=Super Pioneer Daron=

4 singing christians, 3 movie tickets, 2 cups of coffee and a cup of $6.20 ice-cream~

2008-12-06T00:50:00.002+08:00

4 There was a performance in the evening, debuting Jessica and a few local Christian singers singing their self-composed musics. Among the 4 of them, Jessica's appeared to have the most meaningful and touching lyrics, making it touch the hearts of the listeners. Knowing that both she and Esther had prepared a lot for this performance, it would be a waste seeing them going empty handed. So, being a chivalrous person, I rushed over to a nearby flower shop and bought a stalk of sunflower for each of the girls for their hard efforts~ and it was worth it, comparing with the other performers

3 Earlier, I brought my brother to the cinema to watch the disney animation Bolt. Initially, we were destined to watch Madagascar, but after browsing through the reviews on rottentomatoes.com and noticing the poorer rating than Bolt, I went about convincing my brother about the movie and off we went to watch the show.
Overall, the show was pretty good, though maybe a bit too kiddy for a 20.96 year old kid to watch.

2 Starbucks was giving out free coffee in conjunction with donations of Salvation Army. It was a good deal for $4 coffee for 2~

1 To make it a point that we are pigging the whole day, Plin and I had a cup of $6.20 ice-cream at the shop located at city-link. It was pretty cool to see a mix of shortcake, chocolate topping and strawberry meshed up over a cold pan. Perhaps the extra cost came from there~

Long long ago

2008-11-26T19:09:00.001+08:00

Ok.. there are a few reasons as to why my blog died momentarily.. partly is due to the mad rush of assignments and there are the tests.. but oh well..

Things are going smoothly.. Juz completed my ID 1321 paper and it turned out to be fine. Was amazed at how my hand has survived the ordeal, though it was about to give up around the last minute..

Think it will take some time to recuperate :P

The Punggol End Experience

2008-10-12T23:45:00.000+08:00

You got to spend some time, love
You got to spend some time, with me
And I know that you would find, love
I will possess your heart.

Back to basics was the name of our little field trip out in the opens. Planned by Jeff who misses the outdoor life and cooking of the Swiss Alps, we decided to hold a mini retreat for the church kids to celebrate the end of their exams. Together with Plin, we went about buying food and planning games for the big day to come.

Punggol End was indeed a quiet deserted area with sparse trees around the area, painting a calm and gentle scenery in the background. At the other end, Lalangs grow abundantly, portraying a wild side of the side of Singapore. The shore beats the white sandy shore with a peaceful sounds, and the Alfa Romeo is parked at a little clearing for the 2 tents brought by us.

We started a day with groups of 2; the red team and the white team. We later named ourselves the Roasted and Paper Plates respectively. As Jeff was leading the Roasted team to their 1st game, the Paper plate team was stuck in camp. It was pretty humourous to see the youngsters camping inside the tent, roasting themselves alive under the scorching heat of the sun. I, on the other hand, went around to take a breather before reminscing the lighting of the fire, just like back in the old days in scouts. There was a very nice dead log beside our tent, and in a matter of minutes, everything came back to me and the fire was up and burning. Later, Stanley erected a pole and hung a paper plate and soon it became our team's altar.

When it came to our turn, we were led into the fields. Basically, we were to catch "flower pokemons". By walking near the flowers, the gym leader(which is Jeff) would ring a sensor indicating that the pokemon is near and upon capture, our team would have to play mini games to win the round. Being the younger team with more youngster unlike the auntie, i mean, roasted team, we beat them to the games by 10 minutes. Although the winning team would have noodles and the losing team, bread, we ended up sharing food.

We spent the remaining time cooking the meals and the food that we have prepared. It was kinda saddening to see some of the kids leaving the site. Perhaps they find it too boring or the condition out in the open too harsh. Kids nowadays are unable to appreciate what the outdoors provide them. Cocooning in their homes with their electronic devices, I wouldnt be surpised when that day comes when they cant even light a match by themelves.

With the remaining so peeps at the campsite, PA and AI came over with a bunch of soft drinks and more food. By then, the majority of the people were playing by the sand and chilling out, Andreas was attempting to sink the ants with his sand digging. When all of the sudden...

I spotted dark clouds bringing shower of rains. And it was heading to us across the horizon.

"HEY!!! GUYS!! ITS GOING TO RAIN!" The reaction I got from the crowd stunned me.

"Rain? orh.. okay.." and they continued to play with the sand.

Nevertheless, when the first few splashes of water became to splatter, there was a mad rush to the tents. I was glad it was over in a matter of minutes, and Thank God for washing my car as well! When the sky cleared, we continued to cook our food, with PA as the main chef. The food we brought in were fantastics. There were Shitake Mushrooms, hotdogs, Pineapple rice and potatoes.

We ended the day with smiles on our faces and filled stomaches. The only problem was whether if we can turn up for church tomorrow or whether our stomach can handle the digestion properly. Apparently, it did. :P

The crazy people in the tent

Nice Fire~!

Chucking potatoes in ember will get them roasted nicely!

Mushrooms and hotdogs!

Me and my pineapple

Murdering the pineapple

Traditional pot vs more modern pot

Campfire fading.. campfire fading...

Team Roasted

Team Paper Plate

Cup noodles, anyone?

Photoshot of the scene when it rained.. pretty artistic huh?

The Ultimate Breakfast Combination!

2008-10-09T15:31:00.001+08:00

Obama looks friendlier~

Buttons Mania

2008-10-02T10:52:00.004+08:00

Our next assignment was to investigate the use of buttons. The buttons that we are referring to are those operating buttons of machinery/equipment, and the interesting thing to note about them is that these buttons comprises of pressing, pushing, pulling, rotating, flipping etc. So at the end of the day, how one of my tutors put it across quite clearly, what is a button?

Initially, our team had selected the piano key as one of our buttons. It was interesting to note that different piano keys create a different tune when being pressed. However, we were dismayed when our tutor rejected it as a lever instead of a button. So going back to the drawing board, a brilliant idea of using the PEZ sweet was created. In fact, it was way more interesting to work with than the piano keys. We set about selecting it as our model to work on.

Preparations were made before the presentation day. HK and Sean went out to find the actual PEZ sweet. Surprisingly, the sweet has declined in its popularity, making it available only at Toys-R-Us. Other preparations were made as well, such as the sketching of the exploded view of the toy, the discovery of the ergonomic (mechanical function) and the sourcing of pictures to xrepresent the looks of it. I was solely in charge of the layout and presentation of the project.

It was an impressive piece.. Perhaps too impressive for the likings of the tutors. The background was mainly eye distracting, pushing the focus away from the people looking at it. Too much of everything good sometimes would result in something bad.

In the end, I had to redo the layout, making it simpler and easier to read. At the end of it, space management was a lot better and it was
clearer to read.

Lesson learnt : Do not be too elaborate with the background. A simple background should do the trick, and let the content speak for itself

The Roaring of The World's Fastest Cars

2008-09-29T22:57:00.005+08:00

View from the grandstand.. the blur on the right of the photo is a Toyota Car :X

Alas F1 has hit the shores of the buzzling crowd of Singapore, and the government has slammed the world with an impressive show yet to be done by anyone. Being the 1st country to hold their race in the night, in the middle of the CBD area, Singapore has set out to be the most ambitious country, other than China who held the Beijing Olympic. Everything looked good on the outside. The flyer was up and ready. The circuit with its Italian Nightlights was newly constructed. And seats all over the 5km circuit were ready for visitors for the past 3 days. This can be regarded as one of best money-making schemes Singapore has ever offered.

It was certainly an honour for me to be an usher for the Singtel Singapore Formula 1 GrandPrix. Being able to usher important VVIP guests was quite an experience, and at the same time, being close to the Racing cars. Working with a few of my church friend, our reporting venue was at the Grandstand down at the flyer. The construction they did was astounding. In less than 2 months, Singapore was able to erect multi-storied viewing galleries with laterns, stall, stages and a sweet grandprix ready for the cars to get on. As we were ushering guest into the suite, we were able to peep into the room to see the glamour and poshness of the layout of the room. The view was simply breath-taking. It was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be up there, "acting" like a VVIP yourself

During the ushering, the going wasnt really smooth-sailing. As the big word on the back of our t-shirt read "USHER", we were like magnets attracting nails to ourselves. Questions came flying from all directions, like where is their seats, where is the female toilet ( which was hidden behind the males toilet), where to get earplugs etc. Level 1 suffered the whole blunt of it. However, Level 3 was a lot more peaceful, with only managing the guests that were upstairs.

As the race started proper, I couldnt really watch the race, since I had to be at my position, which was being blocked by the rooms. Nevertheless, I was able to catch a few glimpse of the race through the small flat screen TV in the executive suites once the tinted glass doors opened for food and people to come in and out. It was quite disasterous for Ferrari in this race. Indeed, the Singapore race circuit proved to be an exciting and unexpected race with Alonso being 15th for the qualifying race clinching champion. There were plenty of actions, such as Rakkionien and Pique crashing which brought forth the safety car.

Overall, the experience was worth-while. The money was not too bad either. The next time Singapore has their F1, i would be the one spectating instead ;)

Nice view from the top~

Incredible view from the top

Proud to present you the usher team (wifout jeff :X)

Constructing the wizard tower

2008-09-15T10:56:00.009+08:00

A total of 3 weeks was taken to build a tower that stands at 2.2m. On top of the rest of the assignments,we were to discuss on the tower selected, generating 3 panels, build a prototype and build the actual tower. It was group work.

Initially, our tower selection ranged between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Mine was for Ravenclaw, portraying a eagle hugging over the inner tower, hence coming out with the concept of "a tower within another tower" (Credits goes to Pastor for inspiring me with this idea). While my group members had their own ideas of what our tower should be, we have finally settled on working with Slytherin, working on my idea of the concept.

When that was settled, churning out 3 different designs for the tower was little difficulty. We allocated each other with job scopes. One of us were to do a panel each and a exploration of the model. Out of the 4 of us, the 1 guy would do our final decision of the tower. Sadly, none of the panels were up to standard for that day's presentation, and I have to admit that it was slightly sloppy and disorganised. The good thing was that we had an ingenious idea of how the tower should look like after the presentation. Credit goes to Farah for constructing a pop out tower with neat folds and joints. It had the gothic and authorative look suitable for the tower. There were other issues at hand, such as how the outer tower should be constructed, and that caused disagreements between the group. On one side of the table, there was talk about how flaps and a straight inner tower should be constructed so as to show the authorative figure of the tower. On the other hand, I was thinking of creating a spiral twirl up to the top of the tower, so as to break the angular shape of the tower and to promote the use of paper.

Although the situation wasn't resolved on the spot, construction of the inner tower began on Wednesday. KC and I spent roughtly about the whole day forming a super big piece of paper. We found most of these paper as scrap paper from Scalebar, the printing shop in SDE. After spray-gluing the papers together, we started measuring the dimensions of the inner tower. One of the problems we faced is the angular shape of the inner tower, and the slanted edge of the tower such that it looked like a pyramid from the Andes. We resolved that easily by folding the paper inside, such that we can achieved a nice smooth line. By the end of the day, we were able to probe it up, such that it was standing by itself. That by itself took a whole lot of effort constructing, studying the nature of the paper, and the pyramid was an achievement.

No work was done for the outer tower though, as the design for the tower was not finalised. This was delayed till Sunday when action finally took place. Sadly, there was little which I could do to help the situation on the weekend. People have their lives and commitment. We just have to make do with the circumstances.

I managed to come back to the studio at 8pm that Sunday night. Things didnt look too good. Apparently, the inner tower had flopped into a deflated piece of paper. What that looked like the construction of the outer tower looked like a wrecked car from an accident. Team members remain demoralised at this point of time, wondering how they could reconstruct the flaps. (In the end, the flaps idea was selected.) What that needed attention was the strengthening of the inner tower. Thank God I had some background in construction due to my involvement in Scouts. In about an hour, I was able to reconstructed a pioneering structure of what we used back in NPC, in a scaled down size. Satisfied with how firm the inner structure stand, we fitted the initial inner tower around the skeleton structure, almost like as if we were adding skin to our tower. With that, the inner tower was completed.

There was another round of discussion on how the flaps can be reconstructed. It was close to impossible for such a construction to be done on a big scale. When all things became desperate, we finally used the "spiral" concept. It isn't really a spiral as there wasnt a continuous chain twirling around the tower. It resembled more of chains, and in a certain way, scales of a snake. Tedious planning, measuring, drawing of circles and cutting was done to the new template. When it was up, however, there were some inaccuracies in the measurement. And since it was 4am, there was no way to redo the piece again.

Sometimes, I feel that more time should have been invested on the execution aspect. Although planning itself is important, if one is unable to understand the nature of the paper and how it would affect the outcome, the design by itself is a failure.

With 2 hours of sleep, we had our crit session with our teacher. While the rest of the group had been commented for their designs and purpose, ours was perhaps heavily criticised for its accuracies and worksmanship. It was pretty sad to see this happening before my eyes. It was afterall a very good concept which no one had ever thought of. However, due to the input of many different ideas, and the lack of foresight, it was not executed to its perfection. The end result was a shoddy piece of work.

I would regard this exercise as a failure. But it is from this failure that lessons can drawn out of this.
1. There must be an ample amount of effort on the execution phase. This is so as to be able to react to unforeseen circumstances that may not be seen during the planning phase, whereby necessary action can take place.
2. There should be a project leader in anything which we do. When 2 people give conflicting ideas of how a design should look, the design itself will lose its efficiency. However, the project leader should also accept feedback from the group members.
3. There should be constructive feedback. This means it should not be a personal attack on the design, but an improvement or a fault to the design aspect.
4. Fighting for your ideas means putting in effort in putting forth what you want to show. Whether if it is to show your idea through a model, or suggesting the change of idea at the right time, if you feel strongly for an idea, knowing that it would work under constrains, then its worth fighting for.

I would glady redo my tower again if given a chance. Sometimes, when things dont go according to plan, you fall from the experience, and you learn how to pick yourself up again.

Initial concept of tower in another tower

Exploring of different ways to fold paper!

Prototype of the building

Shape of the inner tower

Overall shape of the tower done by Collin, Fara, KC and me

Ravenclaw tower done by Kenny, Nancy, Jestine, Huiwen and Tercia

Hufflepuff Tower done by HK, Sean, Moon and Jessica

Hufflepuff Tower done by Si Ru, Step, Joanne and Angela

Slytherin Tower done by Ruth, Silvia, Doreen, Christina
Structural layer of Griffindor Tower done by Clement, Eileen, Bernice and Geena

The start of a very epic battle

2008-08-28T21:19:00.002+08:00

The time was 9.15pm. The estimated time to complete my 2nd assignment was by 4am. There should have been nothing but chionging through the assignment.. The assignment was to use a basic shape to create a rhythm (a string of basic shapes which shows motions), deformation (to create other shapes from the basic shape by twisting the contours of the shape) and a pattern (using both basic shape and deformation)

I managed to finish it only by 9.30am the next morning. Spending a whooping 7 hours on the patterns, it was my pride and joy that it managed to turn out looking very nice. The rhythms took slightly shorter.. about 4 hours and the deformation, 1 hour with a bit of dozing off from the lack of sleep.

It was super tedious, and careful execution was carried to ensure minimal damage to the workpiece. Unlike soft copy, one wrong move on the actual piece and you can end up throwing the whole piece away.

When it is finally done, i cycled back to bunk by 10am. Took a quick shower and hit the bed. Spent about 2 hours of sleep, and up I was for the Critique session at 2pm. All I remembered was the pounding headache and how it sucks to have so little sleep.

The critique went smoothly. Most of us had interesting rhythms and patterns. Out of the whole lot, mine was one of the last few. Interestingly, the last few were labelled as the "Extremist club", probably because of the daring approach to defining what are patterns. Overall, I didnt really do a good job with the deformation and the rhythms unlike my other classmate. I was however, encouraged by the remark one of the tutors.

"This is the best pattern I have ever seen."

Preparations were made to create the desired pattern on hand

Actual Design... Looks super good!

When You're Stressed from all the work...

2008-08-27T22:00:00.000+08:00

The crazy things people do when there's a deadline within

Singapore Youth Olympics Logo Competition 2008

2008-08-26T00:05:00.000+08:00

The Lion cub and the Lion are the mascots for this year's olympics!

Just the Lion by himself

From the extract for explaining my design to the Singapore Youth Olympic Management

The lion represents Singapore's identity as a lion city. Its red and white colours represent the colours of the Singapore flag. The red mane and tail are the end represents fire, and in this case, represents the burning flame of the Olympic torch. Based on Asian roots, the lion can also be seen as a guardian lion, with his right paw on one of the Olympic circles, hence indicating the security of the Youth Olympics in Singapore. The lion displays strength, strategy and perservance. It represents an athlete, a fighter, a winner. For a cub to grow into a dominant lion, it has to learn from its parents. Its parents will also ensure that it will grow into a mighty lion within the pride. Likewise, the potential that are unleashed among the youths all over the world will only continue to grow as they mature into adult athletes through the guidance of their coach and support from their family. The Youth Olympic is their stepping stone onto the World Olympics.

Spent the whole day constructing this figure of the lion.. I must say it is a well thought out concept that it would be interesting and humbling for anyone who can come out with a better idea. :)

My very 1st Assignment!!!

2008-08-25T23:47:00.000+08:00

Extracted from my preparation for this exercise

In the square world, everything is made out of squares. Anything that is not a square is also morphed into a 4 equal sided right angle polygon. It was on one of those days that I decided to bring some food from Earth. Gathering my 5 newfound friends from Square world, we had a picnic by the park in Square world.

In Square world, no one has ever seen fast food before. It was a creation that was ingenious only on Earth. So when I brought fast food into the Square world, they were very intrigued by its colour and appearance. Apparently, the Squares have never seen “red” in their entire life, while they could only comprehend “yellow” through the setting square sun. Perhaps red and yellow were so much of an opposite in their world that the colours simply couldn’t exist. (perhaps the reason why the sun remains in square world is due to the fact that there should only be one sun in the solar system, and that sun happened to be yellow). It was such a pity that the Squares have never fully appreciated the use of red and yellow. On Earth, these colours are associated with high branding value. Countless of companies other than the fast food chains have made use of red and yellow, such as Coca Cola, Vodafone, Ferrari, Shell and even DBS. Companies make use of these bright colours and its shorter wavelength to create a closer distance perception, hence attracting the attention of the customers. Perhaps that is the reason why Mac-Donald is able to earn higher revenue comparing with duller colour fast-food chains.

Even though there are 3 dishes brought over to Square world, fast foods come as a set meal (usually a burger, a side and a drink), and with the use of a few common colours among the fast food, there was sufficient for the 6 of us, each mysteriously having food for our own.

Intuitively, the Squares chose their choice of fast-food with accurate resemblances to their character. Each of them had a behavior that suited their colours and their appetite. Starting from the bottom left, I have decided to choose “Long John Silvers’”. Long John Silvers’ are famous for their deep fried fish and French fries. Since I came from a Teochew background back in Singapore, fish can be seen as one of the essential dishes for a Teochew meal. The fact that Long John Silvers’ is one of the few Fast-food chains that emphaysises on Fish, it further showed the huge difference between a Earthly being and a Squarely being.

The next square above me is a wealthy square. His skin is able to reflect against sunlight, hence making it in comparison with a similar shade of blue called “Aquamarine”. Aquamarine is also known as a gem which is under the same grouping as Sapphire. When Aquamarine selected the fast food, he decided to go for Pizza Hut (Red, black and a bit of yellow), and it so happened that Pizza Hut was the most expensive meal out of the six fast-food.

The next square is known as “midnight blue” since he had a darker shade of blue on his skin. He was the kind of person who stayed up late in the night doing his own work, ending up with little or no sleep at all. Instinctively, he picked out the Mac-Donald’s meal, perhaps not knowing that Mac-Donald’s now has outlets opening 24 hours daily.

