Game Without an Aim

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Back to Nee Soon Camp

I'll be on my way back to Nee Soon camp in a few minutes time. Let me just take this few minutes to update on what has happened for the past week.

Basically, the week has been mainly lectures and practicals for us. We learn about the various explosives and demolition stuff and then set them up in our practicals. Friday's our test. I think I did ok for it.

There's also the TSR test. It's basically about the safety regulations and all. Lots of the questions are about safety distances from the explosives. To pass you would need 90%. I got 90% on my first try, and most of the rest of my course mates failed even after a few tries. I guess I was lucky? Haha.

Oh, I took up a tuition assignment for a P5 girl this week too. It's for math. I'll keep the rate a secret. I'm taking her for 1.5 hours per week for now. I hope to push it to 2 hours cuz it'll be more worth it since travelling down is taking me almost 1.5 hours by itself. But that can wait till when I've proven myself. Lessons will start next week. Haha. This will be exciting. :)

Rode my bike to collect my JC notes from Kendrick today. Planning to revise my JC stuff in case I forget. I fell from my bike on the way back. More like flew rather than fell though. Cuz there was this family in front blocking the entire pavement. I kept ringing the bell and I thought they heard me when the boy at the back moved a little to the side. But unexpectedly the father in front didn't move away and I had to jam my brakes to avoid crashing into him. So I just flew la. Luckily I only had very minor scratches.

So there, I'm off to camp now.

From my Past,
To my Future

Monday, May 18, 2009

Laziness

Haha. Have been really lazy the last few days - lazing around starting from the time I booked out on Friday afternoon till now. Which is why I haven't been updating though there're 'happening' things.

Thursday-Friday
Ever had a time when you don't know if you're really living in reality or just having a very bad nightmare? Tonight was one such experience for me.

Starting from Kranji War Memorial, we marched all the way to Pasir Laba camp through the night and morning. Our march was a whooping 28 30km. And because our navigator got us lost twice, our 30km marched turned 30+km..

I don't think you really know how crazy the march is...

Seriously.

I know thirty might look like 30 to you but to me and the others who've been through the march it was more of
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111,
222222222222222222222222222222222,
333333333333333333333333333333333,
........................
333333333333330000000000000000000.

Something like that. Except that we count those torturous 30km using our feet and through the duration of 8 hours.

And we marched all night like we've never marched before.

By the second checkpoint, I was rather demoralised already. Honestly. I might look like it was no kick and I can tell you that I'm feeling ok so far (relative to a lot of other ppl) but inside my mind I was thinking 'Oh gosh. This is not even half the march and I can start to feel the weight of the field pack already.' And that was bad news to me.

So I started sleep marching from that point onwards. Basically, sleep marching involves closing your eyes while marching (duh) and opening one or both of your eyes every 10 seconds or so to check on progress. Yep. But the thing about sleep marching is that though I close my eyes and am in a semi hibernation state, I don't actually sleep. I am still aware of every step I take, my weight distribution on my feet, the noises and voices around me as well as the direction which I'm moving.

Sleep marching's great. It makes the whole experience seem really dreamy. And I simply love this feeling even though it feels more like a nightmare in action. Another plus would be it greatly saves your energy.

But sleep marching has it's unexpected consequences too.

It was somewhere around 24km when Eugene, one of my bunk mate, called for me. I responded and walked over to join him but little did I expect to be given a tight smack on my arm as I started marching next to him. I was immediately jolted out of my semi-conscious state and confusion and a burst of sudden anger took over. Before I could find an explanation for what happened, my blood was already pumped with adrenaline and I had already given him a tight smack back on his arm and shouted angrily 'Why the fuck did you smack me for?'

Wrong decision.

The crowd around us all turned and looked at what was happening. Haha. I immediately realised what I had done and tried to dismiss the attention that was on us. And I learnt from Eugene that he was trying to wake me up cuz he saw me sleeping. I was still a bit angry and replied that I was enjoying myself sleep marching until his smack woke me up and disrupted my whole pace.

