More backlog:

I'm feeling the pain of the Adult farecard. The 54 from Orchard Road to Bishan cost $1.00, and the 855 home from MacRitchie cost $1.10. Ouch.

I saw this 8 year old boy on the 54. He was wearing a singlet which had "Endure and Excel", and the PTI crest on it. I didn't know the singlets came in such small sizes. Maybe he just ironed on the badge.

So far, quite a few people in camp have asked me about the scar I have on my forehead. Maybe I should tell them it was caused by doing too many pushups. Muahaha.


RI:
I went back to RI yesterday to watch the 1urv Affair concert video (the second best choice because the concert was held on the 28th, before my New Year bookout).

RI has sold out. They now make everyone spend $10 to buy those large combination locks a la RGS and ACS, the ones with large rotary dials and which can be unlocked with a master key. Guess maintenance was tired of walking around with the giant set of pliers.

Now they've a String Ensemble. Hurrah! Band band and more band just doesn't cut it.

Uncle Soon Kiat has a new T-Shirt! These say "SKC" [Soon Kiat Construction], on the front pocket, if I remember correctly. While there I saw a bearded girl! She was at the water cooler and when she turned around, I saw that she had a beard atop her feminine features. Gasp.


Raffles Voices:

Some things never change. The choir was as noisy and rowdy as ever. People still like to run around (as I once did) and play stuff on the piano. Cheapo songs are still sung during Raffles Trail to con the Secondary Ones into thinking that "fun" songs are what make up the repertoire. And they had "Listen to the Music" again! ARGH. I"m sick of that piece. Well, actually now they've sold out. I found 4-5 ABBA scored in someone's score book.

When I entered LT3, it was not to the usual noise that customarily greeted me when I returned on previous occasions. The last time I visited was, if I'm not wrong, in June 2001, and that time, as always happened when I returned after graduating, I was greeted with raucous applause and people shouting my name. Now, only those who were in Secondary One when I was in Secondary Four are left. And I didn't get to know them very well, since I stopped going for choir in the Second Quarter of 1999 due to my not being selected for Choral Excellence. So I had, what, 3 months interaction with them. Coupled with my being bad at names... A pity I didn't get to know them better. Maybe when I am free (during block leave, perhaps), I shall return to acquaint myself with the new generation of Secondary Ones as I did in 2000 and 2001, such that people I didn't know came up to me saying, "You're Gabriel, right?" and "You're the one who spoilt the LT3 chair!" [NB: I didn't. I rarely sat in that particular seat].

I heard 'blazer', not just once, but twice!. No 'brazer'. Yeh!

They used an iBook for the presentation. Nice. Yummy. Mmm.

People are still eating the disgusting Yupi. I tried it once and was neutral towards it. Until, that is, I looked at "Ingredients" and discovered that it contains Beef Gelatine! Eee. Sweets and confectionary should not contain meat. I wonder if vegetarians or Hindus know about what goes into their Yupi...


1urv Affair video:

Note: 1urv stands for 1 United Raffles Voices. It's quite interesting and the person who thought it up has quite good perception :) How sad am I? I'm reviewing a video! Gosh. And I'm probably much worse than all of the performers. Oh well, the benefits of being an observer as opposed to a performer.

The camera didn't like the lights. Everyone had a white face on camera. And Jasper, when he came out to sing, held his arms in front of him raised for some reason.

Fake conversations between emcees to explain things to the audience suck. They're contrived, fake and irritating. And the surfeit of corny jokes was irritating! I suppose corny jokes are "safe" because you won't offend anybody. Except those who hate corny jokes. And the most commonly heard MC line of all time is - 'Sit back, relax and enjoy'. No comment.

Of a total cost of about $1700, they made a grand profit of ~$130. The money is supposed to go to Afghanistan, but 90% will be lost to corruption, so.

Why do people like to sing along to videos? I can never understand. Maybe they are trying to relive the night. And they keep jumping parts for convenience! Tenor to alto to tenor. I refer to Sicheng, who was sitting behind me, here (Are you there? Jumping parts is irritating!). When we did Listen to the Music last time, there were *always* wannabe Tenors singing along at the part which went, "Listen to the beat and the sound of the city, listen to the rhythm of the street. Listen to the radio playing on a Saturday night." [NB: I'm listening to the 1997 RI and RGS choir version of the song and I find that RGS sounds rather sleazy :)]

Cheapo songs were also sung during the concert. The alumni sang Kiss The Girl. This is terribly common and a staple of male A Capella groups. And Joshua gave some girl in the audience a flower (now, where've I seen that trick before? :) )

They also did "Geographical Fugue", last attempted in 1998 at "A Musical Concoction 3". I daresay they did better than RV did in 1998, though there was rushing, and someone was visibly beating tempo on his thigh! The one we did in 1998 at VCH was atrocious... The tenors came in almost 1 bar late at the end! Jennifer Tham must have been very pissed that night.

BEATS (A Bunch of Enthusiastic and Atrociously Tuneful Singers) has really gone down in standard. They used to be better. They performed "And So It Goes". It wasn't very tight, and there were numerous early entries, but then comparing them to the King's Singers is terribly unfair. Or maybe I'm suffering from the "good old days when a bowl of noodles cost 1 cent" syndrome [My classic retort to this is that "those were also the days when you earnt one dollar a month".] - the past always seems better and bad things about the past are forgotten and only the happy times are remembered.

They also sung The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Argh. Yet more cliched songs. It's actually not a good idea to do this song, because everyone knows it and even those without musical background, ability or talent can tell if it's done well. BEATS did quite okay, though for some reason they kept changing the tempo.

When the alumni came back in, they did the Banana Boat Song, complete with the giving out of bananas and antics with bananas.

What concert would be complete without a rendition of "Listen to the Music"? And so it was sung. And as usual, people clapped at the wrong place. Oh well.

Final song: The Institution Anthem. "Specially arranged to thank the school". I didn't really see the logic behind that. Oh well.

The encore piece was "Auld Lang Syne". As often happens, Ms Chaing started conducting from her seat. I think it's unconscious. But then the choir usually needs it. In 1998, when we did Les Miserables with MGS as the finale of "A Musical Concoction 3 - ReVolution", we rushed, notwithstanding her conducting. In 2001, when they did Les Miserables with RGS as the finale of "Music's Alive" (which sounds suspiciously like "Dragon's Alive", the name of the 2000 RI choir concert), they rushed too, even though Ms Chaing was valiantly conducting from her seat.


On people:

Quick notes. Frank and some others can still scream. Hurrah!

And yangyang looks totally different. Face, looks, height, everything. No wonder I didn't manage to locate him in RJC last year. And he's much less irritating now.


Misc:

I saw the *longest* floral printed shorts ever. They were up to the knee. My perception of the world has been radically altered! The rock upon which my whole existence is based has eroded! The cornerstone of my mind has crumbled! I need to rest and compose my self.

*Wanders off*

*Returns*

Now that I've scared off some people who doubtless believe that I've gone mad (I've always said I'd come out of Slavery Dead, Broken or Crazy), a few last scribblings.

The way Britney Spears sings "I'm a Slave for you" is really quite disgusting.

And there's something that really irks me about those disreputable people you see by the road or in front of shophouses selling things. The ones who have a microphone around their heads and who tout their product, demonstrating how good it is. Maybe I just don't like the head-mounted microphones, because I get shivers down my spine too when I see Chinese pop performers with those earphones on.

It appears that Jessica Tay is in the army too, in the "Reserve Forces". But she only has to do it once a week and 1 weekend a month.

Power Rangers Lost Galaxy has started! Due to combination of lack of time, laziness and forgetfulness, I missed the finale of Power Rangers in Space - Countdown to Destruction. Apparently it's quite good. Ah well. Lost Galaxy looks interesting, and the budget has visibly increased. It looks less cheapskate now.

In front of me now is a packet of "Wang Wang" small buns. The small white things with a brown top. To my horror, I have spotted a Halal sign on them. Then again, with Tuck Lee Icework's Halal Ice, I think we had already hit the bottom. Maybe I shall make my own brand of the small buns, one with a little lard inside (lard does wonders for Chinese confectionary I tell you).


A final, indulgent thought:

Societal influence is evil. In movies, books and fairy tales (where people live 'happily ever after'), life is portrayed unrealistically. Humans are fickle and unpredictable creatures who change their minds moods and feelings constantly and the changes can be very swift.

Therein lies a central flaw of marriage, because in the heat of the moment, people pledge their lives away and many live unhappy lives, not divorcing because of peer and societal (ooo, divorce is against "Asian Values") pressure and "for the children". One cannot predict the future any more than one can predict if a radioactive nuclide will decay in the next time interval. People change, we move on.

Slavery is evil.

hm the bio lecturer who mentioned gabriel and dropping bio must be mr. nah. He always starts off the year telling the J1s to drop bio, then spends the next 2 years asking his students repeatedly "why do you still insist on taking bio" while distributing test results

More Photos up (including prom!)
http://www.geocities.com/marshmall0w/

The perils of infamy:

"Upon closer inspection, the person who submitted that Bugzilla entry mentioned earlier is none other than Gabriel Seah , the infamous former RJC student who used to haunt the school's forums until they were taken down late last year. That guy scares me... And it's a pretty good thing I don't know him in real life."

Dubious honour :)


The VJC review is up on JC Guide, and it's quite "high class" too :) I kind of like the author's style.

I've learnt some things about VJC :) I didn't know that Lee Phui Mun would wash the toilets if she was free!


Purple Raine

"Today, I had tution again, and the fragrances from the ppl's hair infront and to the side of me really irritated me. I love the scent, but it makes me hungry and overly emotional, thinking about all the people I noe who smell nice, and what they usually smell like, and being totally unable to concentrate on E Maths and A Maths. Girls just smell so good.... mmmmmmmm". Err. Kenneth you have a sensitive nose.

