! Hopefully i can make it this time! Haven't able to for the past 3-4 gatherings. btw, i'm wondering, has everyone bought their christmas presents?? I haven't thought of anything about it so far... =( (this is one great way to say "don't expect anything from me", isn't it?? haha!) Well.. .do keep up the christmas spirit and especially the reason why christmas is being celebrated!! The birth of our beloved Christ, Jesus!! =p That reminds me... nich!! Your birthday is coming!! haha!! Still can remember how you weren't allowed to go clubbing because of your age last year! ha! =X cheers man!

Blog blog...

2006-11-18T21:42:00.000+08:00

Haven't blogged in a week! Anyway, our whole unit had to return to camp this weekend. =( Something about some constant miscounting of important items or something. Our OC apparently got fed up about our lack of thoroughness and procrastination in our searches and so decided to call us all back on a Sat morn just to settle it. Sigh.. Even still...it seems that not eveything was accounted for and we found lotsa trash and useless things hidden among the stores too... O_o
Finished reading Angel Sanctuary. Well....not to spoil the story but the ending's happy! ha! Hard to find such endings after all the Gainax shows i watched. If you didn't know, Gainax has the most befuddling and anti-climatic endings. Just watch Neon Genesis Evangelion for a perfect example. -_-" Totally horrible.... bah. Anyway, think my fav character in the story was Zaphkiel. He's prolly the only character that remains a true blue protagonist all throughout the story. (ignoring the main character.....duh) Guess the fun thing about the story was the double or triple life almost everyone was having. yup.... deep plot, complicated, but nice.

On Driving

2006-11-06T10:31:00.000+08:00

Hey!! Did you know that Akazukin Cha Cha can be found on youtube?? haha!! Used to watch that cute show when i was in primary sch! Then, it was being aired on Cartoon Network or something. =) Watching it again brought back memories (like why on earth did i watch such a girly show) ha! The humour was fun though. I guess you just can't help laughing at cha-cha's make-do attitude with her often wonky skill of magic.
I managed to book a date for my driving practical test!! yay! Its on the 2nd of April '07. Was initially quite shocked to find that that was about the earliest one can get a date for the test when booking privately. Guess it doesn't matter so much though. I'm really still very lousy with the car & the date fortuniously falls before my current PDL expires! =p That'll prolly allow me to maximize my PDL license to improve as much as i can before the test. Hopefully i'l lbe able to clear it on my 1st try.
I've heard debates on whether doing lessons under school or privately is better. Well, not too sure yet but my intuition is like this. Under school, it costs more and you'll need to spare alot more time to take all the lessons before they'll allow you to take the test. However, the test dates you can get are in the more immediate future. That goes for retests too, if you failed your 1st try. As for private, it is usuallly cheaper (unless you're a complete idiot at driving) and the lessons progress faster. Thus not as much time is needed except if you need more time to practice being comfortable with the vehicle. However, the test dates you can get are like 6 months later at the earliest. You'll practically die waiting for it. ha! One more advantage though is that you get to drive your instructor's car for the test course. Dunno if that's true but its a real advantage if your instructor has a new car with good pedals and brakes. (like mine..hehe..) =D
That's my take on that. Oh btw, heard that private offers two type of lesson plans too. One is a set amount (ard $1.5k - 2.5k) to teach you till you pass or paying per lesson. Guess the amount doesn't really matter so long as its not flagrantly excessive and that you pass in the end... haha... Ooooo... how i wish i've passed already!!!

New Songs Added

2006-10-31T18:43:00.000+08:00

Well, i've been browsing through some animes as of late so i found some unforgettables and decided to post them up here for awhile. ha! =p Actually, its more of the songs that were nice rather than the anime. Realised that most Jap anime pins alot onto fan-service either by creating uneasy situations where many "naked truths" are revealed or by creating abnormally cute characters with glassy, bubbly eyes making up 2/3 of the face. =/
Added my platoon picture too so go see!!! The skinny lanky-looking guy with specs right to the left is my PC! Can't imagine ya?? haha....

Btw, as for the blog presentation, I'm not pro enough to get it to work on both IE & Mozilla yet so for now only Mozilla displays my page properly. However, problem lies with the page song....page song only works on IE so far. -_-" sigh... so frustrating!!! bah!!!

Yay!! Passed!!

2006-10-31T17:53:00.000+08:00

Ha!! Finally passed my final theory test for driving! =) It wasn't as bad as i expected except that the unlucky aura continued to hover around me again. *This time, my only neighbour was some cheerful guy who came 10 mins late & blitz through the questions..... He failed,(of course) like all the other doomed ppl who sat next to me in the basic paper*
Glad that my driving is progressing rather well. ha! So far, i've already had my 3rd driving lesson and i'm on the main road already! =p That actually doesn't mean much though...so all you green-faced ppl out there need not get SO jealous. Being on the main road with so little practice is super stressful sia!! That's to add in the fact that i'm not good with pedals and as expected, stalled the car a plethora of times AGAIN! >.< But anyway, guess i'm progressing....still progressing.. haha!!!

ON DIARRHEA
I'm already again, thanks to my many well-wishers & the sadistic doc. =p *ahem* and the set the record straight for people (*ahem* tatt *ahem*) who spelt "diarrhea" till i couldn't recognize the word anymore, its spelt as "D.I.A.R.R.H.E.A". heh.... Realised that i've been spelling it as "diarrhoa" which is wrong too but prolly much better than what "diarrorea??" haha!! Anyway, nah.... the salt and glucose mix is to replenish what was lost in your body. Lotsa nutrients & salts, together with all the toxic elements are being forced out of your body through your stools. That's why you have diarrhea. Diarrhea stops naturally when most, if not all the toxic has been purged. =D Thanks anyway, tatt!! hee!!! *triumphant grin*

Range...NOT

2006-10-28T00:36:00.000+08:00

Actually, i was supposed to help out in range for the rest of my platoonmates over the weekend. Had to do some score tallying for them but i ended up with a very painful tummy crap plus diarrhoa earlier on friday night. Visited the doc who diagnosed it as what "gastro endolphalitis" or something... or in simple, layman's terms, a tummy ache. =/ He said that it could be caused by something foul that i ate or a malevolent virus roaming about that somehow preferred me as a spawning ground rather than all those kind folks around me....
Anyway, since i was cringing in pain rather badly already, doc decided it wouldn't do much more harm to check whether i had appendicitis too. That "check" involved more pressing and kneading on and around my already tender tummy which prolly served me right for having a sore tummy in the first place. He asked me about nausea too but i didn't have none of that so i just replied that i had watery stools. He didn't seem pretty interested about the diarrhoa part other than the fact that i had it... O_o Well, guess that's the fate of most stools..... getting left behind.... getting "plooped" out of the picture into a swirling aphotic cesspool never to be seen upon by noble eyes in the light of day again....
Fortunately, all ended quite well thanks to the medication doc prescribed... (Some variant of charcoal tablet, dharcopal pills *heard its a relaxant used during pregnancy period* >.< , and a stomach acid inhibitor) The pain's gone for now but the stupid diarrhoa still persists... sigh... Dunno exactly what went wrong for me to suffer as such so suddenly. I have suspicions about it being connected to a similar incident that happened to me 3 weeks back where late nights & a plate of sambal fried rice basically set my plumbing afire. Bah.. I need a new alimentary system.... =(

Tagboard up again

2006-10-24T10:09:00.000+08:00

Went to look for a new tagboard over the weekend. Come up with this Cbox one or something.... Looks kinda queer on the blog but no matter haha... Anyway, Started my driving lessons on Monday and boy was it stressful! ha! The accelerator and clutch pedals were so sensitive and i ended up jerking the car forward so many times because of uneven pressure on the pedals. That's in addition to stalling the car a plethora of times because i just released the clutch immediately. (you're supposed to release it gently and hold at the 1/2 clutch point for a while....i forgot -_-")
Thankfully the uncle was super kind. Reminded me on everything i needed to do each time i messed up *That's nearly everytime i tried to move the car!!* Anyway, learnt to do turns, braking, starting the car and changing gears today. Quite a handful for a first lesson. ha! Think that on a number of occasions, i didn't even step on the accelerator while performing the maneuvours. ha! The car just moved on its own!! =X
btw, tag on my board!! Fil lit up again!! I hope this other one won't have bugs which make it crash or something.. .just thinking of the previous one makes me mad...bah....