Moving on is Cyan, the fickle minded square. It is interesting to note that although Cyan has a certain amount of blueness in him, he also has the equal amount of greenness as well, making him indecisive on whether he should be a blue square or a green one. He chose the MOS burger set. Similarly, MOS burgers sell their burger in a “fickle minded” way. Being famous for their rice burger, the creators of the rice burgers was stuck with the Japanese lifestyle of eating rice and the Westerners lifestyle of eating burgers, so they decided to combine the both together, just like how Cyan looks like.

Being the smallest square, Baby blue clearly shows the youthfulness and childishness of a kid. He chose the KFC meal. Although KFC and MOS burger almost have a similar set of colours, KFC has a slight beige to its lighter portion unlike MOS burger who uses the white background. Other than MacDonald’s, KFC has also adopted a mascot concept in line with their meals so as to cater to the children. This was why Baby Blue picked up the Chicky Student Meal, which is smaller in comparison with the rest of the meals.

Finally, Azure is the last square friends who joined us for the picnic. Azure is commonly used on Earth to represent the clear blue sky, hence he adopted similar traits of being environmentally friendly and healthy living. He chose Subway, knowing from the package that Subway does not use polystyrene materials and uses recycled plastic bags as their carrier. Subway is also one of the healthiest fast food out of the 6 meals.

From the picnic, I have learnt that sometimes, Colours and people have a link with one another in terms of purpose, emotions and perceiving distance. It can be used to represent an object, or even used to enhance the appreciation of a particular object, simply by understanding the nature of the colour. In conclusion, when colours are seen at face value, it might all be in a complete mess, but with the clarity of what square represents, it will become clearer why the square is in that particular colour and size, and the whole mess of squares will then turn into a picnic with 5 square friends.

A reasonable amount of effort was put into creating this collage.. Although my piece wasnt selected by the ID peeps, and was commented on the "hard to mark" pieces, I was happy for the entertainment factor it has created for the crowd..:)

mm.. Yummy Sunset Grills

2008-08-24T00:59:00.000+08:00

What a treat to find a hidden restaurant tucked in the middle of Seletat Air Base. I would like to thank my PC for giving me the opportunity to explore Seletar AirBase, so much so that getting to the restaurant was not much of a hassle. It's really difficult to get it. Perhaps a map from Google map can show you an idea..

View Larger Map
Upon arrival, I was impressed by the good customer service. We were directed to an outdoor tentage with the staff attending to us eagerly. We even had a mosquito coil under our tables so as to ward off the mosquitoes. The food came promptly as well, with the exception of the main course due to some cock-up in the kitchen, but it was okay, because..

THE FOOD IS !@#$%^ GOOD!!!!

I'm not kidding when I say that. Our 1st dish was button mushroom coated with a thin layer of batter. With every crunch on the mushroom, the juice tucked in the mushroom explodes in your mouth, sending a savory aroma throughout your whole mouth. The Clam Chowder was equally amazing as well. Thick and starchy, it had chicken and bits of clam with every spoonful of soup. We also had mussels cooked in white sauce and white wine. I must admit that although the mussels were a little tough, the broth was very addictive. Even the garlic bread had a taste of its own unlike any other garlic bread, and dipping it into the broth was just heavenly...

When the main course finally came, we rushed for the food with eager anticipation, and we were not disappointed. Out of the whole dish, the half chicken was the ULTIMATE. The whole chicken was marinated with barbeque sauce, and not one bit was dry. Even the breast meat, which should be the driest was soft, tender and juicy..! The spare ribs and the fries deserve special mentions as well for their taste and perfection.

Overall, it was a satisfying saturday evening with the family. The food, ambience and staff was good. 9 out of 10 other than for the stupid mosquitoes and smoking couple besides us. Perfect place to bring your date to... that's if you know the way there... hahahaha~

A dead body...

2008-08-23T12:06:00.001+08:00

Notice how the dead body is wrapped out with brown gunnysack :D

2/10 and modelling class

2008-08-19T10:00:00.001+08:00

Hold me Jesus, Cos I'm shaking like a leaf... You have been my king of glory, wont You be my prince of peace...

~Big Daddy Weave

DAMN...
My cube scored a 2 out of 10. It started off with a loose corner at the side measuring... 99.2mm.. And that caused me to lose 10(100-99.2) = 8 marks...

But alas, out comes a secret formula. Seriously got to thank Austin for the little cheat tip..! :P

We had a modelling class in the afternoon. It wasnt how to do a cat-walk down an aisle, but using the engineering modelling program to create 3d models on the com. It was pretty cool stuff, and obviously a little boring..

The attractive model on the com..

My baptism!

2008-08-18T22:52:00.002+08:00

Finally, its done...!!!

2008-08-16T00:06:00.004+08:00

15 “ Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth;
You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small,
And make the hills like chaff.
16 You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away,
And the whirlwind shall scatter them;
You shall rejoice in the LORD,
And glory in the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 41:15-16

The Monster Cube that took so much time making and making and making :S

Must be 100.0mm ACCURATE! O.O

Wasted bits!

The killers!!!

2008-08-15T00:52:00.002+08:00

Today we had a safety model workshop in the morning on handling the machinery in the workshop. Some of them looked like the machines in D & T in secondary school, others are brand new, and pretty cool. It looks manageable, except for the heaty machines. I guess i can never get rid of this phobia of handling hot stuff..

Finally completed my 1st assignment! Its a study of what writing material goes well with the writing material you are using. We had to create 24 different panels of material. It was gruesome, but manageable, and by 8pm, I was done :)

Nevertheless, the killer came earlier. The 4th assignment rolled in shortly, this time on patterns.

The 2nd killer was the jog I had later in the night. I had no idea NUS was so big... Planning my way around for an overall downslope jog, I took longer than expected to cover this route. Perhaps I was not familiar with the route. But its okay. I'm sure I can hit the timing of 45 minutes for sure!

View Larger Map

Hope my legs and back wont give up on me tomorrow :S

1/2 hour of school..

2008-08-13T00:24:00.000+08:00

Notice.. the JIP!! (a wooden chipboard with 2 smaller wooden blocks on it)

Alright.. the 2nd assignment rolling in.. We had our ID1111 modelling module wif PC. He looked like a very experienced teacher, teaching us the basics of how to cut with a pen-knife and making a jip so that our models will be 90 degrees to one another. There were plenty of equipments used, such as the metal rule, L rule, Set square, pen-knife, gip, fixture spray etc. So much so, it felt like a lesson of D & T.

And then, that was it. We started at 9.30am and by 10.10am, we were done.

Spent the rest of the time socialising with my ID peeps. We ate at the FASS canteen, hence I bumped into a few people; such as Jiayi and Yixuan.

Did a bit more diddly-daddling at my bunk before leaving for artfriend, however, I got sidetracked by the National Library. I was in search of a few ID books, so when I have finally found Shimizu Yoshiharu's 2 books, I rushed off to the copiers to get a copy of it. It's pretty rare and expensive to have one book, so for $10, I felt accomplished. :)

1st day at ID

2008-08-12T09:25:00.002+08:00

1st day in ID1103 was very interesting. Unlike sitting in a tutorial class watching the teacher drone about a certain subject, we were already tasked to do our 1st assignments. We were asked to collect 30 different colours from our surroundings. I went to walk around, picking leaflets and postcards along the way. After cutting the 20 odd squares, Christianen then instructed us to arrange our squares based on groups of 8, whereby each of us had to attach a reason to why our groups were in this way. We later were asked to arrange them in terms of brightness, and later, based on their saturation. It was pretty cool to have done all of this, but homework was pretty crazy. We were to collect 100 of such squares, every square being of a different colour. Sounds.. challenging.

ME2103 was pretty boring. Our lecturer looked similar to a certain cartoon blue cat with a magic pouch on his belly. He was pretty boring, and I couldnt help but took a snooze halfway during his talks. One thing good was his comprehensive collection of lecture slides, examples and instruction on his personal slide: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/mpeleeks/personal/index.htm

A satisfied customer

2008-08-08T20:12:00.000+08:00

It was a birthday gift..
and it was a really cheeky one..

Well.. he was happy:P

Its a ragging good time

2008-08-08T01:46:00.000+08:00

Biz Faculty : Most number of awards among faculties!

SOC : Final Fantasy inspired

Engineering : Act Cute Japanese

USP : Creepy hand float

Pharmacy : Girl Power

Nice Alien
Law : Rural Banglaa
Medicine : Pinocchio
Dentistry : Director's cut
Art Clubs : Club scene down Mohamed Sultan Rd
Science : Mario Look-alike
SDE : Alien soldier (we'll win again next year!)
Temesak Hall : F1 wannabes
King Edward 7 : Pokers on a chessboard
Team Sheares : Rocker in a box
Little human sculpture that looks like an adaption from D. Gray Man
Eusoff Hall : Early Christmas
Raffles Hall : Smelly flower
Kent Ridge Hall : hip hop fairytale ending

BACK FROM THE HONGKONG

2008-08-05T23:51:00.023+08:00

From Left to Right : Yap, Ji Zhak, White Bird and Super Pioneer

4 monkeys (okay, except for a white bird and a gecko) embarked themselves on a journey based on the rash decision of one of them. Together through the tough times spurs a new journey. White bird and super pioneer were to cover 5 days 4 nights in the mystical Hong Kong while reinforcements were deployed to a day later. Yap and Ji Zhak were among them.

Upon arrival on 30th July, we checked into their hotels; Mexan harbour. Comparatively, it was a lot bigger than any HongKong hotels, especially those in Kowloon, and its a lot cheaper. Perhaps the only problem was the accessibility, which took about 1/2 - 40 minutes just to reach the city area. Nevertheless, we were treated to a nice sight of containers outside our hotels, making it the weirdest scenery in my list of accommodations. We went to Kwai Fong for a late lunch of 4pm. I had a dumpling noodles which was reasonable at $4(came with a drink as well).

We later went over to Tsim Sha Tsui via MTR. We each bought ourselves an Octopus card to use. Dont ask me why the name octopus, because it looked like an ordinary card, but acts like a Easy-link. Later, we both walked down Parklane Boulevard, an Orchard Road look-alike that stretches for miles. Dropping by Miramar Shopping Centre, we chanced upon the heavenly Uniqlo. Uniqlo, a japanese brand that is popular for its jean, has never make its mark in Singapore. We practically bought the whole shop down. I bought a pair of jeans on the spot that costed $60, but was considerably cheap.

We later made our way down Temple Street, the land of the night stalls. It looked pretty much like a pasar malam back in Singapore, but with endless roads and corners of stalls selling almost anything; from counterfeit watches to counterfeit tees to counterfeit laserpointer. There were fans, paintings, XXX stuff and even household goods. Zh outdid himself by spending lots of things; there was a few tees, a craft set, watch, a pair of cheap jeans and others. I didnt really shop at all, other than some pretty cool Christian tees for the peeps back in church.

Came back at around 12am, only having to have dinner at 11.00pm. Surprisingly, public transport work late in the night. So do the eateries around the MTR; it seemed that the Hongkongers dont sleep at all.

Day 2 started at around 9am. Yong teng and yap were supposed to land at 2pm, so we had plenty of time to roam about before they joined us. We started with breakfast at a nearby coffee shop. It was a trip back to the 1970s with old red leather chairs with wooden boards as backrests, sausage, egg and beehoon beef never tasted that great before. We had an intention of clearing some of the temples in HongKong, grasping the culture and tradition of the place. Starting at Wong Tai Sin Temple, we were greeted with a big mall beside the temple. I guess it must be a HongKong pastime to walk in malls, as there are plenty of it everywhere in HongKong.
Wong Tai Sin Temple was rested in between residential area. Catering to the buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, the temple had 3-4 altars, each holding a particular god of the religion. Devotees would carry their joss-sticks offering thanks to these gods. It also had a garden for devotees to relax in. With an artificial garden and water sprinkler for the flowers in the garden, the temple is certainly making a lot of money from the donations poured in. Before leaving the temple, I was able to witness a mysterious practice which worshippers practice, which is unique only in Hong Kong. Using a open container of chopsticks to tell your fortune is a common practice in HongKong. The devotee will form a question in his/her mind, and slowly shake the container until the 1st chopstick sticks out and land on the floor. He/she can verify whether if this is what the Gods are really speaking by throwing 2 stones in midair. If there is a stone resting on its curved surface, while the other is resting on the flat surface, then the facts on the chopstick is true. If however, they fall on the same sides, the devotee would have to repeat the process until she gets it right.

After Wong Tai Sin, We went to Lok Fu to spot another temple. Unlike the Wong Tai Sin temple, the next temple did not have many visitors. In fact, it was empty other than the attendant cleaning the space. But in this temple, culture and history sprung out alive with many ancient weapons, statues on walls and calligraphy, some dating back to the 18th century. It was a sight for history buffs, not so much so for poor zh, who was complaining about the weather and the fatigue. The Walled city was pretty much the same as well. Built in the early century, the British colonial rule demanded to tear down the place. However, based on the recover of some archaeological finds of old ruins, the place was converted to a tourist spot. Once again, there werent many people, but the beauty and the tranquility of it all was overwhelming, until zh wanted to eat something and get out of the place.

Being lost souls on the street, we wanted to find a place with good food, particularly dim sum. Heaven heard our cries and send a woman rolling her trolley cart down the alley. When she saw a pair of lost fools clinging onto their maps for directions, she offered to show us the best dim sum around the area. It was a good thing we had dimsum at 3pm as the price of it would be very cheap. We had a good deal of eating the favourites, such as Chee cheong fun, Siew mai, long pao, charsiew pao, century egg porridge, beehoon etc etc. We ate so much till we wanted to puke, and when the bill came, it was only... $12. omg. eating dim sum in singapore with the portions we had would have cost us about $30 per person. We paid left than that total amount for a table of 2.

Having being filled to the brink, we left the eating area of Kowloon and headed back to Lok Fu MTR. It was back to Tsim Sha Tsui to troll down the museum displays. We bypassed Harbourcity and were greeted with expensive labels along the street. Harbourcity was a shopping centre not even Vivocity can beat. It was THE biggest shopping centre I have ever seen, ranging with brands not heard of ever in Singapore. Upon exiting, we took some snapshots of Louis Vuitton shop. Pretty sophisticated and elegant are the words to describe it. The view at the bay was fantastic. Being able to see all the skyscrapers of HongKong Island, it certainly destroys the conception of urbanisation not being pretty. Architectural marvels are bountiful in HongKong. And my eyes were filled with many sights.

We visited the Cultural centre, space centre and Museum of the art. Pretty boring place to be in. The avenue of stars was a different thing though. With many handprints on cemented path of famous actors in the movie industries, like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Andy Lau etc, tourist are attracted to this place to take cheesy shots of their hands in this prints and other filming statues. I have plenty of these stupid poses. We witnessed the nightlight performance of the building in.. disappointment. It was a pretty dull show and for the Singaporean who have seen plenty of skyscrapers and NDP show. It did not meet to our expectation, not one bit.

An interesting thing to note about Hongkong would be THEIR LACK OF TOILET FACILITIES. Can you imagine when you're at high tide and you cant find a single toilet anywhere at all? Not even in the 5 star hotel facing the sea(im particularly mentioning Sheraton hotel. DONT YOU EVER GO THERE AGAIN), nor the shopping centre that has all your favourite goods. If there is any place that deserves recommendation for being a life-saviour, that would be the 24hours McDonalds. It was the most urgent and yet satisfying pee I ever had for a long time. We spent the rest of the night in Ladies Market, another hot spot for Pasar Malam goods. Comparing with Temple Street, Ladies market had more variety of goods and it was where i bought my ali ba ba bag, and contemplating in other stuff for people. There were plenty of bags, fake wallets and belts, cheap socks, toys and others. Drained out from all the shopping, we managed to leave the place at 11pm, only being able to have dinner at 11.30pm. At midnight, we finally met YongTeng and Yap. ole!

3rd day was a little more exciting. We were off to the magical land of HongKong Island. Being advised to stay over there right from the beginning, I started to regret my decision to stay on the mainland. HongKong Island was a modernised Hong kong, with towering glass buildings and new edge technology everywhere, like the electric trains, cleaner parks and bigger brands. YongTeng and Yap went on their seperate ways from us, so as to look for their swedish brand, H & M. Their ulterior motive would be to look for HongKong Girls.

I dunno about you, but according to Zh and YT, they are claiming that hongkong girls are generally prettier than Singaporean girls. I dun really see any difference. I mean, a chinese girl is a chinese girl, regardless of where she is staying in. I guess the only reason why these hongkong girls appeal to boys would be their better sense of dressing, most of it coming out of their own pockets. It is quite a common sight to see them dressed in Chanel sweaters and carrying Gucci bags. I guess its a common statement Hongkongers like to make, that they are rich enough to buy their clothes but still sitting on trains on the way back home. Another observation I would make would be their use of make-up. Unlike most Singaporean girls(though it is a rising trend), Hongkong girls would apply their make-up anywhere, and somehow this dolling up would drive the boys crazy. Ok, i must admit, i notice a few eye candies as well. May God forgive me such that i do not have to pluck my eyes out.

Zh and I, however, were on our ways to the fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime experience theme park; Ocean Park. The journey was long and gruelling. On the train, across the strait, boarding a bus, through a tunnel, up a hill and down it and finally, the final destination, the side entrance of Ocean Park. It was a good thing we didnt take the main entrance. The park is split up into two parts with a cable care extension connecting the both of them. Our side was the most exciting part, with theme park rides and animal shows, so we were rather fortunate. It was pretty crowded on a friday, with people jamming the walkways. We attempted the "tallest escalator" ride to the top. The view was breath-taking. New HongKong looked ever-ready for the next exciting thing coming up its way. However, before we could savvy the scenery, zh spotted a menacing dark cloud over the horizon. One thing good about being at the top was that you could see when a dangerous cloud is heading your direction. We sped off to the nearest shelter and waited for the rain to stop. Precious time was trinkling down the drain as we watched the weather playing trick or treat on the people in the park. I finally had enough of the rain and decided to brave it. Storming past the people with my umbrella and a rather reluctant zh, we found ourselves in a games booth before heaven brought in the final blow of downpour. It was my good o' ring a toss game, the game my dad would never let me play when I was young. I can see why he didnt want me to, since im not a games person myself. But hey, for $10, you can get a try at the games to win something really big, get a small toy for trying and wait out for the rain.

When the birds started singing again, we grabbed the opportunity and raced down to the biggest rollercoaster in the park.. THE DRAGON!! It was pretty okay, cos we were sitting in front, so we didnt have much of the g-force in us. I guess the cool part was being to look upside down as we were on the loops. THE ABYSS(aka free fall dropping machine) was a lot more adrenaline-pumping. Zh was saying how it was shorter than the Genting highlands. But he said a completely different as the ride started to bring us higher. When we are nervous, both zh and I would work in different ways. I would keep rather quiet and would want to think through calmly. Zh, on the other hand, would want people to talk to him so as to distract himself from the nervousness. I must say, the two of us are a pretty bad combination when it comes to this. Nevertheless, when we were dropping for the next 4 seconds, I was screaming my lungs out..

"ORD LOH!!!!!!!!!!" (trying to put a happy thought in my mind, can?)

we had a little dolphin show, where the little critter performed tricks that amused the crowds. A cable car ride after that. And some more money wasting games that earned us little tokens. We ended Ocean park around 4pm. Shagged but still anticipating the 2nd half of the itinerary.

