today.tomorrow.the day after.

of recent i've been saving posts as drafts... equivalent of prvate in xanga.. bad thing when yr thoughts cannot be revealed to the world...

i'm now attending training with ecoquest... some business training thing (can't say too much here) which occupies weeknights basically.. well i consider this as my prospective job during my waiting for NUS and even during NUS, i can actually do this as well. so, i must start finding out what must i do to get this thing going.

meanwhile i'm also in search of a full-time job (this ecoquest thing can be a sideline)

i'm considering whether i want to return to sjab zone 9 or not. this time to public duty dept. but not sure if can commit the time or not... because, public duty is the responsibility of each and every sjab member and i want to have more experience in this. because, being a sjab officer and not doing public duty is like saying i'm a human but i don't eat.

i realise many of the profiles on friendster are breaking the rules about showing copyrighted images or photos as a child! (probably to prevent pedophila...) but who cares anyway... there's no enforcement and also no incentive to pao toe ppl...

washed hands!

21 days from my ORD date... i finally realise i got only 1 effective working day left.

why? as a result of my cat scratch yesterday, i went to the doctor today for a tetanus injection. and, he gave me 1 day MC. Yes, for you army folks out there, that means that i get 1 day of my leave back. And I'm gonna spread it over the two days that i have left. hence, i will not need to wake up early to go to camp. Ever.

i met sayo at bbdc today.. she's taking her test tomorrow! Good luck, sayo! anyway today's lesson.. i drove all the way up to mandai just to do a u-turn. heh. anyway this is the 3rd time i'm with this particular instructor... began to open up to him.. well.. so.. he's in the "NICE GUY" category. heh.

so i still haven't met 2 of my group instructors yet... dunno how are they. Hopefully i don't have to write any more of those letters to the chief.

ok, i REALLY have to sleep early today. driving at 9.50 tomorrow

my spiritual walk...

i've been quite dissatisfied with my spiritual life recently...

it's been a long time since i last feel the presence of God in my own personal quiet time. the other time was during overnight prayer meeting. granted, that was superb. but, that was together when a lot of other fervent believers were around as well. so the anointing and the presence of God is there. at home, i feel that i am just singing and praying to the wall...

i feel better praying in chinese actually, as i find i tend to use a lot of religious jargon when praying in english and i know God is not impressed with all these 'vain repetitions'... today, i started praying in chinese, and i actually felt better than normally when i pray in english... if this is what God intends for me, is good also.. maybe He is calling me to be a chinese missionary next time.

time to dust off that chinese bible of mine.

my cg is planning a chalet in june... i am not keen about it at all ... for those who know me.. i am not a very chalet kind of person... anyway... i am probably going to have a day job so will probably not be able to go

unless it's combined together with the other cell groups E243, E356 et al... then i want :) it's just that sense of camaraderie, all the Bro Adrian's cell groups together... like it's been said before, W161 can sure take a leaf from these cell groups in terms of growth and etc.. so.. yup

5566 madness

today i went to cover public duty for 5566 performance cum autograph session at IMM. it was madness, to say the least.

kailing msgd me on thursday to ask me if my corps can cover this duty... i was thinking, of course... the cadets would be dying to see 5566 up close... so... they will be more than willing to do the duty

and.. i was right. within the day itself, i had 4 names.

i am not a music or pop person, so i cannot fathom why people my age would queue up over a week just to catch a glimpse of their idols. to the extent of being squeezed together to the point of some of them passing out due to insufficient oxygen. And, the blazing hot weather didn't help much either. We had at least 42 casualties and that was during the time we were there. Heat exhaustion, nausea, fainting, and what not... even near heatstroke cases. A good thing no one was sent to hospital, though.

the thing that disturbed me the most was that there was this girl who wanted to get their signature for their taiwanese album. apparently they only sign for a certain album, not this taiwanese album, and this girl burst into tears and started throwing things around.

Goodness, this is what i really don't understand about pop idol culture. Good sense goes down the drain for a glimpse of that singer or whichever. What utter nonsense...

Ppl skipping school so as to chope seats in the queue.

Not going home for one whole week.

Squeezing together like sardines under the hot sun. And i thought the queueing in CHC was chaotic.

I ain't seen nothing yet.. till i see this.

At least in CHC, we queue for a good cause. This........

DO NOT DISTURD ME

i came back to camp today. was supposed to do my dental FFI followed by signing clearance. hm, but before that there was who knows got an arrow from 1WO XYZABC which took up the WHOLE AFTERNOON.

screwed up my plan. like that no time to go sign my damn clearance and ALSO NO DAMN TIME TO DO MY HANDING OVER.

seriously, i am damn worried about him. the workload of 3 of us now rests squarely on his shoulders. can he take it? i dunno. And i also dunno how much he knows.

But who can blame manpower branch for dragging their feet on this?

Coming back again to camp tomorrow, this time do give me some PEACE and let me complete my CLEARANCE and my HANDING OVER so i can ORD IN PEACE.

How much I want to wash my hands in front of the assembled mob ala Pontius Pilate. But, that washing of hands can come only when I finally reclaim my much awaited PINK IC, which is still 28 days, and 3 working days, away.

i don't feel like giving the ORD speech anymore. don't know what to say... sian.

not once before has ORD been so near, yet so far.

