Last last not so-happy-post I wish! >.<

In a perfect world
This could never happen



The door to my heart, inner sanctum, emotions
Locked by the very people who were allowed to enter

I never could�ve seen this far
I never could�ve seen this coming

Was forced to waste four hours of my life at Nee Soon Camp auditioning even when I knew that there was no chance at all of going through. William was with me; and we bumped into Liuzhen and Yikun at the complex itself.

A big shout out to JUDY - Thank you for replying and teaching me the way to deduce the notes for major scales.. Though the audition turned out to be purely sight-reading pieces instead of scales.. and I sort of crumbled :/

Seems like my world�s falling apart, yeah
Why is everything so hard

If I ever needed a confirmation of how cuiiii I am, today was it. Having not touched the instrument for i-dunno-how-long, I could not even sustain a full note on an alto. Whenever I attempted phrases, my embouchure just gave way and leaked all the air out. Hence, I just told the accessor, in no certain terms, to just let me get the hell out of there and not waste his time.

Nonetheless, Salut d'Amour's a very very beautiful piece. And I'm glad that at least I could play the first part quite decently.. until the high notes came. >.< Sight reading on an instrument that I'm not familiar with a piece at an intensity that is foreign to me (but not to the rest.. you know how baritone players have it easy for almost every single piece.) is an instant recipe for failure.

Well, I guess today would be the last time I'm playing an instrument. Given how badly I'd deteriorated I will baulk at auditioning for band even after I serve my liability and resume my studies. Maybe one or two performances as an alumni per year would be the furthest I will push for.

My band life is quite done and dusted after six years of making music come alive with so so many enthusiastic and dedicated people.

I don�t think I can deal with the things you said
It just won�t go away

Retro-gated back outside camp into the civilian realm and I was quite glad we got rid of the annoyingly moody female SSG. Wonder why the female perm-staff all so PMS one eh Aaron?

Cougar actually had fun during their SDC trip.. taking photos and having the luxury of booking out on Wed evening with many milling around White Sands for dinner. >.< So early.. still remembered that time we only managed to leave at night..

In a perfect world
This could never happen

Ate lunch in solitude while waiting for messages that never came from so many people.. Lol. Seems to be a trend nowadays. I'd sent out almost twice as many messages that I receive. I'm possibly bugging everyone a little bit too much eh..

Anyways, you would be a cuckold not to have figured out the title of the song by now.. :D

(One of Jos' all time favourites, and it was she who introduced it to me so many years ago.. Haha )

I used to think that I was strong
Until the day it all went wrong

Another threshing floor experience in progress now
I assumed, and took little heed of the small warning signs that flashed ever so brightly. My folly eventually tore the ship of friendship asunder when the hull cracked under so much pent-up stress and agitation accumulated over time by the giant waves I was making.

The little things matter every time in every situation, not so much the big things.
Tough road ahead trying to salvage the wreck and piece it together again.

And it makes no sense
I could just pick up the pieces
But to you, this means nothing
Nothing at all

Hopefully the ship was constructed using the finest raw materials.
And if so.. I wish to turn back time.. literally.


Not staying stationary any longer I pray. Now where's my train back to the past? :D

Now you know where I snapped all the photos in this post

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An empty street
An empty house

Booked in on Sunday evening.. As usual I guess. The previous week had been particularly agonising for me.. and felt much much longer than usual. Well, the upcoming week was to prove equally mundane and intolerable.. Especially just now before we booked out.

A hole inside my heart
I'm all alone and the rooms are getting smaller

Every night seems bland and distasteful, doing the same old stuff preparing for the next day's activities. Phone calls are now kept short and sweet, usually a minute or two at most. I might just finally get a normal bill - the first time in three months. Yet I'm not exactly smiling like I used to when I had an inflated bill.. With three digits before the decimal place somemore.

I wonder how, I wonder why
I wonder where they are

It's rather obvious isn't it that times have indeed changed, from the tone of my posts in recent days. I'm now more subdued in bunk.. preferring to just stone alone on my bed either reading or indulging in the wonders of a music player instead of joining in the banter about rather useless stuff and occasionally poking fun at our section i/c. Maybe this' what 15 weeks in the same bloody offshore island gives you.. Hm.

