As usual, being the penny-pinching guy I am, I'm here to whine about my biggest concern in my unexciting life again - my finances. Spent more than a full month's pay in this week alone. It's all with good reason though, so I'm not whining too much. Let me break it down to you. So, in the past week I've spent a grand total sum of $1150.10. There was that first $200 I parted with in camp, when we had to give the first payment of the Commissioning ball to the committee. The second payment would be another $200 #holeinmypocketmuch after Thailand, so thankfully, that isn't counted into my week's expenditure. And then, there's an iPod Touch for $330. I finally got a second-hand 64GB 3rd generation from this girl on HWZ.com, so now I will no longer be complaining about lack of space for new music. Jay Chou and S.H.E can now come back to my iPod music library, thank you guys for your patience. So it's pretty exciting stuff - I've been spending the last few days getting apps and all the other jingly stuff I'll need. I spent another 1.5 hours today at Funan IT Mall and bought the only matte screen-protector for iPod Touch 3G in the entire mall. There was also only one shop which sold covers for the iTouch 3G, but it was really disappointing-looking so I didn't get it. I came home to look online and found this really shit-awesome place overstock.com which sells a lot of cheap shit. Makes me regret spending all that time and money at Funan today. So I bought a nice cover (FOR USD$3) for my iTouch, and because things are so cheap, I bought another silicon case + matte screen protector (FOR USD$4) just in case. The only thing though, is that it only ships within US so you've got to have an international shipping service hooked on to your mailing address. My brother has Borderlinx so HURRAH for that.

And that brings me to my next purchase. I bought a Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch through Borderlinx as well (they don't sell to international customers directly). Don't know what's that? Click on the hyperlink at nook in a new tab! My brother got his a few weeks ago and I hate to follow in my brother's footsteps in stuff he does (though sometimes as a younger brother I inevitably fall into them) but this is a really good buy. Mainly because I plan to load in all the lame-ass self-help books on starting a business (aligned with my plans of enriching myself about entrepreneurship during the two years of NS), all of which I'm either too embarrassed to buy from a book store or feel like the book could be all fluff and not worthy of my precious pennies. I felt happier (and more accomplished) buying this than the iPod Touch though. One step closer to future success. MUAHAHAHAHA. And because I bought the nook, I gotta buy a cool case to fit it in, of which Barnes & Noble's a monopoly of so yeowch all pretty expensive but really atas. I can imagine how I will walk on the streets holding my classy nook with my nose in the air and all. Must watch the lampposts in front when I walk like that though. Anyway. The only bad-surprise came when I was at checkout, and then I realised that my brother's been lying to me all the time, telling me the nook was $99 and all that, till it hit me that it was all USD. And then there's a coupon code I could use from retailmenot.com but that's just a few dollars. My final checkout totaled to an estimate of $168 in SGD.

And besides all the money I spent on a new mouse, a pair of cheap earpieces for jogging and the lunch / brunch / dinners, today I drew $250 to change to thousands of dollars in Thai Bahts for the pathetic two days of R&R in Thailand. I felt a sense of independence then - complete financial independence. Ohley! That sums it up I guess.


Two more hours now and I'll have to be on the car to the airport to be on the plane to Thailand to be on the 5-hour bus ride to Sai Yok camp. Quite exciting leh. Here are some photos to end it.

Thoughts from my reflections.

In the few days of interaction with commanders and 5SIR’s CO, then Lieutenant Zhen Ming’s talk to the platoon on Friday as well as the commissioning parade on Saturday, I have been thinking about what being an officer entails. Throughout the few months I have been here, my opinion of an officer has always been evolving, as I observe from the commanders around me and as I start to learn more about what the responsibilities of an officer are.