Blog changes

2006-10-16T11:06:00.000+08:00

Made some minor changes to the blog in lieu of old stuff cluttering up again. Didn't really solve the problem (like the archives list taking up the whole left sidebar!!) =X But nevertheless, i took off some redundant stuff here and there. Oh btw, i had to take off the tagboard too because it went conky!! =( *sob* So for all those treasured folks out there who read my blog, just use the comments thingy for now.....till i can get a new tagboard or something. *ahem...too lazy to do it at the moment! ha!*
Oh.... I think i'll be learnign driving soon but guess what?!?!? MY INSTRUCTOR ONLY SPEAKS CHINESE!!! AHHH!!! THE HORROR!!!! Nooo!!! How can this happen to me?!? I'll fail for sure.... bah.... =(

Sick sick sick.....

2006-10-09T18:58:00.000+08:00

Yay!! I passed my BTT test!! Can apply for PDL and learn driving already!! haha!!
Not feeling very well recently. Dunno whether it has to do with the haze or not but i fell ill with diarrhoa on Friday. Not a very good way to end the week ya?? Think it got esp bad because i was on guard duty that day too. (had a slight fever to go with it... =/) Thankfully, after taking some medication ytd, my diarrhoa finally stopped. Bad thing is, i think i'm gg get constipation. bah... dunno what tricks my alimentary system is trying to pull. Come to think of it, diarrhoa seems to be one of the most frustrating diseases one can get. You can't eat well, (because everything just comes out anyway) you can't sleep well because you need to answer nature's call every 10-20 minutes and you end up feeling like the thing you're passing out. Glad that's over with. Anyway, I'll be going for OCT's exercise right after this entry so wish me luck....that i don't get a relapse of another bout of diarrhoa outfield!!! =X ahhhhh!!!!

October already!!??

2006-10-02T15:17:00.000+08:00

I can't believe this!!! I missed marksmanship by so much!! ahh!!! Wasn't totally my fault though... I was making good shots during the day shot till the 3rd mag or so when the bullets just refused to feed into the rifle. =( Turned out to be a rather faulty magazine AND THEY WOULDN'T LET ME RESHOOT! =( The mag after that also cocked up so i ended off with 5 shots missed due to it. =( boohoohoo... I guess i'll have to depend on better luck next time.. sigh...
Anyway, sent Jish off to UK last friday. It was kinda of a bittersweet event where we tried to make her farewell a happy one and yet, at the same time, feel sad that another scone was leaving. Heard others, esp the guys, will be leaving for overseas studies too in the years to come. As for myself?? ha! Not very sure but i think i would rather study locally. =) Not that i've anythign against overseas studies but i guess i'll miss home too much when i'm overseas. (aww... haha) I'm a very family-and-friend kinda guy ya?
There's something wrong with my cooking already... bah... .can't seem to get the recipes in the right proportions. Last week i ended up with super-dry muffins and this week?? I got crater-skin muffins! ahhh!!! (If you're wondering why i'm making muffins again, psst.. Mrs Soong's not very happy that i forgot to share my muffins with her during JC...) =X Hopefully i'll be able to make good ones to give soon!!! haha!!! Btw, heard that Wei Ming can now bake delicious oreo cheesecake so if you want something of that sort, go find him!! ha!

Last Chaos

2006-09-24T21:28:00.000+08:00

Well.... at first glance, this game looks like Linage II. Think it has to do with the cool 3D effects and those super messy fighting scenes. The gameplay's a bit draggy though. You can only get new armour & weapons every 5 lvls and you're stuck with fighting the same monsters due to the lack of variety. =( Anyway, the game's still in open beta stages so if you're interested, just have a look here.... www.lastchaos.com.my Even if you have decided not to play, still go have a look at the high-elven healer class. =) ha! Graded as super-pretty by my platoon-mates. =X

Scones Abroad

2006-09-24T21:15:00.000+08:00

Goodbye Yun Xin!! Off to study Pharmacy ya?? haha... That's 2 ppl gone for overseas studies from scones & next week will be Jish's turn. Come to think of it, despite the majority male population in class, its been only the girls who are flying overseas to pursue their studies. O_o Interesting isn't it?? ha! Its really a fresh twist to see the girls being more adventurous than the guys in this. =)
Anyway, heard that Mrs Chan raised her voice at delinquent students in AC recently. I got the details but its kinda hush-hush because according to my dad, the students (ACSI ppl!!) brought shame to the sch. sigh... No wonder Mrs Chan was so mad. btw, it was the first time in years that she ever raised her voice at students.... =( It seems the students are pending expulsion too. i dunno... Well, its a good reminder not to do anything stupid in sch....

Unfair Treatment

2006-09-24T17:48:00.000+08:00

Haven't posted in a long time!! Well anyway, i've gotta mention about the recent exercise. Seems quite sad that the higher management did things that most prolly hurt the relations between our platoon and the elder A1 platoon. sigh... I'll just list it all out for you. Just see why it has us all irate...

A1
Outfield: 4 days 3 nights
Activities outfield: Tracking, 1 Ceasefire
After Ex Maintainance: Cleaned General stores only
Rewards: Clock 2 days off
Cover-up Maintainance for A2: Nothing

Us (A2)
Outfield: 7 days 6 nights
Activities outfield: Deployment, Tracking, Ceasefire + Redeployment for A1 takeover
After Ex Maintainance: All Military Equipment, Keeping of all stores + equipment in hangar
Rewards: Clock 1 day off
Cover-up maintainance for A1: 1 Fire unit under driclad

Its just so blatantly unfair. To top it all off, only our platoon was sent to represent the SQN in the RSAF run last sat. And its not like A1's being very grateful to us for helping them out so much in an exercise that was supposed to be shared out equally. From what i heard, most of their platoon feels that they are doing us a favour by cleaning our general store for us, and that we should be the ones taking care of what we brought outfield. Moreover, they blame us for not doing their equipment weekly runs for them, even though they had ample time to do it themselves on that friday.
I dunno whether irs because they are more senior than us or because someone up there hates us. Not gg innuendo more than that but you get the rough picture that my platoon's not a very happy one at the moment. =( After this scenario, i dunno how both platoons will be able to work together again in future. bah...

