Last night on my OWN bed. Yeap. In the nxt few weeks, it'll be my bunk bed. The jungle floor. Some mountain in taiwan. Anywhere but my own bed. Leaving my comfort zone. This sucks. Tell me. Who in the world would gladly give up sleeping on their very own bed? If you do, come smack me on the head. But if it is to do what i do day in, day out, come over, i'd freshen your breath.

Block leave....damn nice. WAsnt as nice as my off-in-liew. But okay. Ya. No fireworks on my leave. That makes it less nicer? Going back to the army tommorow night. A 6 klick run in the nxt morning. 8 klick fast march up some hill the day after. Sian. Me talking about it is boring already. Imagine those people who have to read or listen to what im talking about. Bwaaaaaaaargh.

Anyways, i've already set my financial plans for the nxt two years. Planning as in what to spend my money on. Budgeting. Like a lapton which i'd need for my undergrad studies. Plus a motorbike for me to get around easier. Not to mention the money i have to save up to pay for my studies. Y? I dont tink dad saved enuff money for me. Coz the moment he found out that bro was going to study at ITE, he kinda spent a lot. Hmm...comfort spending? Who knows. All i noe that dad has been saving for our uni education. Im going to uni now. Bro isnt. Maybe dad could spend bro's money on my education instaed? Maybe...

Pool is fucked up these days. My pool is getting from bad to worse. Not that im not good at it....ya. I suck at pool. But i simply lost the mood to play. How not to? Every time go out with my buddies, we'd always end up playing pool. Jurong Point shld really come up with something nice to do other than stupid pool and the arcade. Or maybe i shld start going somewhere else during nights out? Maybe....

Today was really lazily spent. Apart from the walk in the heavy rain...everything was pretty lazily done. From waking up. Reading of my comics.(political btw) hmm...suddenly i have a reason to go down to army market more often now. Now im being cheeky...=) Domestic. Yeah ballz.

Back to army in 24 hours......bleahx


BAND OF BROTHERS......YEAH EVEN THE FUCKED UP ONE.

Anybody want to run the standard chartered half marathon? Ya. Half marathon this year. Full marathon the next. Triathlon soon afteR? Maybe...

Its over. It's finally over. Golf Company Platoon 3 40th BSLC has finally come to an end after 10 weeks of hardwork, fun, laughter, suffering and what nots. By far, they were the best bunk mates ever. The best section mates i've ever worked with. Everyone was ready to compromise. Willing to go thru shit. People like those dont come to often. It felt so right to be in Golf company, platoon 3, section 3 since the very first day. Felt sooooooo right. Now, Ecco...urm. A bit akward. Maybe i'll get used to it....somehow. I have to if not, it means troubled times ahead. A few days of adjustment should do the job. Seems like im with the best now. Got to act like one.

On the lighter side of things, today's 10k Sheare's Bridge run was rather refreshing. Didnt feel like a 10 klick run at all. Maybe it was because i spent most of the time weaving in and out of human traffic rather than running. All thanks to walkers from all walks of life. A little bit enjoyable, especially the last part........and a little bit pissed off....because of the walkers during the first 5 klick. Imagine this, i spent 30 mins just to run 5 klick. WTf? It was alright la. Went to eat at BK after that. Bloody packed with soldiers. Yet, they were all understaffed all because it was a sunday morning. *knocks head on wall* A hungry man is an angry man. And a soldier is a man who shoots a rifle. So go figure out what ever there is to be figured out. AFter a game of pool(again....) we all went our own ways. I went to the library to get some comics. Surprise surprise...there were police officers doing security checks on the library users. rofl. All thanks to an Isreali something something. Troublesome bunch of people they really are. Sometimes i think that everyone would be better off and much more happier with them around.

A bit of horlanding after tat. Walked all the way from Bugis to Chinatown to Tiong Bahru before taking the train from there. Bloody tired. Wonder why. Still tired.

Anyways, as a corporal now, i shoulder a bit more shit. Ya. 11 more weeks and i'll be collecting shit. Ya balls. COrporal of the SINGAPORE ARMED FORCES! 10 weeks of shit and fuck to get my chevrons. Not to mention the 28km route march the night before and parade straight soon after. The things that we hallucinate are really really weird. Like how my friend jumped to one side in order to avoid an orange chair in the middle of the road in NTU. Ya. It got that bad. Dont think i've recovered.

Life goes on. EVeryone else is going somewhere better. Supposedly. Well, lets hope it can only get better for me.

This will probably be the last time that i'd be writing in as a Private. As of this Friday, i'd be promoted to the rank of a Corporal! Hoo'ah!

