back for a day..

Oh well. I'm back! But for like only 1 day sigh. I've been trying to change a bit of my mindset though, trying to think of booking out from camp as something that i'll NEVER get instead of something that's expected. It's easier to deal with it that way.

SISPEC is...okay lah. Like the warrant officers and sergeants there..basically those in charge of us...don't like tekan us or anything, and the standard of discipline is still lower than Ninja back in BMT. So it's a bit easier. Can't stop me from feeling sian though..like i'm quite tired of this kind of life already. Well it'll end in another 9weeks..I'm in delta company by the way, for the guys who wanna know.

Yesterday was pretty ok. As in yesterday after i booked out lah, not the IPPT (aka army NAPFA) in the morning. After they dropped us off at Boon Lay MRT, my mum picked me up to meet my dad at a country club where he was playing golf..In the past, all i could do there was like play arcade, but now i'm EIGHTEEN and guess what..i played the slot machines there!!

Haha no more being chased out from casino rooms anymore...still, playing jackpot was..liddat lor. Just put in your coins and get mentally detached from it as the coins become numbers on the screen..then just press the button and watch as your cash gets eaten up. My mum told me to sit at this machine, but it turns out that it's like cursed 'cos it just kept eating my 50cent coins up! The returns were like so little too...when you got "free games" the cash earned was like so bleah. Turns out she thought i could make a profit there, 'cos apparently the guy before me had been playing there non-stop & had like lost a thousand bucks at that machine alone!

Aiyoh aiyoh..the tales of the rich and reckless..this guy must've like played 10credits (a.k.a. 5bucks) each time and didn't know when to stop. It was quite hard parting with the money i lost there, but i decided to switch to another machine, where i...er...didn't lose as much. :\ Of course i would lose lah. Like what did i expect? Sighsighsigh at least my mum won enough to cover up my losses somewhat. She's got this "arse-luck" with slot machines. And most gambling games in general. Not saying that she never loses though...just less than luckless moi. I think there's some strategy to slot machines, but i'm still a n00b at it (mahjong is SOO much easier lol).

Not that i really wanna be pro or something. To those itching to try their luck at jackpot machines..well i'd actually recommend that you don't do it..if that's not stating the obvious enough. Like maybe try it once for the fun of it, but don't expect to win, 'cos slot machines are quite anal. And the ones here have constipation or something. Halfway through playing and you're not even playing to win anymore. You're just trying to win enough to recoup enough of your losses just so you can change machine or get the heck out of the room. Oh but Las Vegas machines are very fun apparently. Only looked at it from far but my parents seemed to have fun during our previous trips there. And they pay out better too. Meaning they TAKE less of your money. But really, some of the machines there are quite unique..and they've got $100000 jackpots and stuff!

Haha ok i shall stop corrupting those 17 and 18 year olds with talk of gambling...not much time left at home 'cos i'm booking in at 10pm..it's like almost 12.30pm liao. Ahwell. Time to just sit back and chill out. Bye to all!

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Blog leave...er block leave actually.

Damn...block leave is coming to an end. I'll admit that i had my fair share of fun though. Don't think i went out enough, but at least i enjoyed my...conveniences...to the point that it became "normal" again. By next week i'd be wishing it were back i think.

Hmm..let's see what were the fun stuff i did..oh yes i played mahjong! Won $14.60 off my 04s15 classmates..feeling a bit guilty about that..=x My luck always seemed so horrible at first, but when i started to draw cards..woohoo sia. Went to french restaurant too! Where the escargots were like..almost 20bucks for half dozen. Woah..$3.20 a pop. And the rack of lamb was almost $40. Then again, food in New York was almost just as expensive anyway. So that made it feel better..somewhat.

I also watched "Underworld: Evolution"! A movie with lots of action and fighting and blood and gore..heads were coming off everywhere. Well, they're vampires i suppose. If you stabbed them through their heart (or rather, where their heart is supposed to be) they'd still live. Oh wait, but there's that "oak-stake-through-the-heart" thingee, right..Anyway the movie was, all in all, quite shallow and lacked the depth and continuity of the first one. Had less logic too. The main fun was in seeing the main characters get stronger..haha that was like pure SEX, man. Oh and there WAS sex too..but it was censored. You can't expect much from an M18 i guess. Although i won't be surprised if some 18 year olds thought it was a BIG thing or something.