Derelict

2006-08-28T17:09:00.000+08:00

Not feeling myself lately... That's prolly why i haven't been blogging. sigh....into a heck-care mood again, coupled with a lazy attitude towards life. Anyway, was forced to run in the army 1/2 marathon but we only did 6km. Its still a very far distance though.. =( To make matters worse, the 1/2 day event rained about 1/2 way through the run, making everyone 1/2 wet. (ok....i was only 1/2 joking at the last part.... we really got drenched.) bah... Nearly caught a cold on my way back on the air-conditioned mrt. Maybe next time they'll plan some contingency plans for a rainy weather instead of just plowing through with the main event.
Went to book my BTT today... For those planning to take the exam, i suggest you book asap too... i got mine on Oct the 2nd which is about 1 1/2 months away... =/ Can understand the delay though.....the school was packed despite it being a monday and most people on the blues...
btw...gave the title entry derelict to describe the state of my blog....
yeah....i really should do something about it...

Honey Cake

2006-08-13T18:22:00.000+08:00

My sis and I went crazy over somethign called honey cake after reading it in 2 novel-length books. To curb our curiousity, we decided to try out a new recipe for honey cake and ended up with this!!!

Well.... it looks o...k.... from the outside but actually....... it tastes bad on the inside. =X ha! You know those very chewy sweet malted candy you buy off china-town?? bingo! The inside tastes like that. I guess it had to do with the 1/2 cup strong brewed coffee the recipe demanded, which i seriously didn't think went well with the honey. (It didn't) Sigh... should've known better but anyway, its done. At least i'll know how to improve on it in future. haha!! Besides, it still tastes like a honet cake if you meditate on a slice. And it sure smells good. ha! =X If anyone knows any nice tasting honey cake recipes, please do share with me!! I wanna be able to make a more palatable version!!! =D

Sending Line!!

2006-08-13T17:56:00.000+08:00

Finally met up with my classmates on Sat as part of sending line off for her overseas studies. Didn't really expect alot of ppl but in the end, there were more than 30 of us sending her off with all the best wishes and hopes for a smooth journey. =) And.... Ms Tang came along too!! haha!! I think line was pleasantly surprised by that too! We met up for breakfast and talked till it was time to go before taking some photos.... (you can tell by the look on line's face that she's still as blur as ever.. haha!!)

To further prove it, Line nearly said "yes" when paul asked her whether she was also coming to send line off. ha! then again, none of us were thinking straight that morning.... all still sleepy from having to wake up so early to go to the airport. -_-"
After line left, the rest of us decided to go to PS for lunch then watch Click. Now....for all those addicted video gamers and stoners... Click's quite a good show to watch. =) It really shows you the consequences of idling away your time and then finding out that time cannot be reversed. Rather sad ending with a nice twist to the show. =) hmm... (shouldn't promote the show too much...$9.50 for a show is really too much...bah...) err.. for all those who haven't watched Click, you can always watch it when it comes out on tv! =p I do that with most movies and it only takes about 1-2 years before it gets released.
We left after the show but i stayed on to meet up with zzx, shaun, russel & jerold to play dota!! heh... Played some funny mode with all of us as pigs and ended up in a quill spray war. haha!! Quite funny... But twas the time i spent with my old friends that really made it worthwhile. =) Hope to see all my barker friends again in our next class reunion........whenever it may be. =X

Spec Exercise no. 1

2006-08-06T16:16:00.000+08:00

Woohoo!!! lotsa hols coming up next week =) I wish every week could be like that. haha! Anyway, had a rather slack week even though we were involved in an exercise with the new spec course. Its prolly already into their 6-7th week on course already and i can tell you that its still less harsh than our first weeke. =( They really show no sense of urgency outfield, quarrel (and nearly beat each other) over not cooperating during the exercise and dunno anything about some of the SOPs we practice during deployment. Well, they paid for the slackness by having a hard time over last week. ha! Was really surprising that mostly all we, as operators, did was to pack the things up the tonner, unload, set-up 2 tentages & slept from tuesday night to thursday morning. (Of course after that we DID do a round of deployment and ceasefire but it was over rather quickly) =)
Oh...knowing it was the 7th month and that ghosts were supposedly hanging around in the mortal world, we got rather spooked when our PS brought a bag of joss-stick & offerings for the dead along!! haha!! So superstitious!! Our Sgts also poked fun at us for travelling as a 19 member strong platoon. They kept saying that we'll end up with 20 or 18 people when we reached back to SQN. (Travelling ard in odd numbers was supposed to be risky during the 7th month) Funny thing was, we really DID return with 1 member less!! haha!! Thankfully it was because someone had a medical appointment on the last day and not because ghosts kidnapped him! They managed to hush enough info for us to panic during role call on the last day. ha! =p
All in all, we got good comments from our PC for working fast and helping the new noobie specs out on their deployment. If all goes well, (that prolly means for our coming deployment the week after) we will be allowed to bring in TVs & Bar Fridges next month on!! whoopee!! haha!! That'll also prolly be the time we shift down to take over our senior A2 bunk as they ORD..... *sob* I wanna ORD too!!
Just in case i forget later on, HAPPY 41st BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!!!

Reflection

2006-07-30T20:51:00.000+08:00

Added Will of the Heart to my song list. Its a really sorrowful song, simple and yet emotive. =) Was reminded of friendship again today. I guess i can say that i'm truly happy to have so many friends who cheer me up when i'm down, be happy for me when i'm joyful and who stick with me no matter how i carry myself. *I tend to do stupid things* =/ Well, here's a big THANK YOU to all my friends. Hope that such bonds will pass the test of time......hope that moments passed together will weather into florid nostalgic moments. Love you guys.... tkc!

Ex. next week!!

2006-07-30T16:28:00.000+08:00

ha! haven't blogged in a long while again. Anyway, woohoo!! I completed my maintainance course! =) Not that it counts much though. haha... Will be starting on my first exercise after my training phase next week. According to what i heard, we'll be helping out with the new specs on their 2 day Try-out Ex. It'll be from wed to thurs so those who wanna wish me luck or pray for me can take note. =D Shouldn't be too bad, but i hate to think of having to do all the tedious platoon parades that we carry out perfunctorily anyway... bah.... then there's the setting up of all the ammo-points & admin tentages in the dead of the night. super sianz... =( Glad its only 2 days.
Oh, i got my first guard duty coming up!! (Actually i got an earlier one but i sprained my ankle that week & got excused) Anyway, this one falls tmr. And it seems kinda bad, firstly because its like just before the exercise & secondly, the rest of my platoon will be clearing their off tmr! =( Oh well... perhaps, or rather hopefully, the experience won't eb as bad as i'm imagining...
Haven't done anything with my garden this week either cause of the weekend rain. (Alright...laziness was part of "cause" too) But to make up for it, i'm learning new songs again! =p This time i'll be moving on to anime songs, particularly sentimental ones liek Lilium!! Lilium, with its eldritch tones of latin, is quite a emo-inducer. Currently i managed to find most of the scores from Bleach, DNAngel & Inuyasha. Prolly learn them before carrying on.

Baking again!!