Delayed bookout post (because of going to the doctor and a busy night yesterday):

Restored Post

4 weeks are over! 25% of BMT has passed. Whee. Though it was probably the easiest quarter... Ugh.

I need a belt. My pants are loose. Hell, half the platoon needs a belt. Maybe someone will go down to Beach Road and buy some for everyone. Ken said he'd buy one for me if/when he goes to buy a replacement rifle cleaning kit.

They expect conformity and uniformity from us (stand by bed, short hair et al) but they themselves aren't that uniform. For example, everyone conducts warmups differently - some omit the hip flexor and some say "thousand" instead of "one thousand" while others start "one thousand" and then continue "thousand" (Okay, so I'm being picky). And at the 100m range, we're not supposed to bring our rifles into the toilet (it's probably too dirty).

Last week was range week. Official reveille timing: 4:30am, which means people set their alarms for 3:30am or 3:45am, and we slept at 1am one day and 12am on two others, since the fall in time was 4:40am (thus do they find time to give us our "7 hours of uninterrupted sleep"). Actually, ironically, the 7 hours of sleep are one of the safety guidelines for range days, but it is on range days that we get the least sleep. What can I say? We are one of the slowest companies that the sergeants have seen (then again, they probably tell that to all of the companies).

The first day of range was incredibly boring - we were not allowed to sleep, talk too loudly or read, not even the newspapers that were brought along. The other 3 days were better, but we weren't allowed to lie on the floor and sleep (ahh the luxury of doing so! Tis greatly refreshing). It's very irritating, because most of our time at range was spent stoning, but we went back to the bunk very late.

We're actually checked for empty cartridges before we leave the range, but I'm sure anyone who is determined and ingenious enough will find a way to smuggle them out.

We had "night" firing during the day, when it was still bright. What can I say?

Some people with a master eye opposite to their master hand (eg left master eye and right handed) brought along eye patches. It really looks quite dumb and I'm glad I didn't get one. My shooting still turned out fine - 17/24 for the day shoot.

I wonder if the noxious miasma of gunpowder fumes is poisonous. Maybe that's why my cough still has not gone away after 2 weeks.

Running even short distances in Standard Battle Order is tiring. I hate to think of what it would be like running in Full Battle Order.

Tonner suck. They really really suck. The buses are much better.

Marching from point to point is stupid. It is slower than walking and so it wastes a lot of time.

I'm getting pimples from where the chinstrap of my helmet touches my chin. Ouch.

My physically more able buddy dislikes the mental part of training too - the ceaseless rush, punishment of everyone for one's wrongs, the rigidity of the system. If we could give up, I think most of us would. "The system is very fucked up" - Someone. People are punished for little or no reason - even for smiling!

Slavery really does mature people a lot, it is true. The sergeants and officers have a bearing and an air - they are more mature than the recruits who are older than them. But then Singapore women still complain that Singapore men are childish, immature and chauvinistic, so I suppose it's not full maturation. Indeed, it might make many immature in certain ways, or if not, at least more testosterone-driven / dicky / chauvinistic.

I'm still holding out against the temptation (though it's not very great) of going around topless or swearing ("shit" is the worse I've ever used).

Echoing is evil. It is noisy and the different tempos and entries of the shouting ensure that the original message cannot be heard clearly, to say nothing of the mangling of the message due to its being passed on - the Broken Telephone game anyone? And some pranksters are fond of echoing wrong messages. Because of echoing, I almost got one Guard Duty (luckily I was forgiven!) because of turning on the white lights in the training shed during range.

"I need intelligent reading material" - Jiaxiang. I think and hope that keeping the weblog alive will do something to stem my mental decline :) As will my bringing along of the Economist: [Officer on me reading it during range] Shit, you're a man, you read this sort of magazine?

More evidence of the desperation of NS guys: The mating of 2 monitor lizards attracted no small amount of attention.

Various events so far have proved the truth of that old adage : "You can do anything in NS, just don't get caught".

V. Ambiavagar is dead. We'll never see him at RI Founders' Days (all 4 of which I religiously attended for some reason) again. Sigh.

Apparently there's a "Ninja" company. That's if we heard the company name correctly. That must be the stupidest company name ever.

On Saturday morning, I had another injection. It actually went very well. I wasn't in tears before it, or even after (Note to all: Please don't give me any crap about "NS has toughened you"). Perhaps the medic was being very careful after I asked him to be gentle.

I saw and talked to Sing Pou and he was in Kilo for one week for his "Residential Course". Apparently they *don't* get to learn rifle shooting, and it's just propaganda lectures and more propaganda lectures. The PES E people don't even have to swing their arms when they march. (...)

Booking out and walking to the Pasir Ris MRT station, I saw a familiar group of people walking by. I guessed that it was 3S05B, and sure enough, Gilbert called out my name (and remarked that I looked burnt). That class is very enthusiastic about class outings.

Quickie (seen on Just Eat Me):

"Melissa: "There's this Econs teacher, she's a short old woman, I'm not sure what her name is-"
Me: "MRS LIM! GUAT CHING! THE COMMANDER! You've got her?"
Melissa: "Yeah, that's the one. Back to equilibrium! Back to equilibrium!"

Nice to know some things don't change."

Also:
"You might like to know- The bio lecturer (didn't quite catch his name) mentioned you and your JC review..."

and corroboration:
"if i remember correctly he said it was quite accurate... then he started convincing us to drop bio."

And something else:
"haha I'm thinking of going to RJ miss all the RGS girls..." - some VJ guy

hmmm ive been repeatedly asked to post here.. so here's my post..

*post* =)

julian must be busy playing daoc still.. he hasnt posted in ages, i havent seen him online (not that im home much).. but then lucky fellow only has a 7 day induction course into ns.. =(

hmmmm ns.. i attempted to lead the 2nd stanza of a song during a march, and got mixed up with my np-version of the song.... went all out of tune and stuff =P heheheh...

food.. is still relatively good...
section mates r nice..
platoon mates r ok...
yep..

Went to watch "Spirited Away".

Eye candy galore. I was intensely irritated by the plot (close to none). Things happen for no reason, there are inconsistencies and many things are not explained. The show's just a jumble of loosely connected (putting it charitably) events.

Yong Lin: "but the story is not the point of the show..."

Ahh.


In other news, Fierce Girl is the coach of the RGS debate team! Woo!


ACJC people are allowed to use their handphones anywhere, anytime, except when the teacher is talking. Bah.

The usual bookout posting:

Restored Post

It seems that I've less and less to write each time, probably because I've already covered much. I shall pad this entry with quotes at the end.

I saw a picture of Tim's class, the one in the 2000 yearbook. Not bad. And he-who-provided-the-picture says that many of them, er, blossomed in J2.

People were still looking at the pictures that I brought. No, I don't intend to hand them over to the sergeants in the set of 36 photos that we were supposed to bring so that they could "know us better" (someone had pictures of dogs and another had pictures of when he was 12). Anyway, someone tried to "chope" 2 members of vis-a-vis, Rebecca and Melissa (not that I know them, or that I would disclose their personal information to him, so he can dream on :) ). People were looking at the NJ and PJ yearbooks and pointing out supposedly pretty girls. Someone voiced his dislike for A-line skirts, saying they made girls look "too mature". And he was telling me how much he "appreciated" the RJ skirt, which apparently is very, err, free to move. I still don't have a complete and fleshed out theory to explain why guys in NS are so desperate and sex driven.

We were given a small mango for our dessert one lunch. Wah.

We've been doing bayonet fighting. It's the same as Taekwando (which, believe it or not, a long time ago, I learnt) - patterns are useless, and in a real fight, you'd use your own style to attack and defend instead of all the moves (or worse, the patterns).

We were offered $150 to take part in a hydration study where, over 48 hours, they would monitor out water intake and urine output and take 6 ml of blood and our nude weight 6 times. $25 for each drawing of blood? Count me out...

Seen on a T-Shirt: "Pain is temporary, glory is forever". My response: "Satisfaction from testosterone-driven acts undertaken under peer pressure is temporary, injury is forever". Needs some work.

We can now use the vending machines. They cunningly replaced Root Beer and Pepsi with Diet 7-up and Diet Pepsi. The day after we were freed to patronise the vending machines, the dustbin was full of empty cans. And the trashbag fell from its position (such that it was no longer wrapped around the opening of the dustbin). [NB: I have the glorious duty of changing the trashbag everyday.]

I actually have had the flu since last Sunday (what a convenient timing, during my 3 full day bookout), and my sore throat has gotten worse since Tuesday due to 3 days of shouting. And I think I've a secondary throat infection now. I can barely rasp now. I should create a new status tag - "Excuse Shouting".

I had a chat with my choir junior last week, who said that most of the deaths in Slavery are due to suicides. In response to my point that not committing suicide was a victory of sorts because you'd have survived the torture and not let it drive you to the brink, he countered that "tt's not true....by u getting thru NS, *they* have won.....they have successfully nurtured another soldier....by killing urself, they have failed....". Good point.

So far, I've seen 0 stray cats but quite a few stray dogs wandering around. Quite the opposite of what would normally be.

My sister says my hands have become a bit rougher. Gah.

My arms are going to drop off from all the pumping. Ouch.


Quotes:

"RJC girls, the green skirt, wah lan eh. [Me: Go ACJC] ACJC, cannot. Too power." Erm.

"You will be doing 2 positions today. One is doggie style, the other is 69 (foxhole, prone)" His speech is always peppered with sex references :)

"Don't go JC and teach... go into the lecture theatre, look up, all the girls zaogeng... [Recruit: Good what] Can't concentrate"

"[On the standing hip position] Not the cock, I see some people just now, [adopted the] standing cock position."

