Just couldn't resist it =P



Why arhh? Not the first time I got this..

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

It feels great to be back on the mainland once more after an especially grueling week. My 6th week there was.. really taxing on the body and mind.

RT starts next week; however we were notified that it would only be for those chaokeng and those who did not put in effort for IPPT. The latter descriptor's rather ambiguous though.

Part of our cadence run on Monday was climbing up and down the stadium steps 8 times? AGR was carried out by running up and down the bunks for 15-20 mins. Route marches increased from 4 to 6km between Tues and Thurs (though they claim the latter march was 'only 4km supposedly'). Many suffered rather badly - the pace was much faster than what they were prepared for. Stand-by bed on Thurs was rather screwed because they conducted it right after dinner. And there was lot drawing for guard duty as well - am quite lucky that I drew a weekday.

There's homework in the army as well.. We need to design a poster for Total Defence Day on A3 paper by today on pain of confinement. We also need to do commander's appraisal.. Apparently if we were the enhanced batch we only have 3 weeks before we POP.. Lol. Now we have 11. Sian arh. If it was last year we would only have 7. Then again I would have to come home on Sat if that's the case as RT would have started long ago.

Yay, my poster's very primary school-ish. Used colour pencils. Had to spend some time digging them out. Last used them.. in Sec 2?

Last week we met up at Judy's place for a 'music appreciation session' as well as a six hour long MJ session.. and had KFC takeaway for dinner (fat is a sin!)



And two nights ago we met up again for a reunion BBQ at Jtay's place. Reached late as I only booked out in the evening. The food was outstanding though. (: Oh, and night swimming's rather cool..



The blisters on both ankles hurt still even after 3 days..

Hm.. speaking of art.. I knew I should have bought these when I visited Verona, Italy close to 4 years back. They are not very cheap though. =/



Thankfully someone recovered from fever super quickly.. Haha. <- pink nice right!

Whoo Rooney scored 4 goals last night. See.. my theory that Man U never wins when I'm in camp still holds true.. >.<

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

Its been a rather good weekend for me thus far, except for the booking in part. Looking back, it has already been 5 weeks since I enlisted. So I'm now let with.. say, 12 weeks more instead of 8 weeks if I enlisted last year? Not a consoling fact..

Let's see, I checked my account recently and realised that December was a rather good month to enlist as I sort of benefited from the bonus that the civil service pays out at the end of the year. So.. everyone got more..

Lastly.. A new S$310m building in the marketplace, for the marketplace, to penetrate the marketplace - right in the central-south of the city, complete with world-class eateries and a 12000 seater hall? This will come to reality after at least 8 years.. but its good news nonetheless for the congregation. Congrats CHC (:

The power of 4th dimensional living..

Alright. Time to put on my ID tag, bring along 11B, fill my bottle, stuff my First Aid dressing into the right pocket and lug the field pack with all my 'The Economist' magazines from last year (kind of old.. but.. at least better than nothing) to Pasir Ris, then to SFT.

See you guys on Friday.. If I don't get confined or get drafted for guard duty. Lol.

Did not know Tekong looks so nice from the air..

From Paddy's point of view on Flickr - Forwarded by Aaron

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

I got bored. So while celebrating your posting and end of your vacation I thought of a song your company should have sung while marching on the spot (provided you all can even sync the step and timing.. =P)

Twist on the hentak kaki song
From Talkingcock.com,
HENTAK KAKI
A Malay army drill command meaning to "march in place" and thus can refer to any form of inaction or idling. Outside of the military, it also describes someone whose career has stagnated either by choice or incompetence.
"Ah Beng used to be a high-flyer, but now he just hentak kaki."

We..... come from a company famous in BMT
Come from a very special company
We fight for our posting
Fight to be the best clerk
Fight with a spirit never seen before
Mohawk, Mohawk, all the way
We like it there, we like it there
We'd found ourself a home, a home, a home sweet home.

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

I told myself that I would not touch DOTA this week as its rather a waste of time as I (finally) have a free weekend after what happened last week with handphone-gate.

After the past week.. I'm sure the other PTP companies are pretty pissed with us, especially Kestrel. Firstly on Monday we detoured to their company line at the end of our 7th 3km route march (first with rifle) and marched past them while they were doing area cleaning.