Part 2 started at 5pm. We met Yongteng and Yap at the Charter park before setting out to the Peak Tram station. Apparently, Yap and YT bought plenty of clothes from H & M, each carrying at least 3 items. When we reached the venue, we were shocked to see the number of people queuing up for the tram. It took a total of 45 minutes before finally having the chance to go up this 2 carriage tram. Dating back in the 18th century, the railway was one of the oldest mode of transport used in HongKong. Although it was irritating to wait with the crowd and intense heat, the wait was well worth the experience. As the tram climbed up the slope, you can literally feel your feet go off the ground. That is because the tram was going up the slope at a ridiculous angle of 40 degrees. That's about 4 times the angle for an average vehicle. I could have nearly flew against gravity as the tram crawled up the hill. Upon arrival, the view was stunning. Stretching all the way to the New territories, you could practically see the whole of HongKong in one glance. Thank God for the good visibility, cause the sight was simply marveling. We took plenty of shots at the cliffs before proceeding on to the Peak Tower. Shaped in a bowl manner, the Peak Tower was certainly one of the weirdest shape building I have ever seen. It started getting darker as we stood at the top of Peak Tower. There were plenty of visitors busy snapping pictures of buildings as they switched on their night lights individually. The whole street was lit up and Hong Kong was filled with blinking shiny dots.

We took a good one hour to get down to the foot of the hill. With the long jam at the tram, we were only left with a bus alternative, which took equally long curving down the hill. By the time we found the restaurant, we wolfed down the food, preparing for the last stretch of the journey before calling it a night. And that was to roam around Mongkok once again. We arrived at Mongkok station at about 10pm. Fortunately, Yap was not as interested as the both of us with Ladies Market, so we pushed on to Fang Yuen St. Fang Yuen was also known for its sports goods. This was the place which sells merchandise never seen before in Singapore. They were plenty of Nike, Adidas and Puma to get a shoe fanatic crazy. Besides shoes, these shops were also selling cheaper football jerseys; at least $20 cheaper than in Singapore. We walked till we dropped... then finally reaching back to the hotel at about 12 midnight. That night, we made a new acquaintance. His name is Uncle Toby. Being the hotel staff, he was very friendly to us and met all of our demands when we bombarded him with all of our wants and where to find them. Sigh.. Singapore should have more of Uncle Toby around.

Day 4 was a dedication to the shoppers in our group. Mainly, the 4 of us. We went on the ultimate shopping expedition. Leaving the place at 10.30am and reaching Tsim Sha Tsui MTR at about 11am, I decided to bring YT and Yap back to UniQlo. They had the potential to buy the whole shop. And I was right. After spending 2 hours in just that shop, YongTeng pulled off with 2 pairs of jeans, Yap had 3 pairs with a tee, Zh had a tee and a pair of jeans, and I, a pair of skinny jeans. I have to admit, the skinny jeans was at a super value price of $72.

$72!!! FOR A RAW SELVAGE JEAN OF SUCH QUALITY. It was crazy for me not to buy such a pair of jeans. If Topman was selling their average jeans at $103, then surely Uniqlo jeans was more worth the money.

After Uniqlo, we went to Esprit outlet where we bought presents for the church gals. We headed to Mongkok once again. Somehow, Mongkok seems to be the centre of all the shopping. We visited Langdam Place, the reputable shopping centre of great heights. With a total of 15 levels of pure shopping, you got to admit even Suntec cannot face the challenge of Langdam Place. The greater amazement was that we covered every single level in an hour. It was tiring, having to skim though the clothes at super duper fast speed. After Langdam place, we went off to individual shopping mall under the directions of Uncle Toby last night. YT and Yap were on a mission. They were desperate to find cheap berms in HongKong. However, after roaming about all of the 4 shopping malls, we were unable to find anything close to their description of berms. We were however, able to find YT football figurines and bought ourselves a graphic tee. We ended the day earlier than most other days, with a plate of charsiew and roasted goose rice for dinner, and a mango shake for dessert.

Being the last day of our HongKong Trip, I did not want to end it with shopping, so after our negotiation with the group, I finally had the chance to see some of the things I wanted to do in HongKong. We started from Prince Edward MTR, walked down the road till we came across Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. Think of it as a mega Serangoon North selling only birds. There were rows of shophouses selling birds of different species, from parrots to mynah to songbirds. We came across the feed for the birds as well; locusts, crickets and mealworms, all in the nutritious diet of the bird. At that time, the birds were feeling heat wave that was happening in HongKong... we saw a few uncles cooling off their prized possessions by sprinkling water onto their feathers. Further down along the road, we came across Flower Market. Flowers sold here were at a insane price of $5 for a bunch. There was a whole lot of assortments, from roses to water lilies to bonsai and aloe vera to mini sunflower and plastic fruits. The sights and colours were simply overwhelming for an artist looking for some free photoshots! We ended my mini-tour around Prince Edward at GoldFish Market, and yes, u guess it, they were all rearing aquatic life over there. It was quite interesting to see the fish and the tortoises in the tanks, but as I slowly watch the vast quantity of caged animals, I started wondering how cruel the whole system is. I wondered why even though WWF set up their office in Hongkong, and yet not doing anything about the endangered species in certain tanks and the damage of coral reef. It certainly hurts me to see man destroying Earth for their own profits.

We tried a little shopping at Allied plaza, hoping to find YT and Yap's berm. YT eventually bought a berm over there less than $30, even though it was a little tight at the bottom for him. And to end the 5 days 4 nights with a little goodies to bring back home, we were transported back to the same old airport, getting ready to fly back to Singapore.

The trip has been fun. It was certainly "the last ditch attempt to go overseas" just before uni starts. I didnt regret going for this trip. It was definitely fun!

Now back to the mugging.... ( =_______= )|||

Posing for Hongkong!

Master, teach me to pray!
Act Cute!
So crowded!
Emo Daron~
The magical dim sum place @ $12!
Hongkong skyscraper
Wide Angle~
Wide angle 2
Night sky~
Nice Scenery from Ocean Park
Everyone loves kungfu fighting~
SURVEY PLATOON!
Hey! how come ure here?!?
Wide angle; night time
Gay boys with umbrellas
But it was super hot

Being NUS-ified

2008-07-26T11:41:00.006+08:00

Went to school for my matriculation fair. It was a whole day full of event. We met the SDE foyer, paying up for the $20 Orientation package, half of which I am preparing to skip. We were once again split into groups, so what was Starck was split into 2. I am currently in "Quillfish" with Xin Miao and Eunice. Our OGL is June, Year 2 from Real Estate. This time round, there was a complete mix of RE, PFM and AKI. Sadly, I was THE only Industrial Design student among the group, but its okay, because I am starting to accept that Industrial Design students are indeed a highly endangered and vulnerable species. Shortly after I have made payment to for my orientation package, we were guided to LT 7A in the Engineering Block for a series of talks, such as Bidding, IVLE and Nexus.

Bored the crap out of me.. Especially the later 2 talks.

By the time it was over, the temple of God was rumbling at earthquake magnitude 6.3. June brought us to the Yusof Ishak House(YIH) for Subway. Technically, since registration was around the SRC blocks, chances of people grabbing a sandwich at Subway was very high, especially when it was 1pm. Our suspicions were clear when we saw a long snake of a queue. Not wanting to go with a empty stomach (magnitude increased to 7), I decided to go to the FASS canteen, thinking it is short way there.

I was dead wrong.

Okay, distance wise was okay. The killer was when I had to climb up the flight of stairs of Kent Ridge. It was about halfway when I could feel the initial parts of perspiration flowing out, but I told myself, since I am halfway there.. why give up? That was when I was walking down the aisles of FASS towards the faithful canteen when I bumped into.. Long-time-no-see Benjamin Lo! Okay, I knew Ben Lo when we were in Students Council back in AJC. Still remember elect camps? We teamed up together as 2nd runners up for "MOST SADISTIC" trainers. haha. Anyway, he left for the states to further his studies, majoring in economic, and now he is back doing a research. The funny thing was that we would have never met if I didnt take the "alternative lunch venue", and he was flying off back to the States today. What a coincidence.

By the time I reached back to YIH, the earthquake was at a super dangerous magnitude of 8.0.
Nevertheless, Jap food at FASS was fantastic and cheap.

Matri fair started late for us at about 3.00pm. We were playing lame orientation games till we could finally go in. Apparently, the whole multi-purpose hall became a registration centre and somewhat similar to ICA layout. There was a laptop fair and CCA fair as well. It was a pity that HP and Dell was not one of the patents there, else I would have bought a laptop. I spent the remaining time walking around, thinking of the CCAs and activities which I can join so as to secure a place of accommodation in NUS in Year 2. This is a list of the things I may be interested in,
1. Student Exchange Programme
2. Navigators, Campus Crusade, Varisity for Christ (either one)
3. Photography society
4. Kayaking Subclub
5. Rockclimbing Subclub
6. Maybe help out in a NUSSU event (Like Orientation or Open house or e next matri fair?)
7. Ushering
8. too bad no cycling club

With so much in mind, I have no idea whether if I can juggle my studies and CCAs together. Only time and God can tell.

Got this baby blue and yellow teeshirt! It had a NUM look on it. Does it mean Im starting to become metro?!?

Mr Smilie done by Zhihong:D

2008-07-24T01:25:00.002+08:00

Some Random stuff

Bookshelves and Red Cliff

2008-07-22T01:09:00.003+08:00

Ignore the conversation we had :X

Went to Pastor Goh library to pack his books cause the place is going to be rented out. I must say that he has an intensive collection of book, easily filling up 9 rows of cupboards. We spent a whole day packing the books into books, bumping into books that dated back in the 19th century, and quirky books such as Yoga, Mormons and Operation Management.
Later in the evening, we had Carl's Juniors for dinner before watching the famous Romance of the 3 kingdom story : The Red Cliff at Cathay in Dhoby Ghaut. Overall, the movie was pretty good, with a good mix of action, humour and plot. There was plenty of well-known actors and heroes among the cast. I happen to like GuanYu the best, somehow reminding me of Dynasty warrior 4 when heroes can never die that easily. This being said, the ending was VERY disappointing, as it catches you to the edge of the seat and then flashed a "to be continued" to all of us.

Till the next movie we will meet, Red Cliff..

Super old book!
All Gone!

Half Dinner and Half Party

2008-07-19T23:59:00.000+08:00

After YF, i went down to St. Gabriel's Secondary School for their 50th Anniversary Dinner. Although I had the intention of going to Zoe's party at 6.30pm, somehow due to friday's poor response from my friend, my mum "punished" me for dragging my auntie's families for the dinner, by having to entertain them till 8.30pm. However, I saw some light in the matter. St. Gabriel's, being my old secondary school, hold some significant value in me, and visiting some of my old teachers wouldnt do much harm as well.

The dinner started at about 7.30pm. Not with food, but with a length of speeches from the old boring people from high above, like some Fathers, Chairmans and the minister from our rival brother school, Mr Lim Boon Yeng. A bit of a present ceremony, a prayer for our food, and off we go with dinner. While my table was busy eating their dinner, I took a nibble before trying to find the old teachers of the school. As usual, the common tagline was "Oh Darren, you looked so different now!" I do believe they couldnt even remember my face, but oh well, it feels good hearing them talk about how I have changed. I saw Miss Teo, Mrs Jean Koh and Mr Nick Chow at the table, with Miss Toh Hui Yuan and Mr Chan Siew Fook completely forgetting who I am. Somehow, my other teachers, Mr Jeffery Chan and Mr Stanley Tan were no longer around.

Part 2 happened at 9pm. The venue had changed to Zoe's Party at Aquarius condominium. By the time I have arrived, she had already blown out the candles and was busy taking photos of her respective groups. Grabbing the remains of her dinner (cause I didnt eat much from the Gabriellite dinner), I must admit that the catered food along with the other food prepared by her family was pretty good. Not forgetting to mention the birthday girl, who took the floor with her splendid looks. I didnt like it though.. especially when she was taller than me on the day itself. (haha~ just kidding!)Gamesmaster!

Once again, the gamesmaster in me had to work. My plan on getting Fel or Bdique didnt work, as there wasnt the "right atmosphere" that created the opportunity of the game. I wanted to believe that too, but after seeing Zoe's YioChuKang auntie carrying the heavy duty video camera, I know it has to be done.. After drinking a sip of red wine, and a stroke of a metal tongs onto a glass bottle, i started the games with 2 "beach games" to commemorate the theme of the party "Jamaican Sunset".

It was a fun party and a pleasant dinner, but certainly a tiring one. Boy was I glad that the day was over. :)

Alexandra Hortpark :)

2008-07-19T22:40:00.001+08:00

Singapore Alexandra Hortpark

View Larger Map

What a surprise the both of us had when we visited the Alexandra area. We were intending to go to Labrador Park when we chanced upon the Alexandra Arch (the white cool looking bridge down Alexandra Road). It was when I made a rash decision of trying out what was it all about. Interestingly, we tried to travel by car into Gillman village, thinking that the start of the bridge was there. We soon realised that it was at the opposite end of the Alexandra road, at a place called "Hort Park"

Horticulture - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=horticulture which in short is called hort park was a great eye opener to me. It was one of the most beautiful man-made attraction I have ever seen, so much so it was better than Desaru Fruit Farm. And the best part was that viewing is free (other than the parking fees which was @ $2.22) However, we only got to know more about the park at the later part of our journey. For the start, we decided to attempt the Alexandra Arch and see where it would lead us to.

The Alexandra Arch was none other than a fanciful overhead bridge, but the architectural detailing of the bridge deserves credit. Unlike many bridges, this bridge draws an appearance that it is hanging on a single beam, which make it look very unique from its other older brothers. As we were walking over the bridge, it was noticeable that Singapore is starting to notice the area from Alexandra, with tour groups guiding people around the place.

As we walked past the Alexandra Arch, we were greeted with the Forest walk to Telok Blangah Hill. Towering over the trees and vegetation around the area, the forest walk has two pathways; one on ground level and the other above metal girders and platform. It was a Treetop walk at Macritchie brought to a bigger scale. The walk was simply refreshing. There were many guides introducing the different trees around the area, and photo opportunities of paranomic views. Although the walk was short, we took about an hour before reaching to the top, partly due to us being camera whores.

Upon reaching the top of Telok Blangah Hill, we went exploring around the bends of the road, trying to reach yet another bridge known as the Henderson Wave. As we were walking, we noticed a small little entrance tucked nicely under a slope. Based on our curiosities, we climbed up the stairs that looked so much like the Narnia we watched in the cinema. And it was a matter of seconds before we were greeted by many bushes of Bougainvillea. Upon reaching the top of the knoll, we could see the whole stretch of the south of Singapore. From Pasir Panjang Port to Sentosa and Mount Faber, its sister knoll.

It took us 15 minutes before we finally found the Henderson Wave. Yet another Architectural marvel, this bridge was different from the Alexandra Arch. While the latter had a footpath of mainly concrete, the former had its footpath in wood. Over at the end of the bridge, you could see the waves curling up and down in a simple harmonic motion. At every wave, there was a little shelter where the elderly would take a break and feel the cool sea breeze from above. It was one of the most refreshing views throughout this trip. As we stayed on, we overheard the conversation of 3 elderly uncles

"Hey, if you ever walk around here, it is best not for you to drive, cause you will have to go back take your car."

Sigh, he was so right..

We had time to explore part of the Hort Park. As we walked into the main compound of the place, interior design and architectural layout were once again screaming out attention to the public. I must really take my hat off the directors of the park for putting up a lovely environment for the general public to view. From interior furnishing which blends with a natural environment, to exhibits of garden with different themes, it is truly a haven for both the botanist and the architect.

If I were ever to come back here again, I'll make sure I would bring my 5 mega pixel camera with me. Till then, I would rate this trip 10/10! Kudos!

What a disappointing day!

2008-07-18T00:22:00.002+08:00

1. QET didnt go well for me because the topic was something which I had not studied on; Biotech. I mean, I study Design and have been reading the news and keeping myself updated for the past 1 week. When I saw bio-tech popped out, I was stunned, thinking that maybe the Science students will be scoring for this paper.

2. Shortly after the test, I tried calling the travel agency to changed my accomodation venue. Spent quite some time talking over the phone, handling 3 different people with different perspective on the matter. We ended at 4pm with the conclusion of staying at Lagos MTR, which is nearer to the station. Although will be more cramped, we decided that conveniences come 1st. Tired from entertaining 3 different people.

3. I received a few texts in the evening. Earlier I have placed confirmation with my friend on the Gabriellite Anniversary Dinner. Even though they made commitments, THEY LATER PANGSEI ME BY SAYING THEY DO NOT WANT TO GO. My mum had to find a replacement quickly. In the end, my auntie and her family agreed to join my family for dinner, so as not to waste the table. This being said, I was being "punished" for not helping in the situation, by attending the dinner in the midst of Zoe's 21st Birthday celebration. There was no way of arguing my way out of the situation; I was compelled to go.

4. At the same time, Gideon was having his bday celebration as dinner. Talk about 3 in 1 conflicting events. I had to find a way to tell the bday boy that I cannot make it cause Zoe's party came first based on invitation.

5. The greatest blow of the whole day was when YongTeng called me in the middle of the night, saying that he cannot go for the Hong Kong Trip due to some Leave Application failure from MOE. And if he is not going, Yap most probably wouldnt go. What disappointed me was that I made the rash decision of going to HongKong and dragging them into it.

Arrgh.. what a bad day

Upper and Lower Pierce Adventure Walk

2008-07-12T23:49:00.001+08:00

Decided to move the lazy butt of mine and do some exercising. So together with Plin, we decided to try out Lower Pierce Reservoir. I haven really been to Lower Pierce Reservoir for a very long time, so whatever memory I have of the place is all fuzzy.

We reached the place at around 9am.. The setting was somewhat similar to that of Mac-ritchie; a body of water stretching out with benches and pavement hugging around it. We decided to begin the day by taking the trails around the reservoir. Unlike the planked footpaths along Mac-ritchie, the ones at Lower Pierce were quite narrow and difficult for 2 people to pass through. There were a significant number of OLDER people who joined us in the walk. Perhaps the YOUNGER people would prefer doing their walks down Orchard Road instead of the natural beauty of parks. This being said, perhaps the other reason why younger people dont go to Lower Pierce is because there wasnt much to expect out of it. In less than 1/2 hour, we have covered the whole walking trail of Lower Pierce.

Not wanting to end so early, we decided to attempt Upper Pierce. Well, since Upper Pierce was just above Lower Pierce, surely the distance between the both of them should be relatively near? Relative is a very subjective term to be used. After 20 minutes of walking along the road, we had only reached the entrance of the entrance of Upper Pierce, being hot and sweaty. Hoping that the reservoir itself would just be in front of us, we were treated a long hilly passage into the reservoir. It was truly a good work-out in order to get to Upper Pierce.

For those who persist to the end, the rewards given to you will be great (Something biblical here.. haha) It was indeed a spectacular view. If Lower Pierce is a beauty, then Upper Pierce is a perfect haven. Completely isolated away from the noise of cars and pollution, Upper Pierce reminded me of villas from fantasy novels. And even though my parents claim that I have been to Upper Pierce before, it must be ancients ago, because I can never place an image of it in my childhood days. Plin was equally amazed and relieved to be there as well. We spent some time taking photos and resting ourselves before the trip back to Lower Pierce Reservoir... On foot... hahahaa

It seriously looked like an architecture model

Nice Scenery.. ( the white object at the back looks like a alien flying saucer)

Lunch, Shopping, Dinner and Movie

2008-07-11T02:39:00.003+08:00

Today must have been an expensive day!

Joined Pearlyn for Lunch at SGH as her colleague was on MC today, so she didnt have anyone to eat with. We ate the Kopitiam located at Block 4, 1st floor. It was quite disappointing to find that the portions werent very big, and they were quite expensive.

Later joined Leon and Bryan to do some shopping for our Uni life. It was great catching up with the both of them. We conquered most of Taka and Wisma, finishing up half of Paragon towards the end. They were many shops we have finished. Each of us had an agenda in mind; Leon was looking for a pair of grey jeans but settled for a thin striped polo tee from Celio. Bryan didnt really get much, other than a strap for his badminton racket and other small barang. Ive gotten myself a Le Coq Slip-ons cum shoes, which Bryan commented as a pair of comfortable shoes suited for uni life. I couldnt agree more. I also nearly bought a pull-and-bear t-shirt.. but it didnt have the size...