Ya. Guess im getting a bit boring. Nothing but only army stuff comes out from my mouth. Kind of a turnoff but i cant help it....shit. I've got nothing on my mind right now. Emptiness. Anyways, this life sucks. Hope that i'd wake up to 2 years ago at this very time.

Well. This is it. In a few hours time, i'll be back to being a soldier. A military life till the next time i get to be in civilians. The weeklong break was well needed. Changed my life even. Or some aspects of it at least. NDP was a blast. Shopping was nice and refreshing. Soccer and fireworks was energizing. Saturday was...urm...depressing. Yeah. Sort of. And today's....worse? Cant help feeling this emptiness within me. Weird. Hope the week's busy training that lies ahead can help me take my mind of things.

Hope. Such a vague word which can only spell dissapointment.

Anyways, this morning, while playing soccer with some other people, this question was thrown into my face again.
"Are you malay?"
How many times have i been asked this very question. Hell, people have spoken to me in chinese before and to their horror, realized that i wasnt chinese after all. ROFL.
Ya. For convinience sake, i'd say yes to that question every single time. Why not? My IC says that im one. Quite painstaking to explain to them all the time anyway. Besides, my gramps died when i was young and my grandma had a serious illness which prevented her from speaking. Yah. That was my dad's side. On my mom's side....well...i have no idea of who's who. All i know is that im part of everything from the Bugis to Javanese to Indian. The chinese part is to insignificant to make a big hoohaa about it.

Family. Ya. DOnt really know much about my family tree. Sucks. DOnt even spend time with my own family much. When it was young, it was because my parents were working really really hard. So i had not much time to spend with them. Then as i grew older, i got busier. At first it was silat. Then it was rugby. Then it was both. Then both got to a higher level which meant more time spent there. So ya. Go figure. Time not spent with my family. Even if i do find the time these days, it would feel kind of akward to spend time with them now. Guess the damage is already done. And i could still remember the time my dad would take the whole family out for corporate functions and stuff. It was nice. It was also a long time ago.

Now, family would be people who pick up their arms and and fight alongside me. People who i dont feel akward spending some time with. Yeah...guess so.

Back to camp in 2 hours time. Fairy tales do come to an end. Crap..

Its been a nice break. NDP, shopping, soccer and chilling out. Making new friends too. Well. This is definately better than the army life. Well, maybe it seems better only because we've been deprived of it for the past few months. Ya. Could be a government conspiracy to make us male singaporeans appreciate singpore a little more. Maybe. Possibly. Quite likely. Who cares. All i know is that i get a break from the army regime of which i really really hate even though i love the idea of being a soldier.

The day started off with me reading a letter from Community Chest. Turns out that they've already started deducting $5 every month from my bank account since july. Cool. That's the least i can do for now to help the needy. Maybe when i earn more, i can contribute more or something. Make a real difference to other's life. Or i could stick to THAT original plan which i had drawn out in sec 4. We'll see how my life will eventually turn out to be.

After that was soccer at LAvender. Nice session. Didnt go for the sake of playing soccer(hell, i suck at it!) but for the company that i had for the day. Its nice doing something different with the same guys sometimes. Not very...urm...regimental? Ya. Not very regimental at all. No time limit, no time given. Own time, own target. Just the way we like it....

Then it was lunch at bugis. Went home. Changed up to go watch the fireworks. Had a sudden change of plan. Bumped into my buddies. Hung out with them. Fireworks was damn cool. The uncool part was the crowd. Yeah. Crowd. Just when i taught i was among the really few who would appreciate this kind of thing, a few(thousand) others turned out to be the appreciative kind too. How wonderful. Anyways, that singaporeans. They can turn out in huge numbers for something quite trivial or even unimportant to them. But why do they still attend it anyway? Well, coz everyone else is doing it too. And they do not want to lose out at all. Oh maybe they just thought it was nice. Yeah. That's a more likely story.

Soon, it'll be back to the army. The ARMY. SAF. Silly Armed Forces. REally sickens me when i keep thinking about the fact that its already the weekend. Come sunday evening, im back in my military attire. Full gear. Ready to assault the enemy once more.....

Anyways, attending the NDP made me realize that training to become a soldier wasnt really a waste of time at all. Because of people like me, Singapore got to waste a few million dollars worth of taxpayers money on funpacks and stupid artistic dancingy thingy. Screw the funpacks! more fireworks!