I've been playing Fable too..a very fun game, though it seemed pretty kiddy at first. I would put its realism and interactivity as somewhere between Neverwinter Nights and the upcoming Oblivion (NWN being the worst and Oblivion the best)..Can't be bothered to say more, but if you like RPGs you should get it! Though it's a pretty short game too, as RPGs go. I'd estimate that you can complete it within 60hours with the occasional help of a walkthrough for first timers..40hours if you already know what you're doing. And maybe even under 15hours if you rush and don't try any side quests.

That still doesn't compare to Baldur's Gate II and Elder Scrolls III (inclusive of side quests) which could both go over 200hours if you try to do everything. Then again, that's for secondary school kids with whole months off during school vacations..not for block leave people with just a few days. Argh i just got my posting today too..SISPEC infantry DOTZ. Quite far from that 9 to 5, huh..ahwell i shall see what happens.

The countdown has started. I fear the depression will start setting in again.
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(not that SAF would care either way..>.<)

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it's guard duty day! yay.

Ok, so i was actually home since tuesday, but i've only starting writing now because...well because i was lazy. :x How about that. I've got a bit of catching up to do, but i've decided to make this as short an entry as possible. Because...well because i'm still lazy lah lol.

Anyway...where did i stop..ah yes on my A level results day. Well the day after booking in was Games Day..not that i've got anything to say about that but that I HAVE TWO DAYS OFF!! Haha 'cos i was a participant! Ran some race with Chris (my section-mate and from VJ also) where we tied our ankles together..and we were among the fastest! Ninja got third in the end, both in that race and the overall standings..although we could've gotten first if not for some super suay stuff..

The day after that was our 24km march! And was it a bloody hot day..Ninja was the leading company so we kinda set the pace. Apparently we marched too fast for the other companies..at least the slacker ones, 'cos after awhile we couldn't see the company behind us (whiskey) anymore...they were literally nowhere in sight. We were marching slower than usual though, so it felt pretty easy because we had an even lighter load than usual, thanks to the absence of the 1.5litre bottle that Ninja Company insists we should march with.

Oh but then it got worst from there, 'cos our OC decided to er..flex his muscles to the other companies..so we kinda marched faster and faster till quite a few people fell out. I was one of the..casualties. At the 12km mark i started to get foot cramps (the inner side of my foot hurt really bad...i think it's my bunion problem) and worse still, an abrasion at the spot where..erm the sun really doesn't shine at all. And as i walked it was burning up and i thought that for a moment i felt blood flowing down my pants..0.o Kinda been having that abrasion for awhile (my mum said that a prominent tail-bone could cause it) but it was only then that it got really serious. So in the end, i didn't finish the march. Heard from some people that it was after that point when our company decided to march at fast-march pace which gave even our own PC abrasions. In the end we also got a bit lost and led the school to an additional 3-4km more of marching than they were supposed to do (plus we walked the rocky path..not like school 1 who like marched around the damned SCHOOL). I suppose other companies have the right to be pissed at us..

So i haven't marched more than like 13km before. Which kinda sucks 'cos everyone else's done 24. But really..with my foot problems i should actually be excused from long distance marches. SISPEC has a 32km route march too..i wonder how i'd be able to stand it if i really do get posted there.

Saturday and sunday was off-day, although on thu, fri and sat we had bloody rehearsals for our Passing Our Parade (POP) under the hot sun..monday was another set of rehearsals too as well as re-IPPT (like napfa) for those who missed out the last time. Once again had As for the 4 stations but 2.4km has always been a problem. I ran 10:48 in the end..which's actually my best time ever. 1 minute less and i could've had 1 more day off.