Apparently later on they tried to return the favour but found us all grinning like fools while doing 2 sets of OCPT which included.. dozens of toetouches, tonnes of squats, 100+ pushups in different positions and a few hundred counts of 4 jumping jack along with the 20-count Apache jumping jack.

On Wednesday we marched past their company again with our ~10kg field pack on this time. Talk about a vendetta between our OC and the other companies.

We booked out that night to prepare for our SDC visit the next morning.



Our tour of the Army Museum as well as SDC was conducted by a retired major and was rather short.. There were lots of interesting exhibits, games and videos on offer but predictably we did not have enough time to visit all of them. Probably a ploy to make us come back on the weekends (and burn a day.. anyway Army Museum's free for all NSFs and 4 guests). It certainly did pique my interest though.

Booked in at 1315h and proceeded to have our cadence run. Our PC promised us that it would be slow.. so slow that if you fell out you are.. slower than slow. The first two laps about the cluster was relatively alright.. until

Our OC showed up.

And proceeded to lead us up the stairs of B Coy and ran along the corridors of all 5 floors before exiting though to the track and the start of the 2.4 IPPT coastal route. At the ferry terminal we deviated from the route and ran up the infamous stairs (to the foyer where you surrender your pink IC) and along the hallway into the air conditioned HQ. After a trip to the first floor and back again using another flight of stairs we proceeded to exit to the grandstand of Tekong's parade square. Up and down the grandstand we went before we ran the breadth and length of the parade square onto the highway (back to the 2.4 route).

We turned at the following intersection and ran past T Coy doing PT and up and along their company line while keeping in step all this while (and chanting, singing, and showing off). Following that we ran to Kestrel (again) and up to their bunks where the people inside tried to slam the door on us. Could see their sergeants and OC swearing..

Felt pretty good after that but the OC wasn't quite done with us yet. We ran up E and F Coy before winding up on our own company's hardcourt. So that was our so-called 3km relaxed 'slow' cadence run. Yet more or less our platoon managed to keep in step. And we got to kajiao the other PTP companies. So that felt pretty good I guess.

The 'biggest f***' in the whole SAF visited on Friday. Though the event was pretty hyped up he decided to go see Taurus do their IPPT instead of us doing interval speed training. So we did not interact with him at all in the end.

Well, dearest Aaron has just passed out of Chalet Tekong after his POC tonight. He landed a 8-5 admin job near his house and is poised to serve his 2 years in relative comfort serving bigshots at MINDEF HQ. :D

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

Its 100110 today. Cool no?

A little while more and I'm off to change into my Smart No.4 and ready my field pack.

Meanwhile, this afternoon Aaron, WilFailiam, Louis, Jtay, Jtan, Judy and Samuel met up at Vivo to catch this movie which Aaron the pre-enlistee recommended us.



It was rather dry.. with some random and notable quips and twists. I like their dialogue though.. Its quite interesting and refreshing. The plot's rather predictable (not surprising for a romantic comedy) and not bad for a film which only took 25 days to complete, unlike some other movie that took 13 years and whose plot was apparently similar to Disney's Pocahontas (Some Facebook viral photo making the rounds now).

It was good meeting up with them, especially William as he'd been away in the States for 1 month prior to last week. The MRT fare hurts though - it's the first time in my life that I'd travelled on the adult fare, unlike some Failiam who used his sister's student ez-link card.

In the end I took the NE line back alone as Jontan and Judy alighted at Outram ostensibly to do some meet-the-relatives session? Haha. And the rest went off at Dhoby to go town/go home. Good life eh.. unlike me. =/

3 more days and I'll be back. Hopefully OC'll be nice and let us off early (a.k.a. before dinner )

_____________________________________

Maybe Aaron'll get posted to Tekong

Hey Aaron, hope you enjoy life there (your five and a half day Residential Induction Programme.. o.O). Maybe I'll see you? But then we different school and hence cluster. Probably if fate allows we'll bump into each other at the cookhouse =P<

Do update about your experiences! (: Wonder what PES E dudes go through. Haha.

I send you a 3-SMS long message and you replied me with one. LOL. Jkjk (;

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

Well, its a Sunday again.
Booked out only yesterday afternoon though =/

Anyway we received our rifles.. in the middle of a construction site at Rocky Hill's parade square. Why not at the jetty =/ As our camp is erm.. rather far away we had to do a 4km road march in the middle of the night there.

