My week update

Been unable to blog recently and it doesn't help that when I want to blog, I will get a lot of msn pop-ups. Given the state of my computer, I can't blog at all.

Anyway, it's been a pretty busy week. Monday was our first rehearsal for TSPC at Suntec. Had dinner with the group, then went shopping with Darius, Zhi Xian and Chee Hui. I dragged them all to G2000 and we all came out with a shopping bag each. Heh. Then, I joined Kandy, Gerald, Nigel and Yi Quan for a drink but I didn't drink cuz I was feeling broke.

Tuesday was tuition, then I met up with Daniel and Ziyang to catch Pirates. We spent some time shopping and then Dan brought us to Killiney Road for some desert.
Me and ZY
Me and Dan
The Gingko Barley Desert @ Kiliney Road Kopitiam
Dan saw this t-shirt and I decided to do some cam-whoring=p

There was an outing for Washington on Thursday. I joined them for dinner after my tuition as some of them went for Kbox. I made reservation at Settlers' Cafe for us as it was Ladies' Nite and we had a whale of a time there. It was not easy to find games for 9 of us but we did split up halfway and then regrouped again. In all, it was a fun time for everyone. We also celebrated Kandy's belated birthday for her and we must all thank Eng Tat for his effort in organising the presents and cake for his "best bud" ...Heh. Post the photos if I can get them.

Met up with my ex-recruit, Wei Qiang for lunch on Friday as he was to go sailing for 6 weeks with the midshipmen. Had a good chat with him as it's been a long time. Then, I accompanied him to get his sleeping bag for mountain climbing in Indonesia. For dinner, I went back to Simei where I met up with Yvonne for dinner since she was teaching somewhere near my house. I brought her to try this Turkish restaurant which was a first time for me too.

Saturday was spent at the British Council event at Pan Pac. Saw some familiar faces who will be going to the UK for university. There will be a UCL Freshman Orientation here, so most probably I will go for it to get to know my fellow uni mates before I fly over. Seems like I will go back to old times whereby the people you see are more or less from the same social circle.

Had a gathering with my Sec 4 classmates at Marina South steamboat. The turnout was not too bad and it was sort of like a farewell for Weiping, who is heading to Winsconsin in USA, and myself. There were people whom I have not seen in ages and there were some whom I'm glad to see again after not meeting up for a while. I must say it is commendable that we are still able to keep in touch with one anothern for so long, no doubt helped by the close friendship some of them have that carried with them throught their JC days in AJ.

A little thought after seeing an ex sec classmate before I went to meet the group of them for dinner. There may always be a few classmates who didn't fit in to the main group. For the odd few, they may be some who were discriminated against. I have to admit I was part of those who discriminated against others. There is still one whom I do not regret (Re: THE ONE from my JC class) and there were some whom I hope no big damage was done during their precocious teenage years. However, I still feel that some of them were really asking for it. As much as I wished I didn't have to do it, they just had the kind of character which, at that point in time, made people dislike them. Oh well, it's a cruel social game and I just hope that whenever I join a new group, I won't be at the receiving end.

Photos from MOE

A few photos from the few days of pre-departure course that I got from Zhi Xian
A favourite pasttime at all our seminars: Tea Break! It's something we look forward to every time and I must say the MOE's food is much better than PSC's
All of us at RGS learning the fine art of cooking
Here I am, taking rice for my group members in preparation for our lunch
Me, Su San and Ivan with our completed products. And that was our lunch for the day! We had steam fish(actually, microwave-d fish), vegetables and omelette, with gingseng chicken soup cooked by the teachers. And we finished all the food.

Packed schedules, so tiring ...

Met up with DJ yesterday and watched Superman Returns with him and his friend, Nicholas. He recently shifted over to Bedok and he'll be going to Umich like Daniel. Anyway, we met up at the Civil Service College where I had my MOE induction course and he had to take some tests there. The movie itself was not bad and there are no more extra scenes at the end of the credits, something we learnt the hard way all thanks to DJ. Walked around Taka with him before that to take a look at some things that I may want to buy ...

Feeling rather shagged out after being out intensively for 2 days. Reached home late after my movie last night and had one full day of course today. We had the Central Narcotics Bureau and Police Force personnel down to speak to us. Then, there was this speaker who taught us how to adapt to life overseas and finally, we had our seniors coming back to talk to us. Finally saw my senior buddy when the UCL people gathered round to talk. I've learnt so much from the talk and hopefully, I can get as much advice and answers before I leave. The other UCK people seems to want to leave on the 18th, so I may follow them along too. Or else, I'll probably get myself lost in London.