Then came our POP day...where i spent the whole bloody morning queuing up for some dumbass compulsory medical checkup that took just 1minute to complete in the end. Really..the effectiveness of the SAF sometimes..they could've asked the different companies to come at different times right..sigh i dunno what to say about them anymore.

POP itself was pretty uneventful..like we rehearsed so many times liao that it didn't seem special anymore. And it's been very cool since i came back home..just lazing around all day. Went out yesterday as well to meet up with friends. Fixed my WD hard-disk too (got it replaced, rather) so now if i fix it into my comp i'll have 550gb of internal hard-disk space! LOL..it's overkill right. I haven't actually done it yet 'cos i don't really need the space..installing it now would just waste electricity. I might just sell it though. So who wants to buy? A spanking new (or at least i think it is) Western Digital SATA II 250gb 7200rpm hard-drive with 16mb cache...very zai and for only S$170! So compared to the current prices you save S$20! Don't think anyone will actually buy though. Ahwell.

Went out to eat with jaclyn, chinhow, tzeyang and zhipeng as well..apparently jingze could go also but he told me he had to leave at 7pm so i thought he couldn't make it..although he probably could. Whoops..sorry! :x At kushin-bo again haha..made sure i ate enough sashimi to make it worth the cash!! Went back quite late already so just hung around online awhile before sleeping.

Oh yah, it's quite weird right now 'cos we've got someone staying with us for the next few weeks..my sister's boyfriend's sister, Liyu! Haha her parents went overseas so my mum was kind enough to offer her lodging in my sister's room. Quite odd to have a non-relative in the house for such a long period though..the last time anyone stayed over was probably like more than a year. It really doesn't bother me anyway...like i HAVE a sister lah..so quite used to it. A lot of the time she isn't in the house anyway..she's been doing some community service thingee after her A levels that requires her to raise $40,000 in 3months for the elderly. Quite noble i must say..it's been like a 11am-9.30pm job with no pay for her. Probably can't be bothered enough to put in so much effort myself.

Well..I'll be booking back in in 5hours time! So i'll need time to pack, etc..not sure if i can make it to the phoenix function...i mean i had to be informed of it by YONGSHENG from URSA of all people, so i'm not sure if i'm especially NEEDED to be there...-.- After guard duty i'll be going straight to NUS open house..maybe after that i'll know what course i wanna go to..whether overseas or in singapore..

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A levels out..

Ok..i got my results back. A for physics, chem and math, B for Bio, and A2 for GP. (And of course a C6 for mother-tongue..whoops) So i'm a triple A student. Not bad lah..considering my prelims was like BCCD..with a D for chem -.- But i spent the most time on BIO!! Aiyoh like i spent 2weeks studying bio and the rest i spent 2 days each. And yet i couldn't clinch the A. Sigh..and i got an A2 for GP!!! Some people may think this rocks, but A2 was really quite common today..and Goat of all people can get the A1! Man..how did he do it sia..like my army commanders say, i can really go and suck-thumb liao. I was thinking that the GP A1 was more likely than my math A1..and i wrote on my favourite topic as well..Oil and fuel resources. Then again i guess i've gotta be happy with what i have.

So odd isn't it...the end to 2 years of hard studying, the end to 4 years of O/A level studying. Depending on my course selection, it could be goodbye to bio, goodbye to math, goodbye to anything at all. Goodbye to "general sciences", definitely; in university i'll probably specialise in SOMETHING. Yet despite all this, i don't feel anything at all. Like no elation, no joy, no uplifting feeling (but maybe tt's 'cos i'm booking in in 2hours..). Just a slight relief that i don't have to be forced to take my back-up course, mass communications. Most of my mind is on finishing my BMT (basic military training) and finding some way out of this soddy life, and the other part is just, well, dead. Brain-dead. You could say that i'm practically a member of the living dead as well; when i go back to the mainland every weekend, i don't have a life at all (ok..tt's a bit corny..).