Actually had thoughts of shutting this blog down for a myriad of reasons. Then after thinking for a while I decided against it.. mainly because I'm someone who craves for continuity (and, to a lesser extent, I do not want to waste additional time doing up templates and thinking of blog URLs).

So I say a little prayer
And hope my dreams will take me there

Started my week off with an AGR in platoon level and ST with SOC in the afternoon. Did SOC 5 instead of 8 (and the 600m rundown) as I had missed three in a row last week. Got into a little spot of bother with the low rope but otherwise from then on it was quite easy..

Where the skies are blue
To see you once again, my love

The 'highlight' of the week, otherwise known as RM 15, or the 16km route march for Sch 1 was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Yet another AGR in the morning, a 'conditioning' run to warm us up for the marquee event.

Supervising was D coy OC, and he seems to have an affinity with not-so-nice weather, considering what happened to his company during field camp and sit test. Yes, it rained super heavily late morning/noon, and we were bemoaning the curse of the OC. In the past our ex-OC (the super hiong one) will seemingly cause the sun to shine damn nicely during route marches in the wet season. So he's the complete opposite 'god' I guess.

Overseas from coast to coast
To find the place I love the most

Thankfully the rain cleared up and the whole battalion of 4 companies started marching from parade square on time, with our coy the leading the match. The first 4km was managable with the help of pre-prepared 1 litre of sports water from the vending machine inside the bottle. The next stretch about 3km plus to somewhere after Dogra Bridge was completed under slightly windy conditions. There, admist muddy paths and all, our PC distributed the pre-collected isotonic cans as well as donated 1x 1.5 litre H2O bottle to us.

Where the fields are green
To see you once again, my love

4 more kilometers and we reached our sit test site just when the sun was beginning to set. The view of twilight from the shore's pretty amazing as well. One can visualise a whole spectrum of colours in the fast darkening sky. After a 1 hour plus siesta for dinner and rest we started on our 5km rush back to the starting point. The upslope after Rocky Hill almost killed us - yet we kept pushing each other on and on with song after song after song (our resident singers never run out songs.. never ending karaoke session while on the march). All the random songs, from Lady Gaga to Westlife, Coldplay, nursery rhymes, chinese songs, malay songs (because they were pissed that we kept singing in chinese at one point that they started a song war) etc. were great morale boosters especially when you have are carrying a shitload of stuff on your back along with your suffocating LBV and rifle.

I try to read
I go to work
I'm laughing with my friends
But I can't stop to keep myself from thinking

'A coy slept at 2300 hrs that night, D coy finished their briefing at 2350 hrs' - something the the OC reminded us on Thurs night. He had rushed us back from the parade square to turn us in early but had spied on people making instant noodles after lightsout.

Wednesday dawned and I dragged myself down despite not sleeping well due to my super irritating abrasions . AGR in the morning (a 'very light one to release all the lactic acid' -.-) and BCCT in the afternoon/evening with targets. We were told to act as extras for some promotional clip during our run. Probably young people in primary and secondary schools will see our faces and get conned into thinking BMT is fun.

That same night we were told our platoon was chosen to represent the company in the drill competition.. in FIVE days (including the coming weekend) - all because we had the least status. Was supposed to be Plt 1's business but then again half their platoon are crocked. So.. no choice lor. 3 days to put on a decent enough show not to get last. 'Third is good enough' according to Platoon Sgt JQ, since he's does not want to perform during POP.

Speed training on Thursday as an alternative to 3 days of AGR is not very welcoming at all. A tekan session from the FIs followed before we had drills, BCCT with rifle with an instructor who's intent on destroying us with jumping jacks before every single technique - just before SOC -.-

Then it rained super heavily
And SOC was cancelled.

I wonder how, I wonder why
I wonder where they are

IPPT in the morning for interested people while I slept in til about 8 plus? Had the whole morning to ourselves in bunk. The aforementioned IPPT was a rather sordid sham though.. Lol, for reasons I will not disclose here.

Drills, lunch, drills (AGR was cancelled, and we were told to pack the black duffel bags and banish it from Tekong). CSM threatened to make us stay until 8 in the event our whole sequence was not up to scratch. In the final rundown we screwed up rather horribly as Cougar occupied the court and we were forced to do the sequence with the squad facing the opposite direction. So we gave the other companies a good night's rest knowing we were quite shambolic.. Not that theirs are that much better.. Lol.

