Merry Christmas Everyone!

The word Christmas comes from the words Cristes maesse, or "Christ's Mass." Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus for members of the Christian religion. Most historians peg the first celebration of Christmas to Rome in 336 A.D.

Merry Christmas to everyone! Hope that all of you out there had enjoyed this joyful day! Another year is ending and I remembers last year at this very day I was still training in SISPEC.

I had finished my course on Friday, ending with a surprise knowledge written test with fill-in-the-blanks, T/F, and multiple choice questions. And I got my certificate, aka, target board for arrows to shoot at me, and comes with a nice polo t-shirt. I leave with a better knowledge on what an investigating officer is to take note of and the procedure to interview people and how to write reports. A boring but fruitful course had ended. What is also important is also the chance to know and learn from people from other formations in army.

Weekend is the best time to go out shopping. Christmas Eve seems to be like another ordinary day for me. No count down with the pack of crowds at Orchard Road or Esplanade. I went to Suntec City, Marina Square and Bugis for window shopping. Often, window shopping ends up buying some stuff for day to day use. Dinner, Chee Yong and I went to Redhill market for our dinner with Kok Liang. We chatted for a very long time. It was a very interesting conversation from life in secondary school to NSF from different vocations.

This afternoon, Carol and I went to Fuji’s house warming at Punggol. Her new house was renovated with simplicity. New HDB flats designs are getting smaller. Her room is about 2/3 the size of mine. A study decent size study table will be hard to fit into the already cramp space. Well, I think I still prefer old flats with better layouts with more rooms for flexible designs.

tata…

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First day of course

Wah… Today’s morning first day of my ASIC, Army Safety Investigation Course, the lecture was all right. Wait until after a nice lunch in an air-conditioned room, I felt so sleepy. I was fighting the Z Monster all the way and at certain intervals, I lost. The lecture was very dry and monotonous. The lecture ends at around 5.30pm and we broke into our Syndicate groups for a case study and discussion which last till almost 7pm. It was boring!

I could not believe I was “arrowed” to go for this course which I had no previous appointments related to safety investigation. But it is also good that I escape 3 days from my unit. Give and take la…

I hope tomorrow will not be like today, which last until 7pm. Oh no, maybe it will, we are having a exercise in respective units, if there is any, to learn to interview witness and do reports. Sucks.

tata…

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The Make-Over II

Did some painting on Monday after bought the paint all the way from Yishun. I went around my neighborhood but they did not have the color I wanted. One of the shops, Colorland Paint Centre referred me to their other brunch at Yishun. So I drove over there and get the paint.

There are so many things to move away from the wall and I had to fill the cavities of the wall after I removed an old curtain railing. My sister came in to help me do the painting too. I quite enjoy what I am doing. Painting and feel my living room starts to come alive again, just like more than 6 years ago when I moved into this house.

My painting had to stop at the living room in the evening. I went to Orchard to meet up with Lay Lay and Chee Yong for a movie screening, King Kong. The show was marvelously filmed and King Kong and other special effects are perfectly rendered to life. King Kong’s expressions were wonderfully portrayed and the ending was a very sad one, even though I still feel it is not as sad as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’s ending, it is a tragic., how mankind are so selfish. $7 for weekday movie, King Kong, was a worth while to watch even for weekend rates.

Today, I went back to camp on my leave day for 2 purposes. 1, is to pass a presentation PowerPoint to a colleague, and 2, is to attend my battery’s meeting. To my anger, the meeting was cancelled. I had spent my leave to travel to camp for a cancelled meeting without anyone informing me?! So kind of them.

Well, that is also good news. I spent my rest the day painting my dining room alone because my sister is in school, which took me 5 hours to finish up the whole dining room. I was totally exhausted after mission accomplished. Why did I choose, Potter’s Clay, as the color of my dining and half of my living room? The color resemblance nature, the color of clay used by potters, the closeness to earth and warmth at night, vibrant at day. I am going to get plants in after I had done up some of the layout concepts I had in mind now.


