Meeting with the EL guys and mrtan today was great...less the pathetic portions. moved from Big O at wheelock to dome at shaw house to the AIRPORT! great cos its gd to see how everyone has moved on..well, not like i havent seen them for a long time but yeah...some things still never change. but mrtan has lost wt, which is good. 15kgs he said, run 4 times a day, 30 min each time. no sodas ie, watch your diet. yep. pity wendy couldnt make it, but that's for another time then huh?

been having visions of me failing at the hands of the cruel, nit-picking TP Pract test assessor. cold, hard eyes behind those "obiang" shades with an equally sadistic sneer on his face, gnarled hands eagerly crossing out all my faults, major and minor, on the assessment checklist(this is so NS), eyebrows twitching at every movement for both man and machine. and finally handing over an abjectly abysmal results slip and $150 down the drain. (somehow AJ comes to mind cos he's someone i know who has most recently flopped a test and it's cos of nit-picking...) there, ive envisaged myself to fail on the first try. way to go!

been waking up at 3 - 4 am in the morning nowadays and feeling really sad and weird, like ive just had a bad dream but never really remembering what happened in the dreams. bad mental state... someone prescribe a counsellor please. oh dear, im sure you-know-who is reading this. please declare me unfit to serve. love you lots PLUS hugs and kisses. HAHAHAHA. take that.

I ENJOYED block leave but all good things must come to an end. And mine did prematurely yesterday, when i was called back for vehicle servicing. Nvm how gd Kbox on mond, nuaing at home on tues, imsum, simpsons and crazy elephant on wed were, it all ended with the msg on wed aft, "tmr come back by 12 noon to service veh. tell yhour drivers too." that was halfway thru dim sum and suddenly they all tasted like they had only just been thawed.

So despite all the dread, teddy and i registered for our BTT at SSDC on thurs morning. Despite many concerns on whether to go public or not, we just decided that heck, just get on with the theory first. practical can always wait...or can it? haha.

then i went back to camp for the dreaded servicing. had to break track and swop the inner sprockets with the outer ones, for BOTH sides. horror of horrors. So i did it. and towards the end, i managed to graze my broken finger against the teeth and poof, there goes 2 weeks of natural healing and everything under came gushing out like water behing a dam. and the MO at tengah said, due to the crushing laceration nature of the wound, i'd be permanently damaged. oh wells. now that OC has banned me from 2 mths of servicing, hopefully that wont happen again? perhaps thats the only gd thing from all this cos im now flu-and-feverish, no less thanks to the haze and exhaust and dirt and what not back in SGC. bummer* darn wallaby, giving us trouble that is really not our problem at all. im sure all us nsfs would have had our fair share but this is one time that i really think is not worth it cos we are damn proficient in the stuff alr and those in 41 shld come and practise their OM course modules!

Utterly cooped up at home today, thanks to oc again for excusing me from ARR. :S Been reading "ties that bind", the read! 2007 compilation. nicely showcases the intricacis of all human relationships under the sun. the kind that makes you reflect on yourself. definitely not for those who dislike long-winded discourse or cutting, poignant observations. but i need to improve my rapidly decaying chinese. am taking forever to plough through a 30-something page chinese short story in the book. argh. and i want to read the compendium of plays that mark was reading (and im holding u to my 40% discount). and mz recommends the alchemist. that should last all the way to ORD. okay there.

Block leave now. but im feeling truly bored...and broke. Camp's good, because there's always something to do and i dont have to pay for my meals but dreadful too, which we all know why. Humans, no those who live outside poverty, are hard to please. period.