The days we had, the songs we sang together

And thus ended the 15th week as we stepped onto the mainland once more at about 1910 hrs. Back to the place we first began. Two more book-ins and we'll be through with the whole island.

Another week, and hopefully closer to reconciliation

So I say a little prayer
And hope my dreams will take me there

Yet we all know things will never be the same again.
The one and only chance.. gone due to indecisiveness and fear
Bet Josie will know at first glance what the song title is/sounds like



Huge huge clue there . This was the song I recognised during the route marches but did not know the title to. I only knew it on Tuesday after asking around >.<

cuiiiiiii!

____________________________________________

Photo credit - ronan keating on Flickr

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Well, Sit Test's over and I think I screwed it up by literally just sitting there all the time. Doesn't help our cause also that we failed 5/6 on first day, and I did not know how some people can manage to lose a detonation block -.- (luckily they found it after the second day's activities ended).

Weather was really hot then (can't say the same for now..) and we were pretty much shagged out by the never-ending 12km route march which was split into 4-2-6. The last 6 was especially cruel as we were walking on a straight road with no variation in slope or vegetation at all. Quite a lot of people straggled/fell out.. I lagged at the back after I twisted my ankle on the gravel.. =/ Finally completed the march and 3SG Zhuoyi was congratulating me.. He was the one who had attended to me after I tumbled.

Fast marches weren't that tiring for me since I am quite a brisk walker in the past. The only irritating thing was that we had to run constantly to cover the gaps since the platoon in front had a lot of slowpokes..

Missions.. but looking back, I still can't understand how we failed so many.. Lol. Many can't do knots and lashes properly, not strong enough physically etc etc.. And quite a bit of wayang people inside as well.. Our accessors were very kind though, we did not get any arti drill, contacted, leopard crawl, pumping, and all the other shit other details got.

Spent the night gazing at the star-lit sky.. One can never get such an unrestricted view of so many constellations on the mainland.. Hoped to witness a shooting star but alas, it didn't materialise.. =/

Visited the MO to get medication and cream for my flu and abrasions.. I returned back to coyline with 2 Days Att B and Excuse No.4 Uniform.. Thus I basically spent the last three days of the week doing area cleaning throughout the day, bringing the stores, cleaning the platoon office etc. Half of Platoon 1 was on status -.-, and the total number of walking wounded was near 60 on Friday.

Missed three straight sessions of SOC though.. Hm. Don't know whether to be happy or disappointed. Had never attempted the course with SBO and rifle.. I'm probably going to fail..somehow >.<

3SG 'Your mother' Yishu aka the 'very fierce one' brought one quarter of the coy to e-mart on Thursday night. On the way we passed by the new Viper recruits who were awed by our marching.. Duhh, of course la.. Its him what. All scared get tekan if we screw up. In the end we marched two extra rounds about our cluster because of one joker, and he let us off then as he had a bball game to rush to over at F coy court. And the point of the whole e-mart trip was just to scan and check whether our credits were in >.<

Booked out on Friday at 1945 hrs.. sans the RT personnel.. We were almost late for our ferry after a super long RO delivered in stuttering english by our Chinese CDO.. After we reached the terminal we all rushed in like there's no tomorrow.. past V coy who were just sitting there waiting to board.. and onto the empty ferry. So we left first.. :D Even our PC was encouraging those with Ex RMJ to run as fast as they can to the ferry.

Poor Viper.. they reached early, saw an empty ferry but couldn't board it. Then nearing the timing some mad f**kers from another company just have to rush in and board that same ferry. And they left first. The most damning thing about it all? It was their first ever book-out after confinement week..

Booking in at 1915 hrs later along with Cougar. Gonna be crowded over at the interchange tonight. Oh, and Plt 2 can now bring junk food into camp after three months of surviving on Julie's plain crackers.

And there'll be SOC on Monday.. Damn... I don't want to the low wall on my first try.. Lol.

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If birds flying south is a sign of changes
At least you can predict this every year.



Do you know how it feels like..
Getting stuck in quicksand.. The more you struggle, the deeper you sink in..
Being a rubber band that is pulled to the max.. Then it snapped..
Watching everything around crumbles before your very eyes..
Having your heart contract so violently that it seems that it will explode at any time..

