What A Happening Next Few Days

It's past midnight already! I just got home at 12:10am... Went for a briefing by the warrant officer starting at 9pm, which only ended about close to midnight. Luckily one of the guys offered a ride home, otherwise I think I would have just got home.

Gonna be doing car-marshaling for next four days of RSAF Openhouse at PLAB. Reservist do these kinda things one ah? Apparently yes. Today we booked out at 9am as usual and reached home, slack, had lunch, took a 2.5hrs nap. STILL tired. I even slept at 11:30pm last night until 7:30am this morning. STILL tired! The bunk in camp isn't very conducive for sleeping. Snoring symphony, uncomfortable beds, freezing cold air-cons. Sleeping 8 hours there is like sleeping only 6 hours. After the nap, went to meet up Lilin to watch the Thai horror show, 4BIA, at The Cathay. Finally found someone who's interested to watch horror shows with me. So we caught the 5:10pm show which ended around 7:10pm.

4BIA is a 2-hour long show which is made up of 4 short stories. This movie is directed by those people who did Shutter, Alone and Body, which are considered the most successful horror shows of the Thai movie industry. Therefore I thought it should be quite a good show to watch. I've always loved to watch horror shows that scare the sh*t out of me. We need some excitement in life man haha. Maybe the short stories were too short, which was why they didn't really leave too much of an impact on me. Not as scary as I thought they would be. Shutter is by far still the best Thai horror show I've seen. Those 4 short stories provided a bit of scares here and there, however, most were quite expected. One of them is actually quite comical. Provided plenty of laughs throughout that story. I won't say 4BIA is bad, but considering that the stories were only about half an hour long, there wasn't much to build up to the climax. Therefore it's still a very good attempt at scaring the audience. Not bad for a movie date lol.

Right after the movie, I saw my ex-JC classmate, Christina and her husband. Christina is pregnant! Six months into it. A baby girl in the making. She's now doing bakery at home. She even gave me her namecard. Wah that's cool. Stay at home for maternity and bake cakes for a living. Nice! Added her bakery blog's link to my list of friend's links. Her cakes damn pro sia! Gotta see it to believe it! Anyway it's been 10 years since we last met after we graduated from JC, but she still recognizes me! Hahhaha, not bad. After the movie, Lilin and I went to Carl's Jr for dinner, before I had to rush back to camp. Damn I'm feeling tired now. ZZZzzz....

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How To Make Full Use of Time in ICT?

1. Check Recruit section of the Straits Times
2. Read any paper you can find in the bunk. (New Paper, Straits Times, Today)
3. Read books brought by myself or others. (The Unexplained Phenomena, Career Shift, etc.)
4. Sleep
5. Eat prata
6. Drink super cheap beer, play darts, watch movie at the Officers' Mess.
7. Call up friends to chat
8. Tried Kakuro for the first time, which is found inside the New Paper. (It's MUCH harder than Sudoku!)
9. Chat with old old army campmates and find out about their recent happenings.
10. Play Uno (I bought a $2 set of Uno cards featuring Spiderman 2 characters, but haven't had the chance to play with them. Now finally got to use it!)

Plenty more to do:
1. Revise my Japanese.
2. Read Men's Health magazine (September issue)
3. Play DotA (woohoo!)
4. Play with my PSP. (Think the above 3 will take up most of my free time for the future duties lol, no time for PSP.)
5. Do sports with the guys. (Table-tennis, tennis, basketball, swimming, jogging)

Omg I'm really making it sound like I'm having fun inside ICT. Hope this post doesn't get into the Ministry of Defence's hands. But hey it's really good to be able to make full use of my time inside camp.

Today after booking out, wanted to get my hands on the much-awaited iPhone. However when I reached TM's Singtel Shop, it's still closed. It's 9+am. The shop only opens at 11am. ZZzz... Therefore I went home to nua before I left home to meet Charles for lunch at Orchard. It's been years since I went to Orchard hahaha. Always go PS area only. We had the chicken rice at Far East. $12 for a 2-people set. ZZzz.. So EX. Then went shopping around Orchard and ended up buying a long-sleeved top. It's been years since I last shopped for clothes in Singapore hahaha. (Ok lah maybe not years...but it's indeed quite long ago) So we walked around and had some snacks before we went to watch The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, then we headed home. Ya it's been showing for super long already. However since Charles got these free complimentary tickets through some luck, and since we both haven't watch that movie yet, we decided to just go ahead and watch it. Nothing much to talk about the movie. Plenty of CG to do the tricks, nothing unusual for most movies in this age. I still hate the fact that they always get Chinese stars to speak English when it's all about ancient Chinese history. The last one that really put me off is The Forbidden Kingdom. In the end all the Chinese characters all speak English. Ya it's all catered to the US and English market, but it really devalues Chinese culture and history. It all boils down to the root of all evil, MONEY. Damn sad...but that's the way things goes.

