rock on.

"CADETS! DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU ARE HERE?!"
"sir, because i have no choice"

haha, the past few days were extremely busy for me, and they're not getting alot better. friday was jamming, which more or less took up my whole day because i woke up in midday. saturday was the start of the NCOC 08 (non commisioned officer's course), where we were going to be trained to be leaders and NCOs.

it definately isn't like those kind of motivational camps that you go to or those leadership camps like PSLTC or prefect's camp. NCOC really takes discipline to a new level, and it's not something that makes the camp enjoyable. almost every action has to be coupled with showing respect, urgency and alertness. gah, that made some things really tough and tiring. running here, and then back there because we werent fast enough, then running back again because of some other reason that was a cause for disatisfaction - was what we did often and i don't think we liked it one bit.

anyway on the brighter side, we did learn alot through the courses that we had, and if you actually listened, they were pretty meaningful and there was quite alot to learn. i certainly learned much, even from the leadership talk by sir nevod. haha, leadership in here is really different from what we experience back at school. so yea it's another thing new for me.

i really really don't wanna go into details, because im literally falling asleep now, and it's just coming 9pm. gahhh, sleeeep.

oh next week's seriously screwed too, tomorrow im taken by jamming and some mediacorp audition thing. tuesday and wed is training, thurs got some book collection, friday and sat is NCOC again zzz. gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

stacker

i did some research on the Stacker Game Machine that you'd find in arcades, the ones where you stack the blocks up in hope of getting a ps3 or some huge prize.

turns out that the machine has a set win frequency rate. like 1:800 chance of winning at the last block. only the last block is rigged, and after the set number of times, the machine would let someone have a chance to win. the number may vary, depending on the arcade.

so to all you people out there who keep going back to the arcade to waste all of your money on stacker, it's probably not gonna work if you've reached the last block once and still dont win. i've been to the arcade with a few friends who learnt it the hard way, and instead of having fun, it's just disappointment! haha, but there're some people who do win! like rovik, he got his psp from there. so i guess he was the lucky one who managed to get past the 800 tries before him!

moral of the story : play daytona. :D

training was alright.

the feeling of fatigue from exercising is backkk. the team was dreading training, gotta admit that i wasnt really looking forward to it as said in my previous post. well it started out well, actually "well" haha. instead of meeting at 9, ian moses guangjin and i met at 8 to just brush up our footdrills. it was really helpful because i had a trouble shouting those malay commands T.T i would be like "BEGIRAAAAAP errr KEKENAN DALAM SATU BARISANNN ... KEKENAN PUUUSENG!" hahahaha, but i got that problem straightened out in the end. it was quite a mouthful, but actually just meant turn to the right from the front by turning right. yea if you get what i mean.

when training finally started at 9, we all had to do our 100 pushup warmup as per usual at the start of all trainings. during our first few trainings, 100 pushups seemed like quite a challenge to the team, especially when we had to do every single of them together, if not it wouldnt be counted. we all realised that it was really possible, just that we needed time and patience to complete it. immediately after getting up, we'd feel the cramps and all but good at the same time. i do realise that we're getting quicker and quicker in doing the 100 every training so looks like it really does help! (of course it does)

pt was not as demanding as our last training, since wai cheung wasn't there. the circuits were quite alright, at least i didnt die =/ once again the challenge was coordinating our moves, because we surely ended up doing more than the required number due to that ):

we came back after lunch and continued with first aid cases.

HAHAHA they were DAMN retarded man, like seriously, the 2nd and 3rd scenarios were just "WTH?!"

the first one was a more serious one, they gave us an incident where there was a car crash on nicoll highway and there we went about with our normal proceedures and all.

the second one was -.-"

when we entered the scene (Taj Mahal(???)) , joshua was lying on the floor wearing a medal around his neck, matthew was some terrorist trying to assassinate the king (joshua) and dillan was some royal guard attacking the terrorist o.o
before we could do anything, matthew was ready to deliver the final blow to the king with his sword, but the royal guard gallantly stabbed him and the terrorist (somehow on his ID it was "Dave the Terrorist" o.o) sooo, i directed moses and guangjin to the casualties and ian and i were left to handle any external factors (royal guard and more later on)

we took dillan's "weapon" (some stick) and kept it aside. suddenly, dillan came back as some rogue general who wants to usurp the king's throne o.o so we had to pacify him. well, firstly we tried to be nice, (LOL) but that didnt work of course, so when he decided to send his "army" in, we quickly thought of something and said "india -> nothing to take, it's soo poor and there's no resources :DDDD, why don't you go to serbia instead? its filled with riches and oil!"

