frozenapples

this is my last long week break before it's back to unit life 5 days a week. not exactly prepared for what's coming up and i don't want to go back to camp for endless saigang. and with my unit merging to become a c4i (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence) battalion, i really have no idea what major changes will take place. argh..the uncertainty...

back to my civilian life, i spent yesterday afternoon at decoders cafe with chendabao, huangpei, ronald_05, acewen and williamkwan. it was 4 hours of intense board games with lots of brain work and bargaining. i was totally unprepared for the forfeit which involved doing a pole dance around one of the shop's assistant.

saturday night was horrible because i came down with an imba allergic reaction probably due to something bad i ate that afternoon at subway. and my dad drove me to camp to dump my dufflebag and fieldpack because he's going europe with my mum on a holiday on sunday. that leaves me to fend for myself for another weekend before they return 2 weeks later.

sent huijun off to ucl in the morning before having lunch at swensens changi airport terminal 2 with a few of my classmates, after which freddie drove us to plaza singapura. decided to wander around the place to pass the time while a few went home to freshen up before meeting for dinner at 6pm.

an interesting incident happened in the yamaha shop which involved sien fong and an unknown piano pro (aka upp) trying to outdo each other at playing the piano. it started with sien fong playing a random classical piece on a piano which was followed by upp playing a longer version of it. sadly fong refused to continue the challenge...so we ended up leaving the shop.

at 6pm we decided to settle down at bao luo wan xiang which sold dim sum and chinese food. more classmates arrvied and joined us for dinner. had an interesting conversation with the guys which included nick foo commenting on a chio female waiter who looked like she was from china. nick foo says the darndest things.

reached school at about 8pm, by the time i reckoned the grand light up was over because the whole central plaza was lit. and the whole place was freaking crowded so i dared not to stay in the central plaze for long because i am claustrophobic. i did managed to find a few high school friends and had a nice chat with them.

called boon haow and went to the reading room to look for him. later managed to call up the entire puttie gang for some photos followed by random nuahing around the place. then i went to the staff room with some classmates to talk to mr ho who is as usual busy marking gp scripts (he claims there's over 500 prelim papers to mark).

class photo before supper at serene mac:


yay finally updated blog after 2 months :D

i've died down quite a bit, mostly due to the lack of fun in my unit. i miss SI :( not going to complain about how we are treated, just glad that we are one of the less xiong units compared to other signal battalions. i was glad for the friday off in lieu so that i can go home to rest, and prepare myself for the upcoming, dreaded stay in driving course. and for the first time in several weeks i chose to stay at home to rot instead of going out with my friends. i need a break, and some time alone so that i can recuperate.

my saturdays are gone. screw driving course.

If the machine stops halfway, please do not be retarded and try to force your waste paper in. Get help. That's what normal people do.

i had so much to say but now i don't feel like writing any of those down.

the facts:
1. i got rejected by all the universities i applied for
2. i have no scholarships

very depressing indeed....after all the "you sure get in one lar" people have been telling me.

***

for now i'm just glad that my new unit isn't very tough, and i still have so many friends from signals institute with me :D

if there's one thing that's good about the army, it would be the chance to give things another shot. if you failed ippt, you can take it again. if you failed a course, you can re-course. if you can't get the scholarship/uni you wanted, you can apply again. if at first you don't succeed, try try again.

***

i want to thank all my friends for the help and support they have rendered me.

suck thumb and move on loh.

today is the first time i used my hard-earned pay to treat my parents to lunch at tung lok signatures, a whopping $110 (if not for the voucher i would have paid 160). and this doesn't include the upcoming father's day meal at some other restaurant. i don't really feel the pinch, partially because i am surviving on free meals and accomodation in the army. at least i feel like a filial child giving something back to my parents...haha

i used to dread sundays, because they usually pass very quickly and signify the start of a new week. back in jc, sundays usually remind me that i still have so many things left undone and so little time left. now that i am in the army, i still hate sundays, because sundays = book in day. there is this sense of doom that overwhelms me, threatening to drain out the very lively soul that i once possessed. something has gone terribly wrong.

coming back to mother's day, i am so glad my mum has brought me up to who i am today. if not for the 'saigang' she does for me like going to school to certify my documents and washing my stinky army clothes on weekends, i would have definitely not survived. for this i am thankful that she still cares so much for me. mothers are great :D

i've finally decided to blog, because i realised that my lj has been dead for quite some time. have been spending my previous bookouts on stoning in front of the com playing maplestory and C&C, so there's nothing much i can really write about....