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ICT = Holiday

That's very true for many of those guys. However for my case, I'm already slacking everyday, so it's not much difference for me.

The last duty was pretty slack. In fact so slack that I should not mention how slack it is. However we realized that the mess' Tiger beer costs only $1.50 per glass. In fact the uncle was so nice that he even charged us $1.50 for two glasses! Hong Kiat, Galvin and I therefore sat at the bar counter drinking beer and eating the free ikan bilis and peanuts. Shiokz man. We played darts and soon some movie started playing. It was Alien Versus Predator Requiem. Steady lah I haven't watch it before. Neither did the two of them. Therefore we sat at the sofas and enjoyed the show. We even realized that there was an area in the mess which had LAN-gaming! Some of those active people were playing some army game, as well as DotA! WTF! All free! And some of them were active FDS personnel! How good life for these guys now? Next duty onwards it's DotA all the way. Wahahah! At around dinner time, some of those base personnel started eating some bbq/finger food and we approached them asking whether we could have fun. And so we did! So we skipped dinner while enjoying good movie and food. Oh there was this ALS chiobu which we saw during my active army days. She was there preparing the food. Still quite chio hahaha! After the movie, I briefly went back to bunk before joining Boyi and Zhiyong for nightsnack at the cookhouse. And those people were watching the semifinal match between Li Jiawei and Guo Yue. And as expected, we saw Guo Yue win 4-2 against Li Jiawei. It's all China for the gold, silver and bronze medals.

Now for some updates. Today I booked out from camp and went home for brunch before I went to take a nap. Was very sleepy cos I didn't get to sleep much in camp. Somehow I couldn't fall asleep. There was a snoring symphony in the bunk. Can't sleep well in those kinda situations man. I met up with Guangxiang, Serina at TM to have dinner. We had the western food restaurant on the top floor of TM (forgot the name). Then we went to Starbucks and chatted until Ah-Hoe joined us. Haven't been updated about all of their lives and therefore found out many interesting things about them. Serina has a HUGE diamond ring thanks to Mr. Painter aka Weiming. I think most girls will feel jealous when they see her ring. Anyway we left and I saw Changyuan right outside the MRT station. He had already agreed to meet up with his other friends and therefore couldn't join us. Looks like we will look forward to Serina's "Pass Driving Test Party" at Zouk before we can have another gathering. LOL.

Just read about the news about Jade Seah's blunder on the sports news. I therefore searched for videos on YouTube about that incident. Saw one which was super funny wahahha.

It's been 3 months of song recommendations. Mostly are from the 90's. And the genres are pretty much of those ballads or R&B. This will be the last song of those genres. Next will be... Stay tuned!

Song No. 15: Champagne Supernova
Artiste: Oasis
Album: (What's the Story) Morning Glory?

Released: 13 May 1996

Fun Facts: I just love this track from one of the most popular rock bands of the 90's. This song is a massive 7 minutes and 28 seconds. Nothing much to say about this song lol. Just love to sing along with it.

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20.08.2008

Nice date today. And first day back at Paya Lebar for reservist. It's a pretty refreshing experience even though it's my second ICT already. Reached PLAB quite early and therefore waited at the pass office for Ang Bobo as arranged. As I waited, I saw plenty of familiar faces from B and C Shifts. From the nominal roll I also saw that Shaun was also with our batch. Later on I also see Benedict, Zhiyong and Ang Bobo coming in. Cool man. So many people from our batch are back. Altogether there were around 20 of us from our batch. It's kinda fun and nostalgic seeing all the old guys who had gone through all the sh*t and hell back in those NS days. And it's like a networking session and also catching up with everyone of them. Oh even my relative Siew Loon was back for ICT.