"Anybody not feeling well? [Recruits: No sergeant, fighting fit, yeah!] Gryphon company, when I'm here, don't try do that fighting fit shit (doing)"

"One thing, when you get married then you'll know. Your size, is it difficult?... What style do you want to adopt? [Recruit: Standing shoulder position]"

"Just imagine, if your wife see you, wah lan. Then you take off your shirt. Your breasts are bigger than hers. (sees)"

I'm still waking up at 4 in the morning. Ah well, packed room, had QT, then went for a run when the sun rose.

Went back to school for a large part of today- objective to talk to teachers. David Liew's growing a goatee!!! Don't think very "highly" of it at all. None of the teachers I know have transferred out... new faces around. Moses pointed out a "liqing" who allegedly has a reputation for her looks. Ms. Wee, strangely enough, still remembers me (though i think she can't recollect my name). Eugene Huang went all-out auburn. Met a lot of 4K pple/other assorted people. Reasons for many j3s going back: see teachers, get letters (recommendation) from teachers, play b-ball, crash orientation. Apparently it's getting very obvious: at least 1 J3 in every OG. Admin tried to clamp down to no avail.

Triplets cropped hair. Waiyi referred to hairdos resembling Joanna Yeo's bob as the "Joanna".

Sin tong and zewei are humans students; I mean they chose humans.

Had a peek at cambridge/oxford results from nice mr purvis but i couldn't recognise most of the names (in some cases, only the initials were given) and some were missing.

Qiying told me Rit. performed in a no. of exciting n' happening gigs during the hols, including a stint in Ritz-Carlton hotel and at a private party thrown by Mediaworks!!!

Just got my second batch of prom photos (plus london photos) developed. Remind me to show them if i run into any of u. Will upload them to homepage some time. Geocities only gives 15 mb of space- wonder how many i can squeeze in. Rest of my upload space consists of tiny html files since I don't use images as a rule.

This is really interesting:
Apparently for my page
www.geocities.com/marshmall0w/prom.html
describing Moonlight Masquerade,
Top search engine used to access this page: 100.00% use www.google.com
Top search word used to find this page: 50.61% typed "kylie minogue's white dress" .

"Swing when you're winning"- Robbie Williams.

Heh heh. *Plants kinky phrases surreptitiously all over homepage to increase no. of hits*

Went for a run at 7am today, then bought dosa back for parents' breakfast. Haven't recovered from jet lag: woke up at 4 something in the morning with nothing in particular to do, so I started packing my room. And napped from 3 to 8 into the evening: thank goodness I woke up- it's Frasier nite!
Worst part of this jetlag is the intermittent flu symptoms. Hope it doesn't develop.
Re: what I'm going to do in my gap period. Circumstances may compel me towards something that wasn't even on my list- my father's main nurse retired this month (she's 60+ and has grandchildren) and he can't find another clinic assistant at such short notice. So I may be required to fill in- for an unspecified period of time. Daily, 9 to 5. (ah-hemm)

Spent yesterday and today morning doing my melbourne photo gallery. Didn't expect 108 photos to take that long... and just discovered the link back to the index page Ood can't work. Anyone know why
www.geocities.com/marshmall0w/melbourne/index.htm

In defence of my bid:
a) It's not an animal documentary Or a cartoon dubbed in chinese
b) If you de-select the bahasa indonesia audio channel then it's perfectly okay since it's all in english
c) Beast wars are only released on VCD in this part of the world
d) The 4-5 other people auctioning off Beast wars VCDs haven't received any bids either. And most of them got theirs with chinese subtitles. Hmm, "porkypig2000" is from singapore and selling exactly the same thing for 4 times the price.

e) Not really in defence: comment that if you are interested in them or you have a friend interested in them, i'll pass it on FOC. Simply trying to clear my collection of stuff-

www.geocities.com/marshmall0w/shop.html

In the "things on eBay nobody bids for" series:

VCD Beast Wars Episodes 1-13

"Collection of first 13 episodes, season 1, of Beast Wars on Video Compact Disc (playable on computer and DVD players); audio channels in English and Bahasa Indonesia; relatively crisp and clear picture. Used only once! Beast Wars is the cartoon sequel of Transformers (the 80's animated series) "

Must be the Bahasa Indonesia that did it :)

$1.90 VCDs are all either:
1) Animal documentaries
2) Cartoons subbed/dubbed in Chinese

Then again, the "My Little Pony" movie went for 99 cents, for obvious reasons, because no one but screwed up people want it.

happy new year everyone!

I rarely lose posts because I copy the text to the clipboard every now and then to make sure it's backed up.

How come Mr Ong appears everywhere? I met him and some ex-4Kers when I went to Jade after A Levels, and he still claims that "Mazit" exists. And Shawn bumps into him quite often too, causing him some consternation. But I like Mr Ong. Mr Ong is nice. And we now know Mr Ong's age! Let's see. 18 years when he finished JC. 2 years NS, 4 years (or maybe slightly more) for University. So Mr Ong is about 40. Hrm, so the white hair isn't really a good indicator of his age.

Sorcerer vs Philosopher - they had to dumb it down for American audiences :)

I missed the first 2-3 minutes of LoTR because I went to catch the 2 pm show - right after I booked out. I think I'll get the VCD (hey, I *am* entitled to that, since my ticket was paid for [though not by me])

31st December is rather late to send Christmas greetings, hmm?

The legal age in Britain is, what, 18? So it'd have been just legal.

And aren't Lomo cameras the lousy ones that have become a cult thing?


Some stuff which I'd meant to post yesterday:

As of tomorrow, I'll no longer be able to use my red Child/Student Transitlink farecard, and will have to memorise the fare structure for public buses. Goodbye studenthood.

I was at Borders reading the Silmarillion (my e-text was not complete) - No, not the rubbish at the front which rambles and confuses many people, and which many people feel that you shouldn't read if you want to retain a good impression of Tolkien, but instead, the part entitled "Of The Rings Of Power And The Third Age" - and this Borders staff member, a 17ish girl, came up to me to ask me what the names of each book in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy were, because a customer had asked her for them, but she didn't know what the titles were.

While at the aforementioned place, I also saw a CD with 19 - no, not a typo. *Nineteen* - versions of Silent Night. I think I'd die if I listened to even half of them.

Uh. Just figured out these would be confusing to read in the order they appear, so a note: if you read them from my first post to the last they'll flow more.

THought i saw another malaysian guy (now studying biz at city university) at borders. Was thinking of going up and saying hi, but he walked out of borders too quickly.

It's disgusting- every other asian restaurant serves an "authentic" dish called "singapore noodles". it's something of a cross between hokkien noodles and char kway teow. Brother and i went to a m'sian/indonesian/s'porean place that Didn't serve it- it's called Melati. We ordered the noodle dishes- Pretty good and not too expensive. We were taking a shortcut home through Soho and came across it. Trouble is, the whole area is a red-light district- When i walked out of the restaurant, a lady at a counter in a shop opposite looked directly at me and signalled for me to enter. Spooky. Some girls were very obviously prowling the streets, but they were wearing much more than I thought people of their profession usually did (probably because it was a cold night).

Spent afternoons at markets- notting hill, petticoat lane, camden market. Walked till my feet were aching.Found a lomo camera stall, and i asked the stallowner about the original st. petersburg Lomo compact automatic. They weren't in stock at the moment, but he showed me his anyway. He was very proud of it- even showed me photos he had taken with it. It's a superb and funkty one-of-its-kind camera with a patented high-speed lens and other features. Very interested in procuring one in the future.

Been bumping into people- chee tung at niketown on oxford street, ng weijie whlie watching rent. Chee tung looks pretty much the same, i couldn't recognise weijie initially because he grew his hair out. By the way, rent is now my favourite musical. IT hails itself a modern remake of La Boheme, an italian opera, and tells the life of bohemian youngsters in new york (it was a broadway musical that crossed the atlantic). Really touching, the theme song "seasons of love" was amazing (i can practically memorize the lyrics, listening to it on a cd my brother graciously burnt for me using his CD-R drive and the resources of morpheus). At lesat 4 of the characters have aids, and there are queens, fairies, clubbers, hookers, bohemian-turned-businessman, and a life support gorup. Though of course, the addictive song/dances hardly do justice to the real life of bohemians.

Met up with mr. ong- he had come to sightsee and meet some old friends. Went to watch starlight express (he described it as "cats on tracks", it's a musical about trains wth different personalities, all the dancers on skates throughout the musical) with the most corny bits- ash-ley the smoking train, AC/DC the electric train, and 3 boxers- box-carts. Quite entertaining. Mr ong saw it 15 yrs ago when he flew to london on a student package after he finished his degree. Also went to natural history museum with him.

Watched other things like kiss me kate, art, my fair lady, noises off. Also caught movies with my brother- harry potter again, LoTR fellowship of the rings. Harry potter refers to it as the "philosopher's stone" as it rightly should be in the UK- daniel radcliffe must have done double of all those scenes to record separate versions, one with "philosopher's stone" and one with "sorcerer's stone"- it wasn't dubbed. LoTR very big here in london, most people seem to love it. long queues to watch it, and we couldn't get tickets until the 3rd nite after it premiered (and we had to buy 1 day in advance). Frodo's eyes are gorgeous- gigantic and blue and luminous. In the scene where bilbo's eyes practically pop out as he demands the ring back from frodo, one man at the end of the row literally jumped out of his seat and shrieked!

My brother got tired of listening to me trying to create more space in the cramped room we're sharing by reciting "wyngardium levi-Oh-sa".

I brought stationery and address books to do christmas cards form here, but never got around to doing so, so like gabriel, i sent out ephemeral thoughts of happiness and joy and blessings for christmas. (=

Found a kindred spirit in my time in oxford- a guy, Jia zhang, from ipoh studying his a-levels in UK. He's applying to read physics, and has offers from other unis in UK already. Thinking of transferring to the US after his 1st year. He loves organic chemistry- "ah, pattern recognition!" - mainly because he finds the rest of chemistry cannot be rationalised (?) or conclusively proven, as classical physics (not that organic chemistry can be, it's just easier because it's more visual). Things like the wave-particle duality of electrons that forms the theory behind atomic structure, and consequently all atomic interactions. Aim in life is to make lotsa lotsa money, but that sounded too shallow to him. I thought there wasn't anything wrong with that,- agreed that type of thinking was okay in south-east asia at lesat.