Rather melodramatic I know..
Definitely not a fun experience..

Photo credit - Xedarva on Flickr

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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Never knew so much can change in the span of just seven days.
Some things, I fear, will never be the same ever again.

Finally updated my journal.. (Its something I had brought to camp on enlistment day as a substitute for blogging.. only to realise later that I'm quite lazy to actually write out everything.. Thus there were only two posts prior to yesterdays - both were penned down during my two-week confinement period back then >.<)

I laid on my bed.. plugged in my earphones and just started scribbling away..

***

It had been raining very heavily the past few days.. Kind of like my mood eh? Lol. Poor sY has to complete his Sit Test in under such horrendous conditions.. Thankfully it only rained on the last day for ours..

To think it had been so scorching hot not too long ago.

Shall end off this post with a quote from Judy's blog..

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

-Helen Keller

Apt..

Timely reminder for me to clean up my act and persevere for the next three weeks.. and beyond. Its never wise to keep saying 'what if'.. For nothing we do can ever allow us to go back in time. I just wish that I will not lapse into the negativity that had hampered me so many times before in the past. It is just not worth it.

Photo credit - readerwalker on Flickr

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Its 1830 already.. In three hours time I would be at PRBI waiting to board the bus and ferry to my 'home' ON A SATURDAY NIGHT >.< while the field camp people have just returned in the afternoon. Lucky ones.. experienced the rain when my coy was hit full-force by El Nino the week before.

Speaking of rain, it is still pouring outside. Wonder why it always rain during NUS Open House (It rained last year.. Lol)

Got dao-ed since morning =/

Well, sit test is coming.. We were warned that it was going to be filled with tekan as one of the objectives was to see if we can think while experiencing 'harsh conditions' -.-

Wonder when's my re-shell scrape day.. Hopefully its not on a bloody weekend..

I actually stuffed myself with good food from Thursday on (booked out one day earlier to compensate for tmr) before going outfield once more.. :D Gonna gain back all the weight I lost man..

Then again, I almost forgot to announce this..
I PASSED! (((:

A huge thank you to all who'd encouraged me all these months.. From the time I was a bloody zerofighter for 2 months plus til now.. All the way since Dec 11, 2009..

You guys have given me the motivation and drive to train, and train, and endure. All the phone calls, outings.. to make my life much more vibrant and engaging. (:

I shall now try to jump further and pull more.. Lol. Think the former's rather hard to acheive though..

***

And.. I hope to survive the jungle yet again.. Oh, hopefully helping my chances to go command school. Lala~ The whole shit starts with a 12km round-about route march - The final position's only like 4 km away? -.- And we have to march all the way to Dogra Bridge and U-turn, heading back on reclaimed land..

Then again, since it's reclaimed land, maybe the soil'll be softer there to aid us in setting up our bashas..

***

Anyway, early congrats to someone who's so gonna earn much much more than me starting in two weeks.. Go out again aye? =P My turn to go Dutch.. (:

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Friday 12 March, 2010

Yesterday, on Frisky Friday, or what Class 95.0FM DJ Yas calls it, POETS Friday (stands for Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday), I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience..

The day started off on a low note though, with all my plans seemingly destroyed in a barrage of SMSes (o.O) and in the end I gave in to my craving for some Popeyes and dragged my mum along to Toa Payoh to indulge in food that totally owns rivals KFC big-time.

Reached home in the afternoon.. and after a while I prepared to head out again to town to follow through on my new plan to chill out at some quayside cafe at the Esplanade with a coffee by my side and 'The Economist' on my hands. Maybe if I'm feeling up to it I could possibly just get alcohol as well? Hm.. (Pipe dream).

A few SMSes changed all that though, and what was supposed to be a lazy evening turned out to be one of the best I've ever had.

And the rest shall be unwritten...

Thank you for making my day such a memorable one.. (:
It was something I had never experienced before,
The laughter, banter, joy, especially the company..
In the cool evening air.. and a not-so-cloudy sky
Really cemented our friendship there and then

And that's what true friends are for, really (:

Its 8.58pm already..
And the next two minutes shall be the longest ones of my life

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