somehow that worked, hehe, and he took off with his "army"

after awhile, he came back, saying that he "conquered" serbia and was back to kill the king for good. so he saw the "throne" (stacked up chairs) and got somewhat distracted lolll. so we had an idea and moved the stack of chairs to one side, and gave him that medal the king was wearing and his "crown" as well -.-

eventually he got so excited he fell off and broke his ankle. (yea wtf right.)
we treated him normally and everyone was more or less fine, except the king who died of bleeding cos moses didnt realise he had 3 cuts hahaha. oh well, amazingly retarded though, fun to tackle too.

erm for the 3rd case, im just gonna sum it up with - Camp, Dude Road, Fire, Cockmaster, Mother bear, Roar, mauled, intestines. yeaap.

training is really fun too, if you let it be. you've just gotta approach it with an open mind :D

going back tomorrow again, but its gonna be funn! xD

bryan's "excited" about training.

i've really gotta kick the habit of sleeping too much. waking up at 10 doesnt make me feel very good about myself at all. oh well, training's starting again! so that's somewhat good i guess. moses was supposed to come over for a run today, but he "was out for breakfast" and didnt wanna come over in the afternoon so i was left at home haha.

well, my bro and i are trying to write songs now, they're coming along fine, just that sometimes we get stuck when we can't find the sound we like. my theory knowledge's been coming in handy most of the time, so it's not really hard.

went for lunch with him at bukit panjang and went to the library to burrow some books. apparantly he burrowed a few poetry books to help him get inspiration and whatnot. i tried to look for some books as well, but realised that bukit panjang library's collection of books is extremely small comapred to others. had lunch at the naked fish express, which is so much more worth it than long john's silvers, 4 bucks could get you what long john's sold for 7.20 -.- i guess franchises like ljs just gotta mark up the price like that.

so i promised myself i'd do some conditioning for tomorrow's training and went for a swim at the pool just to get my body used to breathing at a much faster rate. 10 slow laps did the trick, didnt wanna strain myself too much if not i'd die @ tomorrow's circuits. (soooo not looking forward to circuits, like REALLY not looking forward to them)

i think i'll discipline myself to go for leisure swims when possible. yea i will do that. stomach's rumblinggg now, gotta go eat! bye!

WHY CAN'T THERE BE TEENAGERS AT PARTIES I GO TO?!
okay maybe it's cos they're kiddy parties, but THEY CAN HAVE SIBLINGS TOO!!! D: xuan's birthday on friday wasn't too bad, at least i had my aunties to talk to, but greg's 6th birthday was just torture for my mind. like 3 billion little kids running around in circles screaming at the top of their lungs, i wonder how parents can still stay around and mingle with each other admist the noise. i think i was the only 14 year old there, wait, i WAS. ohhh mannn, the adults were all talking adult stuff, and i won't wanna start talking about shares, the economy and politics!

so i sat there, stoning, eating, and i was really lathargic there. my bro went for risen christ's confirmation so i was loneeelyyyy. my cousins were of course playing with the spongebob mascot that was there, and with the balloon guy too. to think that aunty rita offered to pay me 50 bucks an hour to be that spongebob guy for 3 hours. - im not that desperate for money so no thanks! xD

i was offered beer a few times, and wouldve taken it if i liked alcohol better, didnt take wine either. sitting on little stools infront of a low table, like those kind you'd see in a playschool, everyone looked pretty big for these plastic furnitures we were sitting on o.o i was like the only asian among the many many caucasians who were at the party, so yes, i was just OUT OF PLACE LOL. left at around 1.30, because my sis was already sleeping, so we had to go home (yay)

this morning :

went to vivo for breakfast and to buy some groceries (since my aunt's house was just a 2 min drive away from it)

we visited best denki, and i tried the guitar hero 4 World Tour which was on promotion, haha i've still got the moves, sightreading wasnt that hard for Van Halen's Hot For Teacher. but i've gotta say its better than rock band (yea i've tried that too). the guitar's much cooler, the drums has 5 pads plus the bass pedal and the graphics immersed you in the game enough and didnt distract me so much from the coloured buttons which were falling from the screen. mommy did want to get me new headphones, but i wouldnt take the risk of spoiling another. 49 bucks was just too much for a set of earplugs which i was bound to break, which was what happened to my previous err.... 4 ones? now im just stuck on some lousy earphones which im contented with haha. perhaps next time.