my course in signals institute is ending in a week's time, not really sure where i'd get posted to but looking at how much i flunked my practical tests my hopes aren't very high. compared to bmt, my platoon in SI is much more bonded, perhaps due to the abundance of admin time to interact with each other. i can laugh and joke with everyone in SI with so much ease, and we as privates all share something in common: ******* selfish, don't know, don't care, don't bother :D just joking haha

class outing today turned out to be another guys outing, as usual. we watched xmen origins which was a great movie and catered well to my liking. after that nick foo, evelyn, stanley and yuhan joined us for dinner. after telling the waiter at cafe cartel that we wanted 8 seats, everyone simply walked off without waiting. LOL so i guess she got pwned by us X.X anyway we had dinner at thai express where weixiang, tiang and i ordered thai soft shell crab in curry. it tasted outstanding at first but after a few mouthfuls i somehow felt disgusted by the curry. we had quite a nice chat about army, not forgetting to update everyone about the latest 7a "gossip".

i realised that i've changed quite a bit ever since i've enlisted, mostly my enthusiasm towards life. sometimes i feel like i have no direction in life, just blindly doing everything i'm told. it's as if there is nothing to look forward to, and everything to be depressed about. i am afraid that i will become a boring person, deprived of all the joy in the world. to save my self from doom, i am trying to go out more often, to talk to people more often instead of being cooped up at home rotting away. for this i am glad i still have many friends to hang out with, and have a really nice chat with them once in a while. this calls for a superputtie gang outing!! guys we should meet up soon :D

i really don't want to think about my posting after SI, whether NUS medicine will reject me and how i am going to survive the next one and half years. i think i should be happy with whatever i have now. cheers.

my favourites:

1. be patient but not a patient

2. safety's neglect, tomorrow's regret

3. the door to safety swings on the hinges of common sense

4. accidents hurt, safety doesn't

5. when in doubt, safety wins out

6. at work at home, let safety be known

i forgot the last one haha and the all time favourite not related to safety: some people dream about success, others wake up and work hard for it.

was unfortunately not wasted because i spent more than 2 days to finish my ccna (cisco certified networking associate) discovery 1.0 module. now i am just waiting to take the final exam next tuesday and hopefully get my cert so i can relax :D hahaha all the tests are stressing me out.

*

my day in signals institute begins with breakfast, then lectures/self-study sessions/practicals, followed by lunch, then more of lessons and finally dinner at around 6pm. it feels like going back to jc again except that you can't pon anything or else you'd be charged for AWOL.

*

spent the entire saturday afternoon in school watching huang cheng rehearsals. there are definitely a lot of improvements to be made but i am sure the performance will turn out to be a big success. miracles do happen.

random fact: that seniors that go back do spend more time giving suggestions to juniors than watching the whole rehearsal itself (about 2.5 hours)

*

i am praying very hard that i will end up in a slack unit after my signals course at SI.

i've just realised that my blog posts have become shorter and more boring in content. really don't have much motivation to find humorous things to write ever since i enlisted. my life now merely revolves around going to camp on weekdays and stoning my weekends off if i'm not going out.

now i've got no universities (US rejected me) to go to and nil scholarships (since i didn't applied for any). haha i should probably laugh at the pathetic state i am in.....my future is still undecided and quite bleak for now :(

ok sad things aside i am really glad to leave the house this weekend and spend time with my friends. sucks to be stoning at home and wasting the whole day away.

last wednesday:
passing out parade from tekong! things went pretty well and we managed to put up a decent performance in front of everyone despite the fatigue and the rain. it was a fitting end to the end of my bmt experience. the brief 9 weeks have been filled with lots of blood and tears, as well as laughter and fun. i am just glad i survived :D

thursday:
spent the entire day at home playing maple (lol!) and recuperating from the 24km route march yesterday. other than that i did nothing else.

friday:
finally i got to leave the house for dinner with ms cheong and friends from high school. we listend to her talk about her interesting experiences over at high school and nasty encounters with certain people which included my j1 ct.

saturday:
went down to sim lim square with my dad to buy a new cpu. the travelling nearly killed us because the place is so hard to find and it was our first time navigating through the streets. after a few wrong turns and going through the same erp gantry twice, we managed to reach our destination.

most of the shops there were closed as they had gone to the IT show at suntec. it didn't take long before we gathered a few pricing lists and started comparing the diy systems offered. had dinner at the new food court while the cpu was being assembled. surprisingly the com wasn't as cheap as we had expected it to be and the cpu alone cost us more than 700 bucks.