We met the rest(Minting and BF and Jeanette) for dinner @ MOF, Marina Square. With a japanese setting, the food was better than average. I had a tonkutsu ramen and a shika kurian(ice-cream). Preferred the dessert more than the main course. It was quite sad that the number of 05/04 classmates is dwindling. Hopefully we could meet up again soon..

Lastly, I joined long lost pacar Gecko and friends to a movie at 9.40pm. We watched the debut movie of the week, Hell Boy 2: the Golden Army. It was an awesome show of action and humour. Total respect for the director who was able to recreate fantasy and the real world so perfectly. Kudos to him!

Managed to catch the very last train to Hougang, but had to flag a taxi back home. It was certainly a costly ride home. And certainly a long day too...

Isaiah 1:18

2008-07-09T23:39:00.000+08:00

“ Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the LORD,

“ Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool."

its ok to feel elmo

2008-07-09T11:44:00.000+08:00

Remember July 8

2008-07-08T23:51:00.000+08:00

PGP

2008-07-04T00:33:00.000+08:00

I GOT INTO PRINCE GEORGE PARK!!

This was a real surprise cause none of my OG mates got into any of the hostel they have placed. It was a tactical move to put residences as 1st choice, since many prefer to go to hostel over residence, hence the demand for hostel is higher than residence. But this works to my advantage as I do not like hall-life with all of its troublesome activities.

So now, its all about moving in to my room with the furniture, and cleaning the mess up from there. :)

Goodbye to the long hours of travelling and inconveniences of home. Hello Residence Life!

AKID FOC 08

2008-07-03T21:43:00.001+08:00

Fight like champions, fight fight!
Win like champions, win win!
Fight like champions, win like champions,
All the rest can go fly kite!
Fly kite, fly kite,
All the rest can go fly kite!

Fly kite, fly kite,
All the rest can go fly kite!
Geeeetttttt... Starck!

~Starck Cheer

I had much to expect for the upcoming AKID FOC 08 camp. It was my 1st university camp and I had many good reviews about it being a fun and wild camp.

By the time I reached SDE, the place was already filled with people, both participants and OGLs. I was allocated to the "Starck" group. Phillip Starck, being an industrial designer from France, was by far the only ID group among the other 8 groups. He became famous from his out of the world design, the Juice Salif, it looking like a spider or a face-hugger from Aliens. It was nice seeing a familiar face in my OG; Leon, being my secondary school classmate. There were other people with unique backgrounds; A thai guy who is 2 years younger, Myammar born guy, a guy who is pursuing a degree even though he is in his thirties.. and a significant bunch of girls~ Our OGLs were very friendly with us. They were filled with energy, trying to spur the team on with cheers and games.

The 1st day started out with station games in the afternoon. It was your pretty standard stuff for a normal orientation. We were pretty much losing almost every game. so much so we started calling ourselves "L*ser" (losers) It was good humour involved and we were enjoying the company, even though we were still losing~ We later played a game called "chicken". I must say, it was one of the most violent games I have ever played. It was a game that showed the real barbarians in some of the girls, pushing, scratching and launching their chest over to the guys, only to shout "molest" in attempt to make us stop defending our chicken. By the end of the game, many people were so called "violated", the chicken being the main casualty from all of the rapes happening around. I had my share of crazy girls coming after me. It was little wonder why the shagness of the game overhauled into the night when we were planning for our Fort Construction(Building of a fort and being able to withstand water bombs). It got worse when we weren't allowed to bathe. For some reason, we were not allowed to be in the school premises. So off we went to Fong Seng, the nearby coffee-shop to eat our fair share of oily food. After eating, as we continued to wait, the OG decided to sit by the side of the road to play games to entertain themselves. I resorted to another means of entertainment.. (Thank you! :D) We finally bathed at close to 1am.

Day 2 was a little more exciting. We had our fort construction, and it was the time when my scouting skills came into play. With all the knowledge of lashing flowing back into my veins, I whipped out a sturdy tripod, standing the tallest among all the other structure. Its supports consisted of metal bars and there is a water-proof wrapping around its whole body. It looked like a crossbreed between a lighthouse, a black widow and a lady. It was ugly. We managed to smoke through the whole presentation ( thanks to Simon and his incredible skills of smoking) and off we went to try out the toughness of the tower. Water bombs flew in all directions, but none managed to penetrate the impregnable fort, as it remained standing throughout the whole water bomb war. It was the largest scale waterbomb war i have ever since, numbers staggering to up to 500 water bombs. Once again.. the crazy games from arch-rivals Pei showed up and gave me showers of blessings, leaving me soaked to the bones. Imagine 5-6 girls chasing a poor innocent soul down the court with all their waterbombs.. Hmmmmm.....
I had left earlier to catch Esther's performance, but upon arrival, i was immediately dragged into the initiation of the secret pal meeting. This is a dark ritual that every NUS student who is attending a camp will have to face. Apparently, SDU is leaving up to the name of graduate falling in love with a graduate, so by sponsoring for camps, Camp committee must inject a bit of "love" into their activities. I was blindfolded and led into the studio and made to sit on the chair. Behind me was a black cloth, where my secret pal hides beyond it. Given the secret name of "John Lennon", my secret pal's name was " Yoko Ono". When you are stuck in the situation like this, you make the best out of the situation. I started talking everything under the sun. About school, about CCAs, about where she stayed. You name it! It was good that she was rather conversational too, making the whole affair less awkward. We were treated to a session of mass dancing after the secret pal meeting, finally sleeping at about 2am.

3rd morning just got weirder. We were greeted with the blindfolds again. This time, John Lennon had to feed Yoko-Ono breakfast, consisting of a slice of peanut butter bread, a slice of of Nutella bread, 2 bananas and 2 bunches of grapes. We took some times groping at the food, launching it at each of our faces, and attempting to chew each other's fingers off, but to me, it was great fun to find ourselves in such a situation. The conversation continued on, this time about travel and a bit on my army life. And apparently, a couple was smearing the bread spread over each other's faces. Day 3 was dedicated for the water games, but due to some problems, they were conducted in school, in a "safe" manner. Once again, the games revolted back to the JC orientation style of playing it, with a few humours here and there, like how Htin Aung would eat a banana like a real monkey, and how Joanne was scary with her diao look, and how Simon was able to dodge all waterbombs coming at him blindfolded. There were talks in the evening, many of them directing towards the Aki people. As for us ID people, we were introduced by our seniors. No regrets though, she was super humourous and animated. Being in a rather small family, having friends within ur course is very important. At times, it also felt like ID is inferior over to Aki. I try not to influence myself too much with such thoughts, and focus on what I like doing best. We had our little MTV discussion before calling it a night at 1.00am.

Out of all the days of the FOC, I must admit that the last day was the most fun out of everything. We started the day by travelling down to Sentosa. It was a splendid day for a great tan with the sun shining bright. We were joined with the PRRE Campers from the other side. Personally speaking, they were a lot more enthu than the Starck people, and there was a certain drive in being the best OG in their camp. We started by exchanging cheers. They had a whole mouthful of it. Ours came in spits. But things slowly warmed up, as I predicted, when our guys started playing the games. The games were amazingly fun. There was Human Pyramids in the sea, Food relay around coconut trees, Dog and bone while piggybacking a girl in the sea, Water-bomb volleyball with someone's shirt, sand sculpturing, Mua ji in a fun way (always regarded as an army punishment). I hated the pingpong ball though. it requires much arm strength and a certain technique which trembling limbs cannot master. Nevertheless, we had our fun and laughter all throughout the day, only coming back to school by 3.30pm. At 5pm, we were asked to perform our MTV skit(A skit which consists of a MTV song and dance/skit) It was interesting to note that out of all the 8 groups, 7 were consisting of cross-dressing guys with their fake boobs and sex of all sorts (gay kinds, prostitutes, adultery) We had our S Club 7 "Don't Stop", it being the cleanest out of all of the skits, making us the winners of the whole skit competition. Credit goes to Wei Chin and Raj, who could act the pure and innocent couple out really good.

As the orientation camps draws towards a closure, we were finally able to reveal our secret pals. Dressed in our formal wear, we were supposed to head down to the Butter Factory, but due to the unsafe conditions, the seniors had to revamp the examination halls as the dinner venues. Candlelights were placed on the 50 or so tables within the room. Rose Petals were scattered on the floor. On the table was a stalk of rose and a pair of ear-rings as gifts for the female secret pal. It was noticeable that the seniors did put in a lot of effort to make this come true. And then, for the 1st time in the FOC, i finally get to meet my secret pal. Her name is Alyssa from the group Mies. I had no idea how she looked throughout those 4 days; didnt bother guessing so as not to spoil the hours. After exchanging gifts with each other (Coincidentally Alyssa has given me a frog fun. We had a good time sharing at the table while dinner was served. It lasted for close to 1 1/2coinbox), we were treated to a Clubbing event at the studio. Yet another elaborated effort from the seniors, attempts to reenact the clubbing scene was successful. There were bars with fake alcoholic drinks, pop-corns and donuts. An aisle with spotlights and a cool lion banner at the end of it. And walls for you to vandalise on. It was a homely place and everyone was comfortable with each other. We were even coaxed into a SDE mass dance towards the end of the day. My experience for AKI FOC 08 ended at 12am.

Overall.. it was a great camp. Made new friends. Played games I would never dare dream of playing. Had a better picture of where/What Im heading too. The future looks less uncertain now.

Cheering in the water!
Starck + S Club 7 = Starck Club
Sand-Modelling~
Attempting to pick up a stupid ping-pong ball...
Human Pyramid in the water!
Another Group Photo!
Starck Group photo! (From left Clockwise Rebbecca, Natta, Htin Aung, Leon, Xin Miao, Simon, Ronnie, Joanne, Ching, Eunice, Silvia, Wei Chin, Elaine, Shu Lian Absent: Joshua, Me, Geraldine, Iyan)
Most of us here!(sorry ronnie!)
Water bomb bomb bomb! And the structure is still standing!
Starck Flag!
Secret Pal John Lennon and Yoko Ono (Me and Alyssa)

Comic Convention @ Suntec

2008-06-29T23:39:00.006+08:00

The Geek who likes comics~

Big thanks to Daniel to introduce me to this Comic Convention. I have no regrets going for this event as there were many sights and sounds so close to me. We left from church at about 12.40pm, picked Kelvin up. Amazingly, many of the youths joined us, Christian even joining us on his crutches. Most of us wanted to find out more about the event, Daniel was there on a mission to find his big Marvel Hulk collectible.

Although it was disappointing to find that the convention only consisted one corner of level 6, the stuff inside the hall was sufficed. We were greeted by cosplayers at the entrance of the hall. It was way better than the Vivo city cosplayer; many genuine costumes and many more fans. There were plenty of familiar characters, like Naruto, Bleach, Gundam, Vampire Knights, D. Gray Man, and also unfamiliar characters, one even coming on stage with a replica of an angel's wing. Besides Cosplaying, there were others flaunting their skills with their drawings. I met up with inspiring Singaporean artists of all sorts, many of them showing the ingenuity of their drawing skills in terms of drawing and colouring. I was totally excited about the whole thing.

Toys were everywhere. There were the oriental kinds of all sorts; Power Rangers, Gundam, Transformers, and cute block toys, and the Western ones as well, such as Marvel and DC Superheros, Star Trek, Star Wars, Predators and Aliens! Although Daniel couldnt find what he was looking for, there were plenty of Hulk figurines everywhere on the shelves, though a little smaller to what he has described.

And these were some of the cool stuff we saw at the convention centre~!

Life Replica of Iron Man Mask @ $1000!
Life-size yoda
Aragon display set

Holding light sabre~

Transformers on sales!

Classic Lao Fu Zi

Meet my uncle~

Scary dollies...

International badges from 501st Legion.. This is super cool!

Gundam display case

1st Power Ranger Set! Remembered quarreling over this with WeiJun.. Hahahah

Hall of fame for Darth Vader from 1984 to 2008

Super cute Yoda freak!

Honestly.. this owns butts... Scene from Epi 6 when Darth Sidius meets Darth Vader over the construction of the Death Star
Like the light effect of this.. Darth Maul looking cool just like in Episode 1

Cosplayers Kanda and Lavi~

Hair destroyed

2008-06-28T00:28:00.000+08:00

Tried to straighten my hair...

it was too short, Too thin

So I look a lot worse than normal.. haha~

I learn an important lesson.

Appreciate what God has given you..

SUPER FUNNY!!!

2008-06-27T00:20:00.002+08:00

Guess Who?

2008-06-25T23:05:00.003+08:00

The White Bird

The Princess

Pearl-in-teh (super obvious!)

Bug Graniph

2008-06-24T00:40:00.000+08:00

So proud of you..... and it was the last M piece!

The Birthday of The Terror Three!

2008-06-20T22:47:00.000+08:00

When 20th June looms around the corner, Councillors from the 21st Student Councillor would fret over a major issue.. What to get for the Terror 3. Consisting of Ngiam, Berton and Bdique, the Terror 3 was christened after their consecutive birthdays. Especially when they turn 21.

I was invited to Ngiam's 21st Birthday Party, which coincidentally happens to be at Grace's Condominium. I would say that this would be my 1st 21st birthday celebration that I have ever been to. It's not that friends have not invited me to their parties; it was more like I was never free to attend their celebrations. Well, at least I was available for this party. I suppose Ngiam did put a lot of faith in ZH and me because we were requested to be Games IC for her special day. I wasn't exactly thrilled being a Games ICs due to the recent Church Camp. Nevertheless, I took up the post and came up with some funky ideas for the games.

(Bdique & Berton, if u r reading this, I'm sorry for making your presents rather last minute >.<)
ZH and I met at Raffles City to get the materials for Felicia's Games, such as markers and card-boards. We went to hunt for last minutes presents for Benedict and Berton after Daniel met up with us. While we were distracted by the sales Levis was having (Zh bought a pair of grey jeans in the end), we managed to get Bdique a pair of turtle print boxers and a belt and Berton a set of cufflinks and tieclip. As we continued discussing about the games, the forfeits got from bad to worse, and somehow we concluded with cable ties and men disposable underwears as the itinerary for the games.

We met up with Plin and Eil, who were tasked to decorate the function room. Naturally, we helped out with the decorations as well, with balloons with clues being pinned up and Decorations ready before the first group of guest come in. Fel really did invite a lot of people. From her family, to her school mates to the Church people, it was one big group filled with different ages and sizes.

We started off with a lame game "North South East West". I was running most of the show and it was super impromptu. I could roughly remember this game back in Nias when the locals were twisting their actions and the command of words. The Forfeit for this game was to be tied to another forfeitter throughout the whole games. As the activities continue, the next thing we did was to burst balloons to find slips of paper which will lead on to the next game. The forfeit for that was to... design a men's disposable brief and do a cat-walk with it. I loved the idea, but the effect was different when there was younger kids to consider. As for the last game, we had a mimic session of living things, and some of the living things include mushrooms, earthworms, hyenas and venus flytrap. Although there were some good feedback from my friends commending about the games, I felt that my performances as a Games IC was rather mediocre, and was kinda disappointed with the outcome of the games for the 21st birthday girl.

We ended promptly with a cake-cutting ceremony and photography session. Saving the best for the last, we presented our prezzies to Bdique, who was not prepared for what was to come next.

Qn: Name a character that wears just a boxer and a belt.
Ans: Bdique imitating a WWE Wrestler.

We had a great laugh as Bdique posed for us in his boxers and for being a sport. That night, it ended well.

What an experience on my 1st 21st bday celebration~!

It was a pity the last of the terror 3 didnt turn up.. We'd missed you, Berton~

Recce!

2008-06-19T22:23:00.003+08:00

The New Shopping Centre at Downtown East with the Oh-so-expensive Ferris Wheel~

We were doing some recce for Saturday's YF. As the school holidays are finally coming to an end, we have decided to bring our church youths out for some cycling at East Coast Park. I wanted to give the Park Connector Network another shot. Just that this time, there will be activities along the way. I came out with many ideas. Besides the regular photohunt, there was a double bicycle challenge, poses at landmarks (a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil pose), treasure hunt (Bubble Tea and Furry Lalang) and many more.

Both plin and I felt accomplished after completing the whole 40km (2km short due to a shortcut we took :P) in 6 hours. Tired thighs and sunburned shoulders, we were exhausted by the time we came back to the bicycle shop. But there were many interesting things that happened along the way..! From getting injured, to eating at Downtown east and walking in E hub, to getting caught by some army personnels for taking photoshots (that is perhaps one of the most stupid things that happened to me). All in all, it was a great day for a workout.

So i suppose there was justice to eating the Cornecto Ice-cream~ :)

Proudly finishing 40km in 6 hours! (With Lunch and 45 mins delay)

Disco Lies by Moby :|

2008-06-17T14:13:00.002+08:00

Thought it was interesting~ hahahahaa
whooaaa.. i didnt noe there was a uncensored version of the Colonel being chopped up and served on a plate of drumsticks!

Talk about Chicken Revenge....

The Art of Window Shopping

2008-06-16T22:35:00.002+08:00

The Art of Window Shopping is to walk around aimlessly, deceiving yourself into not buying anything because it appears to be too expensive. Another way of avoid buying anything is by reading the fine prints on the big SALES signs, especially dire times of GSS. But among all the tactics you have, probably the best weapon you got to have is to be picky over what is the right fashion for you. Whether if you are Avant Garde, Emo-punk, or just plain nerd, mainstream fashion trend ain't just your cup of tea.

Or you can always bring someone with you to go shopping :D

Saturday's YF Session

2008-06-14T17:52:00.000+08:00

Pandamonium

2008-06-12T00:33:00.001+08:00

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

~Oogway, Kungfu Panda

Played an interesting game with my brother on the bus. It is a word connector game. The rules are simple. All you need to do is to connect the word with the previous word. For eg. Toilet Bowl can be connected to Bowling which can connected to Sports.. Connection.. you get the drift? You cannot use repeated words and must not be a sentence.

Anyway, we were on our way to watch Kungfu Panda at AMK cathay with plin and her sister. Now if ure thinking its a double date.. its my youngest brother we are talking about, and Jeslyn who is like 6 years older than him. The queue was amazingly long, and we took a good 20 minutes just waiting in the queue. But by the time we entered the cinema, the show has not started yet.

Kungfu panda had its charm, panda being cute and stupid at the same time. Jokes were new and we had a good laugh over it. As I watch the show, I just couldnt stop picturing Po (panda's name) as the DOTA character, Pandarian Brewer. And I didnt quite like it the way I like Horton. Somehow, the chinese culture was all too familiar.

Overall, it was still a great entertaining show. I would give it 3.5/5!

And I cant wait for Batman: The Dark Knight to come out, not to mention Hellboy2 : The Golden Army as well..

Japanese curry and a visit

2008-06-10T23:11:00.000+08:00

It was a deal ever since after Church camp, we were just waiting for that day to arrive. That day was the Japanese curry rice day~

Based on a true story, Zh(also known as Lam Zhihong) has set out on his conquest to cook the best tasting japanese curry rice. Through many trials and errors, he has finally conjured the perfect brew for the 6 hungry guests. Little does he know that his guests have also brought in a tub of ice-cream. But with a stroke of brilliance and a mysterious foresight, he was able to cook up a batch of banana crepe to go along with the icecream. And to make things even better, he had created a bowl of potato salad, fried batter chicken and japanese rice! Stay tune to find out more about the Adventures in the kitchen of Zhihong!

We had a late lunch before popping over to visit one of our church members, Mr Loh, headed by Jessica. Although we spent quite some time finding him, the people who suggested where he could have gone were very helpful. He was either watching TV, or at the coffeeshop, or playing chinese chess, but when we finally met him, he was delighted to see us. And immediately we got down to entertaining him. I must say, that when it comes to old people, Jessica has a talent. While we were busy drawing and colouring a perfect holiday/vacation for Mr Loh, Jessica was asking him questions about his life. And we were astonished at how little we know one of our church member. For starters, he likes to eat fish, he used to work at PSA, he had a dog, he lived through the japanese war, he believed in Christ at Hougang Baptist Church in 1996, making him one of the oldest members to date. At the end of the day, we took a picture of him and our masterpiece, and we stuck it on his wall.

