Update Update!

Last month's tasks:

1) IPPT Gold(Attained)
2) Training for ASM(Ongoing)
3) Save more than 50% of my pay(Done)

This month's tasks:

1) Book my holiday
2) Continue training for ASM
3) Save 50% of my pay!

Due to the upcoming training commitments that shall be all.

I will be going for interview at NUS tomorrow so all the best to myself. We'll see what happens and plan again for my further studies.

Shermian's 21st birthday party was fun, I haven't laughed so much in a long time. It was great to be able to hang out with the club gang again. Hope you like my present Shermian.

Camp life is getting hectic, frustrating, blood-boiling and tiring. It's hard not to get agitated and angsty amidst all the s**t we're getting. I have never been so angry for such prolonged periods in all my life. Goddamn amazing I have not murdered anyone yet.

Things change, people change. I guess we all got to move on when it's time for us to.

A little Inspiration?

A video I chanced upon that I found to be quite meaningful and therefore took the time to put this in before I go back to camp. Getting back up seems easy with 4 limbs. What happens when you have 1 less limb, or in this case 4 less limbs? A little encouragement for the down and out people out there:

Your battle is really lost when you give up on yourself.

Last month we had:

1. Complete NVM (Done)
2. IPPT Gold (Short of 12s, retaking this tuesday)
3. Training for ASM (Pushing any further distance training till after IPPT)
4. Start registering at BBDC (Failed horribly)

This month's updated list:

1. IPPT Gold
2. Training for ASM
3. Save more than 50% of my pay

Not alot of time this month coupled with the number of duties, hence the reduced targets. Might add to it in future. Due to lack of time, registering for BBDC shall be pushed back.

Last Sunday I completed the National Vertical Marathon with Yan Shun. That has got to be the earliest Sunday that I have ever woken up. Bloody 5am! We took a cab down only to find out registration hasn't started yet. !@#$%

We sped through the first 20 floors and our battery went flat after that. If you ever see on TV that the contestants are still running up on the last few floors, that has got to be staged. Whoever lasts past 40 floors is amazing enough. By the 30 floor the only strength I have got left was to keep climbing the stairs 2-3 steps at a time.

Quote of the day: "Why did we pay to suffer this ah?" - Ng Yanshun.

And here are the pictures.

It's been 1 month!

It's February! Time to review last month's tasks.

1. Print my photos (Done)
   
2. Decorate my room (Done)
   
3. Register for National Vertical Marathon (Done)
4. Register for Adidas Sundown Marathon (Done)
   
5. Clear my Class 2b license (Yet to make it to BBDC)
   
6. Start on driving (As above)
   
7. Marksman (Achieved)
   
8. IPPT Gold (Training in progress)
   
9. Start training for NVM and ASM. (In progress)
   

So the updated list for end of Jan is:

1. Complete NVM
2. IPPT Gold
3. Training for ASM
4. Start registering at BBDC

That's all for now. Will add to the list again.

Johannes Schwenzer

The latest Sunday was spent with Johannes Schwenzer, hailing all the way from Germany. At first look, Johannes looked every bit of a local expat perfectly comfortable and at ease with ze weather in Singapore. He was all smiles, short curly hair, and of average asian build. Togged out in a sleeveless shirt and bermudas with canvas shoes, Johannes blended in with ze local crowd. That is, except for ze sunburnt skin betraying his intolerance of ze Singapore sun.

We settled for dinner at MOF - My Ikazaya eventually after realising Spageddies was closed. Ze dinner was really fantastic. Conversation flowed freely for the duration of our dinner. We shared a great love for good food and did not spare any expense ordering our food. From travels, to politics, to our personal lives, to environmental issues, and to creating a better world, our topics provided endless fodder for debate and discussion. Johannes found girls in Singapore(yes, even the waiter serving us) to be very beautiful. It's funny that I shared more with Johannes in my 3 hours of knowing him than I ever did with other people in my many years of acquaintance.

Johannes is very passionate, and speaks of big yet simple dreams. I am amazed that at the young age of 21, Johannes has already seen countries in Europe, went to India and also seen the Himalayas. Among his many talents are violin, guitar, firejuggling, dancing, diving and surfing. Indeed, one simply has to personally listen to the magic he does on the guitar to be thoroughly convinced. I, myself was certainly entranced by the soothing tunes he learned on his travels.