Let's face it. Transition to CV....there's no such thing cos there's no return to the point of not knowing. This knowledge of evil eroded our innocence. We are in too long, too deep. No matter what we do, we'll always be tainted as such. Dont think that ORD is the end - Big Brother is omniscient. Time can only dilute, not dispel this darkness. But it's not all bad. At least i know how disgusting people can be. Not to mention names but they happen to be recalcitrant malingerers, who buy and extend MCs such that they spend what? 1/10 or even none of their time in camp. and who brandy "medical review" and "excuse everything(namely stay-in, footwear, limbs, sunlight, uniform, sweat and every part of the body u can think of) as a shield to deflect the onslaught of arrows that is part and parcel of life in camp. so that everyone else is shot except themselves. Compulsive liars who claim that they are too sick to endorse their MCs, only to be partying away into the wee hours of the morning and become fit as a fiddle when it serves their hedonistic interests. They blatantly disregard orders and rules, flagrantly flouting all of them, making everyone else look like big fools. Im sure that no one likes to be put under such regimentation so how come you cant sacrifice abit sometimes? why must we always give in to you? How self-absorbed is that? If it's possible, i hope that people like that can be locked away in some camp. forever. "it's horrible; i can't imagine forever."

I think my expenditure has spiralled out of control and that im plunging into debt. well not exactly debt but not enough savings. Must be more prudent from now on. hehe. The GSS is evil; boycott it. Which reminds me, i need a job urgently! can start in 4 months time. Recommendations, anyone?

Soemone give me something to do.

atec 2's finally over but not without alot of drama ard it though. shldnt have tried to pull the tow shackle while ramping up. big mistake. shld have just let the tow shackle be twisted instead of my index. OC says that my finger was picked from the trash. haha. and it was most traumatising for ks and me. bt it's not ur fault ok? i called you to ramp up.

so after 3 stitches (disclaimer: no bones, tendons or underlying structures were hurt in the process of filming) and something else that im not at liberty to say lest i get lihongi-ed(names have been changed to protect minors; who knows who's reading this), i went out for stage 2, much to hengq's relieve. Just ask joel, who was 39Z for 1 night. =P but i was very grateful for hengq's company for mission 1 at least. and downloading of rds. the 2 missions for our cbt tm were pretty hum-drum affairs and were quite different from what we were normally used to. well at least there was no opportunity to do naturally camou so im not complaining. but oc was definitely not at ease.

then just as we were about to roll up north for the last mission, my vehicle generator caught fire. erupted in flames lietrally. haha that was a first and i wasnt feeling too panicky. but i briefly imagined the vehicle going up in a spectacular show of fireworks. so after a series of events which i shall not bother to mention becos i have already narrated to 2 gps of 'investigators', i returned to camp a good 12-13 hrs before everyone else. Having no rush to dismount the mind-blowing amount of PE, TES, OVM, wpns, signals, optics and ammo, we finished everything by ~0430 hrs before proceeding to wash up and proceeded to the cookhouse for our first hot breakfast in 3 days. hehe. it was gd to be able to be spread across 2 beds and be the only one in the bunk, under the fan, knowing that i was safely ensconced by pillows and blankets while there was an ABG out there courageously and valiantly staging a magnificent show of force for the dedicated defence of our nation. :)

so sleep till 10 i did and then proceeded with the rest of the S&M routine. when everyone else returned and i was in admin, it felt as if i didnt really roll out with them. perhaps i just was not meant for this ex. but i was already exuberant as the pinnacle of yr 2 was over. ppl still ask why i volunteered to go and it's like...i trudged for so long and couldnt just turn away when i had my turn at the water point. now that only bothersome admin's left, i guess we can really take it easy.

am looking forward to DSD tmr. hopefully it'll be as gd as the last times that i caught them. pretty upset though that i couldnt get to watch HP 5 this wkend. spoilers are sure to abound back in camp. o h well.

Went to NDP `07 preview with eric today. i think the last time i went to NDP preview was in sec 4, with voodoo. quite a surprise back then, but what's done is done. it's the first time that NDP's held at the waterfront this year so i'd thot that it'd be worth watching. But...