The take-back at the end of the day was great. When someone offers to give something to you, we should give someone else back in return. No obligations. Just from the bottom of your heart.

Hey... my masterpiece!

While we were colouring, Jessica was asking Mr Loh about his life

Prince of Badminton... LOL

2008-06-09T11:34:00.004+08:00

Warning : This may appear as a spoiler! Do not continue reading if you would want to watch this movie in the near future!

Will the others see you too?’ asked Lucy.
‘Certainly not at first,’ said Aslan. ‘Later on, it depends.’
‘But they won’t believe me!’ said Lucy.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Aslan.

~Prince Caspian; The Chronicles Of Narnia

It had been an eventful day. I had brought my brother out due to the request from my mum that he needs more activities other than sitting around at home staring at the computer. So I brought him out for a game of badminton at Tampines with a group of my church friends, Jess, Zh, Haoyee and Pastor. We had a 2 hours session and even though it was rather exhausting, we kinda enjoyed the workout.

Later had lunch at Subways before heading down to Dhoby Ghaut to meet the rest of the church peeps. It was the largest church movie-goer group I have ever seen. A total of 14 people watching the show! That is easier enough to fill the whole row of seats. We were keen on watching the movie : Prince Caspian, and since I had some free movie passes, I thought i can reduce the cost of every individual ticket. But thanks to Darren-ness in me, I have once again triumphed over myself and forgot to bring the tickets. But I was able to atone for my mistake, after smoking the ticket seller.

Countergirl: "Sir, we would need to see your 14 ICs so as to give you a student concession price of $6."
Mua: "Erm, I have 14 kids, and they are all over the place..Running around; I dont think I can call all of them back"
Countergirl:"... ..."
Mua:"How about you take it I have 14 kids with me?" (glancing over at Joshua, Johnathan and my brother Irving who all happened to be there)
Countergirl:"Erm... ... ok" (YES! ZH, HaoYee and I managed to escape from the additional $2 of adult fare!)

Well.. Technically we are all waiting to go into Uni. We just do not have the concession card with us yet.

Prince Caspian was a great family movie. It had many elements of fantasy (talking mouse and badgers, centaurs and minotaurs) and a sense of humour. You simply feel the characters, making you interact with the show. I guess the only let-down was that it felt too similar to Lord of the Rings, partly because the setup was done in New-Zealand.. and there were many scenes similar to Lord of the Rings (Gothic castles, Walking trees and A river taking a shape of a creature and swallowing up people). I must say however, that the caving in on the ground was an ingenious plan by the movie-maker(or the author himself)

Overall, I would give the show 3.5/5~

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : Day 7 - Kids and Team Singapore water party

2008-05-21T13:47:00.000+08:00

The white bird finally knows how to scoop water from the watering hole... He has gain enlightenment...

~The Chronicles of Nias

Thursday morning began with the 1st day of teaching kindergarten. I was in charge of teaching them time, while Jessica and Auntie Lucy were tasked to teach them basic English sentences and Esther to teach them numbers. As Auntie Lucy was teaching them things like "boat", "fish" and "see" etc. I was busy preparing myself for my own lesson. Each child was given a paper clock where they could rotate the minute and hour hands of the clock. There were also given worksheet- 5 out of the 36 or so worksheets printed out for them within the course of 4 days.

Auntie Lucy teaching the kids how to say words

I was amazed at how Auntie Lucy could have a good command over the kids. Although she was illiterate to Indonesian's language, she was able to grab the attention of the children quickly, and engaged them in English. It could also have been the Holy Spirit manifesting Himself into her. And He has been doing so in so many instances, such as during the children camps and many others. She was able to bring her message across to them easily, disciplining them when they do something wrong, and still be loved by the children. It was truly remarkable.

When it came to me teaching the time, the kindergarten kids were very enthusiastic about it. They were able to respond quickly to the things I have said. Some of the younger ones caught things very fast too, and the older kindergarten kids were experts in basic stuff. At the end of the lesson, each child has at least one sweet in his/her pocket for getting an answer right. Within that short span of time, I have almost covered most of my "syallabus"

Song which the kids learn in class
Words + My Drawings!

After dismissing the kids, we had a teaching session with the current kindergarten teacher. These veterans took us very seriously, and even though we weren't qualified as teachers in Singapore, they gave us a certain amount of respect. We went through many stuff, such as teaching them techniques on how to manipulate simple words by rhythming them, how to count in interesting ways, and providing them with basic materials and information.

We spent the start of the afternoon doing nothing much. There was a miscommunication with the college about the timings and the days where Uncle Gilbert and team were supposed to go. So being restrained at Yayasan, they tried to make themselves occupied throughout the whole day. This was fulfilled when Auntie Damai highlighted a serious problem. Apparently, due to the large number of occupants in the house, the water level in the 2 tanks have reached a dangerously low level and has to be filled up. In a matter of minutes, we were tasked to fill up water from the nearby communal well.

Uncle Famachoi tried to do a great service to the community. By building a communal bath area with proper toilet facilities, he hoped that the water from the well could be pumped up into the bathrooms, so that toilets and shower head with proper cubicles can be used. You could say that it was a public toilet. But to the disappointment of the poor maintanences of the island, the pump never did worked, and the toilets remained as shelter from the hot sun.

The buckets flew from the house to the communal wells. Team Singapore was working with much vigour, carrying pails after pails from the communal well. Coming from the buzzling urban jungle, many of us have not actually seen the well. I even mistake it as stagnant unusable water for cleaning stuff, due to the unhygienic conditions and green stuff that were floating inside. Little did I know that this water was used for my food and for my bathing. As I collected water from this "stagnant" water, I was constantly reminded how blessed we are back in Singapore, being able to receive water from a tap and never having to do something so inconvenient like collecting water from a well, and filling it up in a tank 100m away. At that point of time, we had 7 people working. Imagine having one person who does all the house chores fetch a pair of water to and fro from the house.Where we would store the water

It was interesting to note that there is a skill to fetching water from the well. You had to rest the bucket on the surface of the water, and with a flick on the wrist, you will be able to scoop most of the water from the well. Hoist the bucket up using the rope and repeat the process and you will fill the bucket up in no time! We spent 3 hours doing it once in a while, until an old lady wanted to bathe and we had to leave the vicinity.

The Communal well.. shared by everyone~

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So were the team from Singapore. Towards the end of the day, we had an entertaining singing session accompanied by musical instruments of all sorts. Uncle Famachoi was playing the recorder, Jessica the guitar and Esther the violin. And we sang, and sang and sang, until there wasnt time for singing, only to sleep for the next day~

Tired after collecting for close to 3 hours

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : Day 6 - The Break and Prayer Night Meeting

2008-05-20T22:26:00.000+08:00

And the Princess was greeted by all of the townsfolk, each bringing her a present from their fields. She had received a payaya on that day from her uncle.

~The Chronicles of Nias

After a long event of children's camp, there is nothing better than to find some peace after the whole thing. And since it was a public holiday in Nias, there wasnt any lessons for the kindergarten school children, giving Esther, Jessica and I free time to do whatever we want. Naturally, Zhihong joined in the equation, and when Uncle Famachoi suggested to visit Sorake Beach, we couldnt say no either. If there was anything on this island I wanted to do, it was to visit the beach.

It was a 20 mins drive down to Uncle Famachoi's village. The area which the Wau stayed stretched for about 300-500m with the front view of the beach at their porch. Overgrowth could be seen climbing over the remains of chairs and tables after the tsunami. The tsunami was not kind to the beach either, as the water resided some 100m away from the sand-line, leaving behind jagged corals with pools of water littered everywhere. But with it comes a whole new diversity of sea life. Small fishes of different shapes and colours scattered the rocky pools. Shells of hermit crabs and clams shine against the sunlight, and a lazy starfish float idly at the bottom. We spyed upon many unique things in the water, including a clump of sea-cucumber, anemone that opened and closed erratically, a fish called Frankie who played hide and seek in the corals, and I had the priviledge to spy upon a sea snake for a brief second.

The sea was perfect blue. It cannot get as good as this. As the waves rolled itself over the horizon, surfers try to ride it in vain, only to slip off at the critical point. The sad truth about this beautiful place is that most of the surfers and people are the locals. After the tsunami hit, whatever tourists that visited Nias was greatly reduced. As I walked down Sorake Beach, I could count the total number of angmos with my fingers. It was sad to see the income of the Nias people disappearing over the years.

After the beach and a great tan (not to mention slipper tan T.T) we went for a walk around the village and to visit a nearby resort. It was interesting to see what kampung life is all about. There were people cutting avocados from their trees; we bought 2kg worth of them. Two boys dragging their pig on its hind, bringing it to its final resting place. A heap of rubbish burning in a corner. We finally approached the what looked like a resort. The condition looked really bad and it doesnt look like it was maintained ever since the tsunami. There wasnt any need to since there werent much tourist. The swimming pool was clogging with algae and gunk, while the metal roof pieces are corroding. It was in a pretty sorry state. It reminded me of the trials the Nias people had to face after the tsunami incident.

We met Uncle Famachoi at 3pm who drove us back. We had lunch at Henri's place. His mum owns a restaurant on the 2nd floor of her house. It was cooling and the Nasi Goreng was tasty.

We later had a Tuesday Night Prayer Meeting where we gave our testimonies, worshiped together and prayed together. Uncle William shared the parable of the sower with the group, talking about how there were 4 kinds of people who will receive the Word of God. As he talks about the good sower who planted his seeds on good grounds, I couldnt help but think of the youths in our church, whether if they are growing passionately in the name of the Lord. Nevertheless, I continue praying, for it is not on my strength alone, but God's strength.

God worked in the lives of the people that night as many reaffirmed their faith in serving our Almighty Father. I guess we all need to relook at our lives and think about how God has been so real in every aspect.

Blue Waves come crashing at your feet!

The Avocado Picker!

The Tuesday night Prayer Meeting people

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : Day 5 - Children's Camp Day 3

2008-05-19T11:27:00.001+08:00

Come to Me all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest

Matthew 11:28

For every fairytale ending, there is always a happy ending, and this children camp, although not fabricated, has its happy ending too.

We started off with our revision of what we have learned over the past 2 days. We went through our songs and cheers and introduced a new parable to the camp. It was the "The Good Samaritan", and it was one of our best sessions throughout the camp. We taught a new song "Let your light shine"; a catchy tune with a lot of hand-actions. However, the kids had difficulties with the English word, so we didnt use it in the end. Nevertheless, we have left behind the songsheets so that they can practice anytime. We also made a 3D donkey out of paper, and the kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly as they shaped the donkey from nothing into a 7 inches masterpiece.

As we got closer to lunch, we did another skit for them. I had to act as 3 different characters; the robbers who attacked Joo(the name of the Jew in the parable), the "holy" priest and the Levite. There was plenty of interaction from the kids as they responded to our skit with great eagerness. Jessica did a great job acting as an injured Joo, with red face paint all over her face, and Zh acted well as Sam (the name of the Samaritan in the parable).

Auntie Lucy and Uncle William took over the show as we ate our late lunch. They played the "pin the donkey" game and "spot the difference" game with the kids. Its amazing as to find children getting excited over a paper tail and a pale-looking drawing of a donkey. Comparing with your average Singaporean kid, the latter will probably say that it is "lame" and then continued on playing his PSP. After a quick lunch, we started to prepare the kids for the mini-finale.

This mini-finale is an event to summarise what they have learned over the course of 3 days. For every group, they were to perform a cheer and a song, read a verse from the bible, and relate how they find in camp. Parents were invited for this event and it was a big day to the kids. While they were preparing themselves, I was flying everywhere in the house, preparing the chairs for the guests, setting up the projector to screen a presentation and packing the presents for every kid. The task was grueling, but the happy ending draws nearer.

It was climbing to the climax as the parents filled the upper room of Yayasan Harapan. There were easily 30 parents in the house, and many more kids waiting as 3.00pm came. There were a total of 84 kids. It was totally unexpected as the given number was 70 and we would have believed that the actual number would be fewer. All the time, I had implanted 70 sets of gifts, be it the files, the clips, the pencil cases. Except the towels. I had 85 of those. Now, i had no reason why I should bring 85 towels, but I really THANK GOD for this. Out of all the gifts, the towel was viewed as the most important due to promote cleanliness. Even though not everyone had the same pack (it didnt matter cause there were some members not applicable for the camp, but we couldnt reject them on the last day, so we had to come out with a smaller gift), God has the perfect plan for everything and has provided a way for me when it came to the gifts.

As the groups perform their items and as the leaders toil till the end of the day, "Come to Me all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" comes into my mind quickly. It has been a successful camp, and the children were all delighted with the overall outcome. We made new friends, both young(children) and old(translators and parents). Even though we were dehydrated, losing our voices, exhausted, there was a glowing sense of pride in our hearts that we have done it. We have finished the camp with a big bang.

It was a happy ending after all.

Jess was playing Joo, I was playing the Levite
A Game of Pin the donkey
Donkey Art and Craft!
Children receiving their gifts

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : Day 4 - Children Camp Day2

2008-05-18T12:47:00.003+08:00

But there was only one set of footprints on the sand. The son asked his father, "Dad, where were you all this time when I was in trouble. I was left all alone by myself, with no one, no one out there for me." His father replied him, "Son, all this while, you were never alone, for I am always with you. I was carrying you through your hard times."

~Jessica relating the Father, son and Footprint story

Day 2 started at 9.00am, with children who stayed overnight at Yayasan, singing their morning devotion with Uncle Famachoi. It was all set for a new day.

For the whole morning, we taught the parable of the house on the rock/house on the sand. We taught them how to make a 3D house, and even asking them to decorate it with their own drawings on the outside of the house. The attractive thing about the house was the roof, which brighten up the whole house when everyone joined the houses together forming the word "I Love Jesus" (Interestingly, this was not part of the plan, but when it was executed, it remained perfect). As the individual groups come out with their cheers and team spirit, you could see the excitement and joy of all the kids. It was simply amazing. For Singaporean kids to do such an activity, many will brand this as boring, some even complaining, but the Nias Children were so engaging, eager and ready to try new things. We later performed a skit and the kids enjoyed it very much, some even volunteering to be involved in the skit when Zh called out to them. We also taught them a new song "Wise and Foolish Man". The kids loved the hand-actions and the melody of it, but more importantly, they were all interested in learning English, which was very crucial to us. We've got to thank the translators in our midst, who were always there to translate the meaning of the song into Bahasa Indonesia.

After lunch, as the heat took its toil on the day. We gathered all the kids to the room and asked them to quieten down. Many of them were very active, and if we do not contain them, they may be dehydrated from the heat. Spending quiet time was a very impromptu decision, and Zh was given the task to lead them in quiet meditation, he had to come out with something on the spot. He soon starting a story, talking about the beach, the sand and a white bird. Things started to go wrong when the white bird became the main highlight. We could tell that Zh was pressured to come out with something out of nothing, and when the white bird started talking, I knew we were pooped. At that point of time, I started praying, praying that the situation can be saved. Then the story of the footprint hit me. It was the perfect story to talk about, especially when it was at the beach! I waved my hands frantically at Jessica, the only person who could have executed it correctly as Zh continues on his dialogue on the white bird. First i tried mouthed out the word "Foot prints", but to Jessica it looked like "Foo bi". Thank God I started pointing at my feet and mouthed "Father and son" before Jessica finally got it. I pointed to her and mouthed out "You do it", just in time when Zh told all the children to "open their eyes" and shortly after telling them to close their eyes again. Jessica then took over the whole thing and it went flawlessly.

We had team-bonding group games in the afternoon. The rubber band game was a major hit for most of the kids, each trying eagerly to transfer the rubber bands from one straw to another. We also played a balloon game where the kids passed the balloons from one end to the other end. After all the activities, it was some indoor activities in the room. We taught them the AJ slap, and boy were they addicted to it. I had no idea how many times I did it, but it was something that kept them entertained even till the end of our mission trip.

The day ended early at 7pm, and many of us felt exhausted, but satisfied from the chain of events that took place. We felt closer to the children and God was working in our lives. There were also more translators in the scene, so talking to them wasnt as tiring as before. We could see our efforts paying off as the last day of the children's camp draws closer.

The words "I Love Jesus"

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : Day 3 - Children Camp Day1

2008-05-17T22:15:00.007+08:00

3rd day slowly crept in as the beginning of day 1 of church camp commerced. It was also my 1st time meeting the kindergarten students. Auntie Lucy was teaching them alphabets, which was very engaging as they would sing the nursery rhythm out in front of us. After that, we did a little join the dots game of a zebra, whereby the kids coloured a multi-coloured zebra after they traced the zebra out. There was more work to be done for the children's camp. Uncle Famachoi requested the YAFers to come out with a large poster and to stick it up on the wall. There were other tasks to do such as cutting name tags and getting the projector ready. I had to dedicate the job to someone else as while the preparation of church camp is still going on, Uncle Famachoi was invited to a wedding ceremony, and the newly wed couple would want a few from the Singapore team to participate as well. I was one of the fortunate candidates to go.

A bible and a hymn book as a wedding gift, together with a little bit of cash here and there, we presented the bridesgroom. They were dressed in their ethnic costumes, with yellow, red and black exploding everywhere. The groom has a distinctive hard wooden necklace around his neck with a traditional knife; his wife has two large golden ear-rings around her ears. As hundred of relatives came for the event, singing and praises were all given to the guests as girls sing and dance and the men prance about with their warrior outfits. It was interesting to note that it is a Nias tradition for a person to represent a whole crowd as the voice of it. During speeches, he would yell "yaaallleeeaarrreeeeehhhhhhhhh" in acknowledgment of the speaker's words.

As the procession dragged on, we were becoming increasingly worried about the time, whether or not we could make it back to Yayasan by 3.30pm. By 3.00pm, we had no choice but to devise a sneak escape route. After exchanging a few words with his friend, Uncle Famachoi led Uncle Gilbert into his friend's house. Following that, Uncle William, Esther and I took our leave, pretending to take more shots of the wedding ceremony. We took a back exit of the house and soon enough we were on the main road. It was exciting to see us escape from the wedding procession. Our plan, however, did not work as the bridesgroom's wife had spotted us leaving. Perhaps it was my bright orange t-shirt which gave away our strategy.

Church camp shortly commerced after our return. There were already close to 50 children as more started to fill in the cramped house. Initially, we were all lost for what to do. Our plan did not go smoothly. What was to show a cartoon video ended up with doing the ice-breakers 1st. We were all unprepared, and were too worried over the missing dinner. As we tried to include more time-fillers into our programme, we ourselves got frustrated over one another. Thank God for the skit, which could have saved the day. The "deep and wide" song deserves credits as well, it being the most popular song throughout the camp. When the food finally arrived, we could only eat in silence, and plan for the debrief of the children. Church Camp Day 1 ended at roughly 8.30pm. Everyone was tired and somehow it felt like we had run a 20km race.

God was trying to show us that by our own understanding, mankind will tend to fail. It shows that no matter how much you have prepared, if your heart and your purpose is not centrered to God, it would all be futile. We can have all the preparations ready and laid out, but we failed to put our faith in God, and let Him work in the camp. We soon realised that while there was many activities going on, there was little of God's word, little of God's prayer. little of God's everything.

We were determined not to make the same mistake again.

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : Day 2 - The Preparation

2008-05-16T19:27:00.002+08:00

Day 2 was a full swing into preparation for the camp. I had to separate the logistics evenly, such that each ziploc bag would consist of the parables we were teaching. A games template was also drawn out for the kindergarten programme. Unexpectedly, Friday was a normal day of lesson for the kindergarten students, and little echoes of little children could be heard from the hallway. At some point of time, the electricity was cut, sometimes lasting till 10pm on alternate days. For some, it became a ritual habit of doing things in the dark without electricity. The Wau family, on the other hand, had a generator, which we relied on heavily. That afternoon, we met 4 of Pastor Famachoi's English students. For students aged between 12-14 years old, it is quite shocking to find them speaking rudimentary English. I could see the urgent need for people to teach English.