The finished wall of the living and part of the unfinished dining area


Started in the dining not long ago


My sword case hanging between my sister and my room on the newly painted wall


My sword in the case under ambience lighting

tata…

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The Make-Over I

Oh my, Sunday is about to end in less than 2 hours. Doing duties in camp during weekend seems to tick time faster. My duty on Friday to Saturday morning seems long but time flies at home. Saturday 8am, I was supposed to hand over my duty to one of my fellow friends but he was late. At 15, he is still in the taxi coming back to camp. He only took over at 8.30, 30 minutes late for duty. Where is his professionalism as an officer?

Saturday morning I did not rest after the short sleeping hours during my duty. I went out instead. Finally, I got a source that Kingston, a brand for its computer memory products, have a distributor in Singapore. It is Convergent. Located in OG Albert Centre, just opposite Sim Lim Square, I went there to get a one to one exchange for my faulty 1GB SDcard. The service was prompt. He took my card, went into his work office, diagnosed the card and gave me a new card. I think Kingston had problems with its memory cards as I can see quite a number of faulty cards were in a box. Well, nothing matters to me if I can get a value for money service, just like my Konica Minolta A1 camera in exchange for a A200 model due to faulty internal board.

Tomorrow, I am going to shop for paints, wall paints. I am going to do some painting for my living and dining area. It has being delayed for months since I made the proposal for a new design. It will be going to be a long transformation until it is completely done because I want to feel how goes and make changes along the way. Design does not stop on the paper.

One proposal I had is to have a home theatre at home, somewhere. Maybe, my room, but it will be quite a major transformation. Or part of my parent’s room, it will be great as the room is very big, almost as big as my living room. Or in anyway, I transform my living room into one big theatre hall with curtains and a portable air-conditioning. Big ideas, big project, long process.

tata…

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The test of true friends

Looks like I am only able to start my long holiday on Saturday morning after 8am. I am going to help take over the DOO duty from one of my friend who needs my help to cover his duty. Since last month he helped me to cover one of my duty, I think I should return him a favor.

Trying to plan for a SOC test during this period is very difficult. The indenting of SOC ground and vehicle gives me a big headache. I had to personally send an email to book the training ground instead of asking the Workplan IC to indent for me as he is out for exercise. In-fact, most of them are out and they are the people who I needed most now. Even most of my friends from other units are unavailable to help me to be neutral officer for the test. I don’t mind if they have exercise which stops them from helping me. One of my friend who has agreed to help me but in the end could not make it because his exercise would end later than my test start time. I appreciate his help and he even helped me to ask around his unit whether anyone is free, everyone is busy with exercises. So I approached friends from AI, Artillery Institute. I think I really despise a number of people from Artillery Institute. Some are just doing some administration stuffs but cannot even spare me 2 hours of their time to help. Who are the people who always help them when they are having exercises or in need for help? It is people from units like us. We give them the help they need but they give us almost nothing. But I at last managed to find one about 2 hours ago. I really thank him for his help even though he wanted to go for his sports game.

In this political society, we have to help one another. Who knows when we will need each other during critical periods? We look out for each other and take care for each other. It is always a 2 way thing. It is the time when you know who your true friends are.

tata…

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Waiting for a long holiday

Weekend duty is really very boring. I do not know what to do except buying drinks from the dispenser machine and waiting for the clock tick by to meal time. Eating in the cookhouse during weekends is great. The food served is delicious and I couldn’t wait for the next meal time to arrive.

After my duties, I went back to bunk to rest for the morning. I had not had enough sleep as I had to work till after midnight before I can go to bed. I sleep for the whole morning till almost 1pm before I head back to my office. It was a peaceful sleep without any interruption. Thinking back, I wonder how I cope with the sleepless nights I had during my polytechnic days.

