First Week

//First Week//

Life in stagmont is pretty good compared to BMT.

I mean there's of course the initial "i-hate-this-new-place" blues on the first day when you don't know anyone, and you don't know the place well, and you are forced to study all the physics stuff that I personally HATE to the core. Luckily, it only lasted like for a day, because the whole atmosphere there is just so...happy that it's hard to feel sad there. Yes, everyone is sian of mugging and studying (and mind you, we really study A LOT, like from 8 to 6 almost everyday) but all in all, it's a happy place, even for the commanders, so it's really hard to feel depressed over there.

Not that we are happy 24/7 there also lar, especially when certain news are made. News like where we are going to posted to after the 6+ week course definitely manage to make most of us feel -_- for quite some time, but oh well, there's nothing good food can't solve, so I'm really glad my bunk decide to just "emo" over it over food every night by going down to the food vending machine to pig out.

Speaking of my bunk, there's a whoopin 5 hwa chongians out of 9 people in my bunk! So there's definitely loads to talk about, especially GOSSIPS! Oh man, hwachong is such a happening and horny place. Haha, shan't discuss too much here. But there's good and bad to it I guess, because of the fact that there are 4 other HC guys around that I can hang out with and speak to, there's no motivation in me to try to mix around with other people that much, and if I really did ended up in that place after my course, I definitely definitely need to mix around more with the platoon, even those that I feel are on a complete different frequency as me. But oh well, it's only the first week, shall see how it goes.

Was talking with mingwei on the phone that day while in camp, and we were whinning to each other as usual, and I came to the conclusion that there's really no point being envious of people for their vocation. I mean he's staying out, and he's complaining, I'm in signals, and I'm complaining. Bottomline, we are all human, we will never be 100% satisfied, and what's more, this is NS, where no one in the right mind would be happy to serve, so actually no matter where you are posted to, there are bound to be stuff that you won't be happy with cause it's army afterall. So, oh well, just count down to the next bookout!

Speaking of bookouts, got to bookout on Sat morning instead of Fri which is the standard in SI thanks to guard duty. Talk about lucky. But it's a 12 hour duty, so it's not that bad I guess compared to those who got weekend 24 hour duty.

Met up with meng, cheng n rence yesterday to celebrate meng's birthday. Ate at Billy Bombers, which well cost me a bomb but the ribs are nice. Highlight of the day should be this $10Family KTV at Chinatown which is superhard to find. When we finally found it, we were led to this small room just beside their kitchen. Though small, it's really cosy and the sofa's comfortable, and there's free flow of drinks and even shark fins' soup (seriously!), though it tasted like...hmm..nevermind. But all these only for $10++ for 7 to 10, which is seriously quite cheap, and the songs there are actually very updated, and for some reason, we just got very high randomly over random songs. The 2pm to 7pm slot is even cheaper cause it's 10 bucks nett. Highly recommended!

Cooking

//Cooking//

Block leave is ending soooon! zzzzz.

Finally met up with cheng, meng and terence yesterday. It's really exciting meeting up with them, cause we always end up doing the most random thing at the very last minute. We were just eating Delifrance breakfast buffet, and for some reason, decide that we should each cook a dish for lunch at my house! (after checking our posting result, which was our original plan).

So off we went to NTUC to do some grocery shopping. I actually really like to do grocery shopping. I just find the idea of doing grocery shopping with your loved ones (be it friends, mum or whatsoever) very sweet. I like this homely feeling. Though I must admit it's kind of funny for 4 guys to be doing this together, seeing how our "inner-auntie" emerge.

The cooking process itself was kind of a mess, since none of us have really cooked b4, and we are all relying on what we can remember when we see our mums cook. I conclude I am so not cut out for cooking cause I'm seriously clumsy.

Anyway, here are the photos of sumptous meal we cook!


Green curry chicken cooked by yours truly! Actually, I didn't have to do much, it's like cooking instant noodles, I just dumped the curry powder into the water, dump in the chicken, and other stuff...and tada! It's done!