I remembered photocopying with Uncle Gilbert. It was not ready by the time we were there, so Uncle Gilbert requested to have some refreshments at a cafe by the sea. Unlike most of the buildings in Nias, this cafe was nicely done, and it could be seen a lot of money was invested in the construction of it, as its territory extended all the way to the sea as a jetty and a lookout point. After some chit-chat, mosquito biting and drinking, we went back to the shop to check on the printed pages. There was a total of 72 booklets for college materials and about 700 pages for kindergarten. We ended at 8.30pm and had a late dinner.

We had a prayer meeting that night, asking God to bless us with strong minds and stamina for the Children Camp, that souls can be saved and lives can be touched.

Indeed, God is in control of our lives, and He can make miracles.

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : Day 1 - The Journey

2008-05-15T18:55:00.002+08:00

We left the house at 4.15am the next morning, with Uncle Daniel picking us on his van, together with Esther, Jess, Eil and Plin. Our destination was to Changi Airport and our flight was at 6.45am. There was not many people sending us off in the wee hours of dawn, but even so, Pastor Alvin took the trouble to come down to pray with us. We had our last breakfast in the airport and then, the 4 YAFers and 3 adults were off for Nias.

We took a budget flight to Medan. I must admit that the journey to Medan was relatively fast. Upon arrival, Pastor Harpusan greeted us at the arrival hall. He is a good friend of Pastor Goh, running his own church and a school beside it. He was the person who helped us with the arrangement of flight from Medan to Nias. As there was 2 hours till the flight departure, Pastor Harpusan volunteered to bring us to his premises. We were treated to the grandeur sight of the half-completed church, together with the multi-storied yellow school compound. This school caters to children from kindergarten to high school. We shortly went to his house, a red tiled wall house with a mango tree in his garden. Mango was part of the menu as we were invited into his house, and it was sweet and juicy. We later had lunch at a chinese roadside stall, before returning back to the domestic flight terminal.

I must sat that while Medan looks like a 2nd world country, their domestic airport appeared newly furnished. It was later discovered that it was recently destroyed by a fire. Perhaps the government do embrace the philosophy of slash and burn technique for building as well. As we waited terribly long for our flight, the other half of me was wondering if our plane will ever come. It was not till 45 minutes past the scheduled time did we finally got on board the plane. It looked like a early 20th century plane, with its 2 propellors sticking out at its sides.

We touched down at Gunung Sitoli Airport, Nias, at roughly 2pm. On first impression, the whole place looked like another movie of Congo, with vast trees that stretches over the hills and an old empty runway. We were ferried over to Telok Dalam by a car convoy. The trip was rather smooth-sailing; the roads seemed new with no pock marks, the houses were decently constructed with cements and bricks, some even having a satellite to watch TV. As we snaked through the island, rivers wind past bridges and jungle after jungle past by. But towards the 2nd half of the journey, we were finally greeted with the ocean. The sight of was spectacular. Waves would crash into the rocky banks, sending foams of seawater into the air. Surfers cruise away in the water like time has not moved at all. For the first time in my life, I actually saw a clear blue sea.

Sometimes I would always wonder why we cannot get the better of the 2 countries. While Singapore has a better infrastructure and governance, Nia has its natural beauty at its backyard. But as I think about it, if every scenario was to be the same, the we would not be expecting much in Heaven, since all of what we got from Earth would be the same as up there. The Lord has prepared an eternal home for us, and it should be something we should look forward to. It should be the day when we would cherish every moment of it, just like how I cherished every little detail and sight of the beaches of Nias.

We reached Telok Dalam at 4pm. Being the town centre of Southern Nias, it had a closer resemblence to a typical Indian Village than Central District New York. Long dusty roads with 2-storied shophouses are scattered throughout the area. School-children flooding the narrow streets as our transport make its way to Pastor Famachoi's house/mission centre/kindergarten.

Yayasan Harapan Nias had a big driveway with sparse bush on the side. At the corner was a mini-playground, weathered and over-used. Pastor Famachoi was standing at the front porch of the building. He is a short man with thin frame in his late fifties. On closer inspection, he had a bruise on his chin with cuts all over his hand. Apparently, it was due to an accident with 2 drunkens. Thank God for preserving him from death. Auntie Damai soon joined her husband in the greeting session. It was a mini-reunion of their princess from Singapore.

Preparation of the cam,p went full throttle right after moving into my room of 4. We had a meeting ironing out the itinerary of the mission trip, staying till 10.30pm. It was also the first night when I experienced the life of bathing in rainwater.

Journal Entry for Nias Mission Trip : -1st day

2008-05-14T18:46:00.000+08:00

It is interesting how one would have to resort to writing on a chinese composition book. What was initially used for japanese is now converted to a journal entry. This is how it all begun...

The date is 15th May 2008. I have packed my bags, ready for mission trip. It ha been a tough journey of preparation, praying and working with the 6 of us. And I would guess that it would be normal to say if your body is ready, your heart isn't. It is that state of mind when you feel drained and worn out from all the preparation and you strongly feel for the whole mission trip to be over in a blink of a day. I was in that mode as I trod to Zhihong's house for the night before departure. Apparently, Zh has not prepared his bag (still busy playing WOW), so I was pretty much by myself, lying on the sofa, feeling the cool breeze from outside, texting away on my handphone.

Working Again

2008-04-26T11:17:00.002+08:00

Once again, I had picked up a job, this time, something that is out of the desk. I had been selling laptop insurance to poly students in Temasek Poly. Working hours from 9am to 5pm, pay is $7 an hour. Duration : 1 week.

Haha~ I have troubles promoting this insurance, partly because many people thought warranty covers what insurances cover, so there wasn't a need to buy one. But thats when you're wrong! While Warranty covers for any internal and malfunction parts in the system, Insurance plays a completely different ball game. It covers physical accidents (like water spillages, drops and knocks), theft and robberies and misplacements on public transport.. and on and on and on. I guess another reason why people do not buy insurances is the amount they need to pay for it. Even though $68 is not a big sum, but it is still considerably big if you're only receiving pocket money from your parents. And that was the reason why most of our applicants were parents who signed up for this scheme.

The first day was very bad.. since we didnt get any names at all. 2nd day was slightly better, with 2 applicants. so was the 3rd day with 2 applicants. At this point of time, we were thinking of just getting about 3 on the 4th day (actually it was just Yishan, but i was yepping away saying I was a prophet and i predicted 5 to turn up). But on the day itself, we have collected 8, breaking our 2 applicants per day policy by 3 folds. And to end it off, we gathered a total of 19 applicants on the last day. A total of 31 applicants within the week.

Some interesting things I have noted while doing this job:
1. Temasek poly have the coolest people with the latest fashions in town.. and also having the FD(Fashion disaster) as well. Eg. A girl who looked like a cosplayer, guy with obscene fats with tight t-shirts and different shoe laces.
2. Boss was really nice to us, giving us cakes after every day of hard work.
3. Of course, there were ah bengs as well. One particular group even have a clan; same hair, same slippers, even same dragon print tee-shirt (or maybe they're just gay)
4. Ive made Acer, Lenovo friends. none from apple and fujitsu.

Overall, it beats working in the office doing mundane typing of admin work. Although it was a little more tiring standing up and promoting sales, at least I got a fruitful week. :)

Plin's Birthday Celebration

2008-04-25T23:13:00.000+08:00

Birthday Girl!

Yellow Power

The roomies

The gals who stayed back

Room for Mr Yeo(Master Roomie) and Miss Li(mischievous composer)

Birthday song for a very special girl!

2008-04-25T12:14:00.003+08:00

I wonder what a pink house would be like
There's only one girl who can tell it right.
She likes anything that shows a little pink
From a puma sweater, ipod to a pencil case.

Give a one, two, three four five
This song is about the pink girl’s life
The rhythm, the tune is very neat
Let’s rock and roll to this Pearlyn beat.

She goes to a school nearby Clementi.
Taking a science major known as Pharmacy.
And after school, she is very free.
You could bribe and kidnap her with a Bubble tea!

Give a one, two, three four five
She’s can neither cook nor use a kitchen knife
The rhythm, the tune is very neat
We will give our Pearlyn a splendid treat!

Ahh.....(start rock and roll groove after the harmony)

On this April twenty-fifth,
It’s a very special day for a grand big feast.
Let’s open invitation to everyone,
cos she’s turning twenty two!

On this April twenty-fifth,
there's going to be one special gift
Following next is a chocolate cake,
And this is what we will say…

Down with the irresponsible

2008-04-16T13:45:00.002+08:00

I saw a recent nickname on MSN which goes like this "I rather be the Burdened, than to be the Burden." I find irresponsible people disgusting at times, sometimes even disgusted with myself(well not most of the times). Personal responsibility is one thing, but responsibilities and duties across the board should not be taken lightly, especially when people(eg. your friend) need you. I dislike people who shrugged their responsibilities away and not even seeing the importance in the event. Many a time I see this in the army. My platoon was very small, consisting of 7 people, yet the saikang given was tremendous. And sometimes, certain people do not do their jobs, or even worse, pushing their work to other people in the platoon(usually its the poor Thambi in my platoon) You can really brand this people as "assholes"

Today, Plin and I went for Esther's Final Year Recital in the morning. Esther has been preparing for these day for the past 2 weeks, composing her own music and stressing herself up on the scores and booklet presentation. I did her the favour of doing out the layout of the booklet, though I was utterly unsatisfied. Plin helped Esther with the printing. And so on this faithful day, when we were about to witness the greatest piece created this pianist girl...

All of a sudden, the drummer in her band wasn't there...!

Esther tried calling the drummer, but he didnt pick up his call. She was frantically looking for someone to replace him, and had to settle with the drummer from the previous recital, who willingly helped her with her piece. Even so, he wasn't familiar with the piece, and so there was a lot of fumbling with the whole piece. Esther managed to salvage the whole situation by playing a extraordinary performance on her part, but it could have been a lot better.

It really pisses people off to have such irresponsible people in our lives. True, the 1st drummer could have something very important on the midst of the recital and so couldnt come, but we concluded he has probably overslept as he did not return any calls back to Esther. All the hard training, money paid for the studio, all for nothing on the actual day itself.

Down with the Irresponsible!

Amazing Artistry Across the evening sky~

2008-04-13T02:02:00.001+08:00

The Starry Boys!

Last saturday, I was treated to a splendid sight of the night sky. It happened 2 weeks ago when I heard about a trip down to Pulau Semakau with Uncle Albert. Apparently, Daniel, Caleb and How Yee, who were all regular star-gazers, told me about it, my interest in it grew. I thought, since its once in a lifetime experience, why not? After all, i probably wont get to see that many stars in Singapore, given its brightly lit environment even at night.

The trip cost $35 for the jetty and bus transportation on the island, as well as the tour guide stationed on the island. Pulau Semakau is a reclaimed island where landfilling from waste in Singapore has been compacted. It was later used as a recreational facility to make full use of the land and its beauty. This is a place where birdwatching, sports fishing and tidal walks can also be done. It was truly an island of total serenity and beauty.

As we travelled to the southern tip of the island, cells of the island are being converted into fields. It was estimated that in 40 years time, the island will be fully filled, and Singapore will have to look at other alternatives to its waste management. At the end of the trip, the astronomers (about 50 of them) set up their individual telescopes at dusk. We settled down away from the site, trying not to disturb them, and also preparing our dinner. As army people who has just ord-ed, we have brought along canned food, mess tins, mosquito repellents etc.

After settling down, the first set of stars slowly started to appear 1 at a time. It was truly appearing as while we saw more stars come about, Uncle Albert was filling in details to increase our knowledge. From how planets would all spin in one direction, to telling us how the moon is actually moving further away from the Earth's orbit, to how inaccurate reading your horoscope is, due to the different times in different eras, to contemplating whether the 1st moon trip was a hoax.

We were treated to powerful visuals of the moon, Saturn and a bit of Mars in the 1st half. At the same time, Orion with its stars around it (Taurus, Raijin, Sirius), Candis Major(The dog), Leo Southern Cross and its false cross, Centaurus Alpha and Proxima, Castor and many more~!

We made a short trip back to the tourist centre where Caleb, How Yee and I had our short naps. Daniel stayed back for some other stuff.... but he told us how we missed seeing the Sagittarius and Scorpio

We were rewarded by that later in the morning at around 4am. In the morning, the whole sky changed completely, with Jupiter now in the picture. And for the first time in my life, I saw the milky way in the sky, something you will definitely not been able to see in singapore as it was a faint spot in the sky. Constellation such as Scorpio, Sagittarius (think Kettle), Centaurus, Segmus(Alberio- the 2 coloured star) , Aquila, Butterfly Cluster, The summer Triangle and Hercules all started appearing before our very eyes. It was simply breathtaking.

We were finally rewarded with the rising morning sun, with cleared the sun and showed a complete different beauty. As the rays shimmer across the artificial lake, if this isn't haven, I dunno what is. Okay, have the haven without the irritating sandfly bites!

Pulau Semakau on the map..

The sea-lake in the middle

All the peeps taking out their equipments for the big OmniMax show in the sky

A Picture that simply awes you

2008-04-09T11:26:00.001+08:00

What Is Facebook Addiction?

Threadless Tees are finally here!

2008-04-08T01:52:00.002+08:00

We like Mr. Giraffe :)

Haha.. boy was I relieved to see my order of threadless tees.. After waiting anxiously for 14 days, I was thinking perhaps some lucky guy has stumbled upon 10 newly printed tees shipped fresh from USA..

When Zh told me about the threadless Spring sales going on, I knew this was a sign for me to buy the tees at the point of time. I mean for a tee with good cut and silk-screen printing at USD 9 , it was an equivalent of paying SGD 16 for a very good quality tee. It was a definite grab..!

So I went about ordering 4 orders. 1 for each of my brothers and the rest for myself. Quite happy with my selection. It was definitely a steal.

For the little demon.. I can also fit in this tee as well
For the Monster... I nearly thought it was too big for him! I personally like this design.. Too bad there isn't a medium..

Kayaking Expedition No. 2

2008-04-08T01:39:00.002+08:00

Once again, Leon, Bryan and I set off to yet another kayaking expedition; this time is from Pasir Ris to Changi Jetty. The distance was somewhat similar to Punggol jetty, which is 5.3km respectively. We started off good, pushing out at high tide when current movement was at a standstill, making it the best time to kayak. It was at the same time quite dangerous as well, as many of the cargo ships were moving around this narrow strait. On one occasion, a freight ship was even heading in our direction and we had to paddle with all of our energy to get away from the faster moving craft. The waves that come after the ship was even more exciting, as our kayak flew over every successive wave.

We passed by the Loyang Jetty, Hendon Camp, the Yacht Club and finally arriving at the coast of Changi Beach. Opposite was the ever-so-busy Changi Jetty with plenty of its bunk boats. We had our lunch by the beach. It was Changi's famous nasi lemak (ok, one of the famous). The rice was fantastic and the chilli was sweet and shiok. It also came with an egg, chicken wing and ikan bilis. To top it up with a sugar cane drink, it was a satisfying lunch.

On our way back, we spent most of the time fighting against the current, sometimes taking a break, only ending up where you last paddled 2 minutes ago. But when we finally arrived by the shore, it was just nicely at 2pm. Suntanned and exhausted, it was yet another fulfilling kayak day. Who's up to kayak to Pulau Tekong? :P

Haircut @ Kimage - School of Hairdressing

2008-04-01T21:13:00.002+08:00

Saw this on threadless.com.. thought it was very cute.. haha~

A picture paints a thousand words.. and this is exactly why people do not understand what they see.

~ Uncle Yoke Tong, Brand Consultant

Ok, for $6, it was certainly worth the time going down to Funan IT mall to get a 45 mins haircut, with a double wash and a little wax on the head. I had a friendly girl attending to my head.. who spent half the time scaling my hair from a bushy mess to a acceptable style to my liking. The only catch is this.. she's a trainee.

While some may phantom the thought of risking to cut his hair with a student, I was weighing the cost factor against the bad hairday factor on a balancing beam. I had an initial impression that my haircut would cost $9, but who knew how cheap it turned out to be. So i decided to put my trust in the student, and hope for the best.

I guess the only problem was that both the student and the teacher had no idea what a Faux Hawk looks like. I wouldn't have if Eil didnt explain what it was either. But it shouldnt be an excuse for hairstylists, left alone professional ones, not to be able to figure out what a fauxhawk was. The culture of such haircut started to bloom only after many ads of David Beckham looking good in it. Perhaps thats the reason why she didnt do a very good job on my head.

Well, seeing is believing. So here are some pictures of fauxhawks.. enjoy~!

The guy who makes fauxhawk popular!

Wow.. my inspired hair-cut~

Okay, this is too extreme... (aka. PoleHawk..)

Fashion crazy~!

2008-03-31T15:58:00.006+08:00

Yet another big-buckle-i-like!

"I had a lot of difficulties speaking in a chinese congregation. All I could say was, "Wo men, Ni men, Ta men, A men!"

~A guy sharing his testimony during Sunday Worship

Ok, I simply dont understand why there are more than 1 person commenting that I am metro... Haha~ at first, I kinda embraced the idea that perhaps I was indeed a metro, by liking to wear floral patterns and slimmer cuts, but as the fad faded off, I realised I am more of a bargain warrior than a spendthrift. I simply treasure my own money and you know, if I dont get to wear a piece I like every other day, wouldnt that be just a waste? Apparently, as I first started on this fashion awareness idea, I spent quite a bit on one piece wonders, many of them not appealing to my taste. I guess by saying this, I am implying that I wont be spending money on clothes anymore. Nah. It only means I take a longer time deciding whether to buy a piece or not. I like trying new things gradually. I am an indie dresser! hahaha~ if YS sees this, he'll probably puke blood.. hahaha

So anyway, when Singapore is hyping up its Fashion Festival this week in line with new spring/summer collection, I thought walking down Orchard Road with my mum (AKA piggybank) would be the good idea last Sunday, while the little demon was having his tuition at Forum Shopping Mall.

Its amazing to see how the fashion apparel changed their wardrobes. Whatever that was from the winter collections were swiped out and replaced with brand new set of clothes from the spring/summer collection. There were many inviting eye candies out there. I took my rounds at Zara, Topman, Guess, Esprit and FCUK. I was very amazed with Zara and Guess, particularly Guess. Well, although their guys wardrobe has shrunk to half of its original size, they have yet amazed me with more big buckle belt design, cool Rock tee-shirts, a pair of blue cardigan and many others. Zara was kinda refreshing as well, with nice raw jeans and tees. Topman was kinda predictable, with an attempt to splash a whole array of colours on their tops. Sadly, it was their cheap skinny jeans which left me a better impression. But with too many of their jeans, I was afraid I may be a walking topman advertisement? Esprit was once again boring with their usual cuts and FCUK was as disappointing as usual. Astonishingly, G-Star, which was a big hype in magazines, weren't very creative either this season.

(By now, if YS has been reading this, he will probably be slamming his head on the table due to my lack of fashion taste)

I left empty handed, with almost buying a pair of black pants and a polo, but my brother was done with tuition and the queue was long and slow. My mum, however, bought a black 2-piece funny complicated top which she said took her a while to wear the thing. It was funny why she selected that particular piece cos it looked rather younger for her. But she got it at a discount, and it was rather cheap, so lucky her.

Took some shots of the stuff i tried on in the wardrobe though.. perhaps trying new styles? haha~ ok, it got to be funny taking a few pictures of myself in a dressing room.. But hey, I like trying out outfits, and if it looks good, then why not buy it at a good deal? You help me judge, and if you think you got better suggestions, then help me! hahahaha~

hmm.. somehow i kinda like this shirt.. perhaps I can go out for a checkered shirt?

Hmm.. I kinda like the cardigan from Guess.. Too bad it costs $95 dollar.. and yep, I know this outfit looks kinda weird.. either need to have a collar shirt or at least a scarf?