It is only Monday and I have starting thinking of Friday. Then, I will have a very long holiday before I go back to camp after Christmas. Actually, I had a 3 days course next week from Wednesday to Friday, and I took 2 days leave on Monday and Tuesday. So, I am going to enjoy my long Christmas holiday!

tata…

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Official Officer's Duty

Quite a while I had being away busy with my work and personal stuffs. For the past few days during the weekdays, I had being busy going out for my unit’s exercise. It is a dreaded job for us, FOs, as Most of the time we are doing is to wait, wait and wait for missions to be activated by us.

Then there came Friday, the day of boredom. There is nothing to do in the office. One of the officers approached me for a swap of DOO, Duty Orderly Officer, duty for mine which is on next Sunday. So now, I am doing my duty this Sunday, which is tomorrow. I am going back tonight so I do not need to wake up early the next morning to travel back to camp. This would be my first DOO duty as an officer. Hopes that everything will go all right.

I was introduced to a new online game titled Silk Road Online. http://www.silkroadonline.net It is quite a fun game. Graphics are great in 3D. But the server seems to be a bit lagging. Sometimes I could not move for a while. The game reminds me of Dynasty Warrior which I was once addicted to it.

Shopping for Christmas presents is a disaster. I do not know what to buy! I have not even sent out my Christmas cards I usually did every year. Oh yes, tomorrow is my blog’s 1 year birthday. Don’t know whether I had the chance to use the internet tomorrow or not. So, I wish to say a Happy Birthday to my blog!

tata…

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Korean/Japanese films

It is quite weird that I was stuck to the television this early morning 1plus am to 3plus am watching a Korean movie titled, Ditto, in chinese titled, 爱的光们. I switched on my TV before I went to sleep and the show had already started. Initially, I find that it is kind of stupid, the way they communicate. In Singapore we don’t normally talk in the way the characters communicate. They are like being unreasonable when it is only a very small conflict. The movie is about a guy who is in year 1999 and was managed to get radio communication with a gal who is in the year 1977. It so happened that the gal was somehow a friend of his parents and she had affection with his father initially. But in the end, his father married the gal’s best friend whom they met in the hospital; both had one of their limps cast. The ending of the story was not what I had predicted but was touching.



I think I had gone mad. This Korean movie is not the best movie but had managed to catch my attention. I always thought Korean movies are boring but somehow this movie changed my view. That was my first Korean movie I watched since the last time I watch a Japanese drama series titled, er… I forgot. Quite a few years back already. The music to the drama is the one you are listening to now.

To me, speaking of Korean/Japanese dramas and movies, they associated me to romance and scary movies. It is the impression they gave me since the first debut of Japanese shows in Singapore TV.

tata…

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Feeling Refreshed

Feeling better already after a day of rest yesterday. On Friday, I had a very difficult day trying to keep myself on form. I got a bad headache, feverish feeling, flu and sore throat. The heat on Friday was unbearable to me even though it is not as sunny. But luckily, I had a 1.5litres of water with me during my battery’s NE, National Educational, tour in Little India and Chinatown. The most enjoyable trip was to the Chinatown Heritage Centre which exhibited the living conditions and things people used during the early days of Singapore. I had never realized how bad the conditions were back in those days. There were no proper sanitary systems and it was dark staying in small rooms in shophouses.

Saturday evening, I went to my “2nd level boss’s”, of my battalion, house for a BBQ. Actually, it is his mother-in-law’s condominium apartment. Well, the food was nice. But I did not stay for long, so do some of my friends. It is better to escape from there as there are too many “big people” there. Not exactly many but just don’t feel very natural staying there.

I am having my leave tomorrow. Need to clear one of my last year’s 3 days leave. I wonder what I am going to do tomorrow. Watch movie? Or just spend my time away at home watching television and play computer games? Nah… I think I will go out for a walk or something.

tata…

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Sick Sick Sick

I am sick, really sick. This morning when I woke up I was feeling all right. I had a good sleep through the night and woke up feeling refreshed. But after the morning’s life-run, I felt sick. I had flu and my throat sore. My body felt warm and had a headache. Until now, I felt the same. I popped 2 panadols and hope I get better soon. I am very tired. Hope that later after a good night sleep I will get better.

tata…

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