For the most of the day we were waiting and waiting. We went inside Building 53, the room which used to be my Shift A's bunk, to gather for briefing. However due to the number of people, we were told to gather at 00's BBH instead. Therefore we walked all the way to 00 like we used to. The prata shop is gone! Wonder where the Indian uncle went. Therefore we just went to the canteen right next to 00. We got Wei Siong who was doing the mounting duty on that day to join us for tea. All 6 of us then sat there tokking cok until we were supposed to go for briefing. We went to the Mushroom Counter, where I saw those specs which did the last ICT with me. Lambert, Andy, Yongfu, even Paul of Shift C, Sgt Foo, were all there. And there were even more familiar faces like Dylan. It's like a whole squadron is back at FDS! 200+ people in all. We were told to go back to Bldg 53 since contractors had arrived to renovate the BBH. ZZZzzz... We were told to get anything we wanted from the E-Mart and gather back at Bldg 53.

So we went to E-Mart at AFS to do some shopping. Boyi and I bought the new Goretex boots. Shiokz man! Super light and super comfortable! The boys these days really shiokz loh. Everything so welfare. Somehow I still got 100+ credits inside my account. I just spent all my credits last year and didn't expect any this year since they say we only get credits every two years. Thus it can be concluded that credits will be given out to all NSMen every even years. Just nice. My credits enabled me to purchase the new boots. About $111.37 I think. The other guys waited for us at the AFS canteen cos it was a super long queue at the E-Mart. So after our shopping, we joined them at the canteen for lunch. They didn't want to have lunch at our own cookhouse, so we all had wanton mee at the canteen.

We went to 00 for briefing. Then for some technical handling on the AR15s. Assemble weapon, strip weapon, ROE. Walauz it's been years since I've stripped and assembled the weapon. Was like a cavemen brought to the year 2000. LOL. However after a bit of refreshing of memory by Sgt Andy, the one whom I did duty with last year, I quickly remembered everything. Kinda fun actually. So after everything, we went for break again. We went to the mess right opposite Bldg 53 and discovered that the prata stall was shifted right there! And it is still the Indian uncle making his superlicious prata. I ordered 1 egg 1 kosong. There we ate and then went back for some final briefing before the day ended. I kena Shift B, which means duty right after IPPT on Friday. And it seems like we all have to stay in for the 4 days of RSAF openhouse. KNS! But looking at the bright side, we have 200+ men doing 8 gates for the other days of our ICT. Hmm... let's see how it goes.

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Time For ICT!

It's my second in-camp training starting from tomorrow. Sounds boring. If I'm working I will be looking forward to it as a form of short "holiday". However I'm slacking at home everyday now, therefore an ICT would mean a boring 17 days in camp. Oh well...

15th August 2008, Friday

Met up with the GIP people at Marina Square's Waraku restaurant. People present were Zhenhao, Alan, Kim, Naizhu, Eng Tat, Rongxuan. ET and RX din join us for dinner though. I had a bowl of scallop with soba noodles in cream sauce. A BIG BIG bowl. The bowl was so huge that only half of the bowl was filled with food.

After dinner, we decided to sit and chat at Killiney's. ET and RX joined us then. So we talked crap until the Killiney's outlet had to close for the day, and then we ended up at Mac instead. Then we left for home after that. Thanks to Alan for organising this outing.

16th August 2008, Saturday

And so we came up with this cycling trip since we were unable to proceed with nite cycling the week before. I met Shirley near Bedok Reservoir and together we cycled through the park connector to reach Bedok Camp, where Peyyong joined us. And then it started drizzling and even got heavier as we were reaching ECP. Luckily once we reached ECP the rain subsided and therefore we chionged down to the Mac at ECP to meet Siying and Yaokun. Met Zihan and his gf along the way to Mac and therefore caught up a bit with him for a while. I found out that he's working at the same place as Haiquan, my SCE-mate, at DBS. What a small world.

So we started our cycling at 5pm when YK and SY rented bikes which cost $13 for two for two hours. We cycled all the way to the end of ECP and through the park connector, we reached the never-ending road next to the runway at Changi Airport. There we took a short break before we headed back to ECP for them to return their bikes.

Peyyong, Shirley and I then cycled all the way to Bedok 85 market for dinner. Peiyi joined us then. We had a hell of a meal with bak chor mee, bbq stingray, satay, bbq chicken wings, fried oyster in omelette (with lots of gravy on top!), kangkong, sugarcane juice. Yumz making myself hungry now. Eat until I can hardly walk. While leaving I met Weijian who just happened to be around the area at his friend's place for mahjong session. They also had just finished dinner at this 85 market.