Well, tomorrow there's still cooking lesson at RGS. Going to have a nice sleep and spend the weekend recuperating ...

Day 4, The Last Day

Finally, the last day of OBS! We had the trebuchet challenge that morning. My watch went down early to finish up our structure and rather impressively, we managed to come up with a pretty good trebuchet by the deadline. We ended up in fourth position I think, but it was not bad considering how much we had achieved the night before.

Then, we started to clear our stuff and got ready for our last activity, the commitment challenge. After that, it was time to go home!
Washington with our trebuchet
As we were about to launch our egg ...
The code of arm that was designed
Us acting cute with the 'number' pose. I was assigned to be number 1.
The future teachers of Singapore
Me being the belayer. Too bad Zhi Xian did not take a picture of me when I did the activity.
Me and Astee
Yeay!!!On the ferry home with Kelvin, Guo Jun, Eng Tat, Zhi Xian and Astee

3rd Day- Land Expedition

3rd day started off with the quarry swim. To be honest, I was initially against it cuz we had a land expedition and I didn't want to change into my wet clothes again. But since everyone else did not mind doing it, I didn't want to be the spoilsport. But after jumping into the water, all doubts vanished! The feeling was damn shiok!
Our instructor, Dean had diarrhoea anyway, so we could not proceed with the expedition and had to wait for our replacement expedition leader, Nathalie to take over. I was the i/c for the day too, so there was some stress for me. We started off late and we reached back quite late. There was the tunnel and it was quite an experience finding my way out of the maze in the dark with all the insecurities and fear gripping at you. But I was lucky cuz I did not end up at any deadend. We ended up being the only people who didn't bathe cuz we had no time to and had to prepare for the trebuchet challenge which by the end of the night, we had no structure to speak of yet ...
Early morning breakfast-Digestives!!!
The 3 CT councillors wearing our Laos T-shirt
Swimming in the quarry ...shiok ar!
The first checkpoint we reached. Behind us is a quarry and the view was simply breath-taking. What's more, the echo of what we shout could be heard distinctly.
Getting ready to move off
Taking a break before one last cheong
We did it!!! We bashed our way up Tinggi and we were the only team to do so!
All the wet feet at the end of the expedition

Day 2- Kayaking

Second day was basically kayaking. We started off with some practice and the ever necessary capsize drill. My first partner, shuhui and I both thought we were not get wet after not falling the first time, only to have to capsize ourselves later on. After lunch, we had an expedition as a big group and my second partner and I lagged behind quite a bit until we reached the mangrove swamp and everyone sort of bunched up together. There was a portage, whereby we had to come out to land to carry our stuff to cross a bridge but everything went rather smoothly I suppose, besides the crashing into the plants from time to time
Just before getting wet, with our instructor Dean
Taking our lunch break
Setting off for our sea expedition
Me and my second kayaking partner, Astee
My watch
A impromptu picture taken at night where we built our shelters

Day 1

The first day was pretty dull. We did not do much and it did help that the rain came lashing down just as we were about to start our climb. The rest of the time was spent packing for thenext 2 days. The watch tried to bond amidst many awakward social silence.
First sight of OBS
A fun pose as we put on our harness
The guys of Washingotn in our dorm
Washington

OBS is over, Washington rocks!

Hey, I'm back from OBS! Had a great 1st OBS experience and my watch, Washington was great too.

There were new things that I did, like the kayaking. I'm not very good at it, especially when my partner and I lagged far behind initially but I learnt quite a few things and it was an experience to crash into the mangrove plants.

I also did some familiar things, like the land expedition, which was very much walking long distances. My watch even bashed our way up a hilltop for a bonus checkpoint. So army~

There were some climbing and we had an opportunity to swim in the quarry. It's nice to have an instructor who does not follow the conventional methods and allow us a lot of freedom and independence.

Well, the pics will come in the postings after. There's still 3 more days of courses but the most hectic period is finally over! So glad!

OBS- 15th to 18th July

Yesterday marked the first day of a series of programmes for me all the way until the 22nd. It started off boring but oh well, what can one expect from this?

Went Dynasty at Peace Centre for KTV with the CT ppl. I was late as usual so I asked them to go ahead without me first since they all knew how to go there. For those who don't know about it, it's a supposedly sleazy KTV on the 2nd floor which for some mystifying reasons, is open only on weekends. It's cheap in the afternoon cuz the "sleaziness" comes out at night for the real business I suppose. But the place is seriously quite ok. Marcus and Yiwen were there in addition to the usual group of us.