i browsed the imac section too, oh my gosh imacs are awesome beyond... how about awesome beyond my Acer comp xD okay nvm, i think in the future, i'd get an imac. it's real costly though, around 4k+ for a super performance desktop.

christmas is finally on the way! and my aunt's staying in singapore for it whoopee! which means christmas is gonna be funnnn! it's always fun when she's around. what im going to do for christmas is instead of giving gifts and digging my pocket for change, i'd write affirmations on cards instead! haha yea that's what i'll do. i wish to have a party around the xmas week with all of my friends though, that would be pretty exciting, because i've never really had a party purely for friends near christmas before. small gatherings yea, but a party's something new :D how bout it guys, christmas parttyyyyy.

oh wait, most of my friends are overseas now. D: casey's gone to japan, cheng yang's gone to beijing, moses's in hk, kevin yeo's in delhi lol.

TRAINING STARTS ON TUESDAY!!! COMP TEAM LEO, GET READYYY!

oh i went to watch city of ember yesterday with stelle, what a show -.- the ending doesnt really answer the "?" that was left in your mind at the beginning so i wasnt really satisfied when the show ended just like that =/
(billy bombers - not worth your money if you're a kid :D)

wait for the DVD!

service to the school, prefect's and myself

busy and tiring day for me!

well i think i did quite alot today, even though i wasnt needed down for S1 interview and appeal application duty, i just went because kevin yeo was in delhi. from 8am, we worked our butts off till around 3pm when mr tan decided to close shop for the day, even though there were still a few parents arriving after we left. well i hanged around lol, because carwash was later on and i was helping out.

haha some teachers (mr ho, mrs lee) and some of the office staff were wondering why i was there the whole day till i told them so. well, look on the bright side, i couldve been at home rotting my day away by playing some mindless game or just stoning around, but instead i put myself to use and helped out with the duties. im glad i came today, even though it was somewhat draining.

after 3pm i had my lunch xD (pretty late) which was free, and slacked at the prefect's room till kunan came. haha, i was in there for quite awhile, alon lying down on the sofa. managed to catch like 15 mins of sleep, before we had to prepare the stuff. buckets, rags, soap and everything was prepared and the cars started to come in. this carwash was for our prefect's camp, and was supposed to raise funds to offset some costs of it. well it was the NIE people's idea o.o since we're collaborating with them for the camp. they shouldve gotten more people, since there was only like 12 of us, excluding i think 5 of the NIE people helping. however we had just enough people to keep things running smoothly. they ended at 8, but i had to go at 7 so yea.

after that was my cousin's 12th birthday party, and i rushed over. i was trying to be a smart alec by taking 186 instead of 153 because i saw both buses' routes pass queensway, except that 153 had 3 more stops at queensway while 186 headed for commonwealth. matthias brought me by that way before, so i thought i'd give 186 a try. ended up making the wrong decision and i had to walk all the way to a bus stop after 186 made a turn into commonwealth ave. got there by 7.45 or so, had dinner, cut the cake and reached home by 9. phew, tiring day. gonna sleep very soon (:

ciao! happy hols.
love you all.

CHALET

okay it's been a long time since i've posted, but i've been occupied with comp games -.- sad right? things like comp games eat your time away D: sigh, i wished i couldve just went by without downloading those games!

i've been at a chalet though, downtown east from sunday till today :P well it was with the holy spirit people, Esther, Sabrina, Rae, Kenneth, Glen, Matthew, Bryan Lauw, Kelly, Justin, Andrea, Bong, Daniel, Gerald, my brother and i of course. kelly was the one who organized it as she does with all the other events lol. somehow even with the really small room with only 2 beds, everyone managed to squeeze xD we played cards, went to the arcade, played board games, watched movies, barbeqeued, stoned around, went to the arcade some more and well, we talked alot of course.