I nearly had this! But as i look at it more, it was a relief i didnt get it in the end. The stripes at the sleeve just made it overly-styled. I want a plainer concept.. just the checks in the middle..

Eden's Cafe

2008-03-27T00:44:00.004+08:00

Located at Club Street, the restaurant was first recommended by Zozo, who came across this place on a website. We later met up to try out the food over there.(together wif plin and zh). The food was excellent for its price. I remembered having the pasta, which the sauce was fantastic. Makes me want to go back there the 2nd time. That was in February, shortly after Chinese New Year.

We went to the same place the 2nd time.. Just to try out the desert. Since we have tried out the Ganache, Molten Chocolate cake.. The Cheese Flio, we decided to try their past signature dish, the hibiscus soft cheesecake, and their current one, Banana Oreo Cheesecake. Personally, I prefer the Hibiscus more than the current one, as its texture was smooth and the taste of cheese explodes in your mouth in a gradual way. Too bad i didnt take a picture of it. I did take a picture of the rest of the deserts. Nice pictures..

OREO BANANA CHEESECAKE~~~ NICE CHOCOLATE PATTERN!

Chocolate Praline! Looks Good~~~

Amazingly, the owner of the restaurant is an old boy from St. Gabriel's.. Beat that..

Kayaking Expedition No. 1

2008-03-23T19:15:00.006+08:00

"The horseshoe crab will mate in this season.."

~Old uncle catching horseshoe crabs at Punggol Jetty. He would grab them by the tail with his son pinning it onto the ground with a stick.

Bryan, Leon and I decided to kayak on a Saturday morning. Initially, we intended to kayak to Seletar Camp, but with only 4 hours to spare, the time needed to travel there could well take a whole day just to get there. So after some advice from the experienced kayakers in the office, we have decided to go to Puggol Jetty instead. The total package (kayak (4 hours) + splay cover) was about $11. So with eager spirit, we headed for the sea and started paddling northwards.

The going there was a lot tougher than the way back, simply because we were always anticipating when we could finally reach our destination. It could also hav been the fact that we were quite close to the shore, and with every wave pushing us closer to it, we need the extra effort to push ourselves out of there.

Along the way, we stumbled upon Coney Island, the so called only "natural beach" found in Singapore. When we were there, it was rather disappointing. With litter all over the place from the Malaysian Port, and with the facilities not being well-maintained, we were contemplating whether if Mas Selamat could have camped on this super deserted island. It could well be a perfect hiding spot as there was no way of getting in other than by kayak or by boat.

We finally managed to reach the jetty at 11.30am. And boy were we relive to see it. Grabbing the only bottle I have, I decided to ask the police coast guard whether if they have any water to spare. AND THEY TOLD ME THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED TO GIVE US ANY WATER... That really stunned me. I mean, if they were police officers, shouldnt they be helping the citizens of singapore? I wasnt asking a Mac Donald's meal or a ride home, it was one of the most essential things for survival; water, and they gave a glaring stare at me, like as if I could well have been Mas Selamat. (well, I did look tanner, but thats besides the point :D) But I thank God water was provided for us and we werent as parched on the way back.

The trip had been a great experience. Being our first expedition, it really could tell how much we can handle. Our next expedition could well take place in the week to come, and our next destination would be to Changi Sea Sports Club, or even somewhere more exotic? Who knows what the future lie ahead of us..

haha~ tried to carry the kayak.. but silly me, the thing was filled wif water :P

Bryan and Leon posing for the camera in the pugilistic style~!

Zoo visit 19032008

2008-03-20T18:35:00.000+08:00

Bye bye Thambi!

On the faithful day which Thambi, Wakabi Cheeky Monkey, The Great Khali, Crazybaby, Dustman, SWO Vasanthan (30 years in the army) before he left for India on Thursday, I have decided to bring him to a zoo. For almost 2 years in army, he has never been to any of Singapore's tourist attraction, even though he is a foreigner. And yet, he has served NS, and now as he go back, is he not going to take back anything at all? That was when I have decided to take a day off to bring him around one of the best zoos in the world, the Singapore Zoo.

We met at Ang Mo Kio interchange, taking a bus down to the zoo. For starters, the "zoo" offered to take a picture for us at the entrance. Later, we found out that those pictures were taken from an external company, costing $18 each, something which I can do for $10 or even less? Thambi bought it anyway. I could always get a digital copy from him when he's back in India. Moving on, we walked around the whole zoo, covering every corner of the park. We visited otters, white tigers, hippos, kangaroo, baboons, giraffe, seal, lion, slow lorris, cheetah, polar bear, finally ending at 2+.

Was fun enjoying time with him one last time. The next time we would meet could well be the next year, when he has to reapply his passport. Perhaps then we could get the whole platoon down together? There will be no goodbyes in this world :)

My Favourite -- Indie Band

2008-02-13T11:06:00.002+08:00

The gray sky in our blue eyes...

~The Favourite

Yishan introduced me to this band, and yes, they are very good with their indie rock stuff. It gives the surreal feeling just like that of postal service. He passed me 2 songs, Le monster (or is it Lemonster?) and 17Berlin.

He claimed that this band is hard to find, and I agreed with him on it. I tried to google it, but i figured since the words "My favourite" are too very common words used on e net, it was futile to find this extinct band from year 2000

Nevertheless, I've found one rocker guy from Youtube who has a video or 2 of them. So enjoy this sounds!

Goodbye Jeff and Hello T3

2008-02-08T13:53:00.000+08:00

Theres one droplet for everyone

Jeff was leaving for Switzerland for an exchange programme for 6 months. We went to the airport to see him off in the morning, at about 6am. I drove Zh to e airport while plin and jeslyn followed Uncle Steven in his car. At first, it looked like only his girlfriend and a close friend came to see him off. I didnt noe that half the people occupying Burger King was actually Jeff's family and relatives.. LOL~!

After seeing him off 6.30am, we decided to explore e new terminal, T3. It was opened since last January and had been the hype in the media. The new terminal cost about 1.75 billion dollars and had many engineering marvels, like e ambient sunlight and reflector theme, and had aesthetic values too, such as the hanging garden. And in the middle, once again, is a flying saucer similar to that of the Parliament house.

It was a pity Brewerkz was located inside the departure mall, but thankfully, there was a harrys outside too.

Flying Saucer

Wrinkled water droplet... Oldwater?
Harry's did it right...

Chinese New Year Day 1 cum mini birthday celebration

2008-02-07T09:00:00.000+08:00

Family Photo; From Left(Monster, Little Demon, Mum, Dad, Me)

Mickey Mouse to a three year old is a six foot RAT!

~Robbin Williams

Okay, to start with the fantastic Chinese New Year, not only did i have my longer hair back, i decided to dress bolder too. Normally, i would top it off with a shirt and a pair of jeans, but this time i wanted to take e extra mile. I wore 2 things that I would not normally wear. 1 pair of black working pants from Giordano and a GRAY VEST from Topman! (topping it off with a white shirt from Muji and a silver tie from somewhere) While i look like a smart casual sweet talking metro-guy (well.. i do have some of these traits), i had good compliments about my outfit, mainly from the aunties. "Hey, you look very hot in this outfit"(actually its phrased as "Hey, isnt what ure wearing very warm?") "Darren, very scholarly ar?" and although my girl cousins may not seem to show it, I had the confidence to go up to them and talk to them.. haha!

so thumbs up for the outfit on day 1. Now to find a picture of it...

We had a little birthday celebration for my mum, who turned.. 47 this year. Bought her a yellow Puma Tote bag~ Felt so happy cos when i was at royal sporting house at IMM, it was twice e amount than the one at Puma shop when i was at Taka later on. And it was a steal before the shop could close for Chu Xi. Anyway, we had a Bakezinn chocolate cake. Super delicious stuff from my dad.

Happy Birthday Mum

Yummy cake Crazy brothers and folks

ORD LOH!

2008-02-06T01:44:00.001+08:00

ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD ORD

LOH!

1 more day till ORD!!!

2008-02-05T00:10:00.000+08:00

Sweet Release of the special day..
22 months of Surrender

2 months of Hell in BMT
1 month of Reconciliation from BMT
2 months of 2nd heaven at Sembawang(Driving Course)
2 months of controlled government (Survey Course)
12 months of fooling around with a Pain (rhythms with another word)
4 months of celebrating with the nation
2 months of writing an oversea declaration.
1 week of Nee Soon Holiday Resort
1 month of continuous jungle life
2 months of reflection

1 more day to ORD
tmr is the day..

Finally...

1st YAF meeting and BBQ dinner

2008-02-04T13:13:00.001+08:00

Saw this funny picture on the internet...

My teacher is a ruthless queen,
Her subjects are all from within,
Fear spread throughout the canteen.
Her rule last till three, there's no chance for us to flee,
Let's take cover, else we hear her roar terribly!

~A Poem for PuaLee Terror

3rd Feb was our 1st YAF fellowship meeting. We had it at Aunt Sally house, watching Jesus Camp with their DVD set and flat screen TV. It was a film documentary showing the evangelical Christians in a certain state of America. After the show, as the crowd started to come, we went about singing some songs, before going down to prepare the BBQ area.

If theres anyone that it is good with BBQ food, it would be Aunt Sally and Uncle Kelvin. We had pork chop, potato salad, egg spread crackers, chicken wings marinated with pandan oil, sweet potato, corn, sausages with bacon slices in between. Had a great time feasting and chatting with one another.

Oh, another significant event.. due to a challenge from Plin, saying I couldnt beat her puzzle bozzle high score, I have taken the liberty to prove her wrong.. and.. I have succeeded in doing so by beating her high score by 60,000! Beat that, Plin!

Grp photo.. more to come soon~

Music and Dinner

2008-02-02T21:46:00.000+08:00

Maybe my love will come back someday
Oniiiii HHHavEENN NOOOO!!!

~Zao Xia while singing Only Heaven Knows

Had my first karaoke session at cineleisure as one of those farewell sessions wif Jeff. I was supposed to pay $24 for e admission and food, but Plin saved me the trouble and i automatically became a student. Still, it was $17 to sing a bunch of songs. Not cheap man. We sang a couple of songs, took turns at it. Jeff's favourites were Jay Chou, Plin and Jeslyn were SHE and FIR, Gid was avril while mine was mainly rock songs.

I kinda got distracted by all the super local video flashing across the screen with the cheap synthesized rock music, but Plin did warn me about the adverse damage of the English music. Well, I must say that not all the English songs were like that, saved the Avril ones which Gid was really happy not to see cheesy people instead of Avril. But it looked like everyone had a great time singing and eating e snacks. I was a rather noobcake at e whole karaoke thing.. Zao Xia-ing at most parts. But who cares man? Perhaps e next time, I'll ask everyone to bring ear muffs! If there's a next time.. haha~!

Later had dinner with my maternal grandma and the uncles and aunties. It was e standard teochew 8 course meal. All the little brats are growing up, but they still have not remembered my name.. And my brother was busy getting red over the wine. Great meal to end the day~

Pl peeps dining @ 7.30pm

2008-02-01T22:57:00.000+08:00

Crush Crush Crush...

~Paramore

Well, it was supposed to be at 6.30pm, but Yongteng and Shawn had to work, and Yishan was at home. So we ended up eating at 7.45pm. Earlier last month, I went to North Delhi Eating Place, so I decided to try the other better rating place at Spice Junction.

Food was okay. Though there were many varieties, portion was smaller than North Delhi's, and spicier. I had Butter Chicken, Aloo Gobi and Garlic Naan, all of this having eaten at India. While the rest had other dishes, like Roast Chicken, or Beef Fry or Briyani Rice, we passed the dishes around so that we can have a bit of everything. I guess the funniest dish was Yongteng's. Chicken Fried Rice. Looked just like any Chinese dish. But it was plentiful, so everyone had a share.

10% for DBS card users. Toilets are clean. :)

everyone (except Yap; left early for soccer)

Ambigram

2008-02-01T16:04:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, we need to live life with a different perspective.

~Anon

Since Caveboi could come up wif his ambigram, I decided to give it a go

Photoshopped half the chunk, saving me half the effort, and with a little bit of liquifying, i got it to look pretty neat.

Gothic I might say

This is Draft 1

Updates

2008-02-01T00:17:00.001+08:00

Delirious: Um. What's the name of the word for things not being the same always...the thing that lets you know time is happening?
Dream: Change

~The Sandman: Brief Lives

Yeah, updated my rock anthem.. thought hearing the same songs from 2007 will be kinda boring.. Been loving the Foo Fighters and oldies like Creed, Alter Bridge and RHCP.

Like Neil Gaiman; hes my man of literature and visual art!

O'Brien Sandwich dinner

2008-01-30T21:51:00.000+08:00

"Instead of calling taxis for people, I've become another customer service counter!
People will go 'Where's e MRT?' "

~Caveboi

Had to go back camp to settle ORD clearance, but the truth was because i was afraid I didnt have enough off. It turned out that I was short of 1.5 days off on paper. Tried to think of a contingency plan, perhaps getting a MC for my cough and flu, but thank goodness I found out that there were some unaccounted offs. So adding PC Shawn's ORD 2 offs, I have just enough not to return camp till my.. ORD DATE!

Booked out at 1400 to meet ZH in town. We were planning to get some CNY clothes. I didnt get anything for myself, except a triple leather band. Zh got himself a metro-tee and black skinnies from FourSkin at Heerens. We ate Gelare waffles at half price despite my cold and cough.

Plin later joined us in the evening at The Central. To promote healthy living thanks to my illness, we had dinner at O'Brien. I kinda hate the sound to that name, but the food tasted better, even though it looks like a normal sandwich. We met Caveboi later at the Taxi Conceige(actually I knew he was working there), who was totally bumped out from his job. Can't blame him too, since there wasnt much customers and they were watching DVDs throughout their whole time there.

We later walked around Clarke Quay and Boat Quay area. Grabbed an ice-cream at Mediya, went to Kinokuniya, hang around ORD bridge to watch the GFK kites fly in the night, walk along Boat Quay seeing seafood restaurants squabbling over customers, took photos at Obelisk and ACM.

My take for the day? Good stuff always comes at the end.. :D

2nd Revival

2008-01-30T21:47:00.000+08:00

ok, with the advice of Caveboi, I have realised the reason why I was unable to keep up blogging was because I just say too many things.

So this time, I would keep it simple.

...

Thats it

pictures for Christmas @ e park

2007-12-23T12:35:00.000+08:00

Christmas Decor..

Preparation for the big day

Design @ work
Filled with people

And old folks (with performances)

Esther and her dad (the calligraphy master)
my christmas banner! (and a grumpy-looking Jessica)

Lightsticks @ night!

Hungry souls after a long day's work

Christmas @ the Park 22nd Dec

2007-12-23T11:17:00.000+08:00

O Come All Ye Faithful
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of Angels;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

~ O come all ye Faithful

Christmas is a time of celebration, and what better way to enjoy Christmas when we celebrate it with old folks? Our church took the liberty to come out with our first mega project, by creating a Christmas event @ the park~! Held on 22nd December, it was located at East Coast Park beside the Lagoon Food Centre.

Planning for such an event was very new to us, especially when the committee members consist of Pre-U students (including the army guys). Heading the committee was our very dedicated and very experienced Uncle Gilbert, who painstakingly went through all of our amateur proposals and decisions, listening to our problems and providing solutions around it. Being the Design and Decor IC in this event, my role was to provide the tent with every single colour and attraction I can ever think of. It was good that I was able to work on this project during my offs and leaves from the army, else I may never have done so many designs up in such a short time. And with everyone's schedules tight, it was difficult to plan when there was more than 1 people missing at a time. But we are a closely knitted group, and we kept each other informed of the changes and the updates needed

And so as the event drew closer to the eventful day on 22nd December, preparation for it grew more intense. Game boards were done up and pictures were painted on it. Banners and flyers were done and reeditted and done over many times. Games changed their formats every once in a while. Materials were bought and expenditure continue to rise. But every once in a while, we would pray for this event as well, it being Christmas; the birth of Lord Jesus Christ. One thing that was very heartening was that the whole church was in this together, and were very supportive in helping in this church. We were doing it for God. We were doing it for the old folks. We were doing it for ourselves.

The day begun with me going down to Kovan to get more ornaments for the tentage. The tent was pretty large, ranging 90 feet by 36 feet (27m by 12m). Tables and chairs were neatly arranged and there was a certain elegance to the setup, be it the table cloth used, or the stage backdrop, everything felt like it was indeed Christmas. At 12pm, more things were prepared. Music slowly crept into the tent, as Christmas songs and carol played out in the speakers, and finger food were ready to be served. My decorations were by then all set up and I was busying myself helping in the other departments. At 2pm, after a word of prayer, we set off in East Coast Park, welcoming people into our tent, providing what East Coast Park cannot offer on Christmas Day.

At the corner, ZH was mending his Carnival games, and that attracted a group of young children, many of them eager to try to put a hole in one in our mini-golf set and claiming their lollypops as their prize. At the opposite side, Jeslyn was handling her station effectively, as her face-painters labouriously paint faces of children and adults alike. And as Clinton promote the event to the rest of the public, more people started to take notice of what was installed for them. Few came in and sit with us, watching performances played by our friend Junwen(excellent Jazz piano player), and doing brainteasers prepared by Jessica. It was really becoming a Christmas Day.

And even while it started to trinkle, and then rain, and then downpour, Pastor Alvin was not troubled by the change of weather, and led us in a prayer in the midst of the chaos. And sure enough, the rain did stop, as God really did hear our prayers. And so came the arrival of the old folks and the event proper slowly unfolded. There were performances played by Junwen, following by a Canto Duet. Next was a calligraphy appreciation where Esther's Dad graciously came down and painted a beautiful picture of orchids. After dinner, there was singing by Fel, Esther and Jessica, in which the duet singers sang after them. Then, as the old folks were prepareing themselves to take their leave, we presented them with gifts, and to end off at a good note, we switched off the lights and broke our lightsticks and wave them in the air as we sang carols into the night. That scene.. will never leave my memory.

There was an A-capella group who sang after the old folks left, and it brought the Christmas @ the Park event to a closure. They sang like angels, and it was definitely an honour to have them with us. And hence, 22nd December slowly disappeared into the night as we kept the logistics and accounted our stores.

I was relieved that this event is finally over. Certainly a lot was put into this event, and this being our 1st event, the next Christmas @ the park would only get better. And yet, there was also a sense of fulfillment in my heart. How does anyone celebrate Christmas in Singapore? Well, a standard answer would be to walk around in Orchard and see Christmas lights, or to go to an expensive restaurant and eat a Christmas Dinner.

For me, celebrating Christmas with the ones you love is more important than anything else. And as I send all of the old folks off to the bus that was waiting for them at the carpark during their departure, one of elderly ladies was smiling with us. Her smile covered her faces such that her eyes cannot be seen. When we made our leaves, she waved to us all the time until the bus went away. We have made Christmas for someone who couldnt have Christmas. And now, it is time to spend my own Christmas with my own family.

Blessed Christmas and have a good holiday~!

3-1 Birthday Celebration!

2007-12-16T13:49:00.000+08:00

My 20th Birthday Celebration!

14th Decemeber
Had a platoon cohesion at East Coast Park. It was rather boring as there wasnt much of an activity planned out. A cake was prepared though and all the little december babies popped out within the platoon. I was amazed by the sheer number of us. There was Li Jie, Vincent, Nicholas, KaiSheng, Me and Jun Xiang. The cake had a layer of fruits at the top, with 80% cream thick with fats and white thick chunks of icings at the side. Stayed a little while longer before going to my 2nd celebration with the my animal friends, Cow, Dog and Gecko.

Met at 10pm at Cine-leisure to watch the Golden Compass. As i didnt have much of a meal at the BBQ pit at East Coast ( since i left earlier), I wolfed down a bag of potato chips while watching the movie. The movie was a little disappointing compared to the book, but the animation was stunning nevertheless, and I had a firmer picture of how the characters in the book will look like.