In BMT, I viewed officers as merely another form of leadership, though mainly in planning and organization, as compared to sergeants who are “on-the-ground”. It might have been the examples around me, or my limited vision of what an officer does, being an officer never seemed difficult to me. The process of becoming an officer sounded tough, but with commissioning, the good life comes. That was the impression cast on me, as well as most of the people around me. I’ve recently come to realise that was a completely warped perception. If one came to OCS with the hopes of having a “good life” after commissioning, one shouldn’t be there. It was only until recently did I piece together and truly understand how much responsibility comes with the word “commissioned officer”. Sure, with the black bar comes power – power by ranking – but most truly, as the Marvel Spiderman said, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

The best example of officers I see are those who dedicate their weekends for their duties and paperwork, because they want to be out on field with their men. They are the first to be down on the ground, the first to leopard crawl to lead their men by example, the first to wake up and start on preparation for activities as conducting or safety, and then on the other end, the last to sleep after a full day of activities, the last to finish up work and go home on weekends, the last to enjoy privileges such as nights out or to go on leave.

There is elation with the throwing of the peak cap, signifying the end of cadet life, the end of a grueling journey and learning experiences, but yet as it literally crashes back on the ground; the weight of responsibility landing squarely on our shoulders, it’s the beginning of another journey, tough in different ways, fulfilling in different ways, but a demanding journey nonetheless.

Phoenix at Kallang.
Lunch at Fat Boys @ Kallang, which is a pretty good place for food if you'd ask me - reasonable price, filling and good taste. Brought the camera out cause I thought the last time Phoenix cam-whored was ages ago, and I do miss those times, honestly. Coincidentally it was a shared sentiment - Su brought her polariods as well and there, some photo-count activity on Facebook again. Visited Katong I12 as well, quite a posh interior for a mall in the "heartlands", spotted quite a couple cool chocolatiers in the mall as well. And then there's that rooftop water-playground which totally pwns the Vivocity one flat on its face. Pictures will explain it.





Ann Siang Hill
You know what? I think the past couple weeks' been pretty solo. OCS's been eating up my weekends so much, what's left remaining of it isn't good enough to strike up a gathering, or maybe I'm too lazy, I didn't bother trying. Recently it hit me how much we actually do have to sacrifice for the sake of training up to be an officer, it's a tough life, honestly, and it isn't going to get better with commissioning. It's all about trade-offs, but that shall be another post altogether. This trip was taken on the previous Sunday, a short trip of photo-taking and book-reading before I booked in at night. I think the fact that I traveled somewhere else already makes me feel like I've made use of my weekend. More photos on Facebook.




Box of Memories.
If you have excellent memory, you might recall that slightly more than a month ago, before I headed off for JCC, I said I wanted to bring zip-locks to collect little artefacts from the Brunei jungle and do up something with them? Well, last weekend I completed it. A black RIBBA frame bought from IKEA a few months back, it was inspired by frames I saw at BooksActually, containing various interesting contents. So in the end, unfortunately I didn't manage to bring anything back from Brunei. I would, if I saw an interesting bug. But I didn't, and there were rules against us taking anything back. We couldn't even keep the utensils we carved. But if there was an interesting bug, I think it would be worth bending the rules for. But there wasn't. So anyway, the good thing was that the twigs I used aren't from Singapore. Minimally, you count them from foreign land. I collected them, together with the carved utensils, the last time we had the survival exercise at Pulau Tekong. The frame's basically like a memory box of JCC, along with a few quotes from Into The Wild. Honestly, it's wayyyyy below my initial mental projection of how the end-product should look like, so I might be making edits here and there in the next few weeks. Maybe spread some mud over the whole thing, for example. If it turns out a lot nicer, I'll tell you. But meanwhile, the frame sits on the small table beside my desk, awaiting to be hung on a white wall. Not for sale though.

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer.

I haven't updated, but the morose and depression died down the night after I had a sleep. Don't know why but people always have this impression that as long as you don't update your status / blog a new post about yourself feeling better, you're still there, stuck in that emotional last-post of yours. So I'd have to clarify. Well, on another occasion, for an advanced obstacle course + 3.5km run-down in SBO (the SEOC), I've managed to do my low-rope without much difficulty. So did my buddy Adrian, who didn't manage to during the first SOC as well. We were mulling over it together in bunk. BUT WE DID IT!