Dear readers(wonder if i really have any). Sorry to have not updated for the past few weeks. Or issit days? Yeah. Been kinda bz quite lately. So bz that i after booking out, all i want to do is to rest and relax. Blogging requires a bit of thinking and a lot of typing. Hence, that is not very relaxing. Blogging isnt even recreational at all. Its, urm...something something. Got no words to describe it so "something something" sounds fine for now.

Army life is kinda tough. To make things worse, all my instructors say that if i screw it up here, i might be sent back to BMTC after my section leaders course. After all, its been stereotyped that ppl who are militarily unsound will get sent there since they cannot really perform well in their units. Hence, they will be sent to train recruits. Turning young squimish boys into trained soldiers.....well sort of. 3 mths into the army since april, i really didnt quite catch anything that was taught. Really basic stuff there. It sucks. Big time!

Yeap. I think i've been exerting a lot of effort throught out the entire basic section leader course. Test results have been positive so far. Yeah...postive. I got 75.5/100 for my navigation test exercise. That's merely a pass. Yeap. You need to get at least above 70 to pass. Oh maybe that's my company's standard. Who noeS? Best part is to have score 100/100 for my SAR 21 test! Booyah! Sign for me to fight in an urban warfare unit? Maybe. That way, my navigational skills would somewhat wouldnt be tested to its limits. Yeah.

Okay, to the exciting army stories. Yeap. You all can go ahead and log off if u've heard it all b4 orrrrrrrrrrrrrrr you just dont want to hear abt it att all =). First up, urm....Exercise Catwalk. Yeah. Kinda boring. Walk here, walk there. Look for enemies. Kill them. Sort them out later. Comeback home alive(this applies to everybody in the 7 men section). Didnt do the night exercise since i was on guard duty. GOD! I hate guard duty. Back in BMT, i was all to eager to volunteer for one since it was my first time. Well, that's because of all the ghost stories you've heard about tekong and stuff. But now.....it sucks la. Everything is strict. Very regimental. And they wonder why ppl hate the army so much. Stupid bunch of higher-up-ers.

The exercise in tekong was somewhat an eye-opener. The navigation exercise was all find and dandy since i found all the day checkpoints. It only started when we wanted to head back to the day end-point. We werent allowed to walk on tracks sooooooooooooooo, we bashed thru the vegetaion. Thinking i was walking on a path, i just walked on happily. Then, i saw something weird. U still remember Noddy? Yeah. I saw his car....life size model. It was rusting away. There was 2. Behind me was 3 giant tombstones. REally really huge! It could either be that the dead person is a royal of some sort or that dude was really really fat. Or he could be both. God noes. All i wanted to do then was to go back home. So we walked thru swamps, streams, man-high lalangs before hitting a grenade range. Lucky for us, the throwing already ended sooooooo, we walked around it b4 hitting the road. Tt was the high point of my exercise! Yeah. Walked all the way back to the end point only to be sent off for my night navigation. Yada yada yada, we decided to take things easy and just enjoyed the night breeze.

The other exercise was a killer too. It was to simulate a war. And god...how much i hate fighting in a war. Sleep, food, rest is minimal. Work, sweat, blood, injuries and casualty rate is toooooooo bloody high. So's the tension between everyone. Getting thru it all was a painful thing. I decided to take it one meal time at a time. Wake up. And all i look forward to is lunchtime. Between that, we were on a mission. Afternoon mission would be followed by dinner time. After dinner, there would be some work that needed to be done. Taking it all a step at a time really worked well for me. Yeah. I even got used to the terrain. First day, i was really depressed as it was an enclosed area. By that, it was nothing but trees and canopies. You can hardly see the sky. And im claustrophobic. Or used to be. Insect bites, wild boar attacks, superiors hounding on u. Well, we kinda got used to it.

Every single opportunity that i get to "zone out", i would be thinking abt what life was like a year ago that very same day. And at every stand-to, i would be thinking to myself, "how the hell did i get myself into this?" Often, i would be thinking abt life and how fast it has passed by. Heck, i can still remember being a little boy going to kidergarten. Still rmb myself playing in the school band, the school rugby team. Playing soccer with my friends. Studying even. Horrible thought to be thinking of i noe but studying is nice. Given the opportunity, i'd rather be a student for the rest of my life. No worries....cept for my grades. Carefree days are long gone though. These days, careless days have come to rule the day. Everything is a chargeble offence these days. People push responsiblity to other people. So if the thing screws up, the person at the very end of the chain of command will get it big time.

Hell, lets just forget abt work now...and enjoy my off-in-liew! Hell yeah! Hopefully, someone takes over my LSM appt nxt monday.


Wonder where i'll be nxt when i start to thinking abt my own historyl.