Now the we have acquired the weapon the sergeants are bound to tekan us more.

Woah, tomorrow will be the 1 month anniversary of my enlistment into this hellhole. 23 more to go. 3 months more for BMT. Hopefully by next month I can break the zero.

Confinement is in reality supposed to be mental torture. Instead of making you perform menial tasks, you are instead instructed to stay at the ground floor and 'entertain yourselves' - in other words, lepak. The COS will only be there to bring you for meals.

So we entertained ourselves throughout Friday night/Saturday by playing chinese chess, talking rubbish with Friday's COS, reading, going for own PT and for some PRC guy - calling people using his phone in one corner.

And we realised there was one guy who actually STAYS at Tekong even on weekends. He can book in/out anytime he wants and can bring food in.. And even use his UMPC to log on to Facebook.

Oh today's our payday too (:

Speaking of paydays.. the temp job market right now is rather saturated I guess. Some of my friends have found jobs (lucky them) while others are resigned to calling non-existant numbers and waiting for calls that never seem to materialise. Josie mentioned to me that for Classified ads.. you have to call damn early in the morning..

And and Singapore Idol's apparently in Tekong already - just that he suay got into Rocky Hill. Now I heard he's being targeted by.. well, almost every sergeant there.

Hm. Apparently my phone bill is totally boomz. I need to get people to call me. Kind of forgot I'm not using my house phone to make super duper long calls anymore haha.

Hope those looking for jobs find them soon.. If not later every night very tired, super sian and rather easily irritable.

So what's up for the coming week?
Rifle PT, field trip to Singapore Discovery Centre (Lol), Aaron's enlistment for RIP, more PT, OC returning from leave (... OCPT), more nicesucky food, BOOKOUT on Wednesday (but forming up at SDC on Thurs..), don't get confined again.. blah blah.

O level results will be out tomorrow.. All the best (:

(Stupid Facebook still don't want to accept my photos after 12 hours of trying. Screw their servers man)

Comment! (0) | Recommend!

3 JANUARY..

Someone is on the plane back home from Europe.
Another friend of mine will soon cross the Causeway after a long train ride back from inland Malaysia.

To think of it,
While some people are coming home after a trip;
Others are going the opposite way.. preparing for a 'vacation' of their own.

A tale of contrasting fates perhaps?

Well, let me predict the future.. (Since Facebook is taking forever to finish uploading my photos).

4 JANUARY..

A group of people will be settling down in an Executive Suite near Pasir Ris (oh coincidentally its only a short jaunt down from the bus interchange) getting ready to cycle, mahjong and partaking in all sort of crazy antics for the next 2 days.

While.. The sad group of guys mentioned above will be waking up at a time when almost everyone else is still sleeping to sweat it out the whole day. They will be doing all sorts of insane stuff as well that is bound to tax both the mind and body (read - OCPT after AGR/IST/FT/Games) for the next 2 5 days.

5 JANUARY..

The lucky ones will be cooking their otahs, chicken wings, fishballs, crabsticks, corn, satay and what not over a charcoal fire while engaging in hearty banter, camwhoring, mahjong (still..), a game of cards etc with along with some new arrivals who are (mostly) a year older than them. It will be a time of catching up, fun and laughter in a light atmosphere under the dim moonlight..

Just a few miles away the survivors on exile island will be roasted under the scorching sun. Well, I think you can guess what they are doing. Yes, same old shit again.

I am quite a good fortune teller no?

Happened to think up this post while I was uploading last year's band chalet photos on Facebook. Doing so just brings back the memories. So much so that I can almost imagine myself warping through space-time back into the past to the instant the said photograph was taken.

Well, hope all the J3s (feels weird calling my batchmates that..) enjoy the day/night of relaxation! Hm.. Two from Saxas won't be there - They will be the unfortunate ones just a few miles away simply trying to survive so that they can step foot on the mainland once more.

So.. enjoy the BBQ and if you're on the beach, gaze skywards and think of us.. The ones who are stuck in a world of their own, the people who yearn to be by your side, looking at the same moon together with you..


Or.. if not the moon, the sun the following morning will suffice (:

Comment! (0) | Recommend!