He suggested I make a trip ("pilgrimage") to Forbidden Planet a specialty store with sci-fi/fantasy paraphernalia. Hordes of comics and anime stuff, the LoTR/Harry potter things, videos. Billions of people inside, many speaking with a strong singaporean accent. Also i saw this guy in wizard garb browsing- silver earring on left ear, pointy black hat, black cape with patterns of dragons and other creatiures in gold thread, leather pants, and those cloth "elven" shoes that end in a point upward at the toes. My brother thinks he may be a store mascot.

Spent 26-27th at post-christmas sales (prices crash rock-bottom and people flock the street iwth bulging NEXT, Bhs, H & M etc bags)- 30-70% off everywhere. Then got tired of walking (and running out of money) and spent the last few days doing free touristy things- victoria and albert museum, st. paul's cathedral service, tate modern art gallery. Also got my brother to follow me to take photos at King's cross station, platform 9 3/4. I'll upload the photos as soon as they're developed- watch my homepage.

Hi, it's nite in london and I'm packing up to return to singapore. Flight leaves tomorrow morning to arrive on jan 1st morning, which means It'll be new year while I'm flying.

The main reasons why i haven't been posting are
a) messy configuration of the room. 2 people are now sharing a 1-person space, and due to lack of a computer table, I have to sit on the floor with the keyboard on my lap whlie the monitor sits 1 metre above me on a chest of drawers, to type.
b) My last 2 posts got lost when i disconnected too soon or pressed the wrong button (again, attributable to the above configuratoin)/

Let's hope this one comes through. I'll post in little batches so things aren't as likely to disappear.

Have received replies from all the unis I anticipate going to.

Been bumping into many pple from singapore. at king's college london, Danny wong had just finished his med interview as I was going for mine. Apparently the interviewers from king's always ask "how/what can you contribute to the university?" My father's ex-uni classmate (who lives in klang, a small town off KL in malaysia) said his son, in response, described his expertise in making and flyign traditional kites, and that he would start a club of some sort to teach it.

Haha. Extracted from Buffalo Chips:

==========================

SCIENTIFICALLY SANTA

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.

This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element.

Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them... Santa would need 360,000 of them.

This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.

The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

==========================

By now, most people will have found the presents left by Santa. How you ask, since it was proved in that Santa does not exist in the Christmas eve edition of the Chips? I submit to you the following rebuttal:

Several key points are overlooked by this callous, amateurish "study."

1) Flying reindeer: As is widely known (due to the excellent historical documentary "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the flying reindeer are not a previously unknown species of reindeer, but were in fact given the power of flight due to eating magic acorns. As is conclusively proven in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (a no punches pulled look at life in Santa's village), this ability has bred true in subsequent generations of reindeer - obviously the magic acorns imprinted their power on a dominant gene sequence within the reindeer DNA strand.

2) Number of households: This figure overlooks two key facts. First of all, the first major schism in the Church split the Eastern Churches, centered in Byzantium, from the Western, which remained centered in Rome. This occurred prior to the Gregorian correction to the Julian calendar. The Eastern churches (currently called Orthodox Churches) do not recognize the Gregorian correction for liturgical events, and their Christmas is as a result several days after the Western Churches'. Santa gets two shots at delivering toys.

Secondly, the figure of 3.5 children per household is based on the gross demographic average, which includes households with no children at all. The number of children per household, when figured as an average for households with children, would therefore have to be adjusted upward. Also, the largest single Christian denomination is Roman Catholic, who, as we all know, breed like rabbits. If you don't believe me, ask my four brothers and two sisters - they'll back me up. Due to the predominance of Catholics within Christian households, the total number of households containing Christian children would have to be adjusted downward to reflect the overloading of Catholics beyond a standard deviation from the median.

Also, the assertion that each home would contain at least one good child would be reasonable enough if there were in fact an even 3.5 children per household. However, since the number of children per household is distributed integrally, there are a significant number (on the order of several million) of one child Christian households. Even though only children are notoriously spoiled and therefore disproportionately inclined towards being naughty, since it's the holidays we'll be generous and give them a fifty-fifty chance of being nice. This removes one half of the single child households from Santa's delivery schedule, which has already been reduced by the removal of the Orthodox households from the first delivery run.

3) Santa's delivery run (speed, payload, etc.) These all suffer from the dubious supposition that there is only one Santa Claus. The name "Santa" is obviously either Spanish or Italian, two ethnic groups which are both overwhelmingly Catholic. The last name Claus suggests a joint German/Italian background. His beginnings, battling the Burgermeister Meisterburger, suggest he grew up in Bavaria (also predominantly Catholic). The Kaiser style helmets of the Burgermeister's guards, coupled with the relative isolation of the village, suggest that his youth was at the very beginning of Prussian influence in Germany. Thus, Santa and Mrs. Claus have been together for well over one hundred years. If you think that after a hundred years of living at the North Pole with nights six months long that they remain childless, you either don't know Catholics or are unaware of the failure rate of the rhythm method. There have therefore been over five generations of Clauses, breeding like Catholics for over one hundred years. Since they are Catholic, their exponential population increase would obviously have a gain higher than the world population as a whole. There have therefore been more than enough new Santas to overcome the population increase of the world. So in fact, Santa has an easier time of it now than he did when he first started out.

Santa dead, indeed - some people will twist any statistic to "prove" their cynical theory.

==========================
Apparently some people start smoking in NS. Eeee.

My cousin, Yingxing, tells me he was from Gryphon Company too.

Restored Post

More scribblings:

Some people have programmed a army marching song as their handphone ring tones, specifically the one which starts:

"Training to be soldiers,
Fight for our land" etc

On a related note, there's an army song about how army life sucks. Amazing.

2 of Tim's Catholic High friends are in my section. One his former classmate and another he knew from TAF club. And my buddy was good friends with Jason Chen (also a former classmate of Tim's) in TJC. What a small world.

Speaking of Jason, he too has changed to nerdy glasses. He says he doesn't want to spoil his expensive pair.

Real world applications of Physics:
Projectile motion - the trajectory of a rifle bullet and how far away from where you aimed it it will hit

Not only do we have to pay $1 for our haircut, we have to pay $9 for the photos they took of us as a platoon. There goes the NS allowance.

I bought a new watch just before I went in the last time, and 1 day later it was already scratched. Gah.

The lunch on 28/12 was surprising. Not only did we get 3 sticks of satay, keropok, sambal prawns and a large slice of raspberry ham, we also got a fruit tart for dessert. Later it was revealed that this was because this was the same food served at the staff function that night!

More examples of the inane levels of conformity required:
- Hangars in the cupboard must point the same way, as must the shirts' facing
- You have to lay out the SAF-given toothbrush toothpaste and razor even if you don't use them. 100% for show for me since I don't shave.
- The open side of everyone's pillow cases must face the same direction

I recall in one of speeches given, the Training Officer asked us to ask the rationale for the doing of things so we could do them better, but I suspect questioning may not be entertained by some.

One of my sergeants asked me to bring the RJ yearbook on my next book-in. Hmm.

My pushups really suck and combined with my low threshold of pain... I think I should train while I'm back, but I'll probably forget or won't be bothered. I have cramps in places I didn't even know I had muscles. Ouch.

I've been having an unsustainable rate of weight loss - 5.5kg in the slightly over 2 weeks since I was enslaved. If this goes on I might not be able to meet the 1-2kg weight loss criteria to book out in future weeks. Jiaxiang thinks that this loss has been mostly water.

Went to Great World City to get a new watch.

Categories of irritatingness of piped Christmas Carols (in order of most to least irritating):

Synthesized music, jazz style
Synthesized music
Modern interpretations, very funky
Atrocious choirs
Modern interpretations
Bad choirs
Children's choirs
Bing Cosby

One shop was playing a spoof of a Christmas song. Hurrah.

The Palm IIIc, the one I saw at Best Denki, is now $339 - $200 cheaper than when I bought it in January.

Mr Brown also commented on the Chief Justice's remarks:

"That a couple who abused their maid were scolded by the Chief Justice for being uncivilised and cruel.

'People don't use the cane now, except for cows and horses,' said Chief Justice Yong Pung How when he
dismissed their appeals.

That's right, we do not use the cane now, except for the deserving cows and horses sitting in our prisons."

I went to see Lord of the Rings today, and not a single handphone or pager sounded! I think this hasn't happenned for a loooong time. And there was quite a bit of consternation when the movie ended - I think they didn't know it was a trilogy.


Restored Post

More thoughts after a week:

There seems to be a quota of 1 malay and 1 indian per section.

My teacher-advisor for the Innovation Programme in Secondary 2, Ng Boon Kiat, advised me not to break a leg or arm to get downgraded as it would cause me problems later in life. It's not really worth it, but I understand how and why people would want to injure themselves. Though even in PES E you have to learn to use a rifle (and presumably all the drills).

Red Jacket was apparently weird in Maris Stella too. He wrote a book during English lessons, but never let anyone read it and got angry when people tried to snatch the manuscript.

Theory: Everybody brings a mobile phone because they think the public phones will be busy, so they are actually relatively free (borne out quite well).

Why does everyone use vulgarities? To relieve stress? To impress the severity of offences on recruits? Because everyone else does? So far, I've counted only 2-3 instructors who don't use them. And why does everything have to be shouted? It spoils the voice. Maybe prior shouting by recruits has blunted the hearing of instructors.

I think jerking your head for the "pandan ke-hadapan, pandan" (phonetics corrected by Fuzzirat) command spoils the neck.