sunday:
spent the whole morning trying to troubleshoot my new com and finish assembling the rest of the parts. in the end when i finally succeeded i felt so accomplished. i learnt so much through google and doing trial and error.

in the afternoon i went to the IT show with my parents. due to the rain and traffic jam we took nearly 2 hours to get into suntec city so freaking pissed my dad says he will never drive to cbd again.

most of the time there was spent jostling through the crowds while trying to glance at whatever is on display. in the end my dad signed up for a new credit card while my mum subscribed to readers digest, none of which is IT related.

monday:
kbox with puttie gang. thanks guys for the gross birthday present haha. i really enjoyed the time we spent together.

tuesday:
blogging is such a waste of time. zzzz.

it's been so long since i wrote a public post....haha all my precious book out time have been spent on gaming and resting at home. i consider blogging an absolute waste of time :D anyway a levels results for me was a pleasant surprise, thanks to everyone who has congratulated me. i don't feel extremely elated or anything, stupid ns has taken away all my emotions. now it's just 3 more days to end of bmt life so can't wait to take a well-deserved break. will be back on 11th march.

i am going to rot to death at home zzzz so bored having nothing to do. only managed to complete c&c renegade haha the rest i doubt i will ever complete them. i think not being able to engage in intellectual activities makes me so sleepy lol i am yawning all the time despite sleeping for so many hours.

i am so jealous of other people who can go out to work while i am stuck at home waiting to spend 2 years in the army. my plans to learn cooking have totally been foiled by my hospital attachment, mugging for sats and bloody annoying university applications. felt so tempted to buy a cookbook i saw at big bookshop the other day but gave up because i only have 1 week left. i wonder when i will have the chance to cook for my family....

spent the first week of 2009 at home with my dad. i'm glad that i confessed to him how frequently i lied that i was studying when i was playing. really surprised that they knew about this long ago but didn't tell me hahaha i tend to tell them things after a few years to prevent any possible backlash.

also told my dad that i didn't go to the best class in my primary school because i was lazy to change my class on all my exercise books. i kept it a secret for so many years because i was afraid they might scold me or something. now that i have told my parents about it i can't stop laughing at how stupid i was then. XD

feel so tempted to reflect on the past year but for now i shall keep it as a private post. just want to say that i am glad for all the new friends i have made and really sad that so many drifted away from me. and i just realised that i have no primary&secondary school gatherings....such a pity none of the classes that i've been with was truly bonded.

i shall be off to enjoy the last few hours of freedom.

this shall be my first post of the year. spent the last night of 2008 with my class, talking, laughing and watching fireworks at city hall. it was pretty fun, but with barely half the class there, it just didn't felt like a very good class outing. nevertheless almost all the guys went and so that means we can play lan!

yeah it was my first time playing lan with the class. spent nearly 3 hours playing cs before we went on to dota. freddie was my coach and he did a good job teaching me the basics of the game. i must say dota is quite different from the rts games that i play and so i don't really like it haha maybe it's too late for me to get addicted.

after lan at 6am we went looking for hawker centres to eat breakfast as freddie took us around little india. he was insisting on eating at tekka until stan told him that the old one had closed and moved to a temporary location. we walked around in circles and finally found it after 45 minutes of searching. and the funny thing is that freddie said he grew up in little india. haha so much for that statement.

i don't think i will reflect back on 2008. just want to say that it has been quite a bad year for me and i hope everything will turn out well this year. tomorrow going to settler's cafe with puttie gang followed by sien fong's concert at night. last few days of freedom before i go for ns in exactly a week's time.