And well, I did manage to book-out yesterday before lunch. Pleasantly surprised, because our Wing Commander's a brilliant guy, he let us off early. So, first time I stepped out of SAFTI MI in "penguin", after booking-in from Brunei. Another two weeks gone, another two weeks shorter to commissioning. It's weird though. Staying in in camp doesn't seem so bad anymore. Of course, that's when you have the freedom of doing what you want. So I tried to make full use of the time before we left for our last RCP reporting on Saturday 9am. I went for a morning jog at 6am, after the first reporting. Ran up to PLC, and got chased by a pack of guard dogs. That was one interesting event for the end of 2011. I could say that now, but at 7am I was terrified to death, shuddering from the fears of having just scraped myself against the chances of getting gnawed up by a pack of guard dogs.

I do remember the dogs though. That one or two times when we did route marches into the late night, the trainers would let the guard dogs out at night, gates closed upon them, allowing them to be free to roam, neither leashed and fenced up. Even at those times, when we had a full company movement, one or two dogs might bark up fiercely at one of the fellow cadets, scaring a few and causing quite a stir. Yesterday, I was running into PLC even before the first light - the only way I could manage a jog that was close to an hour - having to report again in Smart No. 4 at 8am. Turning right from the end of the SOC course, I didn't expect the dogs. The last time I was there at 7am the dogs weren't there, it was only when I heard the first bark from the dogs through my MP3 did I take a swift look towards my right - in the darkness, I see dark silhouettes coming towards me, two, three then five and more fiery-orange eyes looking at me out of the dark. I had in mind not to run, so I tried to continue my jog, back from where I came from. A couple of dogs started quickening up their pace towards me, barking at me, and that was when I panicked. They were fierce guard dogs after all. Seeing the few dogs starting to advance on me, I sprinted off back where I came from. They gave chase, barking off fiercely at me. I took the most direct route back to the SOC grounds - down steep slopes, across wide drainage, and once, I fell down at the bottom of the slope after a leap across a drain. I still recall that exact moment - I looked back, saw two pairs of eyes chasing towards me, and for a split second, I remember how those horror stories of being chased by monsters / ghosts end - when one of the supporting characters falls down during the chase and gets killed / eaten up / have bad stuff happened to him. I picked myself up, ran as fast as I could possibly manage, and it was only after I ran a 200m did the barks die down, one last dog chasing me and before long, me panting alone in the darkness. Close shave.

Anyway, I spent yesterday counting down at Zirca. Not that I really wished to. It felt quite meaningless, unfortunately, compared to the past few countdowns I've had. In Zirca, counting down was just a unison of shouting, counting down to the next song the DJ spins, popping poppers and body bumping. Elsewhere, it would be where you would be in a round-circle with your friends, appreciating the moment with drinks in your hand, counting down and feeling the year really passing by with each second you countdown from 10. What happens after the "3, 2, 1" would be joyous roars, merry shouts of "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" across from strangers, group hugs and shouts of the new year resolutions. Perhaps even wishing up to the skies, telling the heavens what you want for the new year with cheery, celebratory songs blasted into the air at the background. Regardless, a year has passed, a new year has arrived, may 2012 be filled with wonderful moments with your friends and family and may you be closer to your dreams in this new year!

Bad day, bad week. I feel pretty morose and depressed now. Think everything's starting to sink in. RCP has been the start of the series of unfortunate events, and now everything rolls in - not being able to get marksmenship for ATP (advanced trainfire package, basically an advanced live firing target practice), and then today - not meeting the passing timing for SOC (standard obstacle course). SOC was never a problem for me, instead, I was always the one who was in the position to teach my mates proper techniques in SCS. The 8kg I lost in JCC is definitely muscle mass. I couldn't see any obvious change in my outer appearance, but my pull-up count's dropped by 6 and now I can't even manage a standard low-rope ascent.