My 3 animal friends had prepared a present. Me being an animal myself, received an "animal on board" signboard for my car window, as well as " Look out for the idiot behind me" sign. I'll probably put that one up when I feel like being a jerk.. haha~ After the movie, we had supper at Jalan Besar. Consisting of 3 different curries on the rice, our midnight curry rice was way better than the one at Kovan.

2. 15th December
The actual day of my birthday. Had an unexpected bark by my mum early in the morning, only to wish me Happy Birthday after that. But I guess she had all reason to bark at me, since I was to spent my whole day in church planning for a major event on its way. And so I was in church, doing my own things, and then..

The church peeps presented me with a Birthday cake!

I guess I was too shocked to register the cake and stuff.. but I am very grateful for the cake..
Not to mention the special present I receive as well~ It's very cute, and yes, I will bring it to my hostel :D

Surprise Attack!
Perhaps one of the master-minds~

Later in the evening, my family and I went to a German Pub and Restaurant. Had a variety of German food, like sausage platters, Mussels soaked in German Beer, Pork Knuckles and a little of an Asian Speciality, such as the Pork Knuckle Bee Hoon. One of the main highlight would have to be its beer. I had a frank!#%%@ (dunno how to pronounce it). What was special about this beer was that it was imported from Germany, so finding it at the supermarket was almost impossible. Sadly, I wasnt able to enjoy my beer fully, as I had to gulped it down due to the amount of time we spent at the place. With a queasy feeling later in the night, it got much better after an hour or so. Pain For Pleasure? U bet. I have a feeling there will be a 2nd bottle of frank!@#$% sometime in the future.

3. 16th December
15th December in church was just a mini-celebration in event of what was to come on 16th December. We were supposed to try out a new location at North Bridge Road. After discussing with Plin about the type of food to eat, we have decided to test Indian food for a birthday celebration, and the place of choice was to be House of Briyani. Unexpectedly, there was a church meeting after service for a discussion based on the Christmas event next week, and lunch was brought in for all of us.

So, we settled for Hong Kong food instead. Driving down to East Coast Park, this cafe was recommended by Jeff. We had quite a meal, even though we had a box of chicken rice earlier on. ZH and I shared a plate (or 2) of French Toast soaked in maple syrup. Soft in the inside, yet crispy on the outside, it goes well with Ice-cream and a little bit of butter at the top. Other favourites include Durian Pudding, Mango drink. Then came the prize award ceremony whereby I was presented with a very very cool Graniph T-shirt (apparently, I wanted to treat myself to a Graniph tee before my birthday, only ending up not buying i like) Knowing its quite an expensive tee, my heart goes out to the peeps who contributed to this~!

Prize Presentation

To end the final bits of celebration, I met JJ(aka Gecko) at Bras Basah Centre. Although we did not meet up to celebrate for anything, rather he needed my help for some decoration advice, we did pop by Lucky Plaza in the evening to try a Famous Indonesian Dish called Ayam Penyet Ria, Smash Chicken in English. Okay, the chicken isnt minced to bits. It was rather the taste of it. It was smashing! The Gado gado was great as well, with plenty of veg in it, and it was a rare sight to finally see the Gecko picking at the Gado Gado (Though he was mainly eating the rice and the crackers) even the drinks were colourful by itself, Gecko had something like bandung, while I had a Avocado drink with caramel sauce in it.. Yummy. A word of caution though for those chilli-intolerant people out there; the food can be very spicy..~ !

And hence, mark the end of the celebration..

Oh ya.. ManU won Liverpool by 1-0 on the same night!

Enchanted True Love's Kiss (Okay dont freak out cos I really like this song... and animation)

2007-12-11T12:01:00.000+08:00

Enchanted..

2007-12-10T19:10:00.000+08:00

I've been dreaming of a true love's kiss..

~Prince Edward

After a hard days work of carrying a 7 feet Christmas tree, ornaments and furry stuff, it was a good thing to catch a movie in the evening and relax from all the preparation of the Christmas dinner. The few of us, Plin, Esther, Eil, Jessica, Jeff, Zh and I watched Enchanted at AMK Cathay. As usual, it was my routine to go to the movie counter and claim my stamp for the Cathay Movie Pass. Interestingly, the counter girl took my pass and stamped all my empty slot. While I tried to reason out why out of all of the counter people, she was the only one who was so nice as give me 5 stamps instead of the usual 1 stamp, I dismiss the thoughts. Perhaps there are nice people out there after all.. Or blur ones, but I would choose to believe the former out of the two options. Well, no complains, and I'm glad I am finally eligible for the Cathay Movie Pass, though, not in the conventional way, but hey, I get to save.

Firstly, I would like to highlight that the animation to this movie is fantastic, perhaps one of the best 2D animation Disney has yet to offer. With a nice merge of 2D and 3D(stars), Disney has once again awed me with their skills in animation. Sadly, it was only 10 mins in the show before the actors come into play.

While Zh did say that the show teaches little moral value, other than true love should not be an immediate feeling, just like in the show when the princess met the print for a minute and decided to get married the next day. While the director has failed to show any flaws between Robert and Nancy, he also made it such that Nancy has drawn closer to Robert with the help of Giselle. And being for a relationship for 5 years, rather than marrying Nancy, Robert fell in love with Giselle, a nobody to him for just 3 days. On face value, one might think

"Is Disney really teaching the right values of marriage?"

Well, on face value, this would seem as yes, Disney is teaching the WRONG values. But on serious thought, I feel that there was nothing wrong with such an ending. And without even bringing in any Christian views in this, i'll give some reasons why I believed so.

1. Even though Nancy and Robert were lovey-dovey for 5 years, if you found your husband to be with Giselle in the room, and do not trust him at that point of time, the 5 years of trust would have been meaningless. interestingly, they broke all contact until Giselle did something that re-spark their liking for one another.
2. when Robert was about to save Giselle with the kiss, he didnt go to her straightaway. He hesitated, meaning he knew that he has responsibilities of a man in his current relationship, but when Nancy knew that his true love wasn't her, she knew how to give up. She knew that if a kiss can save a life, she would let him do so. In other words, within that few seconds of understanding, Nancy and Robert did not have any malice over the ending of their relationship. They ended it peacefully.
3. While Robert did say he liked Giselle, and Giselle did liked Robert, nowhere in the movie did it say that Robert and Giselle were married after the incident. They just lived happily after. Meaning there will still be plenty of dates and social time with each other after the incident. While Prince Edward and Nancy marry quickly, there was nothing wrong with that either as none of them were involved with a 3rd party. It's okay to marry quickly, based on their understanding with one another. Perhaps there may be a sequel after this movie, whereby Edward and Nancy's relationship turned sour? haha~

Haha~ me being so serious over a children's movie. I really enjoyed it, can't stop laughing throughout the whole show. A few seats to the right and you will see a girl exploding with laughther. Over the animated character of the chipmunk. Over the "bollywood" actions of the actors. Over the songs and many more.

Yet another fulfilling time spent at the cinema :)

Birthday Celebration with Caleb and Clinton

2007-12-09T18:32:00.000+08:00

Hoo hah.. Hoohah!
Fish and Co, Fish and Co, oh! Birthday boys, forever! (gibberish) Fish And Co.. Hey hey! Happy Birthday!

~Fish and Co. Birthday Song!

Ok, even though I have been to numerous birthday celebrations at Fish and Co(including my own), this is actually the 1st time I witness the one and only Fish and Co Birthday Performance..! Haha~ we even came out with a video of it..!

Anyway, it was great fun to see the whole gang down together for lunch. We even have a rare guest to join us for lunch. Huan, being the original EPOCH youth of Hope Baptist Church (other pioneers include Felicia, Diana and Pearlyn) joined us, and it was pleasing to know that he will be going to command school in a matter of days. Wishing him all the best..!

After lunch, we went over to Topshop as I had a 20% discount to use within my birthday month, and ZH has got himself a $60 topman voucher which was going to expire in a few days. We had plenty of advices from our fashion consultant, Clinton. He is a genuine expert when it comes to clothes, and trust me, his taste is rather classy. He shared with us it is indeed the overlays and accessories that make you look better. Indeed ZH looked like a changed man after he came out of the dressing room with a $89 red shirt with thin black stripe, $116 slim jeans and $89 black cardigan which was the thing that changed his appearance altogether. I had it simple by buying a $46 gray vest, following Gideon's style. All in all, we saved about $84 due to the discount. Still, the total cost summed up to.. $346 , with ZH spending the most.

Well, this can only bring 2 effects, 1. Retail Therapy, 2. Great Depression. Zh seemed to have chosen the latter.

Birthday Boy No.1: Clinton (8th Dec) and the girls

Birthday Boy No.2: Caleb (9th Dec) and the girls

Next up for Execution..

Memoirs of a Survey Samurai

2007-12-08T04:26:00.000+08:00

blue sandbag + blue soil + green camouflage netting = bunk bed

Trust me.. Geishas would blush after what I have gone through!

Day1 10am
Survey Lao Jiao draw rifles for the exercise. Morale = Elmo, especially the Bridging Section(I'm in that section)

2.45pm
Mission 1 to Deployment Ground commerced. It was unknown why my team had to move out together with the 3 other teams as advance party. At that time, I was envying the other 2 teams in my section, who will be moving out at 9pm. I guess I can call this suay.

5.00pm
Stoning at the security point at the deployment ground. Occasionally eating dust along the side of the road as a dump truck rolls past us. Still wondering why we came so early.

7.00pm
Our boss has confirmed with us our deepest fears - digging shellscapes. Selecting a neat shelter of trees as a security point, we were relieved to find some old shellscapes abandoned by previous units. We still had to dig 2 more or so though..

9.00pm
Been digging, and digging.. and digging... The soil was quite tough, but thankfully it came out as chunks, making the ET blade really effective. Sweat mixed with sand irritated the eyes.

9.59pm
Our site was visited by Survey's Beloved. He said that our shellscapes were not up to standard. Guess its more digging for us. The Blisters on my hands are starting to form.

10.30pm
Digging done. Taking out my groundsheet, my team slept shortly with the stars shining under us. Thank God that He provided a windy night for us to rest.

Day 2 0.00am
Ants bit me

2.00am
Ants bit me again

4.00am
We shifted location as the previous place was flooding with ants

7.00am
Damn the ants. Im now fully awake.

8.00am
Finally realised the problem. It was the Milo bits in my field pack that attracted the ants to me. Took my army mosquito repellent and burn the ants away.

10.00am
It was time for revenge. I started killing the nasty buggers whenever those creeps ventured near my groundsheet.

12.00pm
I conducted an experiment. By dropping a tiny piece of biscuit, I observed that no matter what size the biscuit was, ants were able to carry it to their nest. At this point of time, my brain was either dead or I was super bored.

1.30pm
We finally had our movement orders. I'm so glad we're getting out of this hell-hole.

3.00pm
Moved out for 2nd mission at Survey's Playground. Did the driving myself. As usual, we were the advance party.

5.00pm
Arrived at the place... finishing what we were set to do in less than 1/2 hour.

5.30pm
Decided not to go back so early. Found a wicked retreat up in a gnoll near one of the banks. Nice scenery. Windy Area. Great place for cooking. And for releasing excess baggage.

7.30pm
Stayed at our security post. Until the main body came.

Day 3 0.00am
Everyone was finally here. There was little time wasted. We went to one of our banks, waiting to be brought across by the company's boat.

01.30am
Touched down at the enemy line. Spotted a triple con, with a supposed trip flare, but thank goodness we found another bypass route around it. (the other team tripped the flare, and Daniel died out of that)

03.00am
We were somewhere high up.(well obviously i knew where we are, just that its inconvenient to say it on a blog), and we felt that with such a steep slope, vehicles would not be able to travel on this route. So we found another bypass and effectively avoided yet another set of obstacles set by the enemy. Later I heard that The high aboves were irritated with our decision, which was good. I had a feeling they prepared an ambush for us.

06.00am
Finally reached our destination, at a nearby training shed. Exhausted and weary, we just tossed everything down on the floor and catch some sleep.

08.00am
Some armour reservists woke us up from our sleep. They claimed that there were using the training shed for their training. We were told to evacuate the area in search for another location. The jeeps were at the training shed, so we could set out.

09.00am
For some reason, every training shed seemed to have an armour unit occupying it.

10.00am
Finally found a suitable training shed, with a few Field Engineers leaving the area. It was just about that time when the rain started to pour.

12.00pm
We were at the state of euphoria. Never felt so shiok sleeping with no one to disturb us. Still raining with Cat1

2.00pm
zzz.. shiok.. zzz..Raining..

5.00pm
Dinner was served. As usual, we had instant noodles. Some were daring enough to take the green packets, but I prefer hot savoury food with a little ingredients. Raining..

7.00pm
Orders were given to return to the company's training shed. From that point on, we were wet.

9.00pm
Orders from all corners seem to find their way onto us. We became chauffeurs, lights crew, Security etc. Raining..

11.00pm
Alas, orders for mission 3 were given. With the place sketched out in my mind, I led 2 teams in the rain to our next area, driving our jeeps.

Day 4 12.30am
Arrived at the place. Sadly, this place didnt have a training shed, just some trees at the side to provide shelter from the rain. But, it didnt matter, since we were already wet even with our gortex jackets on.

2.00am
Cold. Irritating rain tapping different parts of my body. Cold. Good thing I have ear plugs to block off the noise made by the rain. Cold. Really feeling like a ElMO at this point of time. Cold.

4.00am
Orders from the high above were given. We were to mark out the route to the crossing site. On foot. No jeep allowed. Just on foot. The rationale? We were too fast. And it was starting to pour.

6.00am
Yeah, that's right. We marked out the whole darn place for you, and we're still early. But hey, we're done with our job scope, and you can't do anything to us.. So let us sleep!

9.00am
Hooray..! Mission Completed!

10.30am
Waited for everyone to be here on the floating bridge to take a group photo of ourselves. Hmm.. I wonder whether if we can get to keep these photos.

12.00pm
Told to mark out the route to the washing area. While in the process, we stumbled upon the other section of Survey, preparing to RTU. Emotion: Stunned.

2.00pm
FINALLY. WE ARE PACKING UP AND GETTING OUT OF HERE!!!!

3.00pm
ORD LOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A canadian bull is not an animal

2007-11-30T11:15:00.000+08:00

Common Misconceptions between the world and army...
1. Magazine

World

Army

2. Foxhole
World

Army

3. Canadian Bull
World.. moo..

Army... A Target shaped like a inverted U used for zeroing the M16.

4. Clear the Butt

World... Think anal..

Army... An order issued that the live firing area must be evacuated.
__________________________________________________

Jokes aside, this week was my 2nd year of ATP. For those who are unfamiliar with the abbreviation's ATP, i have no idea what it stands for either. What I do know for certain is that it is a shooting test a soldier must take in order to qualify being a soldier. Incentives are great; for being a marksman(scoring 22/28), you'll get a funky badge sewn on your uniform and $200 in your pocket. Score badly and you'll have another re-shoot waiting for you in a few weeks time.

For some army people out there, going to the range is just like another Time Crisis game to them. They pick their rifles like they are laser-emitting guns that are used in arcades, go in there and clinch their marksman. For most army people, going to the range is a bloody waste for 2 days, especially since its ultimate sai kan to go and pick empty cartridges, clear up the training shed, filling up sand bags etc. and the rest of the whole day slack in the training shed until its your turn and then after the shooting of 15 mins, continue to slack on till the night. For the minority of army people, going to the range is a nerve-racking experience. They would always sit at a corner, thinking of the possibilities of failing. These people are labelled as "Bobo shooters" Dont ask me how the term bobo shooter come about, perhaps from some Star Wars Movie whereby Boba Fett just cant seem to kill with his laser guns.

I fall in the last category of army people. Being a really bad shooter, I have recounts of near-reshoot experiences throughout my whole army services. Ever since BMT, i had officers threatening me to pass the computerized test of shooting(IMT) due to one particular part of IMT whereby the target was just too small for me to shoot. In February this year, during my 1st ATP, I had failed the day shoot with only 5 shots on target. Thank God I eventually passed my day shoot on 2nd attempt.

So when I was able to fire rounds accurately on the Canadian bull target, I was thinking maybe I can get a marksman after all, since my zeroing was close to perfect. HAHA.. for a bobo shooter to actually entertain such a thought was certainly quite amusing. Its like an ikan bilis comparing its swiftness in the water with a salmon.

In the end, as it is known for a range test to happen all at once, I was too slow in preparing my firing position, resulting in average shots of 10 in the day, and 5 in the night . But since 10 + 5 = 15, meaning I have passed my test!!! (speculated as the results have not been announced yet)

I am just glad that the scary ordeal of firing is finally over, it being my of my major obstacles before I can ORD in peace. Now that it is done, all that is left is my major exercise.. BRAVO ETEP O_O

The end is near, and the warrior awaits the rest that has been ensured to him..

Last few days at KimSeng Bowling Alley

2007-11-27T14:42:00.000+08:00

Please, please, please, please believe me, oh please believe me.
Oh when i say that I will see you again.
And now you have to go,
and I want you to know,
this is goodbye, this is goodbye...
Say goodbye..
Fareewell..

~ Thunder, a tribute to Wayne

Goodbye Kim Seng Star Bowl...

From Left: The Great Depression(Yong Teng), Chailai(Daniel), Super Pioneer(Me!), Bernanaman(Sgt Benard), SWO Thambi(Vasanthan)

Picking my favourite 10 pounds ball.. lolx!

Super Pioneer Scoring a TURKEY!

Oi.. Why didnt you join us, YAP?

207

2007-11-25T16:07:00.000+08:00

In South East Asia, child prostitution of girls aged 8-10 years old are bought by Westerners, who in turn helped to raise the country's GDP.

~Evil evil ways of increasing your country's GDP

It was quite disheartening to hear that my brother had 207 for his PSLE result. Although he can be a real pain when it comes to studying, he is still my brother and i feel for him. After all, to have 2 brothers with 225 and 226, you could say it was a personal disappointment on his part.

(On a sidenote, Bryo and I played a little bet after Irving proclaimed he can beat the both of us. Bryo would cut his family jewels and poked out his eyes if Irving scored over 240. I remained passive over such issues. In the end, he gave him 190 while I predicted 210. I guess I won the bet this time round)

Of all the people to have been affected, I felt my mum was hit the hardest. She was hoping that my brother will at least have the marks to have gone into St. Gabriel's, which stands at 218. With her original battle plan gone near to ruins, she had to relook at the manuscript, assessing whatever chances my brother has.

It gotten really serious when she had to activate the legendary Daron into her plan. Being naturally gifted as a A-maths students, she had used my name, together with Bryo's name to aid Irving in his appeal case into St. Gabriel through the connections with our old-time favourite A-math teacher, Mr Stanley Tan(By God's Grace, both Bryo and mua had the same A-maths teacher for Os).

I was also activated as a chauffeur. Together with my frantic mother as the vehicle commander, we travelled to almost every single secondary school near our house, including Compassvale Sec, Seng Kang Sec, Hougang Sec, Montfort Sec, North Vista Sec and Bartley Sec. As for my younger brother, killing cute cuddly toys in MapleStory seemed just as important as finding out where he will be going to for the next 4 years. But hey..! Let's not be critical at this point. As I sit down and reflect over my past experience, putting 3 schools that are ridiculously higher than my actual PSLE marks as my 1st 3 choice was a similar cause of ending up in St. Gabriel. It was an amazement that I still ended up in St. Gabriel's, it being my 4th choice. And what was I doing? Playing computer games with human like tentacles ruling the world.

Merciful God, I pray that You will do what's best for Irving. Bring him to a school that offers no evil. Even better, a school that teaches Your word and ultimately coming to know You. May You bless him with 4 years of enriching life, like how You bless me when I was in St. Gabriels.

Amen.

Oh.. Jeff my man shared with me this super cute video done by the Indians..! Enjoy~!

If these are my future employers, then im screwed!

2007-11-22T10:31:00.000+08:00

OMG