Steamed fish by terence! (which surprisely is edible)


VEGG!!! By cheng...


姜葱猪肉 by cheng again! He's seriously the only one that looks like he can remotely cook.


Our meal! (plus omelette)

Pointless Ramblings

//Pointless Ramblings//

It's just another story caught up in another photograph I found
And it seems like another person lived that life
A great number of years ago from now
- Photograph (Jamie Cullum)

Been reading through some of my older entries lately, because well, I'm just too bored, and I was actually quite surprised at some of the things I wrote. Not that it was even remotely good writing or what, but at least there was something, I actually put some thoughts into what I wanna write. But I was kind of glad I did capture down what I felt at that period of time, at least I was reminded that I was once optimistic about some stuff.

Lately, I don't know whether it's the lack of time, no inspiration or what, I just can't be bothered to even try to translate those incoherent thoughts and ramblings in my mind into words anymore. I'm just lazy I guess. Or maybe I should say that I hardly have such reflections and thinking process going on in my brain anymore since my life has been all about following orders.

"If the commander ask you to jump, you jump", to quote one of my commanders.

Shall not blame it entirely on NS, and I decided I shall stop blogging about it too, at least not during my block leave, because I want to feel like a real civilian for once. *try to ignore the fact that posting is coming out tomorrow and i will be back by monday*

Been discussing with quite some people about uni applications lately too. Reading up on all the modules and stuff made me kind of pumped up and excited about uni education. Of course I was slapped back into reality really soon.

Admist all these discussions, the issue of moral courage was suddenly raised. Don't ask me how, it was kind of random I agree. Do you stand up for what you believe in? Apparently, someone commented that my friend lack moral guts? Kind of made me wonder what that someone thought of me too with regards to this, but I would be more than willing to admit I'm not the kind that will fight aggressively for my rights or what I think is right. Not proud of it, but yea, that's me. That's not to say I condone stuff that I think is morally wrong tho.

Of course I'm not talking about really serious stuff like condoning crimes or whatsoever. But let's say someone cut my queue, my typical reaction would be to just let it be. And that's basically my attitude towards a lot of stuff. I mean 多一事不如少一事, so why get worked up over trivial stuff like that? I am just the type of person that prefer peace, nothing wrong with that I guess. People may see it as a sign of weakness or what, but at the end of the day, as long as I'm happy, who are they to judge?

Ok, I think I am getting into the rambling mode already. Shall talk about something happier.

Finally, I watched a movie! "Vantage Point" wasn't exactly mind-blowing fantastic, but it was worth the money at least. I felt that a lot of parts could have been developed further, like the media reporting part, or the backstory of some of the characters. The narration was quite interesting. reminded me of the movie "Memento", which is a movie with a very simple plot narrated in a fascinating manner. So just like what I felt about "Memento", take away the narration plot device, and "Vantage Point" is actually a very simple and straightforward movie. I kind of wished there was more twists actually, and the excessive use of this mode of narration from the different point of view, made it feel a bit gimmicky. But all in all, I did enjoy it.

On a totally unrelated note, I read this article on zaobao the other day, about the current trend of people changing the lyrics to current pop songs. Kind of funny cause I was just telling meng about how both my bro and sis actually write their own songs, and that I wanna try writing some lyrics too some time.

For me, lyrics of a song is far more important than the melody itself. I can find myself growing to really love a song with a very average tune, but awesome lyrics, but I just can't bring myself to listen to songs with crap lyrics. Granted it's the tune that usually attract me to a song in the first place, it's the lyrics that determine whether it's just another song I will sing along to or one that I really like.

One of these days...I will write something...when inspiration strikes.

Lost

//Lost//

I am very happy with my results. Very.

Not so excited about the fact that I still have absolutely no idea what to study. What's worse is I am totally not motivated to find out more about the options I have. There's the issue of what to study, whether to study local or overseas, whether to apply for scholarships or not, if yes, what scholarship should I go for.

But seriously, I really really really am in the mood to think about all this.