28 days.
672 hrs.
40320 minutes.
2419200 seconds.

to ORD.

till i once again behold the beloved pink ic in my hands.

till i gain back life as i know it, not merely a sordid existence.

till i gain back the most precious 7 letter word in the world.

FREEDOM.

In comparison with the shirt that Daniel wore today,the ORD shirt bought from Cres... at the back..'DO NOT DISTURD (sic) ME'...Yes I want to shout out loud to all those people up there...

"DO NOT DISTURD ME!!!"

One month to ORD~!

After 2 yrs and 3 months of serving the nation, I am proud to announce that I am finally going to ORD, in a months' time, in case you have been on mars all these years.

"Huh? ORD? But I haven't even enlisted yet!"

Too bad, ORD LOH! Enjoy your stay on Tekong or whatever 'paradise' you are in.I guess I am obliged to exult at this point what an experience NS has been, what good things I have learnt from it but (for those who have gone through it) who's gonna believe me if i do so ... i shan't.

I'm one of those who've been in the same camp throughout my army days. Hence, the thought of impending ORD is a bittersweet emotion. The same thing as graduating from school where we'll miss the good friends and the fun we've had. But the excitement that a new phase of our lives loom ahead of us.

So, in a month's time, I will report to Camp for the final time as a soldier, and leave as a civilian. I will leave with the pink IC, something I had not seen for 2 years and 4 months, which in turn symbolises the most precious seven-letter word in the vocabulary of soldiers.

FREEDOM.

To those of you from my camp reading this, past and present.. i'm sure we will meet up somewhere along the
way in future..

To those of you still in there... all the best. Endure and enjoy. Your time will come.

To those of you who have not went in... good luck. You'll surely have a better time than your predecessors, what with 2 years service, 5 day working week...-- 30 days to go --

One more month to O-R-D
Loo-la, o-Loo-la,
One more month to O-R-D
Loo-laa-loo-laa-lei

No more guard du-ty, No more ex-tra-du-ty
No need to see my En-cik face
Loo-laa-loo-laa-lei

(Adapted from the POP song sung by recruits in tekong)
--

O-R-D
Back to study
Got degree
So happy
Can't forget
Those army days
With my rifle my buddy and me--//

(This one, you don't know, i got no comments..)

driving

and now for updates about my driving...

i am currently enrolled at BBDC, class 3C course (manual transmission). For those of you also at BBDC, I'm at stage 2, subject 06 (U-turn and roundabout).

The roundabout was quite amusing. Drove all the way from Bt Batok area to Hillview to practice. Which coincidentally was where I used to stay. Too bad no opportunity to park the car there and go and check my letterbox (which i've got to do before they tear down the place.)

Actually my last lesson, on April Fool's day, was not that bad as my previous one. Except for one time that I didn't see the car behind me when I changed lane, apart from that is okay. Whereas the previous one i made quite a few mistakes and got commented by the instructor. But not as bad as one February night that the instructor was a kanchiong spider and kept slamming his brakes.. after that harshly commenting me. I have since gotten him blacklisted.

But seriously, I got to be better at checking blind spots. Else will get marked down during TP test where every point counts.

So I guess i am about 3 lessons more to the end of stage 2, followed by stage 3 (that's all the circuit courses.. S course, crank course, et cetera). Am aiming to complete my lessons by my ORD (5 May). Hopefully can get my licence by my 21st birthday..

And to put on record, I passed my BTT and FTT on my first try. Hopefully the TP Test will be the same thing.

Clearing Leave!

I am finally clearing leave!!!

Now I can go for driving lessons in the daytime where it's cheaper. And my e-learning for Engineering.. and all that.

Got lots of things I want to do during my long break before starting school... that includes finding a job though..

:)

Clearing leave! Cheers! ORD LOH!

today

today was quite a tiring day at work... i fell asleep on the bus on the way home.. and bonked my head on the window. ouch.. doesn't hurt anymore though it did at first when i got home.

booked 2 theory lessons for this weekend :) got to find out more about the schedule and what's the next stage heh.

back from hibernation

so it has been that i have been hibernating for close to 4 months now.. haiz.. so many things have happened since then.. first things first, ORD is now an approaching reality rather than a distant dream! 113 days more to go... lalala... civilian life, here i come!

It's a new year now! Got quite a bit of new year's resolutions, but also got to keep them! This year is quite important for me as it's the year I leave army and enter uni. Need to find a job also, to fill in the time and make some money to finance my driving lessons (i just registered yesterday)... Think school starts in August so i have 3 months of break between ORD and then to go earn some $$. Will need around $2k for the whole driving course.

The next thing is university! i realised that like many other JC NSFs, we've forgot most of the stuffs that we learnt in JC! So this is one thing that we need to learn back. I've signed up for an e-PREP course, from NTU, that is meant to prepare those with a JC / Poly background for university engineering. Hope it comes in useful. First of all i need to learn to use the blackboard interface though of course..

With that, comes CCA as well! I will probably continue to be involved in St John for the next two years at best, until my 'successors' are more or less comfortable with their roles and I become somewhat redundant. Not sure if NUS will recognise St John as an external CCA though, probably not, but some other CCAs i am considering include Christian Fellowship, Red Cross Chapter and probably some sport like badminton.. heh.. will have to start planning for the next stage of my life..