I never felt more pathetic. Failure stinks, and I've sniffed up every single whiff of it today. I can't do ATP, can't do SOC - well, that sounds like a good for nothing to me. I think this could be just the lowest point of my NS term since enlistment. You know, it's one thing when your platoon commander shouts all those derogatory term and profanities at the platoon to make you feel weak and useless, but it's another thing when those same insults are coming from the voice inside yourself, and then you let it go on because you know you deserve it, and perhaps you'll be able to motivate yourself in that way.

Remember in the previous posts I was all hyping about RCP being not-so-bad? I take it all back now. I mean, at least for today. These couple days. I guess optimism doesn't last forever. Or maybe it's the sudden lack of freedom - though you're still at the same place (SAFTI) doing the same things (reporting every two hourly) - when training resumes. To add on to it, the rest are getting a long weekend this week, an early book-out on Friday by 2pm, and then a book-in on Monday night because of the New Year's off in lieu. The 14 days of RCP would end on Sunday, so if I'm lucky I might get to book-out after the last parade at 2200, but otherwise it's Monday morning. And now that I failed to meet the SOC timing, I'm going to have to book-in at 5pm on Monday for remedial training. Awesome. I just finished an entire can of Pringles, just so you know. Cause when you're emo and even music doesn't help, binging on food's your next best alternative.

I'm afraid I might be getting too comfortable with this whole RCP in camp thing. I actually feel pretty accomplished and happy today. So, I did quite a lot. I woke up to thunderstorms and a huge rain in the morning, so I didn't manage to do my morning jog thingum. But well, there's still not going to be anyone in camp tomorrow morning so I can do a round tomorrow, if it doesn't rain again.

But today Mooris bought in some turkey ham in celebration of Christmas, cause he unfortunately had to sign his extra duty for a Christmas day, so while I'm in my bunk, there's him and Edison downstairs in the duty room with me today. We're planning to have a Christmas feast tonight, with the other RCP dudes - maybe order in Sarpinos in addition to whatever of a dinner SFI (Singapore Food Industries) is going to give us.

Okay, I gotta report in close to ten minutes, so I'll get back to point. I've done quite a lot of meaningful things today. First, I sketched. I'll scan that in for you soon. In some sort of remembrance to the quail I killed in JCC, I sketched a same quail out. Yikes. And then I spent an hour reading up about Buddhism / Taoism, because yesterday when I was talking religion to Wayne at the rifle range, I realised that I hardly know much about Buddhism. So yeah, I read it, and I'm Buddhist - contrary to what my friends believes - yeah, Yuting / Jieting. The thing is, I thought for a while that Buddhism refers to the worship of purely one single Buddha. Turns out I'm extremely wrong, but the story's too long to explain. Yeah, my family still does a little bit of Taoist practices though, the part about incense and all that.

AND AND the greatest thing of all - I just came back from a run. Yes, if the weather forbids me to do my morning run at first light, I'll do it at last light. As usual, running at new places never fail to make me appreciate nature and feel happy. Running past the link bridge between SAFTI MI and SCS, running past the bridge which symbolizes "crossing over", from a specialist cadet to an officer cadet - my journey, it already felt extremely pleasant. With the strong wind blowing atop the suspension bridge over the Pan Island Expressway at 5PM, I ran into the quiet of the wilderness behind Pasir Laba Camp. I was about to run leftwards, towards the SOC ground of PLC when I saw a less explored route - the route we marched for BSLC's 32km graduation march, OCS's end-of-service-term 28km march, the scenic route which I recall eventually heads toward the west of Singapore, in sight of Second Link. It took me about ten minutes, running into the route to find out that there was a gate which barricades the route. Of course, the M203 and MATADOR live firing range. I took a U-turn, but then saw another route I've never seen. It was a pretty magical feeling when I ran past an opened gate and found myself behind NTU's WKW School of Communications. I could actually reach Kelly and Su's hall within half an hour from SAFTI. It's nice though, exploring the school. Though once I passed the gate, I immediately started to feel self-conscious. I felt naked in my OCS PT attire, with the shorter-than-FBT-curve-cuts PT shorts, feeling my thighs jiggling and jiggling, even though everyone around are all ah-tiongs [come on, who else, with a choice, would be in school on Christmas?]. Oh hey a pretty girl with long, straight hair tied up in a tight pony tail did run past me though. Hmm I wonder what she's doing in school... HAHAHA, I kid.