And I couldn't really sleep march again after the adrenaline rush. But with my mind clearer, I realised that actually sleep marching isn't the norm. >.< It was actually pretty dangerous for someone to fall asleep while marching and I did look like I fell asleep. I should be thanking Eugene instead of blaming him. Ah. The sudden realisation made me feel v malu. So I apologised. He accepted it with grace and told me that actually he fell asleep some time ago and almost tripped and fell. As a result, he had been going around waking people up to prevent the same thing from happening to them.

It was pretty much uneventful after that and we marched the remaining 6km for what seemed like eternity...

Friday
Right after the march was our POP (passing out parade) and after that, it was back to our company line.

Got my posting for my unit. I'm going to Nee Soon camp on 25th of May as a field engineer specialist cadet. And yep, block leave's from today all the way till 24th May! Woohoo!

Settled the usual admin stuff and booked out.

Dad sent me home and it was home sweet home again! =)

The rest are the usual stuff (cold shower,washing of clothes,sleeping!,eating,slacking).

Saturday
Lazing around, reading manga, playing games.

Sunday
Borrowed psp from choon yik to play. Turns out there're only 2 games and both are faulty.

Cycled to Jurong West Sports Hall for badminton outing! Woohoo! Those who came- Jiahao, jidan, son, huiqi, serene, huiping. Playing badminton with them was rather different from playing with my secondary school classmates. But I guess it was expected. Haha. As usual, jiahao never fails to amuse us with his silly stunts. And the girls were also zi-highing sometimes I think? Or maybe it's just cuz Serene's in a good mood. Haha.

Went for dinner at Jurong Point afterwards. Talked about who went which uni courses. And the highlight of the convo was really about fooling around with Son. Haha.

Monday
Slack. Help out with house work. Check mail.

Had a good talk with mom and dad though. It has been a long time since I've done that.

And that's about it.

From my Past,
To my Future

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Setting Off...

Yo. Just taking 5 minutes off to update what's happened these few days.

Argh. Dunno how to organise my thoughts. So here goes spam.

-This week's a slack week.
-Started wearing ear plugs on Monday cuz loud and high pitched noises annoy me.
-Went to the MO (Medical Officer) on Tuesday.
-MO said that my ear drum's still there, so there's nothing to worry about.
-Got excused from noisy environment for one week.
-I continued wearing my ear plugs and attracted lots of attention. >.<

And now I'm about to set off for my 28km graduation march. Tomorrow will be the passing out parade. A bit sad though, cuz there's nobody to watch the parade except for us.

Have to go now. Tata.

From my Past,
To my Future

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Half Deaf

Argh.

My right ear has been half deaf ever since the section live firing on Friday. I keep hearing a soft 'Eeeee...' sound since then and the sounds that I pick up are significantly softer on my right ear.

Feels kinda imbalanced.

What's worse is that whenever someone shouts or when there's a loud noise, the 'Eee...' sound turns into a loud and high pitch 'Eee...' sound.

And it hurts my ear. Ouch.

I just hope this isn't going to be permanent.=/

From my Past,
To my Future

Guilt

It's 2 in the morning right now and I'm feeling really really miserable. =/

I'm momentarily at a loss of words to describe what just happened.

________

Ah.

It's 2.25 now.

I can still feel the aching in my heart.

The feeling of utmost guilt still feels almost as fresh as when I woke up one and a half hours ago on my bed in Kilo Company and discovered that it was 12:55am.

I was 55 minutes late, with 6 missed calls and 3 smses from my dad. There and then I thought I was living in my worst nightmare and these were all unreal...

My SOL ends at 2359 on 090509 and I was allowed to book out on that night if I had somebody sending me home. If not, I'll have to book out today (Sunday) after breakfast. And dad told me that he'll come and bring me home after knowing about this. I was touched, for he could have waited for me to go back home on my own tomorrow morning and it would save him his sleep and his effort but he went out of his way to come pick me up so I could get home asap.

And I actually told him that I'll be released at exactly 12 midnight, hinting that there won't be any delay and I won't be late.

That was at around 2250.

Little did I know that moments later I would fall fast asleep on my bed after I was done with the packing of my book out bag...

Thoughts and emotions flooded me right after I realised what had happened. I was angry at myself for being too careless; I felt hurt and rather angry that the other SOL people didn't wake me up when it was time to go and that they probably only cared about their own booking out. But I know that it never pays to depend on people so I'm back to being angry at myself again.