My mind is more preoccupied with POP this coming wednesday and the 12 day bloc leave, and more importantly what I'm going to do during this 12 days.

Perhaps NS has really eroded my brain in just a matter of 12 weeks.

I really envy those people who know what they want.

Lost. :(

Happy Faces

//Happy Faces//

Was browsing through my photos cause we are supposed to print out a photo of us with hair for our PS to see, and came across this photo.


Genuinely happy faces of us....on this day


A day to remember.

My February

//My February//

In case you think I died in Tekong or something, I didn't. I was just too lazy to update this blog, cause there's seriously nothing much going on in my life now anyway.

It certainly doesn't help when 2 of my precious weekends since my last update have been eaten up by fieldcamp and sit test.

BMT life since my last update is...well..like that lor. Had the fieldcamp, which according to my sgt is supposed to be omg-so-shagged, and sit test which is supposed to be omg-even-more-shagged. Of course there's lots of IPPT, SOC, and route marches going on coupled with the usual PT like strength training, speed training and AGR. Did my live range too, so basically I am only left with one last major event for BMT which is the 24km route march.

I realised I kind of enjoy outfield, at least I kind of like my fieldcamp and sit test (when it didn't rain). I mean it's not like I love outfield or what, in fact there are lots of things that I hate about fieldcamp, like all the proning during stand 2, all the tekaning etc, but somehow, time seems to pass much faster. Like during fieldcamp, an entire afternoon can be spent on practising fire movement or urban ops stuff, and admist all the waiting, eating (yes eating!), and getting scolded by sgts, the afternoon is over just like that.

And I loooove sit test, not for the test itself, but for all the free time we had. The test usually ends at 12+ and it's free time for the rest of the day! And it's quite nice to sit around and talk cock while munching on the biscuits from the accessory pack.

Somehow we just eat so so much during fieldcamp and sit test that we think we will gain weight after fieldcamp. Speaking of food during fieldcamp, I absolutely love the desserts in our combat rations, especially the red bean with wintermelon and red bean with logan. i LOVE the peanut with lotus roots too. I love the oat digestive biscuit in the accessory pack too, oh and the fruit bars! It's kind of funny that before the sit test, some of my bunkmates and I were talking about how excited we are about sit test cause we get to eat field rations again.

Live range was another slack affair. It's a lot of sitting around and waiting, and of course, eating (again). Thank god for the ninja van for selling all the snacks and stuff if not I think I would have died of boredom. I did pretty ok for my day shoot, scoring 15/16, but I am such a bobo shooter at night scoring only 6/16. But as long as I passed I'm happy.

Can't say the same for my IPPT though. Had my IPPT last mon, I was quite glad that I've improved in all stations, chin ups from 0 when I first enlist to 7 now, and 2.4 from 13.12 to 10.58. Sadly, I just can't jump. The sgt was like "JUMP LIKE A FROG!!" when I went for the IPPT re-test with Kestrel coy on fri, but no matter how hard I tried I still can't pass lar. I was quite touched though when almost all my platoon mates who went for the retest was encouraging me and telling me I can do it. It's funny that there's 2 of us from the platoon that can't pass SBJ, and no one really cared about the other person.

Speaking of "that person", I am really amazed at how NS can make me re-evaluate myself as a person. I used to think I am a very mild-tempered person, with a very high level of tolerance. I guess I was wrong, cause "that person" actually made me do things I don't think I would usually do. I really really cannot stand "that person" (and I think the same can be said for almost the whole platoon), and I think he's the first person that can make me say such sacarstic comments right in his face. I mean normally I just keep those comments to myself, but with him, it just comes out of my mouth, there's no control.

10 more days to POP and I can't wait to get that person completely out of my life. I swear if he manage to get into OCS, I would absolutely completely lose faith in how our army operates. That being said, though I certainly won't miss him, I am sure I would miss my bunkmates and platoonmates for sure. I would miss Rocky Hill Camp for the serenity. I would miss my big big bunk compared to those at Ladang. I would even miss some of my commanders.

10 more days, hope it's a memorable 10 days.