Next up we then cycled to Tampines Mall's Starbucks to play boardgames. In the end it's just lotsa chatting and then back home. We left 85 market at the same time, but YK and gang on Xiaohong still arrived later than those of us on bikes hehehe.

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It's been a long and busy last ten days. Let's see whether I can recall what happened. But first, the usual song recommendation.

Song No. 14: Heaven
Artiste: Nu Flavor
Album: Nu Flavor

Released: 1997

Fun Facts: Oh. Another song with heaven in it. This song is so beautifully sung by the guys of Nu Flavor that I couldn't resist singing along to it all the time back then in secondary school. The vocals were all very high-pitched, but I guess no one can imagine that they're sung by the guys who look kinda heavyweight. Nevertheless, as long as a song sounds heavenly, it doesn't matter who sings it.

1st August 2008, Friday

Hmm went to Singapore Expo to help out Zhongming to work part-time there. It was definitely the most relaxing work I've done, if you consider it work at all. ZM passed me the paper armband to put on, to allow entry as a working staff into the expo, as well as an AIG sponsored red T-shirt. Cool man. What's more... The job scope? Play Nintendo Wii on a large projection screen. How awesome is that? If anyone comes along with a receipt after charging their purchases to MasterCard, they can have a chance to play Mario Kart on the large projection screens. There are two screens for a total of 8 players to play at the same time. I played a few rounds with Youyi and Lilin. Kinda getting motion sick already ahahah. Therefore I merely walked around the booth and enjoyed the super cold air-con. The dinner was also not bad. All these for just 5 hours and I'll get paid. LOL. Totally not work at all.

4th August 2008, Monday

Went to 2902 Gallery for photo exhibition. Little did we know... It's not open on Mondays! What a wasted trip. Siying, Peyyong and I then went to walk around in Plaza Singapura before I headed home. ZZZzzz... Had to climb the long flight of stairs for nothing.

6th August 2008, Wednesday

Met up with Ron, Sim, Cong, An, Hock, Ru at Sushi Tei at Raffles City. Waited for like almost an hour before we got our table. Diao... Had Sashimi Salad again, together with Curry Chicken Rice. We didn't have much time to do anything else after the dinner, therefore we all went home. ZZzzz..

7th August 2008, Thursday

It was raining cats and dogs that day. Peiyi needed people to help out at the counselling centre, therefore she asked a few of us to slog for the day there. Oh well I thought I shouldn't be spending too much time on games at home, therefore I went along LOL. Siying and Yaokun were already there. YK?!? Why was he there? That's the first thing I asked when I saw him. He said he "hands too itchy". He was on leave that day and was only thinking of asking Peiyi for dinner, but ended up getting asked by Peiyi to help out too. Silly dude ahaha. So the three of us helped sort out the tonnes of files in the storeroom. Soon, Peyyong also joined us. So we first went to 2902 Gallery on Xiaohong. It was the first time we went there on a car, so no need to climb the stupid long flight of staircase hahaha. The photos on exhibit were freaking awesome. Mostly were landscape photos which the photographer took from several countries, but mostly were from India. Truly artistic pictures. Highly recommended for everyone to go and appreciate.

Later on, we took Xiaohong to PS for dinner. Then we watched Money No Enough 2. That was the first time I watched a Jack Neo movie in the theatres. At first I thought the beginning was pretty crappy. There was a lot of computer graphics at the start of the show. However the show took a twist at the later half of the show. Somehow not quite expected of a Jack Neo show, cos it turns a bit heavy and touching. I though it was comedy all the way. Still not too bad a movie, I thought. We then went home after the movie.

8th August 2008, Friday

A pretty long day. I woke up at 7am to prepare to go back to NTU. NTU?!? For what? An interview with a Dr. Ng who is in charge of recruiting people into his project team. I applied for a position of research officer in CGH, but somehow the person in charge is actually a professor in NTU. Diao... Therefore I had to travel all the way to NTU like I used to. It's been so long since I stepped into NTU during the day. The previous visits were all at night, for all the block suppers and BBQs. They've significantly shortened the waiting time at the 179 queues with a new 179 bus which goes directly to NTU, without stopping at neighbourhood stops.