And the whole experience felt kinda symbolic, more significant than it's supposed to be. It was like me running away from the present, running into my past, exploring my future, not stopping till I'm tired and breathless. SCS, OCS and NTU - it's interesting how these five years of my life's going to be all around the west, and even more so - literally connected to each other. Next time when I'm in NTU, I swear I'll put on my OCS PT attire and run to OCS, SCS and all the naturous training areas behind PLC. It will be so reminiscent. I could already imagine how much I'll miss all these training times in OCS and all of my fellow mates living in the now-empty rooms around me. Hmm, this kinda puts a full-stop on the eternal stuggle of deciding between NTU or SMU Business huh. NTU IT SHALL BE. No, I'm kidding, but honestly, this puts at least five points down on NTU for the score tally between the two schools.

P.S. I know I've been blogging quite a lot. And you probably don't have the patience to read everything I've typed. But welluhm I'm stuck in camp and I'm bored so oh well.



[EDIT: 261211, 1107hours] To prevent it looking like I'm posting five times a day, I'll add on my post-Christmas adventures here. Today was good weather day. I went for a jog in the morning after I woke up, one round around NTU (surprisingly only took 25 minutes on a slow jog pace - it's not that big afterall) then back to the link bridge and down into PLC compounds. I ran past the 100m and 300m ranges behind SCS and after fifteen minutes found myself going towards the M203 / MATADOR range I was talking about yesterday. I guess I got the routes mixed up in my memory. Skirting along the PUB catchment area, the lack of civilisation, you're suddenly aware of the increase in wildlife - squirrels on trees and chirps of the variety of birds and insects. One of the top ten morning jogs I've had. After I reached the end of the route, also the barricaded area of the live firing range, I stopped, took off my in-ears and sat down looking at the vast body of water before me. Fifteen minutes like that, without any sounds of wheels on the road, churning of machinery in factories or other polluting noises. I nipped off a yellow simpur ayer flower [pictured below] and nibbled on it - one of the interesting things JCC taught me, the simpur ayer flower's one of the only few (common) edible plant food which can be eaten raw - while trying to count the different types of chirping / humming noises I can hear from the trees above me. Peaceful.

Don't remember if I've mentioned (or if you guys have read) that I've been charged with RCP (restriction of cadet priviledges) for 14 days because of negligence discharge in Brunei. Anyway, this hour I'm blogging right now is the first hour of having RCP without the wing around. It's the first time I got such punishment - confinement, but it's actually not as bad as it sounds. Even though I'll probably have to pause and then resume my blogging some time later because we have to report to the Ops Room every two-hourly, there's much peace and freedom in this. Right now, I'm in my bunk, with light rain falling down serenely on the other side of the window in front of me, listening to slow Christmas songs [The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire)] on my speakers, enjoying the peace and quiet of SAFTI MI. Looking out at the empty Wingline and carpark in front of me, the absence of all the footsteps from marching, keluar baris, commands and shouts, an ability to plan my own time and do what I want instead of listening to instructions and timings over the Wingline broadcast - there is a certain peace in that.

It's funny how much I appreciate the freedom. The freedom of being able to do what I want, to walk out of my bunk without a top on, to use the vending machines, to set my own timings just seems so good in contrast to what we have on the weekdays. It's funny how the Army takes away things you're entitled to, and then when they let loose and give you a bit of freedom, we all become so happy and relieved. Like a bird allowed to flap its wings, like a starving child given some food, like an angel given her voice.