2006-07-16T21:13:00.000+08:00

Yay!! I got back to baking again!! =) Actually, it was more of my father pushing me to bake something because our cream cheese was expiring... -_-" Anyway, I played a part in making 2 slightly overcooked cakes!! haha!! One's the original Cheesecake while the other one's a Cheesecake Brownie!! =X Don't ask me where i got the recipe for the latter!! Its a secret! *wink*

We had our 36th Anniversary for our SQN last friday. Though we had to stay back till 11+ for the cleaning up after the celebrations, It was really fun and worthwhile. =) We had something like a huge outdoor steamboat buffet with free flow of drinks (And YES!! Including beer) And a few of my platoonmates drank themselves silly that night. ha! The last i heard was that my bunkmate imbibed no less than 14 cans of beer that night!! Weird thing was that he was neither drunk nor sick. That was unlike some others who drank less than him, but ended up vomiting all over the place. There were also some "she-devils" (as my superiors call them) who shyly, if not unwillingly, danced with groups of us that night. Of course, even those who didn't get to dance did get their fun by oogling at those scantily-clad women. Mind you, the atmosphere there was excitingly disorientating. Crazy but true... =/
As for progress on my garden-reconstruction project, my sis offered quite a good suggestion about reserving a corner that resembled a "desert" (with lotsa sand and all) where all our cacti (not Cactuses!!) will go. Was thinking of having an outdoor sitting area too but the garden area's a bit too narrow. sigh.... Any suggestions?? Just tag or comment. Thanks!!

Ines, Mel's Bday & other stuff!!

2006-07-09T20:44:00.000+08:00

Ok... i know is late news but anyway.... Ines is 1 1/2 months old!! haha!! (if you still dunno, she's Sarah's little girl) For all those of you who are friends of Sarah, you can find out more about her here... http://somewheredramamama.blogspot.com/
Went to Mel's house ytd to surprise her for her birthday. ha! Was invited by her mum who planned EVERYTHING from calling us (mel's friends), preparing the house, the food and getting Mel out of the way while she did all of the above!! haha!! Never knew mums could set such surprises! The most amazing part was prolly getting our phone numbers without even letting Mel know about it. =) Anyway, Mel was pleasantly surprised. (she thought that she was gg for dinner at her Uncle's place) Her mum got a cake for her too, which we shared out. However...it was GREEN!! oh my... haha! Ended up talking to Zhen Yang most of the time about army and life. There wasn't much choice though... The only other guy that stayed around was ian tatt and he was bagua-ing with the girls about Mel's and serena's love life.. O_o
Apart from that, camp's still quite normal. Well into my maintainance course now. They call it OEMP, which stands for Operator Enchance Maintainance Programme or something... =/ It'll end end of this month which is also when the shag part comes in. From August till Sept, i'll be going on many deployments as part of routine and also as part of helping the new specs and officers train in their AA guns course. I hope i'll still remember the basica of the gun then.. haha. Nearly got scolded for *almost* forgetting how to power up the PSU last week. =p
Oh, wanted to add that i'll be looking into improving my garden again... Saw how chio Mel's garden was on Sat. -_-" (Mel's mum is really great.. ha!) But that, it'll prolly take lotsa planning on my part before i'll be able to come up with anything solid. sigh... gardening is tough!!

POP once again!

2006-06-22T14:54:00.000+08:00

Yay!! Just passed out of my guns cperator course!! =) Also got some benefits too, now that i'm no longer a trainee.. =D ha! It wasn't easy coming out of the course, you know?? Firstly, its one of the longest courses around, spanning at 13 weeks! (and you don't even get to pass out as a sergeant or 2nd Lt) bah... Heard from my CO on POP day that the 160 SQN course comes up as prolyl the toughest course in terms of physical and mental demands out of the RSAF and maybe even beyond. (except for commandoes and guards, of course) haha.... dunno if that's true, but it really makes those of us who passed out (a sad 19/27) proud to be a gunner. Got a nights off and short week as a results of the PO Ceremony and us winning best unit for the year 05/06. Scary thing is...my CO is now pushing for us to bag the award again for the 4th consecutive time this year. =/ uh...oh......
Anyway, What i'll be doing from now on will be a servicing course which will commence in July. It'll be about 1 month long, which also means that we won't be going for any out-field exercises over the next month... bwahaha... =D Life after that should be back to that of a normal everyday gunner in 160, which includes servicing, 1 out-field a month?? (depends) and practising for IPPT. =( The latter came about because my CO recently scrutinized our IPPT scores and was horrified that so many of us were still failing IPPT, despite the supposedly extremely tough and inhumane treatment during our course. Now he expects us to acheive at least a Silver each or suffer yet again... =( bah..... Thankfully, i managed to clinch mine already.
My reward for that?? Being able to take the lift down.... -_-" oh whatever.....

Theory Tests Completed!!

2006-06-04T18:27:00.000+08:00

Well, Technical Deployment was really more than i expected. =( It was more shag & siong, especially when everyone's not sure with to do or when to do what. Had a feeling that had we pulled out straight-away on Monday night itself, we wouldn't have reached our bunks alive. (In the end, we rested for the night and continued our ceasefire the following morning)
Hmm.... on thinking back at the problems we encountered, i guess it was more of the plethora of stores that we had to carry along with the gun which made us so tired. Pushing the gun & PSUs itself wasn't all that bad as compared to the former,i thik. =/ Anyway, last week's experience was only with a 1/2 FU, this week's Ex is a FULL FU. =( Hope i'll survive to write in my next entry....
Managed to clear lots of tests last week too. =) For one, i finaally got my Sliver for IPPT!! haha!! I was genuinely surprised that i managed to do 9 chin-ups at the bar this time! I normally can do around 5-6 at a time only. Well, that's an extra $100 in my bank. hehe... Next up..... i passed lvl 1 Aircraft Recogniction test! woohoo... Our PS gave us a nasty surprise when she shrunk the screen by about 1/6 for the actualy sizing to be correct. Still passed but think it affected me psychologically i guess....my only mistake was writing C130 in place of a Chinook. -_-" (And it was a side view somemore... ) =X ha! Last up was this PDD test which i dunno the results yet. Think i should be able to pass too though. That wraps up all the theory tests that i'll be taking during the course. =) All's left will be tmr's Ex and our Summary Ex the week after. woo... Hope they'll pass smoothly... i hope.... i hope....

Technical Deployment (10th wk)

2006-05-28T16:58:00.000+08:00

Hey!! Actually kinda scared & anxious about the next 3 weeks of course. Yup, its that time already.... we're gonna start moving out of the coziness of the Hanger area to new deployment sites! haha... Starting tmr will be our deployment drill liao.. ha! How fast time flies... =) *hope i remember my drills on deployment =X* In total, there're 3 deployments we must live through before we can POP. One on each week. =( bleah.... Anyway, I'll continue to update on how each deployment went in the following weeks,
Oh, just heard from this year's 2A1 Time Capsule reunion. Its next weekend (from what i heard) Do contact my cuz for details. =) Heard about another Scone outing too!! This time i MUST go!! hrmph!! haha.. Its kinda strange....everytime i pledge to go for Scone outings early only to feel sian near the date and decide not to go in the end. =/ Dunno what's wrong with me. Hmm...oh, as for Kai Rui's problem, i guess we could plan a 2nd outing with a smaller group just to catch up on times with our fellow scone!! How's that?? (Besides, it fits in with my schedule as i end course on the 20th) =D ha! Just.... don't ask me to plan it. I'm hopeless in these kinds of things...
kk...got to go eat now! Till next week!! bye!!

Happy Mothers' Day!