Almost all the army songs are too low for me. Correction, all of them are too low for me. What oh what shall I do? Sing in falsetto? I don't think so. Maybe I'll be like some of the tone deaf people and just shout the songs (not those who sing out of tune). If you think about the words, you find some of them are actually used as tools of indoctrination - and it works. Some people sing, whistle or hum the songs when they're bored or free, probably because they tend to stick in your head like irritating advertising jingles. Many of the others are about sex, or have parts relating to sex, showing how desperate army boys are. Some are actually quite melancholy, and dare I say, sensitive. I wouldn't have expected it from army boys. There's one song with a stanza about the shiokness of canteen breaks, but we won't sing it because it's not applicable :)

I miss everyone.

I wonder how Slavery will change me. Will I become more rude and vulgar? Lose my inimitable sense of humour? Some parts are okay, even mildly enjoyable, but I resent being controlled and enslaved, and I want my life back. Now I see why so many people take PSC scholarships because they get to defer. The next 15 weeks are meant to transform me into a soldier. A killing machine? I can't really see myself as one. Hell, I wouldn't trust myself with a rifle.

The level of conformity required is disgusting. For example, when the bucket is placed on the left of the shioe cabinet, the bucket handle must face the bed.

My handkerchiefs smell of ammonia. I think this is because of the mixture of tears and sweat, but I'm not sure about the chemical reaction. The smell can't be washed out. I think I need a washing machine. But my brother in law says he had this problem too, and washing in a washing machine didn't wash the smell out.

More people who I've seen: Somchaya, Mark Yong, Zhongyong (I think).

The logic for punishing a platoon or section because of one person's transgressions is faulty or absent, kind of like in Ancient China when they killed off the transgressor's entire extended clan for certain offences.

A lot of the PTP people look very lanky and spindly.

For some reason, Jiaxiang my dear Company mate has changed to a set of nerdy glasses.

Day and night, we see planes flying off from Changi Airport. A little depressing, seeing people flying away while we're stuck in the Island of Doom :)

Why are all the commands in Malay? When I watched the Hongkong handover, it was gratifying because I could *understand* what the British Guard of Honour was being commanded to do. English should replace Malay as the language used for giving commands. Actually, it's used in some instances (like "Firers, strip rifle") already for some inexplicable reason. What happened to the conformity that the Army desires? Weird.

There are many punishments for doing things wrong, some of which involve being sent to the detention barracks. So they force us to serve, and then punish us when we do things wrong in the process of doing our service. Ah well.

The night snack is a waste of time. We are not hungry, we'd rather use the time to do personal things, and half the time we don't get the food component.

To convince us to buy insurance, this insurance guy told us about accidents in the army. Stuff that's not reported by the newspapers because they don't want parents to know how dangerous it actually is. Well anyway, statistically buying insurance results in an expected loss - it's because people tend to overestimate the likelihood of risk or accident and are risk averse, which is why they buy insurance.

There's one female company - Raven. If they're so eager to serve, they should exchange places with males who are very unwilling to serve. I'm sure they'll find that there's a willing market for exchanging indenture. On their run, they were accompanied from a LOT of sergeants, probably to protect them from all the desperate NS boys. It's quite unfair, they don't need to shave their heads. Or even cut their hair short - many of them had hair long enough to be tied up!

BMT food is much better than the rubbish they gave us at OBS. And you get a sweetened drink every meal too. (See? More good stuff about the army!)

The unidentified particles I see floating around in the water in my mess mug during water parades is unnerving, and I have no way of removing them.

The buildings are only 2 years old, yet there are cracks, the roof is leaking, toilets and washing machines don't work etc. Maybe they got cheated.

I don't need to shave. Aha. More time to sleep or slack.

The vice-president of the SAJC Student's Council is in my section.

A flat footed guy in my platoon got downgraded to PES C. But he still has to stay in camp until he is posted - quite dumb, really. I don't suppose semi-flat footed people like myself get anything.

I was classified as a non-swimmer at first, but I passed the retest, risking 40 pushups for failing. What I didn't know was that even passing carried a penalty of 20. After swimming categorisation, someone stole my shoes because I didn't mark mine, and my efforts to make them identifiable by tying the shoelaces together failed as the person presumably just took the shoes. So I got someone else's pair, and they had to be broken in (the support for my non-existent arch had to be flattened). The poor guy with my old pair of shoes will now run around for the rest of BMT (at least) without any support for his arches.

One person was very disgusting - after aqua jogging, he changed out of his trunks in the seating area of the stadium, exposing his private parts for all the world to see.

I am told that my English is very ang moh. My buddy keeps trying to do an American impression on me, with "yo yo" and all that rubbish. I told him if he wanted to do an impression, he'd better get it right :) My section mates speculate my vocabulary will deprove and my English degenerate in the next 15 weeks. What a worrying thought.

I met my old friend from Mr Seow, Xavier the SJI boy, on the bus from the ferry terminal. He's in Platoon 4, 2 flights above me. Aww.

Had lunch with Tim at Tony Romas. Very good bread. I think we ordered too much - half an onion loaf, appetizer sampler and a half slab each. The ranch style beans are nice, I shall order them next time.

He got:
1. A pink elephant pencil sharpener cum paper shredder
2. 3 scented candles
3. A fridge magnet, I think it says - "The only thing better than a good friend is a good friend with chocolate"

We walked down to Paragon for a small scoop of New Zealand's Natural each after that, and one of the available 'boosters' was:

"Spirulina
One of the nature's richest sources of phenylalanine! Effectively suppresses appetite and boosts energy levels!"

I think that's what they spike our water with...

And I saw Shuyu and her friend at Wheelock Place.

This is irritating. I search "listen to the music" on audiogalaxy, and ignoring all the Doobie Brothers stuff, I found one "choir - Listen to the music.mp3". I play it and it turns out to be, wah, "Raffles Voices and RGS - Listen to the Music". The one in which I'm singing, and Jonathan (I think) is doing the solo. Gah. !@#$%^&*()

More mysteries: Why does everyone sound like each other when they shout out "lup, lup, lup wrought lup" (or however you spell the mangled way the pronounce "left, left, left right left".

Will I be punished if I don't (heh heh) shine my boots? I'm gonna bring 2 copies of The Economist along so I can keep up with Current Affairs and keep my mind alive.

Restored Post
I swear - the water they give us is spiked. My appetite has gone down somewhat. At least they haven't started the water indoctrination yet - saying the 7 Core Values of the SAF before drinking up during Water parades.

I went to Takashimaya with Geraldine to buy Christmas gifts for a few people (eh heh), but she rejected my ideas for a gift for the VJ lucky draw and presents for Yunxin (hehe). It's disgusting - Haagen Dazs (can't be bothered with the umlauts, and not that I was in the mood for any due to the spiked water) is now $3.90 a scoop - daylight robbery! (Clarification: I didn't buy any. I prefer Ben & Jerry's, which unfortunately still has no scoop shops in Singapore)

wheee... selamat hari raya! just got up after a 14h sleep

i think the 2 day holiday from ns is really good.... sheesh i pity those other ppl who have the full 2-weekend = 3 week confinement...
overall... id say ns is extremely tiring and physically intensive, but other than that nothing much...
after all the shouting everyday (seems like a lot of ppl dont bother shouting timing much), my voice needs some rest too...
so far, the worst thing is the run.. =( the "very slow pace" was faster than my 2.4 speed... not to say i passed my 2.4, but yah... they ran 2+ km at that speed and i couldnt take it...
we had a 3+h drill session in hot hot sun on friday... was so tired before that, and was even worse after...
seems like every morning, we get more tired... my first night was pretty good.. woke up a few times, but other than that it was restful...
2nd night i didnt wake up at all, but felt slightly tired..
3rd night i woke up once at 4+, but felt real tired...
the interesting thing is that on the fourth morning, every1 had alarms set at 5, but we all decided to just switch them off after they rang and wallow a while longer in bed..

argh, water parades... they say the mess mug is 500ml, but i think its 1l... holding the stupid thing with ur arms parallel to the ground is terrible... my arms kept shaking until water would spill at times... i remember on the first night, i spilled some, so it was below some stupid line, and i had to drink all the water (almost 1l), then fill up another half to drink. i _very_ nearly vomitted right there... quite a few ppl did actually... at least now i can drink 1 mug and fill full, but can drink at least...

i think the water parades r slightly wrong... instead of drinking so much 7 times a day... drinking slightly less but more often, maybe 500ml 20 times a day would be more effective... many times after the water parade id still be very thirsty, but my stomach would already be full from water...

yesterday was good.. we practically had the whole day to idle our time and do admin stuff, pack our cupboards, bags etc... i polished my boots for 2+h, and my boots are the shiniest in the platoon.. and id say the company as well =)

my sergeants r ok i guess... as long as u do wat they want and stuff, which is the whole point of ptp/bmt anyway...

ok, best of luck to those entering the full confinement period =)

oh, im in -edited away for privacy-
living on the 5th floor is SICK. i run up and down all the flights of stairs 10-20 times a day... and its really sick.

Yo

Shall keep this brief and uncharacteristically monosyllabic(okay, I just contradicted myself there). Am communicating this way because i'm not sure if you're reading your ICQ messages anymore.

I see you've had a lot of fascinating experiences defending your home and country and being a Better Man. I highly recommend the poem Dead Man's Dump by Isaac Rosenberg for some perspective on the glory and honour of your current situation(barring the mutilated corpses.. for now). A soundbite:

The air is loud with death,
The dark air spurts with fire,
The explosions ceaseless are.
Timelessly now, some minutes past,
These dead strode time with vigorous life,
Till the shrapnel called 'An end!'
But not to all. In bleeding pangs
Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts.