I already spent quite abit on the first day, 15 bucks on arcade and 15 bucks on dinner D: (at BBQ chicken). My bro and i went off at 11 though because he had class in the morning and my mom wouldnt let me stay alone. Slept early that night, (12ish LOL) and woke up at 9 to be on the way there again.

On the second day, Glen, Sabrina, Kelly and i went to WWW (wild wild wet) and it was actually quite fun after all. haha, i think the time span of 4 hours is just right, because there arent too many rides anyway =/ thank god that it didnt rain even though the shades of the clouds above us screamed "RAIN!" so it wasnt too hot, but yet it didnt rain yay :D i won something though! we were playing truth or dare in the tsunami pool (don't ask why) when kelly dared me to go tell the DJ that his voice was sexy but we ended up playing some game which involved pedalling a dingy and matching some pictures to each other and something like that lol. glen and i WON kelly and sabs in the end but we were all winners anyway, we all got cool prizes like vouchers and free stuff, but glen and i got some foldable chair which was cool, because it has arm rests and a drink holder xD hahaha.

we quickly rushed back for bbq at 4.30, and glen and i helped start the fire while the others were relaxing upstairs. we took awhile to start the fire, and we were the chefs for the day! yay, haha i think i cooked like 60 chicken wings that night and then when the chickens ran out, we let rae and kenneth take over. tasting the chicken i made was heavenly xD well that's my hard work, so it had to be good :D being able to cook for everyone was a joy too, so i didnt complain at all (:

after the bbq, we went to the arcade again, while some of them stayed to clean up because they were too lazy to go. it was around 11 when we returned and we started playing bridge, taiti, scrabble (o.o), 99 and watched movies till about 3am before we all fell asleep when high school musical was playing LOL. woke up at around 8.30 and lazed around till 10+ before we all had to pack up and check out. so we hanged around downtown east till 2+ before we left for home (:

okay! so since im a little lazy to go into detail everything that we've done, im just going to give an abstract of casey's blogpost which more or less says what we did

DAY 1

While crossing the checkpoint over into Malaysia, the customs officer didn't seem to believe that I was that cute boy on that passport! HAHAH. She questioned me alot, and I seemed to be the only one to have been questioned. HMPH!Reaching our campsite, it was a pleasant surprise to find out that we actually had beds to sleep on! Omg. HAHAH. A bed to sleep on was like the last thing on my mind.Anyway, our first activity of the camp was "outdoor survival"We had to start a fire, find food, make a shelter and cook food.My group had a really difficult time starting a fire.We first tried using a magnifying class and the sun thingy, but it wouldn't work. Next, we tried to produce a spark with some batteries and wires, but that failed, too. So we lit the fuel with a matchstick, and the teacher in charge obviously knew there was something fishy. Why? Cause you aren't supposed to be able to start a fire or something. LOLOur shelter was screwed up too. Shan't say too much about that.Water collection was also as screwed up as the shelter.It rained halfway, so they gave us a lighter to cook the food we gathered. YUCKS. But still, we ate it after we were told there wasn't going to be dinner.In the end, we still had dinner. What a lie!

DAY 2

Our morning activity was "Orienteering". We had to use a map to navigate around the campsite, finding checkpoints and clues. Something like the amazing race. One of the roadblocks awarded us with the much sought after POTATO CHIPS! Only 2 slices, but what the heck. It was a treat while we were out camping.Another roadblock involved being given a chilli to eat and than out teacher had to explain why the Malaysians use chilli and how you get the spiciness out of your mouthGargle your mouth with water and spit the water out :DShe also gave us a mentos cause eating sweets can get rid of the spiciness too ;DDWe didn't manage to finish it during the time limit, and group 3 (I was group 1) won the race. Their prize was.... bombing the rest with water bombs! HAHAH. Got really wet there was I was hit quite a few times.Afternoon activity was "Rafting (knots and lashing)"We first did river crossing, where you had to get into the water and use a rope to pull yourself across the river. Real fun and wet! HAHAHNext was making a raft. I thought we were doomed in this one. My group pretty much had no coordination in the jungle survivor activity. However, we miraculously pulled through. Must have been warming up to each other. Also, it was also Eugene cheng whom helped pull us through. The scout-which-never-goes-for-scouts helped us tie everything together and beat all the other groupsThe raft had to be able to support 3 people, cross the pond and get back in 1 piece. ANDD, we were the only group to succeed. HAHAHPleasant surprise from Eugene cheng.

