Memories of 2005

If there was to be any turning point in my life, it would be this year. Start of this year, I was still languishing in NS pushing papers and whatnot. No doubt I was a 'lao cheow' by then, but I was still enslaved under the system of national slavery. All until the great day of 050505 when I finally regained my freedom which cam with my Pink IC...

2005 was also the year I (very briefly) got into MLM. As a result I lost money. Painful lesson learnt from that..

I also turned 21 this year and had a brief celebration, nothing much but just a brief celebration with my friends. A milestone in my life. At the same time, I got briefly more involved in the St John activities. One of them is the 45th Anniversary, pictures of which are found here.

I also had the privilege of going back to my alma mater to do relief teaching. It was an experience that confirmed my wish to enter the teaching service in future.

And who can forget, 2005 was also the year I joined NUS. And boy, it's a brand new experience for me. After a hiatus of 2 and a half years, it was back to studies. I didn't do too badly, but not too well either.

I also had a taste of hall life - staying in Raffles Hall for my first academic year gave me a chance to show independence from my parents and also to get to know more friends in a communual environment...

And of course, I passed my driving test - the same age at which my father passed his.
Near the end of the year, I joined NPCC... It was met with some resistance at first but after a while, it was okay. I thought of going back to my alma mater as well, but decided not to for two reasons: so as to minimise any conflict of interest between RV NPCC and RV SJAB and also because I would rather the former CIs/cadets go down as it will be fairer to them and to the unit itself.

However, the two weeks of Honorary Officers' Basic Training Course (HOBTC) were indeed the time of my life. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed the training and made many new friends there.. to name a few, michelle, shihui, jiefang, shiyun (all gals huh.. haha.. ok name some guys) - david, jordan, guo jun, kelvin (2 of them), tianming, collin, etc (ok ah, i am not chee hong by only naming the gals..haha...)

Actually, this time of my life naturally brings to mind a question of whether i have met the girl yet. I really dunno. There is someone now but i do not know whether she is the one. All i know is that she is unattached, so i won't be ruffling any feathers i hope.. but i don't wish for this relationship to bomb out like my previous (and only) one...

She has been called by different names. Start with A also got, start with C also got, start with H also got, start with I also got, start with K also got, start witk M also got... but at the end of the day, most of them are just fleeting emotions that are not likely to last. That was the mistake i made with my first relationship that i am not about to repeat. I want my next relationship to last. Preferably a lifetime.

I have decided that for CCA wise, I will exclusively be a uniformed groups person. NPCC, and St John will be what I will be doing for enrichment.

a day devoted to St John... after a long break

after about 3 months of not touching anything related to St John, i was finally back in action today.

i knew from Shiwei that there was going to be a parade for the 50th anniversary next year and that the whole programme would start early today. so i went down to just take a look at how things were going.

during the parade rehearsal, some of the teachers asked me if i know the flag drills, which i did. they promptly asked me to help train the flag party for the parade. it turned out that there would be a flag party comprising of the house flags and the flags of the individual uniformed groups. so i did my best. it helped that the HO course did refresh my skills on MOI and all that, and it seems that the flag party were able to catch what i was saying.

i had a chat with the new officers and am glad that we have de-conflicted our areas of responsibility within the corps. also met up with the sec4s who will be going on to JC. none of them are forthcoming about going to OTC next year, which is okay, but i hope at least one or two will take the plunge, as we need them to help stand in for the officers who will be taking their A levels next year.

i also got to know that quite a number of RV-ians will be going to ACJC next year, and this had been the trend since last year as the incumbent second-choice JC, SAJC will be shifting to an inconvenient location in Potong Pasir next year. Previously, the number of RV-ians who went to ACJC instead of SAJC could be counted on the fingers of one or two hands. Now I got to know that there are quite a lot of them, but they are those who could not make it to NJC...

later on mrs yeow asked me to help get the flag slings for the whole flag party. turned out that Mr Kam, the guy whom I bought from in 2000 had closed down. i was able to get them for half the price though, at another shop run by a couple whom i knew since my cadet days. the teachers were evidently pleased that we were able to get it for so cheap. however it seems that now, they are including a flag bearer from each cca, and a school flag. that would be tough as they probably don't know drills. but it can be done.. i am sure of that.


after going to lavendar to order the flag slings, i went down to clementi town for their SJAB 25th anniversary celebration. it was a simple affair - a barbeque, with neither the pomp and pageantry of a ceremonial parade nor the formality of invited guests. The barbeque was followed by a prize presentation and speeches by the OIC and TOIC of clementi town corps. after that, i went for a drink with some of my fellow officers before going home.

on the train, i bumped into Andrew who was in uniform for the last time! he ORDs tomorrow. congratulations, Andrew!