Anyway, I have am now past the phase of my life in the Antipodes, and am heading back to more humid concrete pastures. Mine paterfamilias are in town, which is irritating but a necessary evil to be endured, and I have friends and loose ends to tie up. Also am in the midst of repackaging my life for transport elsewhere(which accounts for my disappearance over the last fortnight, coupled with a brief respite travelling in the mountains). I shall be back in touch with the usual lengthy rants in time, after I've settled down, rebuilt my librarium, and plugged myself back into the Internet. Give our few mutual acquaintances my regards, and remember, "if you have to go, go as Mr. Underhill".

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Restored Post

Back from Slavery because of Hari Raya. SnorComments decided to close down just after I added it. Gah.

My mind is dying. I will keep it alive with intelligent monologue. My legs below the halfway point of the shin are dying because of the garters. Garters restrict bloodflow. Garters are painful. Ouch.

On the ferry there on Day 1, we saw one person with a hearing aid, perhaps proof of the vicious circle of shouting and military personnel with increasingly bad hearing?

Jiax [who for some reason prematurely shaved his head] reported at the same time as I, so we went into the same platoon - Bravo Company, Platoon 2, and we were in adjacent sections. But we (with a whole lot of people) were moved to Gryphon on day 3 (today, Saturday), because we gained weight :) Now I don't have to do the "SOC" (Standard Obstacle Course). Muaha. My Bravo section was mostly ITE people born in 1980 and 1981, while my Gryphon section has a lot more JC people. However, both groups like to chatter away in Chinese. Oh dear. One of my section-mates asked for my URL. Whoa! I'm told that "you don't look like a RJ guy". Apparently RJ guys are supposed to be quite snobbish.

Physically it wasn't really that bad, at least it hasn't been so far. Mentally, it was somewhat traumatic, but then that's me. I don't really agree with Yongxiang's view (in 2000) that he was looking forward to switching off his mind for 2 1/2 years, but then I haven't been subjected to the rigours of the evil VJ never-ending continuous test cycle.

There is quite a lot of unnecessary conformity and inflexibility: For example, lights cannot be switched on after 7AM, even if it's raining or if it's very dark. Also, the water parades are dumb - they think that we're too stupid to drink enough water. They probably don't want to get into trouble because they're responsible for us, but I quite resent being force-fed water until I feel bloated and sick - the Mess Tin is very very big. Or maybe it's a dewious (sic) plot to make us feel full and eat less so we lose more weight! Either way, the "hold the mess tins at 90 degrees" thing is pointless and hurts the arms. There's also much needless haste, with people rushing here and there for no reason other than a sergeant's whim.

There are quite a few smokers but at least there are designated smoking areas so passive smoking's minimised. Some of the other recruits stank, but I think this is only a foretaste of things to come, considering that this was only a 3 day-long experience.

My nails are now cut quite short, and they are causing me some discomfort, even pain. The sacrifices we make.

Even in bondage, I found the time to take down Quotes. One choice one: Sergeant:[Am I to be addressed as] Sergeant or Sir? Recruit: Sergeant, Sir!

They *did* actually give an interview within 48 hours (well, more or less). The sergeant said I looked very stressed. In response to my worry that I'd be stuck "here" (by which I meant "in bondage") for 2 1/2 years, he said that I'd get to move around. He had a good idea for preventing the mental decomposition I expressed concern about - bring a book (One of my former section mates was reading Harry Potter #3, I believe, last night). And he claimed that there isn't that much conformity. Well.

Thought: Why do 75% of Muslim males have "Mohammed" in their names?

People I've seen so far:
Jianwen
Xiankun
Matthew Seah
Benjy

On the oath-taking:
- there were a *lot* of tone deaf people, apparent when singing the National Anthem after we'd publicly pledged our souls away
- the oath had numerous references to the *government* of Singapore. Suspicious.
- I mangled the oath, but they made me sign the written form the next day, but I suppose oaths extracted under duress are not binding.

On the injections:
- I was only tearing slightly before taking them, and when I was "penetrated", I merely shrieked and collapsed to one knee. Not bad, not bad indeed.
- 2 days on, one of the injected areas still hurts, I'm not sure whether it was the Typhoid Fever shot or the Tetanus shot.

On depression:
It was worse on the 1st day than on the 2nd, and the 2nd than the 3rd, so I think it will subside with time, but on the first day, I was really musing about the relative merits of overdosing on Panadol, walking into the sea or maiming myself by throwing myself from the third storey.

On the instructors:
- Most of them seem intrinsically nice, it's just that they have to be strict to train us. One pulled the "Manly" card on us today. He equates speaking softly and looking down with being feminine and having a lack of confidence. Well, there are people whose deathly quiet voices inspire awe. People can be firm and confident without shouting loud enough the make the building collapse. And if everyone shouts, other groups will not be able to hear instructions from the instructors or each other and will have to shout even louder. Yet another vicious circle... Why must everything in the army be about shouting?
- Our Company Sergeant Major is very nice and jovial. He has nicknamed one of our Section-mates "40KG", because that is what he said he wanted to lose over the 16 weeks (I wonder how the bet will go...)

Coming back on parole, my brother-in-law commented that my Fieldpack and Boots are better than the ones he had.

methinks "degenerate to a lower level.. lowest common denominator" is suggestively vague. Imprecise and misleading! Ditto for some of the rest.

In response to "Ed", would like to clarify my opinion- "a few different words here and there" hardly "pare(s) the english language to nothing". Complex vocabulary is often associated with very specific terms of usage- by all means use them if they are the most appropriate ones.

Suspected Jianwen's "grand plan" of delaying his enlistment by passing his napfa test after a levels would fail.

Following is the essay I write to commemorate my last day of freedom.

Follow-up essay:

In some countries, like Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan, compulsory military service, reminiscent of the press gangs of the British Empire, is enforced upon most of the male (and female, in Israel's case) population.

This practice is exceedingly harmful, not only to the individuals involved, but also the the communities, societies and nations involved.

Conscription entails the drafting of young citizens (of at least 18 years of age - those below that are considered child soldiers by international agreement) for between 1 to 3 years of full-time military training, and most countries require some form of reservist training from the servicemen after they have completed their full-time training to sharpen and hone their skills, and ensure that they are ready to defend their country at a moment's notice. This training, both full-time and part-time, irreversibly changes the structure and character of the conscripted populace, both on the individual and macro level.

Being in a military environment for an extended period of time, the conscripted male (as it is invariably a male) is subject to many influences. In a military camp, people often degenerate to a lower level under the stress of training, and this, coupled with the fact that people from all walks of life are conscripted, means that most degenerate to the lowest common denominator. To give vent to their frustrations and stress, and also because everybody is doing it and they do not want to be seen as different, most incorporate vulgarities and obscenities into their regular vocabulary, if they have not done so already, in which case they increase their frequency of swearing, and build upon their already extensive vocabulary. Thus, those who manage to avoid the depredations of modern culture and life, with f-word touting Hollywood stars and friends who spout vulgarities at the slightest provocation, inevitably are corrupted, killing any hope one might have of cultivating a gracious or courteous society.

Language is not the only way in which conscripted people are affected. Their behaviour is also adversely affected. In military training, barbarous behaviour is cultivated in the recruits. They are trained to kill and to strengthen their savage instinct, to bring the primal beast in them to the fore, through indoctrination sessions, martial training and the practice of getting soldiers to yell as loudly as they can when answering officers' commands, which perhaps leads to a vicious circle with the soldiers' loud shouting deafening the officers, such that the decibel level at which they stop pronouncing, "I can't hear you" keeps increasing. Incidentally, since the officers are those who are judged to be the most intelligent and have the best leadership qualities, this means that the cream of the nation's male youth has their hearing adversely affected, with the appropriate ramifications for the future of the country. Other influences may affect the soldier. For example, weak, tired, hungry, thirsty and aching, a person will be susceptible to outside influences, whether desirable or undesirable, an example of which would be religious fanaticism and fundamentalism - Military camps could be the breeding ground of a future generation of religious fundamnetalists.

While in military training, soldiers are given martial training, and learn both armed and unarmed combat. Furthermore, they have easy access to all matter of weaponry, which they have been taught to use. In tandem with the barbarity inculcated, and the pent up aggression, stress and vituperation, enforced military training leads to a higher crime rate, as since all male citizens, regardless of background, personality or psyche are conscripted, potential or existing criminals are learn how to expedite their criminal acts. Military service results in brutish, gruff and uncaring people - hallmarks of the criminal. The "might is right" attitude that the armed forces impart to their personnel means that people are less willing to be restricted by their moral inhibitions - Singapore's motto is "what you can't defend is not yours", a clear nod to criminals that if they can prey on innocents, they should.

Even if military training does not result in a person committing criminal acts, it still leaves scars on a person's psyche and body. Fatalities and unnecessary exposure to danger may result due to military training, but the extent of these is not known due to their being covered up by governments. Even if one is not killed or permanently injured during training, the constant abuse, physical, mental or otherwise, (by drill sergeants, who seek to torture a recruit until he break down, so that a useful soldier may be made out of him) and punishment, often unfair and meted out the slightest perceived transgression, breaks down the fabric of a person's mind, destroying his self-esteem, may cause mental breakdowns and plants the seeds of horrific nightmares which may haunt the soldiers for the rest of their lives, and this is assuming no permanent physical damage is sustained by soldiers during their tenure. The requirement that soldiers obey orders without question breaks down soldiers' will, and destroys any creativity they already had. People's character and personality are blunted and deadened, even destroyed, by military service. Likeable, jovial and vivacious people are transformed into gruff, coarse and unfeeling brutes, or if not, dead, lifeless husks. The greater tragedy of it all is that this is yet another vicious cycle, as officers seek to inflict the same torture upon their soldiers that they once were exposed to.