DAY 3TREKKING!!!!

Must have been the most fun activity in the whole camp. Why? Cause it was like, life and death all hanging on a piece of string. Or something like that hahah. In other words, you fall you die. Yeah, that sort of thing ;DWe trekked up gunung lembak which was 510m tall. It was pretty alright at first. But as we proceeded higher and higher, our paths became much steeper and much unstable. We really had to look out for others, warning others on where was unsafe and advising which the best path to take was.The heavy bags we had to carry (containing all our water bottles) didn't make things any easier. My feet burned with every step I took once I took over from Bryan.However, after much perseverance, determination, root pulling and nearly-falling off the damn mountain, we made it to the top. Snapped a photo, re-hydrated ourselves, took in the scenery and being our perilous journey back down. Almost slipped and died again. So did alot of other people. Really grateful that we all made it down, safe and alive and kicking ;DI think this experience has really helped us to let us express our concern for the well-being and safety our friends. If we couldn't care any less, we would race up and leave everyone behind. However, everyone pretty much had someone accompanying them, giving them support, encouraging them or lending a helping hand. We tested out the stepping and relayed the cautions or advice to those behind us. Making sure we were never too far ahead or behind any others, we looked out for each other. Great job guys ;DAbseiling later on. First we went down the building. Followed by some trust games. Like lifting the person up and than singing a song before putting them down. It was really tiring, lifting up my group members. When it was my turn, those idiots *ahem*Adam and Eugene and dunno who*ahem* were lifting me while clapping to "glorious green". Goshh. I'm either really light, these guys are freaking freaking strong OR they couldn't care less if they dropped me. LOL

DAY 4Canoeing!

Learnt a new capsize drill. We really had difficulty carrying it out, but we pulled through I guess. We got past the first island before rowing back.Ohh. ISAIAH WAS DAMN FUNNY. Being the gold medallist canoeist he was, he went solo on a canoe while I and Bryan shared one. He was telling us how fast his canoe could go, and he wanted to show us! So as we watched, he started rowing and before he could move any further, HE CAPSIZED! HAHAHAA. Therefore, we had to execute another capsize drill to save this medal-winning canoeist. TSK. HAHAHHOhh. After we were done, Mr Nathan allowed us to take a dip in the water. And just as we reached the water, he shouted "HORNET!" which meant we had to do the hornet drill of lying face down and covering our necks.Obviously doing it in the water was just plain wrong! Therefore, Bryan and I rushed back onto land while some losers stayed behind in the water ;DDDD

Lunch.
Took a bus to SJI
Went back home
Wooooooooooot
HOME SWEET HOME!

ACE CAMP

Ace camp 2008 was filled with many new experiences, new skills learnt, friendships strengthened, and perhaps with much self discovery as well. hearing from what my seniors told me, aside from the excitement i had about going for the camp, i did dread it a bit. however, what an experience it was, even though at times we may feel very uncomfortable and are going to break, when we manage to pull through and jump over that hurdle, you'd be surprised with what you can do.

As mr nathan said to us, learning puts you through discomfort and much strain, both physically and mentally, but we must realise that what comes out in the end is so worth that effort we put in.

As a class, i think we grew in terms of our class spirit, especially when it was nearing the campfire and we had to cook up an item and a cheer in a very short time. i admit that we all were much less enthusiastic in the first day or so but after awhile it all kicked in. i wish that we couldve had that attitude from the start though, but nevertheless, we still came up with something and pulled it off.

the insects, the bites, the sweat, the strains and the occasional hunger were nothing compared to the time spent with friends. i definately got to know my good friends better, because through the activities, our personalities and characters really showed.

jungle survival, orienteering, rafting, climbing up gunung lembak, abseiling and canoing were the 6 activites we all went through, and i have to take my hat off to those who, despite challenges, exceeded their limits. KIAT SHENG OWNS!!! - man, you made it up and down gunung lembak even though it was like "!!!" haha, congrats to you!

the last event where 204 would go through something together has passed, and i hope that we'd all remember this camp as something great because it truly was made great by the prescence of everyone. thanks to everyone who made this camp as meaningful as can be - the teachers, the ace leaders and my friends.

yawwwnnn, so tired now, time to find that pillow! Zzz......

at camp from 7-10th of nov :D enjoy the hols!