I'm planning to go for a morning run tomorrow, immediately after I report for the 6AM first parade. My route's planned - starting down at SAFTI, I'll run past the guard house, then into the Singapore Discovery Centre and around the scenic lake, back to SAFTI before going to SCS across the link bridge. Yes, SAFTI, SCS and the SDC's all linked. Pretty wonderful. Plus it's an extremely beautiful route. And then I'm also going to start on The Intelligent Investor. Maybe a sketch or two if I'm in the mood. Maybe I'll get started on those novels. It's good though, this RCP has helped me put away quite some me-time for myself, something I haven't had the chance to enjoy for many many weeks now. Well, I've said my piece. Merry Christmas!

Been having a binge on food for the past week. I mean, from the day we came back to Lakiun camp in Brunei, after stepping through Cynthia Gate to officially complete JCC, my stomach's never been empty. I recall all the crazy buffets we've had since then. If you didn't know, every single meal we had in Brunei after JCC was a buffet. The point was for us to regain our carbos and build up mass we lost. In the end, I think I've gained back to more than 63kg by now. I was 63, then 55.5 after JCC, probably 65 right now. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if I accumulated a 65, though it seems pretty impossible to gain that much in such a short while. Trust me though, I look perfectly fat now. My stomach's been bloated ever since I came back.

Was at Sandra's house today, when I did realise my problem. I cannot stop eating. This is crazy. All the food we've been talking about during those nights on empty stomachs - I've had them all. On the day we returned, I ate two bowls of noodles my mum cooked, close to ten packets of cream crackers + nutella before that for afternoon snack, and then I recall going to Chomp Chomp and spending a further $20 on supper after that (oh glorious stingrays, popiahs, chicken wings, satays and milkcurds). Like as if it wasn't enough, after playing LAN till 5am, I downed four more plain pratas. Today, I bought Mcdonalds for the lot, then I think I ate up close to all three packets of french fries, on top of my McSpicy. And then Liqin came with a few sticks of Old Chang Kee and Gong Chas. I ate them all. OMG I ATE THEM ALL. I even asked for chips. If there were any opened packets of chips in Sandra's cupboard, they would've been in my stomach by now. I'm resisting the urge to sneak downstairs and pick up my Pringles I bought for book-in. I HAVE TO RESIST.

I now know what it's like to fight the inner demon. It's not an easy battle. I'm quite afraid. What has JCC turned me into? Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up for a morning run. Yes, not a morning jog, but a morning run. Prata after that, but I guess it's okay if I ran - right? And I'm quite determined. It's book-in day tomorrow, for what might be another twenty days away from home. I have to make full use of tomorrow. Sleep just seems secondary these couple of days, even though I'm constantly feeling the fatigue. It's a good thing though, I think when sleep's not your focus, you're having a fulfilling life. Somewhat. Maybe not. But well.

Anyway, today I was supposed to visit a TCM practitioner because I revealed to my mum during lunch at Jack's Place (OH THE STEAK) that my left hand's been numb ever since training in Brunei. That's more than two weeks already. The problem's that my hand's permanently numb. Like 24/7, sometimes less when I'm not thinking about it. There's that swollen feeling on the tip of my fingers. Like if you played the guitar strings for too long a period. Like if you have those finger blisters with pus inside, waiting to be pricked and burst. My mum brought me to this one close to my grandma's. I was willing to accept some form of treatment initially, but when I saw the TCM clinic, things changed. It was really a clinic. Air-conditioned, consultation rooms and all, queue numbers. The fact that it was too commercialised turned me entirely off. I was expecting some TCM old man at the back of a counter selling herbal medicine. It made me lose trust in whatever I was going to see / receive. The doctor said it wasn't a big deal, but recommended me for immediate treatment, either acupuncture or a massage therapy. $30 for thirty minutes. I thought "fuck, scam alert" in my head. I said no, and the annoying thing was everyone at once turned against me. I politely gave the excuse that I didn't have time. My mum assumed I meant that I was probably overzealous to meet friends, so didn't want to accept the treatment. She had to tell the story to the doctor and nurses. Then they all went "you can't possibly wait till it gets more serious before you look for treatment" in an all too Chinese and knowledgeable manner. It made me feel extremely guilty towards my body, but I think I'm too much of a miser to see money spent on medical purposes. Especially if it's not urgent at all. I don't know why I'm even whining about this. But it made me feel insecure. The response I got from Yuting and Liqin made me worry as well. Should I have really went ahead with the treatment? I hate this uncertainty.