Military service also has negative social effects. In some countries, it is a justification for wage discrimination against females, negating the work of the early suffragettes. Sexual discrimination is also implicit in the concept of military service itself - are not females as good as males? Were they not born equal? The practice of conscripting males raises many doubts about the equality of the sexes. Even in Israel, females serve for shorter terms than their male counterparts and are not involved in front line duty. This suggests that women, then, are an inferior gender. Chauvinism is also encouraged by this sexual discrimination, as males look upon themselves as the Protectors of the nation, sheltering the weaker sex. In Singapore, the concept of 'Total Defence' was promulgated in the 1980s, that "everybody has a part to play". Evidently, some people have a bigger part to play than others - those who are active in Military Defence are also required to fulfill their roles in Economic, Psychological, Social and Civil Defence.

The economic impact upon the country that practices conscription is also incalculable. The lost years of the full-time training is substantial - what would be the impact on a country's GDP if half the workforce (considerably more in actuality, since females constitute less than half of the workforce) were to stop working for 2 to 3 years? And what about reservist training, where personnel can be summoned for up to 40 days a year of training? Besides the economically productive activity forgone, the country also has to pay the reservists while they are in training, a considerable burden upon taxpayers. This does not even take into account the uncountable cost of the mental atrophy that military service induces, the cost of the reduced ability and therapy of of tormented employees and the reduction in a person's creative capacity, as military service trains soldiers to be unthinking and obedient, following orders. As an example, let us look at Singapore, where 6% of the country's GDP is spent on defence, the second highest item on the expenditure list. The cost in economically productive activity forgone both in time and direct military expenditure is considerable. In Singapore, it is reported that there are 300,000 soldiers, including reservists, but one suspects that this figure, like that of China's armed forces, is considerably under-reported. Assuming 3 million citizens (under estimating for a conservative estimate), and a 100:100 gender ratio (to exclude those unfit for military service for one reason or another, again rather conservatively), and further assuming that half of the population is between the ages of 18 and 50 (again a gross underestimation), we can see that the lower bound of the size of Singapore's armed forces is 750,000, which is 3/4 of the reported size of China's army in 1990. Why such a small city state needs such a humongous army to protect such a small land area is unknown.

The burden on the individual is also considerable. Some of the best years of his life are lost while he is in full-time training, and he has to see those friends of his who are not in military training go on to College and University, pursuing their dreams, while he is stuck in a trench plucking leeches from his legs. He drifts out of touch with them, and loses many friends due to different mindsets and enforced separation. Those who have significant others or are married see their relationships suffer, due to a dearth of interaction and the other partner moving on mentally due to University education. Those who are in dire financial straits, whose families need a monetary infusion, are also disadvantaged by enforced military service, as their ailing mothers die due to a lack of money for medical treatment. This is to say nothing of the moral problems - who could bear to kill another human, even in desperate circumstances? Most major religions do not support killing - Christianity urges people to turn the other cheek and the Koran says that "he who kills one person kills the whole of humanity", and military service impinges on the religious obligations and tenets of many (Christianity and Islam accounting for more than half of the world's population).

Even in its titular aim - protecting a country, conscription may not be all that effective. Being forced into service, many conscripts are demoralised and unwilling to fight, and during a real war, desertions and defections are likely. There are also disturbing implications for World Peace - the larger a country's army gets, the larger neighbouring countries will build their armies, and an arms race is set off, destabilising the region and the world. Also, the country that practices conscription itself may be tempted to invade neighouring countries, for, though most countries have "Ministries of Defence", they are actually Ministries of War - not everybody is as honest as Saddam Hussein who has a Ministry of War and a Ministry of Propaganda.

To justify their bondage of a good half of the populace, lawmakers often like to tout the benefits of conscription. They say that it improves the physical fitness of the soldiers, teaches healthy living, good sanitary habits and discipline, and that you get to make new friends but this is tantmount to saying that it is good for your aircraft to encounter serious engine trouble because you get the thrill of jumping out of a plane in a parachute. These are all incidental side effects from conscription, and do not outweigh the bad effects, or they can be achieved more easily by partaking in other, less hurtful activities like joining a health club or chatting on IRC. Some people, attempting to sooth their spirits, console themselves by remembering that they are paid, but then, prostitutes are paid too (and much more handsomely than soldiers!). In fact, prostitutes sell their body, but soldiers "sell" (or, strictly speaking, are forced to give up) their body, mind and soul, as they pledge eternal allegiance to their country and promise to obey the Premier or President. Some people also say that military service is much easier now than, say, a few decades ago, but then, dying now is much better than a few centuries ago, as instead of your body being set out for the vultures to pick at, or, if you were executed by hated enemies, you are first flayed then beheaded and your 4 limbs, sexual organs and head sent to 6 different corners of the globe, you are buried in a nice casket or cremated and put in a beautiful urn - you still die.

With such a myriad of disadvantages, it is no wonder that many countries are stopping or scaling down conscription - Switzerland is going to reduce the size of its armed forces, Belgium ended conscription in 1992, the Netherlands in 1996, Spain and France in 2001, and Italy will do so in 2006, Portugal in 2003, and that many countries offer Alternative Service for conscientious objectors. It is a pity that some countries continue to inflict such torment on the male citizenry, but we can do nought but hope of the best, at least in Singapore, since a campaign of civil disobedience would be crushed ruthlessly, and the populace has been indoctrinated to believe that military service is good.

I was thinking of posting an anti-NS rant before I left, a follow-up to the essay I wrote in Secondary 4 about why compulsory military service is bad, which Ms Low Seng Eng, my English teacher, proclaimed, "If you want to read something funny, read Gabriel's essay" and she said to me, "you'd think they all come out in a body bag or straitjacket". but I think that idea's come to nought. Oh well. 'll probably post my essay later tonight.


Found on Buffalo's Chips: You never know when a little conversational Latin might come in handy. Toward that end I've dug up a few Latin phrases for you to familiarize yourself with...

Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.
It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

Di! Ecce hora! Uxor mea me necabit!
God, look at the time! My wife will kill me!

Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.
The designated hitter rule has got to go.

Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.
I think some people in togas are plotting against me.

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
If Caesar were alive, you'd be chained to an oar.

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

(At a barbeque)
Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?
Ever noticed how wherever you stand, the smoke goes right into your face?

Neutiquam erro.
I am not lost.

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.
Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out.


My sister gave me her old handphone (the one which survived a 11 storey fall). Yes, yet another first for Gabriel. The Hi-card is very expensive - 7 times more expensive than a publich phone (72 cents per half minute).

"Obfuscates". Right. (=
As a dabbler in writing, heartily agree with Economist's advocation of fewer, less complex words
[Ed: I like a few different words here and there - overuse of simple language deadens the mind a little and is boooring to read. Besides, I learnt most of my English from my wide reading, and if everyone uses simple language all the time, then it will become like George Orwell's 1984, where they progressively pare down the English language to nothing. Basically - all things in moderation]
. (Stint of mentorship with 4 other guys as "little boy minimalist naturalist poets"- as qian xi so cunningly put it- forced a discipline of words)

Usage of cumbersome vocabulary stinks of unwholesome pretension- and anyway, language is largely about communicating as effectively/clearly as possible. Read somewhere in a Roald Dahl adult short story that some writers use at least one "big" word in every chapter so as to "impress the heck off their readers".

Try aloe vera gel/lotion on sunburnt skin.

Hmmm. Yeo Feng's blog seems to be a one-man show. [Ed: I've posted 2 posts there, and will endeavour to post regularly]

Som, Yucheng [who has been reading too many self-improvement books] and Jianwen (that I know of) were swallowed today, and I'm next Tomorrow.



elvis presley - (Liszt) Transcendental Etude 12, Chasse-neige.mp3.temp - Hrm



Ugh - My nose is sunburnt, I forgot to apply sunscreen there on monday.

I've been invited by Yeo Feng to be a contributor to his weblog - Avid Techie - Technophile's Diary.

It's rather interesting, and if he keeps up his enthusiasm, it promises to be regularly updated with a stream of updates.

Also, it's holding a year end contest now.


Internal search engine stats (format - search | number of searches):

1. neopets 6
2. flesh parade 4
3. darksun shatterd land 4
4. singing chickens 3
5. blood sword 3
6. problems facing warner bros in terms of staffs turnover 3
7. ayers rock 2
8. stupider 2
9. queen rania of jordan 2
10. kwek mean luck 2
11. a03 2
12. uluru 2
13. goodbye speeches 2
14. pachelbel 2
15. pictures of the ob-irtysh river 2
16. animal onomatopoeia poems 2
17. farinelli 2
18. china's national anthem 2
19. dark side of xeen protect code 2
20. wav files 2


The Economist has released its English Style Guide ("This guide is based on the style book which is given to all journalists at The Economist.")

It advocates fewer, less complex words. Generally, this is good, but the minimalist approach doesn't sit that well with me - I like playing with words, though not to as great an extent as many of the people on vis-a-vis and The Associate, which I find obfuscates the content of a conversation. Also, many of the guidelines seem to be directed at Anglicising the writing style of a writer, but after all The Economist is a British publication.

Hehe:
"What was meant by the Israeli defence ministry when it issued the following press release remains unclear: The United States and Israel now possess the capability to conduct real-time simulations with man in the loop for full-scale theatre missile defence architectures for the Middle East."

Though I approve of some of it, especially the warning against Political Correctness!


Angela has offered her services at $1000/hour to hack into Singapore's database. That's quite cheap actually.

No one wants to take up my offer of $1/hr pay to hold ballloons in the park. Geraldine suggests that I print my URL on them.


Went down to Beach Road to buy some stuff for bondage. For some reason, there were quite a few mats around.

At least I won't have to bring a shaving kit along.

Hi,

Just got to use computer (people playing virtual golf and earth:2025 clones finally released them). Had to sms my bro urgently, so I put my smallest denomination coin (50p) into a sms cum email cum normal phone phone. SMS- 10p. Email- 20p. 1 sms to brother, email to mum. And to gabriel, since there was 20p left (and no refund would be given.) Surprise surprise- Bumped into Shang yee (she just heard that i was around) in Boots pharmacy- was shopping for moisturiser, she was apparently looking for presents for em and nic. Now i feel like i'm really the last person around without a ready handphone.