2006-05-13T07:46:00.000+08:00

ha! I know i'm like....1 week late already & that Mothers' Day was actually held last week. Anyway, just blame it on the elections... =D My family celebrated Mothers' Day yesterday with us, the children, cooking dinner for our parents!! ha! For my part, i was to make Shepard's Pie, slice sashimi & steam some pomfret that we bought yesterday itself. Counting that i last made Shepard's Pie at the start of last year for the Childrens' Aid Society, i dunno how in the world did i ever remember the recipe for the pie but i did! =p What made me more happy was that it was the first item to disappear on the dinner table!! haha!! Only thing that didn't turn out so well was the tomato soup my cousin tried to make. It was supposed to turn into a thick pastey kindo f soup but we ended with something that looked more on the side of minestrone. =/ However, it was delicious and that was what mattered!
On the NS side, i'm finally finished with all the guns tests! woohoo... Left Aircraft recogniciton, combined deployment with radar and the Exercises. Just heard from Ze lin ytd and somehow i feel lucky not to be in army anymore... But then again, he was in Ninja. =/ Oh, some more funny things happened during the Gun Deployment tests. Well, this person, who i shall call Blur, committed a series of stupid mistakes that just shldn't be committed at all during a test. For one, Blur started off his day trying to take off the main canvas of the gun from the rear side instad of the front. Next, he forgot to take his gun along with him during ceasefire. He mixed up the covers, attached the gun muzzle inside out and shouted "wheels jacking up" while elevating the gun barrel,.. ha! Still think the worst was ceasefire last week when he signalled (with a thumbs up!) to turn on the power to the gun while holding the power cables in his other hand! Luckily the othes had the presence of mind not to do it. haha...
Prolly going to try making Cheesecake today. Hope it'll turn out well. =) Have a good weekend and Happy Vesak day too...

Sigh....

2006-05-07T18:58:00.000+08:00

I'm about 1/2 way through my course now. It just seems so long. =( Can't even remember how i got here in the first place. bah... Anyway, i'm scared of the trial exercises at the end of the course. sigh... it seems that about 6 of us have gotten permenant MCs or are downgrading already. That leaves jsut a handful of us left to deploy everything during the exercise.....not a very pleasant thought when you're one of the stayers.
Next week will be the prac exam for us. Well, good thing is that its gonna be the first and the last for us while on the course. =D Bad thing is.... 75% to pass, 5 marks off + 1X confinement if you commit a safety breach. (Mind you, they're easy to make......made 2 consecutive breaches on the same thing during my practice before..) bah... Hope i'll be able to clear this as easily as i did for my theory. (btw, i scored 85.5% for the 2nd test! ha!)
Anyway, think i'm feeling depressed again. I no longer cook regularly, chat with my friends on msn, org outings, buy presents or even send cards to my friends anymore. I think something somewhere inside me just wants to sit back patiently and wait till i truly start to enjoy my life in unit before doing things that bring smiles to others. i dunno.... I guess i just want to bring a smile to my own face too. And i want to do it at a time where it will stay, not disappear everytime i go back to camp. sigh.... come to think of it, i don't seem to understand myself that well, do i? =/

Birthdays!!

2006-04-23T17:26:00.000+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JIALING!! heh! A bit early but i'll be in camp again later today so yup. =) Btw, Its my own birthday too in a few day's time!! Not that its anything to be happy about... (i'll be slogging away in camp..) But well....16- Sqn does have some peaks in that the CO sends birthday cards to everyone on his/her birthday! O_o ha! Weird practice but well...its the thought that counts. =) Oh... happy birthday to Yi Pei too. Don't really know you but since your birthday falls on 27th, i thought i'd just wish you a happy new year on Earth too!! =p This week was super tough and i'd have to say that our instructors were lenient cuz i made so many errors and repeated errors and the most i got was physical torture for it. *phew* However, some sad things occurred. One of my coursemates...well...in fact my bunkmate, collapsed while running around after a botched attempt to push in the AA gun. sigh.... Luckily he was alright but the entire incident really shocked the whole lot of us. =/ Sigh.... .4 weeks of course over, 9 weeks more to go!! bah....

Easter Sunday

2006-04-16T14:50:00.000+08:00

Whee.... I finally went to church after what i would call a 4 month hiatus! =X Yup.... it wasn't easy, having to wake up so early again and all but well, it was worth it. =) Saw alot of my friends again (eg. John with his shaved head..lol... and yun xin & her bro! ha!) Oh...managed to go out for lunch with mel on Sat too however jialing couldn't join us so it became a rather silent outing. ha! Mel showed me her super high-class workplace too which occupied the entire penthouse of Shaw Complex! O_o Well...it was a place that needed the good ambience anyway. The place was called The Aesthetics Clinic or something...Deals with beauty issues and spas. ha! Only drawback will prolly be the price. (starts about $3k for 1 botox!!) That's also prolly why the place was deserted when i went there on Saturday.
I got 1X confinement already. sigh... Got it for some really stupid thing like leaving my rifle around. tsk.. Not a very good idea when you're in the army with instructors who are picky. bah... Anyway, hope that i won't get anymore.. kk.. gotta book-in now. If you don't see me around next week, you'll know where i am. ha! (Sai-Kang Warrior for e Weekend!!)

First Week

2006-04-02T17:11:00.000+08:00

This first week has been the most hectic since i joined the army. =( We were made to change bunk, get weird equipment for hangar training and do something called a chin-up regime which was excruciatingly tough. Moreover, i was made course IC.... sigh... I realised that i had forgotten most if not all of the marching commands that we learnt in BMTC so i had to sheepishly ask the instructors what was what all over again. ha!
We started our first hangar training lesson on friday. Contrary to what i envisioned as a torturous physical period, hangar training was actually.....fun!! (that is if you take it in the right attitude though...) There was lots to learn about the gun, and if one had the passion for it, learning how so many things could fit on 1 skeletal gun structure will truly be an eye-opener. =)
I'm feeling much better now for those who heard that i'm on status (again). Was feeling low and my knee hurt (the former aggravated the latter) but after coming home and talking to all my friends and family, i'm myself again...or so i think.. ha!
Oh btw, the class party on Sat was great...ended with a memorable time where JonK and I missed the train and had to share a cab back. =) SOON HOE!!! WHY YOU NEVER GO!!! (hey..it rhymes..) Next time then...chaoz....

Off to Chong Pang camp!!

2006-03-24T18:56:00.000+08:00

Hey guys!! I'll be off to chong pang camp from next week on. Finally got my posting today after the super draggy orientation programme. =/ Somehow i get the feeling that the Air Force environment is pretty different from the Army one.. heh... guess i'll not jump to any conclusions till after my course starts. =) Oh btw, i'll be manning an AA gun!! haha!! It came as quite a surprise since the rest of the Air Defence Weapons we had were missles. won't give the specifics here (ahem...security reasons) but heh... the weapon looked rather cool & fires about as fast as any machine gun!
So far, the other non-RSAF vocations i heard about were scary... There was one friend in some chem def squad who said everyday consisted of a 4km RUN, lotsa pumping and training on top of that as well as a possibility of SOC in the hot suits!!! And its only the first week. =( I hope my vocation's not that siong... It is field-type too considering how some smart-alec figured out how to add wheels to those guns. So in any case, i'll stil require field training...which includes those SBO & FBO-related training...bleah... And yes, i'll be smearing sucky camo-cream on my face while eating breakfast on my field camps too. =( The good thing is that the guns are towed, not carried, (thankfully..haha..) and we'll work in teams. (so that if anything goe s wrong, you'll have someone else to blame for it!) =D ha! Oh... bad omen time... NTUC Income came to us AGAIN!! And this time with more zest and zeal in their futile plea to get us to sign up with their insurance.. bwahaha...but that prolly tells me that my vocation's going to be like BMT... tough & risky. So all of you out there calling my unit a slack one because of this week better not jump to conclusions too. bah..
oh well, that's about what i know for now... oh...Scones!! Do come for the gathering this Sat & next. I haven't heard from JonK whether teachers are coming but do come and catch up on the times anyway. Hope to see you all there!!