1. When there's only one other person in the elvator, tap them on the shoulder and then pretend it wasn't you.
2. Push the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.
3. Ask if you can push the button for other people, but push the wrong ones.
4. Call the Psychic Hotline from your cell phone and ask if they know what floor your on.
5. Hold the doors open and say your waiting for a friend. After a while, let the doors close, and say, "Hi Greg. How's your day been?"
6. Drop a pen and wait until someone goes to pick it up, then scream, "That's mine!"
7. Bring a camera and take pictures of everyone in the elevator.
8. Move your desk into the elevator and whenever anyone gets on, ask if they have an apointment.
9. Lay down the twister mat and ask people if they would like to play.
10. Leave a box in the corner, and when someone gets on, ask them if they can hear ticking.
11. Pretend you are a flight attendant and review emergency procedures and exits with the passengers.
12. Ask, "Did you feel that?"
13. Stand really close to someone, sniffing them occasionally.
14. When the doors close, announce to the others, "It's okay, don't panic, they open again!"
15. Swat at flies that don't exist.
16. Call out, "Group Hug!"and then enforce it.
17. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside, ask, "Got enough air in there?"
18. Stand silently and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
19. Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce in horror, "Your one of THEM!" and back away slowly.
20. Wear a puppet on your hand and use it to talk to the other passengers.
21. Listen to the elevator walls with your stethoscope.
22. Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.
23. Stare, grinning at another passenger for a while, then announce, "I have new socks on".
24. Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passnegers, "This is MY personal space!"
25. Hold an auction.
26. Greet everyone getting on with a warm handshake and ask them to call you "Admiral".
27. Bring a melon onto the elevator. Try to sell it to the other passengers.
28. Drum on every available surface.
29. Write a big X on the elevator floor, and hand out "pirate" maps to everyone as they enter.
30. Propose to the other passengers.
31. Challenge people to duels.
32. Any time someone enters the doors, recoil in horror.
33. Every time someone else talks, angrily shout: "Some people are trying to sleep here!"
34. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to pull the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.
35. Every time the elevator goes down, loudly scream "OH MY GOD!!! We're all gonna die! This is it! This is it! It's over! IT'S OVER!!!" Look relieved when it stops moving. When you begin to drop again, repeat.
36. Annouce in a demonic voice, "I must find a more suitable host body."
37. Say "Ding" at each floor.
38. Wave hands wildly at invisible flies buzzing around your head.

woke up at 10am today, very late compared to the usual 6:30am (because i need to reach the hospital at 8am). had breakfast before i went out with my parents. first went to queenstown shopping centre to get my tennis racket re-stringed, then made a pair of specs for ns. it's damn bloody cheap at 30 bucks haha i hope it will last me for the whole duration of bmt. my mum also bought a pair of fila sunglasses. it was originally priced at 140 bucks but my dad managed to bargain till 90.

lunch was at xin wang hong kong cafe. totally reminds me about pw last year when my group and i went there to sample the dishes cooked with instant noodles. didn't expect my parents to really go there for lunch when i casually mentioned that i had eaten there before. the food was awful and oily. my mum says she will never go to that horrible restaurant again. my dad is disappointed that we did not go to jack's place.

after lunch we proceeded to ikea. i got myself a new alarm clock. so now i have 2! i think i will probably bring the new one to ns. it is the kind with 2 bells on top and a small hammer in between. my favourite kind actually haha i am seriously fascinated by it. no need for batteries too, i just have to turn the knob once every 1-2 days. got some presents for the doctors i am attached to. tomorrow is my last day.

next we headed to clementi to buy a new wall clock for the living room. the old one spoilt just after one year, exactly a few days after its one year warranty expired. it refuses to work when placed vertically on the wall but works when laid flat on the table. lol and i just realised we bought 2 clocks today. so inauspicious hmmm.

on the mrt platform while waiting for the train i saw an elderly man wearing a black skirt, with black stockings and high heels. very very disturbing. and i know 'he' is a man because 'he' clearly has a moustache and other facial features that distinguished man from woman. to make matters worse 'he' stood beside my mum and i in the train. i didn't dare to stare at 'him' for more than 1 second. the thought of him makes me shudder.

ok enough about the disturbing thing i am more bothered by the uncompleted uni application essays shall try to finish them by tomorrow. merry christmas people!

christmas in 2 days! somehow the thought of it makes me excited. haha anyway the sats scores came in earlier than expected. as usual i log in with trembling hands and heart pumping ever fast. a bit disappointed with the scores but there's nothing i can do anymore. the only suspense left is a levels results release next year, which is a damn freaking long wait. if only a levels was like sats only need 3 weeks then we wouldn't have to wait so long :D

i am finishing my hospital attachment, not sure whether i can go on christmas day but apparently the doctors told me they still do rounds on that day. and everyday they try to discourage me from doing medicine...lol even my mum opposes me. i am still keeping my options open, and i hope at least 1 out of the 2 overseas university i applied accepts me, otherwise i am dead. i don't want to go back to school during ns to submit more forms. but still i deserve to be shot....only apply 2 uni when others apply at least 4, and from 2 different countries somemore.

enough said now i can't wait for 2008 to be over soon haha. i am so tired of 2008 and the bad things that have happened. 9 days more!

quite frustrated now because i am down with cough. i blame it on the stupid weather and my foolishness. the day i came back from indonesia i slept in my air-con room and the next day i woke up with a fever. this is so bad, just recovered from flu before going overseas and now i am sick again....