Games Day

NUS vs NTU games day was fun, although i came a bit late cos i woke up late.. played too much on Christmas day heheh. it ended up being some 'amazing race' kinda thingy where we had to go find 'stations' to take photos. hee. it was basically national heritage trail all over again, with us having to go around finding stations in the city hall area. after which we went to orchard where we were given a photograph and expected to find the place. well, we managed to find all the places and NUS won in the end!

we had lunch at wheelock place, burger king and as expected, the 29th batch HOs started talking about the 'scandals'. oh no! how come HO course got so many scandal one? :P it was after a while that the NTU people arrived.. after we finished eating, we went outside to take a group photo, and that was essentially it.

after that, the seniors went on to KTV whereas some of the other juniors went to play pool. squad 1 did not want to, and we instead decided to walk around and talk cock. there happened to be this photo exhibition at orchard - an exhibition of aerial photographs taken at different locations in the world. so we went and looked around.

we also went to wisma where we searched for the rooftop garden. wisma used to have one where my mum would bring me to play when i was a little boy. but we were unable to find it, unfortunately. i wonder what happened to it. maybe it was redesigned as an open air carpark, which was what we found when we reached the top floor.

after that, someone had an idea of going to bugis where there was this place to play board games, if not go to the new national library. so we went to bugis... unfortunately it seems that the board games place had closed down so we went to national library.

what followed was really out of the ordinary. we went to an empty room in the national library overlooking much of bugis all the way from beach road to esplanade. there we spent quite a long while just chatting.. until it was time for dinner.

the library happened to have this exhibition on the journeys of Admiral Cheng Ho, so we went and saw it. after that we went to the top floor before taking the lift 14 storeys down! when the lift was accelerating, we could really feel the force of the acceleration.. all the physics theories about weighing a fish in an elevator came to mind! after that.. we went for dinner. that was it... after that we went home.

if the other squads know what we did.. we would most likely be branded as NERDS or something..

A tribute to City Harvest Church

Yesterday was my official last day at City Harvest Church. I shall miss the friends which I had made there over the years in my different cell groups, Usher ministry and others.

City Harvest Church has taught me to grow more in the Lord and to never tire of serving Him.

Now that God has called me on to serve Him in Living Stones Church, I will not be disobedient to the heavenly vision but I will bring with me fond memories of my 5 years in City Harvest.

results

Name : CHUA JIE HONG MATTHEW
Matric No :

2005/2006 Sem 1 Examination for ENGINEERING 1

Module Code Module Title Grade
EG1109 STATICS AND MECHANICS OF MATERIALS B-
EG1413 CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING B+
MA1505 MATHEMATICS I B-
PC1431 PHYSICS IE B-
SSA2209 GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF SINGAPORE S

CAP: 3.27


need i say more?

HOBTC is over!

After two weeks of intensive training, the 29th Honorary Officers' Basic Training Course (HOBTC) has come to an end. At first I had doubts as to whether I should go for the course, given that I am from another uniformed group previously and have limited knowledge about NPCC hard skills.

After going through the course, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Although my squad (squad 1) was quite 'quiet' compared to squad 2, they were a real friendly bunch of people. Those experienced ones really helped me make my learning curve less steep. I must place on record my thanks to Shikai and Kelvin who taught me knots and lashings, and who clarified my doubts about some of the procedures in NPCC.

An overview of the two weeks in the course:

The day before the course, i was down with a flu! was on medication. got ready my uniform and all and, when i was about to leave for hall, mum asked me if i was sure i wanted to go for the course and advised me not to neglect my studies.

One the 1st day of the course. I could only get to sleep around 2am, due to excitement. woke up at 6am to catch 151 down for what would be the first of many course days.
Course Opening, officiated by Commandant, DSP Geraldine Tan, who welcomed us warmly to the Corps. I was heartened to know that just like some of us (myself included), DSP Tan had no NPCC background when she first joined NPCC as a HO years back. After that got to chat and get to know some of the other new HOs - Jeremy, Aubrey, Zainuddin to name a few. I got to touch a gun (revolver) for the first time, during what we call dry practice. Thus ended the first day of the course.
The following days of the course included hard skills training like campcraft (knots and lashings), drills (including armsdrill, sword drill and baton drill) and soft skills training like conflict management, brainstorming and team building.
I also went for my very first range, having been deprived of the opportunity to do so during NS. and boy, it WAS a great experience. my shooting wasn't that good, only got 47 out of a perfect score of 200. (the best shooter got 175.)

keluar baris

i have finally decided to leave after almost 5 years in there, for greener pastures (in this case as a musician in Living Stones Church). i feel too stifled in CHC where there are so many people around who are better than me and I simply do not have the chance to serve... but in Living Stones where the congregation is about the size of two cell groups... i have more opportunities. and as dad has told me, i have been making an impact there. so i know this is the place where i can continue to grow.

spoke to my CGL and usher IC about it and they have given their blessings. so my last official week as a member of CHC will be this week. i will have spent 4 years 8 months and 16 days in the church since joining on 8 April 2001.

i have nothing against the church, or the people there, but i feel that it will benefit myself and the other church if i move on, hence the move.

update

it's been quite a while since i last posted here. since exams have ended a lot of things have happened..

i have started with NPCC Honorary Officers' Training Course. It's somewhat different from SJAB Officer's Training Course which I have undergone in the past. Here, the instructors treat the trainees as their equals and are on a first name basis with us, unlike SJAB where we must call them Sir and Ma'am and get 'tekan'd. I guess it's due to this concept that we wear the Inspector rank right from day one and not an Officer Cadet rank.

I'm actually starting to enjoy the course and the various sessions where we get to interact with one another... :P

Guess what's in the box

exams so far

had physics (not good) and CTW (could go either way).

now left statics, maths, and SS.


i regret i S/U my SS module.