Above All--RSAF

2006-03-20T20:30:00.000+08:00

Hey... I got into the RSAF! That means that my das as an army recruit are over and from today on, i'm an Air Force recruit! haha.. (doesn't seem like much difference, does it??) Anyway, I landed myself in this sucky vocation called something like Air Defence Weapons Operator (ADWO). I don't really know how good or bad that is at the moment but whenever i mention it to any of the regulars at the air school, they 'll go... "oh....that sai-kang job ah??", then give me a knowing smile. -_-" Sigh... I also heard that once i go into training or unit proper, i'll only be released on weekends (but unlike the SAF, i'll be released on Friday *instead of Sat* to report back on Sunday) =D Still.... i can't imagine 1 1/2 years of operating some missle or worse, some missle dummy. Seems like hardly the occupation to follow when some others in PES C9 can proceed to become specialists as AOS, doing nothing but reading off plasma screens in an air-con control tower... bah.... =( They are regarded as more senoir & earn more than us too which makes the situation terribly unfair. *sob*
Well..that's all for life ahead but as for this week, i'll be having orientation at AFS (air force school) and so i'll get to come home every day! yay!! haha... i'll prolly also be getting my air force uniforms too so i'll be out of dull greens for booking out soon..hehe.. That's prolly one of the things about the air force that i like more than the army. They dress better. =)
I'll try to update on what weird things we have to do during training once orientation is over. From what i heard already, we are to identify planes (and i mean up to the model & weaponry of the aircraft!!) up to 1 km away in 4 seconds!! ha! I'll prolly need more than a telescope for that! bah... =/ sai-kang job indeed....

A week gone by...

2006-03-17T01:35:00.000+08:00

More than 1 week has passed since POP & tmr will be the release of my postings. I can't say that i'm not worried but i'll just hope to go to a place where the people are workable with. =) I hope not for the kinda luck i got in BMTC. ha! But at least a good and lax enough environment.
Apart from that, i'm still having trouble applying for a U... seems that i take ages to do my write-ups and send my applications... grrr.. .anyway, i'll most prolly take up pharmacy. Was considering a teaching career in Chemistry which i feel is a safer route to take, considering the experience that i already have with parent teachers & a teacher-wannabe sis (haha), but i guess a pharm career might prolly be more interesting. I hope my passion in it lasts though....last i heard was that to convert back to teaching for pharm, its either Poly or only if i'm REALLY outstanding in research & recogniction, the Uni itself. =/
Oh, btw, i'm also back to song score snooping & thanks to ichigo's webby (yah..yah... i just found it even though its been there for years....) i managed to obtain a few rare scores like FF6's Falcon theme. ha! Its all in watered-down piano versions so it was kinda disappointing however at least i've something to work with now. hehe... =p I also found out the actual name of the spirited away theme i left on this web so from now on, i'll put it up instead of just "Spirited Away".
Lastly, Jish!! Hope to see you in OCS but then again... i hate OCS training!! ahhh!! So siong!! dun wanna go there!!! waaa.....

Sit Test & Range

2006-02-26T11:29:00.000+08:00

My blog is starting to become more of a weekly column or something... -_-"
Anyway, had range and sit test over last week which was rather packed, considering that range took up 2 days & sit test 3 days. Only got home on Sat cause Wed was reserved for final IPPT tests. (in the end, we got 89% passes!!) woohoo..
Range felt like a louder version of IMT. Even though we were firing real bullets, the danger never really set in to me. I foudn that strange after 18 years of being awed by firearms. I guess that once you've learnt to appreciate the weapon & use it for what it was meant for, you'll come to accept it. Something like fire... as a kid, fire is like an enigma, interesting, but dangerous when touched. but as we grow up, we learn to accept its presence as a useful commodity & no longer as dangerous. Well, if you don't get the point i'm trying to bring across, nvm...
Oh btw, i managed to get 27/32 for range... which is super suay, considering 28 & above was the mark for marksmanship rating. -_-"
I got off easy for Sit Test though... ha! My section got selected as the advance party for the camp! So..... WE DIDN'T HAVE TO WALK THE 12km ROUTE MARCH!! whee!!! haha... my team-mates were friendly guys too & apart for some poor navigation on the first day.. (we nearly walked across to the BMTC 1 Sit test area... ) sit test was like any other leadership camp..... just more tiring. =) The fun part during the camp was probably the cool *weapons* that we were to inherit. That included a LAW (light anti-tank weapon *a close lookalike was used*), Claymore mines (actually a wooden block) which i was in charge of =p, a medical stretcher (this one was real), signal & navigation sets which were real too. (,") We really felt like a combat unit out to conquer the world or something. ha! The irony was in the fake weapons. Imagine... i was told to guard that wooden block at all times or else its guard duty or something nasty. Bah.. Oh, another fun part are the nights. During the 2nd night out field, some of the instructors sneaked into the campsite & started doing weird things like taping up the tents so that ppl couldn't get out in the morning or things like pulling out the tent-pins and letting the whole tent collapse on the poor recruits. ha! I guess it beats field camp, where some instructors played ghost to haunt the campsite. =)
On next week's update, which happens to be about my last week in BMT, i'll be having my 16 & 24 km route march! (it sounds siao though....), my SOC full rundown & my grenade throwing. =) Grenade throw is auspiciously set on tuesday, just before A lvl results. That means that i'll miss the chance to blow myself up if i get bad results on wednesday. sigh... What a pity. I really hope that i'll do well enough for my A lvls. Not forgetting that i hope that all my friends do well too. Anyway, All the best for next's week's results. And no matter what, remember that results are not everything to life k? God Bless!

Field Camp!!

2006-02-19T15:10:00.000+08:00

ha! Field Camp's OVER!! muahaha,... Really glad to get past the (supposed) suckiest part of BMT. =) Well,as compared to Orion, i guess my field camp wasn't as bad as i imagined. For a start, in view of a possibility that A lvl results might come out on friday, we had our camp shortened to 6 days! On top of that. hmm.... we had no wet weather throughout the camp, no terribly loud thunderbangs during BIC (Battle innoculation course) because the system malfunctioned, we had an easy time during trench-digging cause Jaguar dug & covered the holes the night before we dug them -_-" & fresh rations on two days! haha... Training was still tough ( and boring) though... learnt and practiced something called fire & movement where we had to skip from tree to tree, shout and echo orders and fire blanks at the enemy. Don't think that's very effective but then, its NS.
Prolly the most memorable moments about field camp were the last 3 days. On tuesday, we had an early morning run to the Eastern jetty where we stayed to watch the sunrise before training.=) The scenery was euphorically beautiful and our commanders said that they actually spotted dolphins there the last time! =) The horizon had the misty landscape of Malaysia which seemed like land from a fairytale... Too bad i didn't catch any photos of it. =(
The next 2 days were spent on the reclaimed land in Tekong. Don't get the wrong idea...they actually planted the place up with dense hardy vegetation already so its not the kinda desert land that most of you are imagining right now. Anyway, the shrubs were pretty low there so it gave us an uninterrupted view of the stars at night. (And YES!! I saw Orion, Canis Major/Minor and all those stars which i saw during star gazing in JC) =) It was really pretty! ha! Bet you can't get a better sight in Singapore....partially because there is little background lighting in Tekong.
Anyway, that sorta wraps up my field camp. =) Range and Sit tests are on next week. bah.. .another long weeks... Hopefully i won't get confined so i'll be able to comment on my experience on the sickening 12 Km route march in Sit test and the squinting i'd have to do for night shoots. bleah... haha... Thanks for showing support of my webby!! Hope to see all my friends again soon!!