Anyway, on monday and tuesday i had my Range (a.k.a. Rifle-shooting test). So i'm pretty tired 'cos during range you tend to get less than 4hours of sleep. Shot 24 out of 32 (75%..A1! lol)..but i missed all of my night-time standing shoulder shots! Just so tiring to stand and hold the rifle and aim..but if i managed to hit all my standing-shoulder shots in the morning..Man! If i had hit those 4 shots i would've got a marksman award. 1 more shot and the OC would award me with a day off. Ahwell. I better stop dreaming.

We had to do a lot of waiting though. Like, while waiting for people to shoot, we could only sit down and maybe do some reading. And we couldn't sleep! So sian...i really wanna complain that sometimes SAF (or maybe it's my company only) can be so darn inefficient. There's always a lack of communication between sergeants, so sometimes we have to fall in downstairs, then someone sends us back up again. Or perhaps we have a briefing at 5.30pm. So they make us fall in at 5.15. Then we wait, and wait and wait..only thing to do is talk crap with fellow platoon-mates. Take last thursday for example. We were supposed to have some lecture before dinner, so our sergeants got us to fall in and march over to some place. But when we got there, there was no one around! We then had to march back and eat our dinner. It was only AFTER that that we got to have our lecture. 45 minutes wasted. Now, why is it that our sergeants couldn't give those "Safety Lecture" people a call to see if we could go over now?? Why wait until we were all there before checking?

Rifle drawing and sending of arms also wastes a lot of time, 'cos they'd ask the whole company to fall in, then we'd have to wait for the arms-skote people (recruits in charge of the rifles) to get ready AND for other platoons to draw and send arms first. We'd have to wait while the platoon commanders get ready to give us our RO. And when they give the RO (something like a briefing of what's happening the next day) they'd talk all sorts of rubbish before finally giving us the actual RO and sending us back to our bunks. So that's another hour wasted. I'm not even going to mention the tekan sessions, where they create trouble for us and give us reasons to do push-ups, etc.All recruits are supposed to have 1 hour of admin time every day to do whatever they want. But for us, we sometimes get only 30 minutes. And we have to spend that time to bathe, brush teeth and prepare for a whole list of things for the next day (like packing bags and preparing equipment). It gets to a point where it even eats into our sleep time. So we end up with -1 hour of admin time and less than 6hours of sleep (all recruits are supposed to have 7hours every day at least).

That's "welfare" for you. Sure, our commanders always say that their previous batch were even worse off but what the heck. The fact that we're among the worst (or maybe THE worst) off in the whole of BMT school 1/2 is what concerns me. It really makes me wonder why other companies are so slack yet manage to finish all the stuff on time, while Ninja is so shiong, yet we're all rushing to complete our range, SOC, etc in the last minute. Oh wait, our commanders say that it's because we're always moving slowly and we're slow to fall in. Hmm..but don't i see recruits from other companies walking to fall in EVERY TIME? Like there was one time this sergeant went "fall in now" and this guy walked over slowly, chit-chatted, did some pull-ups leisurely THEN fell in without getting punished..oh wait hmm i think i recall us getting punished for 30-over minutes for being a minute late before. Now why can't they just scream at us and call us "cb" and "f*ckers" like other companies...

All this useless waiting has made me more stupid, i think. Like there was one time where i was drawing figures in the sand with a twig while waiting for my turn to throw a grenade, and it suddenly occured to me that my mental and intellectual capacity and efficiency was really wasting away in the army. While reading my basic theory for driving on monday, i found out that i just couldn't concentrate on the book, and that i couldn't mug or memorise or absorb as much information as quickly as i used to. My 3As and 1B for A levels is a lie. If i took the exam now, i might just get 4Ds or something.

Ok anyway i've got to end this er..rant now. Booking in in one and a half hours. And i still need to pack, change and eat dinner. Darn. This really sucks..no time to play dota with friends or go kbox with them. All i did in school was take results. Well not really. At least i got look at the scholl one last time, and got to chat with some of my juniors again, like dorinda (LOL as funny as ever)...although i didn't get to see the new SC elects training mass dance haha. Well good luck with your studies, relationship and all that lol. Ok then...i'm ending off now so GOODBYE! Hope all your A level results were more than satisfactory, and hope to see all of you once this hell is over...

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