The pre-parade segment was kinda hum-drum. The performers looked really tiny on the stage and the magnifications on-screen were not much better. If i couldnt really see from where i was sitting, i wonder what people at the ends of the gallery saw. the ripples on the bay maybe? and the hosts tried really hard to get the spirits up but then it wasnt going according to plan. maebe cos it's not the real thing or maebe it's just people like us. or just maebe it's a uniquely singaporean trait to be...inhibited. it's a public place after all and being typically asian, singaporeans are a pretty self-conscious lot dont you think?

The parade still needs a lot more work. The supporting contingents couldnt keep to the beat and the mark time looked really messy. Im not surprised since even the Air Force GOH contingent also had one person out of sync. Quoting eric, "bird-droppings!" surely the girl guides could march better than that.

And as a tribute to 40 years of gd ol' NS, there was a momentary glimpse into the operational prowess of each service of the armed forces, SPF and SCDF. 10 years ago (in P5 that is), i'd have been wowed beyond words. But having operated in one of those showcase pcs, i really cant say the same. or maebe 10 yrs is enough to feel jaded and sceptical / cynical. you choose.

Last but not least, the traditional mass display. truthfully i have never been a fan of mass displays but this yr's seems to be exceptionally corny. Especially so when you proclaim to be the elements of nature and when the beauty of water is exhorted beyond bearable limits. and it's well-known that we are a tiny island with no natural resources so how did we ever tap into the richness of nature? Exaggeration has got to have it's limits especially on National TV. other than the "cute starfish" (only so becos they are blur pri sch children and children will always be forgiven), a fiery number with prancing felines and fireslingers, and the sing-and-dance items by kit chan and taufik batisah (at least i thot it was him) the rest were lost on me.

I must say that the routine works of parachuting men and women, diving bombers, hovering choppers proved to be more of a visual spectacle than specially contrived war-of-the-worlds wannabes. The change in venue was refreshing, making good use of the soothing view of the bay hugging the CBD on the right and sheares bridge looming on the left. And more importantly it was much more cooling than at the national stadium. the water potential (no pun intended) was optimised, if not a bit overdone.
but generally i liked what i saw.

The fireworks display again never failed to seal the evening, this time even more spectacular than usual with the bright skyline of our CBD in the backdrop. Part of the fireworks were even seen going off on top of one of the skyscrapers. i wish that i could capture that particular space and time, every fleeting instant that didnt last and every pc of burning metal that eventually fizzled before hitting the ground. i wish that we can have fireworks every night. ST Eng shld invent 75mm and 30mm fireworks rds instead of higher firepower and lethality all the time.

A gd deal of effort must have been strained out of all involved but thankfully it's a month more till the actual day and the brains have that much more time to work on that which leaves much to be desired... hopefully the history of singapore will prove to be as gd as, if not better, than the previous years cos the ticket prices definitely increased. IF it were $18 each i'd have been able to get more ppl to go wouldnt i? hmm. no matter, im sure that i'll enjoy it. and i did try to share the love with other people. dont say that i didnt try.

These 2 weeks have been rather uneventful...like mundane. at least it's better than frantic rushes for nothing. Life's gd if you dont get calls every minute. :)

K Box was....rather expensive to say the least. but it was enjoyable while it lasted. but my larynx gave up pretty early. and a pity Ks had to leave so early n yb couldnt make it.... mz can sing pretty well, in contrast to ys' mumbling haha oops, i'll pretend that i dunno who's reading this. i wonder wad cs sounds like... and i am now convinced that my chi has gone with the wind. confused many trad. chi characters. haiz. but i liked the melancholic songs better than the sappy boy-meets-girl-girl-meets-boy-happy-together songs. more soulful? i dont know. but no one seemed interested in eng songs. ah well.

This post's kinda rushed cos it's 15 min before i mus leave the house. argh. prep for atec in the coming week hopefully there's less things to worry about this time round. and hopefully there's something to post abt next time.