Back to NS & Field Camp!!

2006-02-02T19:07:00.000+08:00

Thought i'd just get this in. ha! Its almost time for me to leave Singapore to Tekong again. bah.... =( Anyway, the hol period i got for CNY was truly refreshing. Its not always where you'd get to eat and eat & play & play without worrying about studies and tests coming up! =p Best part will prolly still be the no. of angpaos you'll get from all those relatives who you know exist only during the new year to give you angpaos. (confused?)
I'll be going for my field camp soon! Hope that'll be a fun experience. Heard the food rations were bad but oh well... food's not everything there is to a camp. More interesting will be the activities and hmm.... the weather. -_-" During Goei's party, i heard that Orion got caught with rainy weather on 1 day. What started out as normal Indiv-Field-Craft (IFC) lessons transformed into instant mud parties. =/ (I'm hoping to avoid that btw...) Oh... I'm not certain but i think that unlike Orion, I'm goign to spend 1 extra week in camp after the camp itself!! ekks... That'll mean i'll have to wash all the yucky clothes myself!! ahh.... boohoohoo... =( sigh... oh well... guess i'll play by ear and see how things go along.... besides.... i'm too lazy to think of a solution. bwahaha...

NS Life

2006-01-29T22:15:00.000+08:00

Happy CNY everybody! I'm well and proper in NS now!! ha! Time really flies and i'm already past my 2 weeks of adjustment and racing full-speed along to my field camp when i book in again. =) I dunno what others make of it but to me, i guess NS (at least this BMT period) functions rather similar to a school system. NS, i realised, is no longer about endless hours of punishment, training & commanders trying to break you down and toughen you up and all. Instead, they practice the art of garnering mutual respect between the sergents and recruits to get a task done as efficiently as possible. This difference was kind of a pleasant shock to me. Being with an unusually gregarious group of bunkmates, we somehow managed to bond so well with our section sergent that he tries to just join us for a chat whenever we get a siesta. =) (some of us don't even get to chat freely out of class with teachers in schools!) ha!
I'm not saying that because of that, training standards are negotiable in there. Training's still extremely exhaustive & the 7 hour sleep rule really isn't enough rest to make up for it. =( I guess that's a reason why people end up sick in there.... coughing non-stop during lectures and marches. Oh, speaking of that, you do get an unsettling premoniation of death during the first 2 weeks. So far, 2 insurance companies have approached my company using hard-sell methods to sign us onto some insurance scheme so that we can die more peacefully. Then there's the coughing wave during lectures, and lastly, the scene of 1/4 the platoon under MC or on home-sick leave. Scary but what to do... =/
I'll try to keep this blog active for the benefit of my loyal readers. (who have started complaing about my inactivity..) I'll also try to post up some pics of life in NS if i can. =D Meanwhile, i'll just laze ard and be thankful that i can book out on AC funfair day. (,")

House Painting & NS!

2005-12-31T10:46:00.000+08:00

Yay!! the house has been painted, the celling store cleared & my room's packed (somewhat) =) Its as though i were living in a new home or something. (but i know better...) >.< New my home looks light yellow from the front, white from the side and idunnowhat from the back! But at least its a great improvement from the 1 inch thick moss & lichen covered walls an all sides before the paint job. In case you're wondering why it took me so long... .Painting isn't easy k!! First, you've got to spray off the mossies and lichenies from the wall using that super high-powered water jet. Then once its dry, scrape the old layers of paint off, taking care not to peel off the underlying plaster. After which the metal brush comes in to brush off sediments which will cause thenew paint to stick loosely. Only after all that is done, does the paint brush step in to inunduate the wall in smelly sticky paint.
Of course, following instinctive behavior, this standard procedure was shortened into....
1) Spray off lichen and loose paint
2) Paint
*ahem* Well...it was still hard work k!! Nasty lichens still continued to stick to the walls even after you've sprayed till the plaster came off! (opps...) Anyway, its done and i'm happy. So who cares if the wall falls off after 3 months? I'll be enjoying my resort in Tekong! =D
This Year's Christmas wasn't the christmas that i imagined it would be. Strange things like badminton outings, dota parties & even weddings starting coming out all ard christmas, all of which were restricted to dull weekends in the past. Thankfully, presents still found their way over and i managed to squeeze in my ugly christmas cards to some friends. (Its a reminder that good penmanship is needed for card writing.....attempt it at great peril...)
Well...i'll be going in next week. And like Daryl and yyk. I'll prolly post my last words and wills on the blog before i go. *sob* NS is like a 2 year statement of exilement for male teenage candidates who lazily type blogs and play all day long. I wonder why it isn't mandatory for girls, who do the same thing, to go in. Meawhile...its back to packing and lazing ard! whee!!!

Bangkok Trip

2005-12-14T20:58:00.000+08:00

Sawadicarp! Ha! What's this post without pictures!? The culture in Thailand is really infectious with great food, cheap food and not-so-ugly scenery. (My sis even spotted some guy greeting "sawadicarp" with hands clasped together in e Singapore arrival hall!) The atmosphere's really different! For instance, instead of the disaster of traffic lights and junctions, Bangkok had whistling police managing lesser roads who'll whistle every so often to alert cars or more-commonly, spook the unwary pedestrian. Then again, as a tourist, its either being pedestrian or a rotting corpse on a taxi. Traffic can really crawl during mid-day! We nearly spent an hour on the first day travelling about a mrt station stop to our hotel. Not to mention harrowing spurts of blasting horns from impatient drivers. bah... At least there's a large variety of taxi services around....like the "in"famous tuk-tuk, toyota-corolla taxis, MOTORCYCLE taxis (its a one-way ticket...), river taxis, the mrt, the BTS (Bangkok transit system....an mrt..) -_-" and limosines (those look more like vans..).
Another interesting note is that we finally saw birds again! I never realised that S'pore is now raher bereft of those good-old pigeons until i went to a park there. People actually sell bread crumbs to tourists to feed the birds which i found rather unsettling atrributing to the bird flu pandemic...
Anyway, we reached there around 3am on Sat and woke up for a 1/2 day tour at 7.40 the following day to a collosal temple, a river boat ride & a visit to the floating markets (which was quite a disappointment..) After which began The Routine. We rushed to 1 shopping centre to another from 9+ in the morning to 7+ at night or 9+ if we ate outside. Of oourse, being the lazy sort, we punctuated this ritual with regular stop-offs at the hotel to unload our shopping wares. In short, we functioned like frenzied beavers with an uncanny zest for shopping. ha! In total, i believe we spent more than 15,000 baht on shopping itself (1 baht=4 cents), which is surprisingly little considering all that we bought. =) We all got sore feet in the bargain though... And i wore out my favourite sandals so much that i was coerced to abandon it for a new (cheap) pair there.
I guess what ended the trip right was the airline food! haha! For once, the airline food looked tasty and they didn't give hard cheese with buns....like what Quantas gives. (We took Turkish btw..) I managed to garner my first bottle of red wine on board there too without so much as a blink. ha! Not that i like drinking wine anyway but it was the next best in the absence of earl grey tea. =) All in all...it was a happy, short but truly memorable trip!