my hospital attachment at nuh has been pretty exciting. i start the day by following the doctors around on their morning rounds and seeing cancer patients. most of them have leukemia and it's quite sad that some still suffered relapses despite stem cell transplant. after the rounds i get to see some procedures such as bone marrow extraction and transplant. the doctors and nurses there are really friendly too and i am enjoying my time at the hospital.

in the afternoon i go home to slack and play my c&c games. i've tried almost every single game till tiberium wars. just couldn't tolerate the earlier games cos the graphics seriously sucks and the gameplay is extremely horrendous. the university application essays are taking up so MUCH of my time; spending more than 1 hour just to write one paragraph is not very productive lol.

this afternoon while playing tennis i heard an exploding sound coming from my racket after i whacked a ball over. i was stunned for a second before i realised that the strings on my racket have snapped. such low quality strings grrr spoilt my game totally. had to run back to my house to get old racket.

ok a lot of random things have happened lately and i am not counting down to ns. i still have some stuff unsettled till then i will not think about the army. feeling very unfit now especially with the cough. i can't wait for 2009 so many life changing events will occur please don't turn out bad =D

i initially intended to do a proper write-up about prom but now i am too busy saving myself from parents who are constantly harping me to pack for my overseas trip, which is tomorrow. anyway the mc for prom reminded me of hani from body of lies haha.

so sad the date for prom fell on the wrong day i had to leave early because i am still taking sat the next day. left at 11pm and took a taxi home. turned in at 12am and kept tossing and turning....must be from the excitement from prom. i was still wide awake at 1:30am, so i decided to switch on my phone to play some games and guan jie smsed me to meet up for sat.

in the end i resorted to counting down from 9999 but eventually gave up at 9900. haha cos i realised that it's not going to help. i can vaguely remember i fell asleep at 2am+ before waking up at 4am. it was followed by more tossing and turning before i finally fell asleep and got awaken by the alarm clock at 6:20.

and then the whole morning was spent on sats. luckily i didn't fall asleep during the exam.....but i bet the fatigue might still have caused me to perform below full concentration capacity. as usual i pray that things will turn out well haha. need to go off now otherwise my dad will really murder me for doing last minute work. zzzzz

i can almost hear my heart pounding now that prom is just a few hours away. no i am not excited about prom, i am more worried about the impending sats which is just a few hours after prom. i feel as though i have been overwhelmed by an amalgam of feelings. fear, excitement, anticipation, apprehensiveness.....

i hope prom turns out fine. everyone seems to be making a big fuss out of this. perhaps this is a once-in-a-lifetime event and so everyone wants to present his or her best. the first time i am hearing about guys getting contacts just for prom. now that is scary haha. reminds me of a bao zhang bao dao topic few years back arguing that teenagers nowadays are spending exorbitant amounts of money for prom.

that's it i have nothing much more to say. riddle:

THE RANGE OF 8 INCHES LONG. THE FUNCTIONING OF WHICH IS ENJOYED BY MEMBERS OF BOTH SEXESIS USUALLY FOUND HUNG, DANGLING READY LOOSLEY FOR INSTANT ACTION. IT BOASTS OF A CLUMP OF LITTLE HAIRY THINGS AT ONE END AND SMALL HOLE AT THE OTHER. IN USE, IT IS INSERTED, ALMOST ALWAYS WILLINGLY, SOMETIMES SLOWLY, SOMETIMES QUICKLY, INTO A WARM, FLESHY, MOIST OPENING WHERE IT IS THRUST IN AND DRAWN OUT AGAIN AND AGAIN MANY TIMES IN SUCCESSION, OFTEN QUICKLY AND ACCOMPANIED BY SQUIRMING BODILY MOVEMENTS. ANYONE FOUND LISTENING IN WILL SURELY RECOGNIZE THE RHYTHMIC, PULSING SOUND, RESULTING FROM THE WELL-LUBRICATED MOVEMENTS. WHEN FINALLY WITHDRAWN, IT LEAVES BEHIND A JUICY, FROTHY, WHITE STICKY SUBSTANCE, SOME OF WHICH WILL NEED CLEANING FROM THE OUTER SURFACES OF THE OPENING AND SOME OF FROM ITS LONG GLISTENING SHAFT. AFTER EVERYTHING IS DONE AND THE FLOWING AND CLEANSING LIQUIDS HAVE CEASED EMANATING IT IS RETURNED TO ITS FREELY HANGING STATE OF REST, READY YET FOR ANOTHER BIT OF ACTION, HOPEFULLY REACHING ITS BRISTLING CLIMAX TWICE OR THREE TIMES A DAY, BUT OFTEN MUCH LESS. WHAT AM I?

don't google it try to guess before you google otherwise the fun is gone. :)