Then, we had dinner at this steaboat restaurant opposite shaw towers which weilin recommended cuz it's cheap and not bad. And there was a "surprise" advance birthday celebration for the weilin, yvonne and ZH since we won't be around to celebrate. Too bad Darius couldn't join us for the dinner. Bought the cake when I went down to J8 with ZH to collect his laptop. Prob the last time we can all meet up like this since weilin is flying off soon. The next time will be a year later.

Today's a rest day, which is quite stupid cuz it's right at the beginning. Would have preferred Thursday or Friday. Anyway, the reason is cuz the TSO ppl can't go for the visits and not that any of us want to go anyway. But I really wanted to go CNB since it was my old camp and prob see if can bump into anyone I knew. But oh well, waking up late makes up for it anyway.

Well, in case I got no time to blog, this is to inform all that I will be going for OBS this Saturday till Tuesday. And Weilin, sorry can't send you off, so bon voyage! Hope you enjoy your Korea exchange and make sure you come back with a Korean boyfriend=p~

No longer a bookie

Nothing much happening between the last posting and today except for work and moe. Finished my last day of work yesterday. Decided not to work for the next 2 days so as to allow my body clock to readjust back to the normal day and night routine cuz I'll be having seminars and courses from next week onwards. I may be extending my work period there until I leave as they still need people but I'm not sure if they still want me. Well, it will be good cuz that means some pocket money at the expense of some weekend nights.

Finally UCL got back to me. Have to send them copies of my cert, so I went down to VJ yesterday before work to vertify my photocopies and visited albert since he's teaching there and to get a prop for my group's costume thing. Impressive that he has a nice office and a desk all to himself.

Just met up with some of my BMTC colleagues over lunch just now as I had volunteered to get solid fuels for my fellow scholars in view of the upcoming OBS. It was freaking heavy but I had to thank Jun Huang for the trouble. Was supposed to meet them at Tanah Merah but I was late so I met them at TM for lunch instead. JH, Weixin, Pang, Yong Qiang, Yow Cheng and Terence were there. Been quite a while since I last sat down and talked and traded jokes with them over a meal. Those were the days ...

A side note: I can't help but notice the spanking new field packs the recruits were carrying since last week. Still remember the times my own trainees were carrying field packs that were old and sticky. Yes, the insides were sticky. Well, glad to see the effects of what I started come to fruition with the continuation by my understudies. At least they now have decent equipment to work with.

Hopefully I can start packing my stuff for OBS today. Tomorrow will be a meetup with the CT councillors before Weilin flies off to Korea for her exchange as our next meetup will prob be in a years' time? Then it will be busy, busy, busy until the 22nd ...

And to my DSTA scholar friends, looks like you all had fun. Well, congrats on the completion of your programmes and now it's time to prepare for our trips!

Break!!! Hooray!!!

Hooray!!!A break from work for the next 2 days. It's now one of those treasured moments when I take my time to do my things as I don't have to hurry for work or anything.

Watched the Germany-Argentina match last night at work. Well, FYI, I've watched more than half of the matches for WC at work as it is part of our work. Yes, some people will marvel =p. Anyway, I was so glad that it went all the way to penalty kicks as I was telling my colleagues as the longer the match dragged, the better it is for us. Why? Because the betters will be so caught up in the excitement of the match that they will not bother to call us. And I finally caught my first live penalty shootout as I missed the previous one.

Managed to meet up with Xiu Ying and Weilin before we all leave for our exchanges and overseas studies. Weilin will be going Korea for her one sem exchange (and I think she might just come back with a Korean boyfriend, given her love for all things korean). Our lawyer, Xiu Ying will be going Canada for a one-year exchange to sharpen her skills. Anyway, we went to Cartel at Raffles City where we tried to make sure that the 10% service charge they levied is worth it.


Bumped into Wei Jing and Raymond over the last 2 days. Haven't seen Weijing in years and she still looked the same. Raymond was in his uniform when I met him near paradiz centre and the first thing he did when he saw me was to call me "sir!" and brought his hand to a salute position -_- Luckily no one from Spore Pools was nearby to witness this, especially the seniors or else I would have to withstand more ribbing from them. He was proud to show me his 3SG rank that he just got and had yet to sew on. And come to think, it's been a year since they enlisted ...

Well, last week of World Cup next week and soon, all the MOE stuff plus OBS is coming. Hope to have fun ...