And then it was guilt.

The guilt that cannot be suppressed. Because the more you understand how much the other party had sacrificed, the greater the the self remorse when you realise you've let him down.

Ah.

I called, I changed, and ran all the way to the PLC gates, out of the gate and to dad's car.

He was there waiting, angry and furious. And rightfully so. I made him wait for more than an hour for nothing.

I swear if there was anything I could do to undo all of these I would have done it. My apologies meant little - how can a word of sorry resolve the time he had taken to wait?

Mum was in the car too, sleeping. So was lil bro. More guilt.

Dad gave me a good scolding in car. About being late. About my misfire. About not having the heart to make sure that things go right.

At some points I really wanted to cry if I could.

Ah.

But I guess it was too late to cry over spilt milk.

From my Past,
To my Future

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Suspension of Leave

Yo yo yo! I'm back!

...

Haha.

Alright, alright. So I'm not.

I'm typing from the company Annex room right now, munching down a tuna sandwich which would be our night snack for the day and chilling out on a couch. And what's the best thing on top of all these? I'm in an AIR-CONDITIONED room! And to think I only knew about this paradise just minutes ago when I've been in this camp for almost 7 weeks!

Haha.

Actually, I'm doing all these while the rest of the company's marching out in their civilian attire for their nights out. Nights out = Out of camp! = Leave. And I'm suspended from taking any leaves for 5 days. Which is ~~entirely~~ partly the reason why I'm still in camp typing this entry.

Obviously, I didn't get this SOL for 5 days for no reason.

I was charged along with a few others by my OC yesterday for misfiring during the Grand Slam. We were punished and all were given the lightest punishment of 5 days SOL starting from yesterday. So that means we can't book out with the rest of the company on Friday and we can only book out on Saturday 2359.

I'm feeling rather fortunate to be given a lenient punishment. However, even though I don't mind booking out on Sunday morning, there's still a lil problem on hand. I was supposed to attend a talk NTU Material Engineering talk this Saturday... So I guess either our OC excuse me for the talk or I'll just miss the talk completely.

Oops! I just remembered something!

Actually I wanted to put up the details of my misfiring. But that would be leaking confidential stuff.

So...

Till next time!

From my Past,
To my Future

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Short Term Plan

It has been a long and refreshing weekend and it's time for me to book in again...

Friday
-Attended half of the s20 + CO outing.
-Dad sent me to ECP together with the rest of the family.
-Went for the gathering while lil bro and dad flew their new kite.
-Rode a double cycle bike with Clayton and played 2 games of Initial D. Got owned as usual. Haha.
-Had dinner at Bedok after that and went home with my family.

Saturday
-Started reading Initial D manga. It was great! Now I'm hooked to it.

Sunday
-Continued reading Initial D manga.
-I'm now at chapter 190 already.
-Wish I could read slower... Don't wanna catch up to the current chapter that soon.
-Went to the library for 3 hours.
-Looked around really long for physics books to borrow but realised I can't borrow with 11B nor ez-link -.-

That's my weekend for ya.

And I realise I've been spending too much time slacking around and doing 'useless' stuff. Time to set some goals for myself and do something productive. Actually, that's the reason why I went to the library today-to find some good read that I can immerse my mind into and sort of prepare me for my uni course which I'll be taking in 2 years time.

Oh, and by the way, I got accepted into NTU Material Engineering and NUS Science.

I'm thinking of going for NUS Physics (part of the Science faculty which I got accepted into) and then going for a double degree that covers both Physics as well as Material Science and Engineering.

And you simply have to be amongst the elite to take a double degree. Which is why I have to plan ahead right now.

So there.

Here's a rough plan of what I'm planning to do in the next few weeks (on top of reading Initial D):

1. Start reading the papers! (30mins limit for each day)
2. Read up on Astrophysics. (week 1-5 )
3. Read up on Nanotechnology. (week 6-9)
4. Find stuff on Biophysics (week 1-5) and read them up (not anytime soon...)

Yep, that's about enough to keep me busy for the next few weeks. Gotta go now.

From my Past,
To my Future