Cambridge may be more interesting... haven't been there before. Oxford definitely has better shopping by most accounts (shopping centres, all kinds of fashion and many bookshops, Blackwell's) will take a look at the other colleges this afternoon if there's nothing else on. Can't believe i'm expected to be cooped up in the common room under glaring incandescent lights with so many other pple. Ah well, bought a copy of Rendezvous with Rama which i've been aching to read for a long time.

Andrew

Experimenting with another comment system... Hope this one will stay up for a long time :) But "SnorComments accounts that have been inactive for 2 months will be deleted." Ugh.



My elbows, arms and wrists are still a little sore from yesterday. Ouch.



12:34PM: Mmm, my sister bought me more Pork instant noodles, and these are premium!

Little Cook TVP Pork And Mustard Stem Premium Noodle

These really contain real pork and real Mustard Stems, by the way!

Yum.



12:51PM: Gah, my mother keeps hiding things and then complains that we don't use up the stuff we've bought. My fudge-in-a-bottle cannot be found.

NTUC Bukit Timah Plaza has an Australian food pavillion, with lots of nice stuff.

Got a Christmas card from Andrew. I don't actually send cards to anybody, partially because I'm lazy, but he still sends them to me, isn't he sweet? :)

Too bad whatever he enclosed dropped out while in the mail. The envelope is damaged near the bottom part of the reverse side. Ah well.



I don't send out Christmas cards / give everyone birthday presents because the problem with this is that if you forget one person, then it is rather suay. You have to draw up a long list and you invariably miss people. Also, the exigencies of life necessitate that you send cards or buy presents for people you don't even *want* to, which is rather sad, insincere or maybe even, dare I say, hyprocritical?

Ahh, but I'm just rationalising my laziness :) I send out my Seasons Greetings and Birthday Presents psychically, with ephemeral pulses of affection and love!

Just finished second interview. Ah. Am recording down subjects of conversation in my notebook for future reference. Used the phrase "place poetry" 4 times in the medic interview (hee heee heee)

The first interview was more academic in orientation, abt clinical exposure, knowledge, medical cases. More formal, me and interviewer on opposite sides of the table facing each other, and a stack of paper for me to draw relevant diagrams on. THe second was on me "as a person"- using the personal statement as a jump-board thingie (whatever it's called). Me and interviewer on cushioned sofas at angles to each other, and a coffee table in between strewn with papers. But for the second interview, there was a lean towards bedside attitude/ behaviour towards patients at the end of the interview/conversation/session thingie.
Going off to record proceedings of interview.
Actually, not sure if i'm allowed to publish this- one isn't supposed to communicate to other interview candidates what happened, to avoid giving anyone unfair advantages. I'll just post this then- assume i'm the only balderdash blogger here right now.

Warm fuzzy feelings welling up well inside of me


Andrew

Just remembered
Saw a pair of nike "Hot socks" labelled as "footies" in BATA the other day. Ah.
Just completed one interview (!�"$%"~�!@�). Next one in 15 minutes time. Ah.

Went out with the class to Sentosa today.

We were supposed to meet at 9 am at World Trade Centre's McDonalds, but almost everyone (but for me, Myo Li and Felicia) was late, and most of them were fashionably late (more than 1/2 hr).

While strolling around the WTC, a handphone rang with China's national anthem as the ringtone.

Chin Yung and Chin Xiang brought their prom pics along, and the former had a photo with African! The odd thing is that he didn't know her name, but he knows her through his sister (or something). "Why you call her 'African'? She's very white." - Zhixiang (who still has that disgusting Powerpuff Girl hanging from his bag).

Tong was wearing floral printed Hot Sorts (which, in her defence, she says her mother bought for her). Lucky she wore them at the hips, or they'd be hotter. Felicia's were not floral printed, so they looked less Hot even though they were the same length, and Myo Li wore floral printed, but un-Hot shorts.

And I found out the name of the J1 Councillor who looks like a Horse! Chin Xiang took a picture with her. Too bad I can't remember her name now, not that I would have posted it anyway.

Felicia told me that she'd found out what the hair accessories which are like small elastic bands are called - Ponytailers. Someone suggested "scrunchie", but we all know that those are the big, fluffy/furry/bulkier ones.



When we finally went to Sentosa we started playing Beach Volleyball. After applying liberal doses of sunscreen. The last time the class went to Sentosa, most of them got burnt to a red crisp (haha I didn't go so I was saved). I'm not as useless as in Lower Secondary, when I ran shrieking away from the ball, but I'm still quite lousy (though better than Myo Li :) ). There was this girl in the group a while away who was playing Beach Volleyball in a dress. Hrm.

I also went Kayaking, for the first time since OBS 3 1/2 years ago. The first time I went out, it was with Tong, and I capsized twice. The first time, my (almost 3 years old - quite long lasting for me) glasses went to the bottom of the lagoon, where they now reside. Well, the colour was fading from the frame and the lenses were scratched. My wallet also got soaked (okay, I'm dumb bringing things along). We both agreed that it was probably a combination of both of our mannerisms of jerking a lot and what not that caused the capsize ("I've never capsized a kayak before").

Later we played Captain's Ball while frolicking in the water, and some of us tried to teach Myo Li to float, not very successfully. No one understood my reference to getting a yeast infection from the dirty seawater.

I didn't bring a change of clothing (yes, I'm dumb), but I did that in Hawaii too, when I walked back to the Hotel from Waikiki (I think) Beach. And on that occasion my glasses fell apart and a nice optician reassembled them for me free. That day, I sat on the beach and let myself be buffeted by waves, which is where and when this picture:
was taken.

The Tulip brand pork sausages we bought contained... Pig blood plasma. Ugh.

I struck out on a single kayak after that. It was quite fast, and I didn't capsize. Well, I did, but I was besotted by Pirates (Changge and Qingru) who capsized me not once, but twice! And they tried to hijack Tong and Felicia's kayak, but were stopped and ran away with the oars.

There were some lians frolicking on the beach, with one slightly plump guy in a bikini.

Jason had a nice pair of $300 sunglasses, which were golden and gave very clear vision. Changge: "Good to look at girls."

The bad thing about going to the beach is that you get sand everywhere - I had to wash it off my perenium. And now I am sore, especially in my wrists and arms, and rather tired.



A thought on "Total Defence" - there's a part for everyone, but some people play a bigger part than others. Maybe I should boycott the other 4 aspects of Total Defence - Psychological, Social, Economic and Civil.

Seen on TV Works - Adrian Pang singing 'All I want for Christmas is Angelina Jolie'. Gah.

My cable connection is temperamental and I have to reboot every now and then. Grr.

There is a "Moral Uplifting Society" near Forum the Shopping Mall. I believe it is this one:

Che Sen Khor Moral Uplifting Society

Hi,

In oxford now, languishing in the junior common room waiting for the admission exam. \Still contactable via email, so do drop me a line. Walking around the uni town was fun, parks are quite horrible (winter), shopping to do. Free food and accommodation for the time i'm in oxford (in saint anne's college).

Bumped into Yoong Chuan on the MA plane to london- he's also around for interviews.

Anyone wants anything from UK? Can't promise anything but will try to oblige-
expect to frequent discount racks in clothes shops and bookshops and the like most often.

Heard ACJC prom was dotted with ugly clothes. Well. Will probe further when i get back

Gabriel, F and B industry in muslim countries just re-package their deals during ramadan. I know many hotels in malaysia run big night buffet promotions in ramadan, and scale down their high teas. Eating out becomes a big affair as many families go out to break their fast. Restaurants don't just close down for a month you know, have a look around the ones in singapore (though i daresay you might see one or two guilty people gobbling down food)

Gotta run. Ciao.

Andrew

Lin Yucheng sent me his Prom photos. Apparently he has mellowed, though I can still detect many traces of his old irritatingness.

And he did what Ian suggested I do, and went up to take photos with people (girls all, in his case) that he didn't know (or claims not to, at any rate). Well. And he dedicated a whole category just for that.

Looking at the photos of the Prom, it almost seems as if there were as many guys wearing suits at the Hualalalala Prom as there were guys *not* wearing suits at RJ's. Ok, not quite that many, but you get the idea. The girls' gowns and dresses are also rather insipid (and there's one garish one). And almost everyone was in black! ARGH.

Maybe it's something to do with Hualalalala.

Doh!

Yong Lin just told me why my stacking of paragraph tags won't work. Blogger used to do it for you, but now it won't. So I'll have to change all my paragraph tags to double break line tags.

Flurry of updates on the main page.

Ah. havent posted for quite a while.. been busy writing essays.. yipeeeee! left 1 more to go..! =) excluding those i have to edit once my senior finishes reading them...

Prom.. grr. stupid mc. lousy music. bad food [Ed: Eugene Ng and I think it was quite good! Maybe Fuzzirat spent too much time taking photos, and his food grew cold, or people spiked his food with salt and pepper (someone did that to me in prague)]. it was (in one word) terrible.
Yep, this is my prom post. Ta-da!

Went out yesterday with some friends.. heheh... left house at 5+ pm, reached home at 3am... quite fun.. its good to have seniors with cars... =)
Watched some funny chinese movie bout a dog becoming human... very cute.. =) go watch if u'r bored...

Argh, 2 days to play b4 enlistment! and 3 interviews scheduled on those 2 days already.... hopefully on tuesday i can go out for a while b4 i go home and pack and rest b4 going to camp the next morning... =P

oh well. later going to cut my hair for interview.. which is a bit strange cos on weds im gonna get another haircut..

ookie... time for other ppl to post.

wheeee! 1 more essay!