Back at home, Johannes is an activist for ecological living and alternative lifestyle. In him I saw someone who truly cared for the world and was ready to be a friend to anyone in the world. The world desperately needs more Johanneses.

As I soon learnt, Johannes would be going over to Malaysia where he would work on a yacht briefly and tour the country. Following which he would make his way to Indonesia by ship, then to Australia where he would work and play for 6 months. The last leg of his journey is at Japan, where he hopes to catch the solar eclipse in June. I was impressed with his resourcefulness, determination and also courage to travel alone and literally trudge through the unknown. At 21 he dared to venture out, dared to leave his home behind and sacrifice the comfort and stability which he enjoyed in exchange for memorable experiences which will probably last a lifetime. How many of us would have done that? How many of us would have even thought of doing that? It may not be traveling, it may not be leaving home, but have you truly dared to go for what you always wanted? Or would you rather make others around you happy by achieving what was expected of you?

I am grateful that I gotten to know Johannes. I wish him all the best on his future travels. May he continue to make new friends and encounter great experiences. It's a pity that I couldn't spend more time showing him around Singapore and introduce more good food to him. Overall it has been a great meeting and a fantastic cultural exchange. Gonna miss your Nepalese tunes, Johannes! Take care, good bye and hopefully see you again!

Checkpoint!

Since the new year is coming, I figured I should have some sort of a resolution-thingy done. It's not exactly a resolution as I probably won't stick to just one or a couple of them for the entire year. Besides, I lose sight of it if the duration spans 365 days.

So what I'm going to do, is to start a new practice of having a checkpoint entry every month. The check point entry will detail what I aim to do each month, or over a couple of months and also track the changes of these tasks I set out to accomplish. Tasks might be scrapped, accomplished, failed, or even readjusted.

The following are detailed for Dec 08:

1. Print my photos
2. Decorate my room
   
3. Register for National Vertical Marathon
4. Register for Adidas Sundown Marathon
   
5. Clear my Class 2b license.
6. Start on driving.
   
7. Marksman
8. IPPT Gold
9. Start training for NVM and ASM.

Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas Peeps

Yea I spent my Christmas countdown in the guardroom. Sucks to be doing duty on eve of holidays but someone's got to do it.

Blissful news from Jonathan(my host in Australia). It's been 6 months and apparently Jon has been up to quite alot lately. He's gone on his South-America trip that he's been planning for so long and he married Yoko! To top it off, he is going to be a father soon! I hope I can visit them sometime soon next year when I get my leave. Congratulations to Jonathan once again.

On a side note, the taxi driver was friendly today.

Home Alone

Home alone after confinement. It's all quiet and still. Mum, brother and sister all went to Vietnam. Dad's out as well. The sound's all bouncing off the walls and all I'm hearing is me me and myself. I need some noise other than those coming from me. Boo. What am I saying.

Pardon the long absence...

as I have been busy with the preparation for the upcoming audit. Luckily I still managed to squeeze in a couple of hours for myself.

Last Friday was a half-day as we had S4 Branch cohesion after that. And so we had quite a good time at the Minds Cafe with everyone including LTA Ricky and CPT Lim. Looks can be deceiving they say, and all was revealed during the playing of games during that Friday. Both officers showed that they had no regard for their status or image whatsoever and indulged in the games wholeheartedly. LTA Ricky also bought some very-expensive-$120 cupcakes for us and mentioned that 'we were worth that much'. He meant that we were worth him buying $120 cupcakes but everyone had a good laugh intepreting it as the 30+ of us were only worth $120 in value. Lol. Hope that we'll have a good 1.5 years with them in the brigade.

Saturday was spent OT-ing touching up the vehicles and whatever remaining tasks that are to be done. Then I went to meet Zhen Ling, Casper and the rest of the SAC gang for dinner. Guess what - dinner's at Minds! Most of us weren't really in the mood for games and soon decided to chiong for the free entrance at Double O. Place was full of NSFs, some bapohs and a couple of the mature crowd around. The rest is pretty much the normal routine - drink, talk cock, dance followed by more drinks. What's to expect? The drinks were REALLY cheap. The day ended at around 5+ am when I reached home in a cab.

Until now the effects of alcohol and exhaustion are still hanging upon me. I should probably cut down on such long days cause I feel so easily tired these days.

Friends and all please pity TC abit and try to engage in more easy-going activities. Haha.