I went to the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering block, where the professor's office is. I didn't expect such a long session with him. Well most of the time it was him explaining the job scope and the project etc. He even brought me to the project lab to have a look. Ok I'm definitely not taking up this position. Not because of the lab, but because of the place I have to work at if I'm offered the job. I might have to travel to Buona Vista once again, somewhere new the Fusionopolis, which means very near Science Park 1 again! And also NTU of course. It'll only be after one or two years will I be sent to CGH. No point... I thought I could get a job so close to home. ZZzz...

So after the interview, I went to Canteen A to take a look. Wahseh the whole place was beyond recognition. All the stalls were gone and were shifted to another place. Now there were plenty of restaurants. So shiokz man. Things always get better. I then thought of looking for my then counsellor and also vice dean, Dr. Yow. I went to his room and chatted with him for almost half an hour. He seems to be getting younger lol. His room is still as messy.

Then I went back to Hall 4. On the way back, I took the usual route. Through the staircase near the SCE block and down all the way past Nanyang Lake and then to Hall 4. The usual route I've been taking for the four years I had been in NTU. Lotsa good and bad memories came up as I walked along the path. It's pretty good to be back there. I went to Kong Hooi and Chin Keat's room. They are the last survivors of those I know in Hall 4. Ken and Yok Hian didn't manage to get rooms. As usual, CK was lying in his bed. Well actually he's got diarrhoea from the suspected Ah Fang's ice milo. Even KH was feeling a bit shitty cos they were the only ones who drank ice milo. I sat around chatting with them and even copied movies from them though I forgot to bring mu portable HDD. I used the SD card foubd inside my digicam which I had brought along. Only managed to squeeze in two movies though lol. Then KH, a year two junior and I went to Canteen 4 for lunch. The tables were all laid out a bit differently compared to few years ago. What's more, they now hung several nicely designed menus from the ceiling over the counters. They've added much more items to their menus too. I didn't know what to choose and therefore I followed KH's order - Sambal Kangkong Chicken! One of the block's all-time favourites. After lunch, KH need to go for classes and therefore I left for home. Freaking tired cos slept only 5 hrs...

Went back home to sleep until I went out once again to meet up the block people. KH and CK weren't able to join us cos of their stomach disorders. We met for steamboat dinner at one of the Chongqing Steamboat outlets near Bugis Junction. People present were ZM, Lilin, Zhichao, Patrick, Andy, Wilson, Shenggui, Junie, Jason, JJ. We actually hogged the two tables from before 7pm to 9:30pm. Almost 3 hours. No wonder it felt like the staff was shooing us off lol. After dinner the guys wanted to relak at Breko's and so they went there. I went on to H.I.G.H as usual for the DotA sessions with the usual people. It's the opening of the Olympics! I didn't manage to catch it but luckily Father recorded it down on tape and therefore I watched it on the next day. Truly awesome performance by the Chinese. Spectacular ceremony. Definitely worth watching.

9th August 2008, Saturday

Yeah I watched the recorded opening ceremony on tape in the afternoon after I woke up. Then as I was preparing to cycle out for the nite cycling that I had planned for some time, the skies turned grey and it started drizzling. Holy shish. There goes our plan. Therefore the rest who were in Xiaohong came up with plan B, in which was to go to the E!Hub in Downtown East. Therefore I drove and picked up Shirley at her house and met the rest of the gang at the E!Hub. Only saw the place on TV and therefore it was my first time stepping into the E!Hub. Quite a nice place with a beautiful indoor ferris wheel. We went to eat the BBQ Chicken restaurant there. The Jerk BBQ chicken was shiokz! Love the taste man. Then we went for after-dinner activity. They almost wanted to go for KTV at Kbox, but then we decided to just play board games which Shirley brought along. Therefore we found ourselves a nice stone table out in the open, where Ahma, Peyyong, Shirley, Peiyi, Siying, Yaokun, Uncle and me played until almost 1am or so. We played a game called Saboteur, as well as Citadels.

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Welcome to August

It's August already!? Time really really flies.

Song No. 13: Heaven Knows
Artiste: Rick Price
Album: Heaven Knows

Released: 1992

Fun Facts: This is Rick Price's second single to be released. What!? You haven't heard of this song? You must have either been born after the 90's or you haven't been listening to music. Definitely one of the most prolific love songs of the 1990's.

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