Prom Night & Bangkok Trip!!!

2005-12-08T23:17:00.000+08:00

Woah.... It seems that Prom night is now a distant memory now.... Time has really passed. Strange that it didn't elipse that quickly during term time. sigh... Once again , i can't help believing that ITS over!! =( JC life has ended good and proper now. ha! Nostalgia once more....
No matter, i'm glad that Prom ended on a good note. =) This group of pub-defectors which included me, marc, vic, alk, christine & nich left for a coffee place to talk, sip drinks and snack. And so we did.....for the whole night! ha! That was probably the longest time i ever spent talking without feeling bored. I doubt any of us felt differently though. Can't really describe the special emotion in the air then but i'm sure that it was a bittersweet one once again. We left in the morning and i nearly missed my stop home because i napped on the train. -_-"
Hmm...nothing really notable happened after prom. I was still in a daze from too little sleep and from trying to recall what we talked about the night before. Anyway, i'm not really going to have time to turn emotional and all. Will be leaving for Bangkok today! ha! Its not the usual long trip though... 9th to 13th only. (It seems that vacations get shorter as you grow older..) I'll prolly be buying all my christmas prezzies there. The conversion rate is like.... 1/25 per S$. =) Cheap & great place for buying food and lotsa goodies.... =D I'll post up nice pics of the place if any. heard from JonK and Marc that the people there are kind, unselfish and all. Hope i'll get a similar experience.
Oh, Speaking of Pics, i took some during prom too! haha... Nothing really spectacular but here are some anyway...

Prom Shopping

2005-12-03T10:31:00.000+08:00

Its been a long week of shopping for prom stuff. Spent almost the whole of 3 day's worth browsing, selecting and trying on exquisite boutique wear! Sometimes i wonder how women keep up with that kind of shopping stress.....seems almost that they were born with immunity to shopping fatigue! Bah.... must be some unknown trait that the XX chromosomes confer. O_o I guess its with that kinda stereotypical view that i found 4 guys, shawn,gary,nich & I, shopping all the way from PS to Orchard, ludicious! ha! btw, its not a good plan to follow to buy clothes. In fact, i think i foudn the reason why guys dress so poorly. Most guys have poor taste for clothing....and most girls have poor taste for guy's clothing. ha! No easy way out of that i guess. =)
Actually, somehow i find it quite amusing that students would pay close to a hundred dollars to go to a posh dinner, then fork out twice or three times as much more to buy clothes for the affair. And what benefit lies other than to watch your friends pulling crude jokes and doping drinks? ha! Lousy theme to go with that too! Masquerade! I mean, harlow crappy organisers!!! NJ & HC have the same theme too, ya know?! Like...how unique can that be! Asking us to don masks and disport about a crammed ballroom? =/ Wonderful ya, those $16 masks? (or so i heard...) Now we're paying more than a quarter-thousand and we don't even get to see our friends pulling crude jokes and doping our drinks!
Well, perhaps its not as bad as i make it out to be. After all, its prolly a monumental milestone in our lives, being the epitomy of what marks the start of an adult-gentlemanly/ladylike life and the end of younger days. Its kinda another bittersweet ending, don't you think? One where we finally begin to part ways and begin our new lives....and families. (winks) haha.... A very happy wedding, Ms Chia, and wishing you a great many anniversaries to come!! =)

A lvls are over!!

2005-11-26T17:08:00.001+08:00

ha! Hello once again! Its good to be back from my month-long hiatus and much more so to be emencipated from the A lvls! =p The A lvls are over!! yay!! Never though that this moment would come! haha... However, its kinda sad that my siasta would last only about a month or so before i become slave to the govt.... bah...

Anyway, i decided to make the most of my holiday so i did something that i had wanted to do for a long time.. (actually, i just ome up with the idea last tues..) I dug up my garden! =) Yup... i woke up ard 7am & steathily dug a path right through the plants while my dad accompanied my grandma to the market. ha! Its kinda fast considering that i spent only 5 hours cutting the grass, blazing a path through, shifting plants around, turning the soil..etc.... Its hard work but you can't get a garden without dirtyng yourself first. ;) In the end, it all paid off!! I managed to build a "somewhat" steady path, complete with cobbles on the sides through the plants. Another yay! (look at picture) All that really shocked my nature-loving grandma when she returned but surprisingly, instead of scolding me, she complimented my efforts at (finally) helping with the gardening! haha... Made me happy and proud to see so many smiles today. It has a salubrious effect. ;)

The other notable event was my mom's birthday last tuesday too. For the first time since idunnowhen, my dad actually bought flowers, nono... Roses! for my mom!! ha! That was in addition to a birthday cake and a heartily dinner cooked by him. wow!! =) That was like...the first time i ever saw him buy her a birthday present. haha... (See other picture!)
It seemed that life and a plethora of joie de vivre just came tumbling back in place once the A lvls ended. I hope it'll stay that way, without me venturing obsessively towards video games, numerous outings or verboten adventures *ahem*.

An endemic solution to a pandemic epidemic..?????

2005-11-06T10:43:00.000+08:00

Haven't you all, at least those with poor engwrush like me, wondered why does everyone nowadays use weird vocab like pandemic, which had seemingly hithero just been coined specifically to describe the recent bird flu outberak? I mean, most of us should be familiar with the word epidemic which ,we feel, should be used instead to describe what some top UN official fears would cause 175 million deaths worldwide. (I wondered how he arrived at that figure....mayeb i should start buying totto...) Or perhaps, some of us would think that "pandemic" is just another word for epidemic. Well... Wrong. The Brits never coin two word to describe 1 thing, which explains why we always score so low in vocab. =/
Anyway, I finally decided to check up on those 3 cheem words in the title. (Its more of curiosity anyway) And so, allow me to explain the panda in the pandemic!! According to Oxford's Mini Dictionary...
Pandemic: Occurring around the whole world or country
Endemic: Occurring (affecting?) within a community
Epidemic: (of a diesease) Spreading throughout a community
So, having checked up the definitions, it would seem like pandemic and endemic refer to the extent of impact to a people while epidemic still keeps its sole position as the word describing a deadly diesease outbreak. So, considering this, isn't it wrong to say that a Bird Flu Pandemic will cause worldwide death rather than a bird flu epidemic causing the same? I mean, what we are experiencing is already a bird flu pandemic!! Hardy birds have already brought the insalubrious virus from its supposed origins in Asia to Italy, Canada and perhaps undocumented parts of Africa too. There is no doubt that the disease has taken a global foe. But if the definitions hold, we should be experiencing worldwide death as according to that UN official. But nope....It won't be until a epidemic that satisfies the conditions of being deadly and having rapid human-to-human transmission, that bird flu will really vitiate global economies.
So, blast those English professors taht coined the dangers of bird flu Pandemics! Call it a pandemic now but when it really spreads...call it a deadly epidemic as in all past deadly diseases... =)