There won't be eggnogs by the cozy fire /
There won't be glasses of mulled wine either /
There won't even be a Christmas tree /
'cause you're not here to light it up with me

Finally back from Brunei, back with the Jungle Confidence Course badge on my chest. This trip came with many firsts, so it was certainly eventful. Of course, after all the initial grouse about being away from home for so long, participating in so many consecutive days of infantry training and back-to-back missions, I reflect about it and in hindsight, there was really much to gain.

It was the first time I've been away from home, from my family for so long. It was the first time I was on an overseas mission and training experience. It was the first time I was on a plane with friends. The list could go on and on, but most importantly, it was JCC. It was the reason why I wanted to come to OCS. I was initially lazy to talk about JCC over here, but then I'm free today. Plus, I hope this at least pens down some memory for myself in future. I'll write it down while the memory's still fresh.

JCC, the Jungle Confidence Course, was much more than just a badge to me. The badge itself seemed like it mattered the world to some, but I always say it's up to you do define who you are, not what you have or what's on your chest, for that matter. I'm glad all my friends made it though. It sounds completely cliche, but what mattered to me was the experience - I went to JCC not expecting the badge, but expecting emotional development, expecting the experience of tough conditions, hunger, mental struggle, disagreements you have to overcome, obstacles you have to conquer, physical pains you have to endure. I think it must have been an extremely good thing that the weather was on our side throughout JCC. During our initial phase of infantry training at Brunei, it rained almost everyday. It was always "code black" from morning till 3pm, meaning heat waves and unusually high temperatures, then a heavy downpour at around 3pm. It was monsoon season as well, so all of us went to Brunei prepared for rain everyday anyway. Fortunately for us, it only rained thrice on the nine days of our JCC. You don't know how much the rain can fuck it up for you. Plotting on maps during navigation would be close to impossible with the rain pouring down on your markers and map overlays. What was once dry would become slippery surfaces, and what was originally slippery would become impossible. You lose your mental focus, you lose your visual acuity, you're cold and drenched, and over extended periods of wetness, you start to get foot rot. If unlucky, your waterproofing gives way, your dry clothes become wet, your equipment gets damaged, you'll have to spend the night shivering in the cold wetness. You're already counting your blessings that you didn't slip and fall a bad fall, or that dead-falls didn't collapse on you in the thunderstorm. So in some ways, our wing had it easy. We got lucky.

Even so, JCC was an experience. It started with Ex. Nomad, a three day navigation exercise - 4 checkpoints, a mid-point and an end-point. I'll remember how well my team did during navigation. How everything was so smooth, it felt almost too good to be true. How we plotted to the dot on the map, how many times we said "by my plotting, the checkpoint should be just another 50m north-east from here", and voila! there it was. I don't want to brag, but it felt good hearing from so many commanders that we were the first detail they've ever heard of who managed to find all the checkpoints during Ex. Nomad of JCC. We were legendary. Just kidding. But yes, there's certainly some pride there. The smooth-flowing stopped there though. Ex. Explorer was phase two of JCC. We scaled Mt. Biang, which was 430m above sea level. Mt. Telugong was even more crazy. It was a relatively smaller mountain, but it was the toughest climb I've done in my life. We had to climb on all fours, pulling on to roots and trees on sometimes near vertical slopes. We had to jump up and slide down slippery rocks the size of rhinos to get from a place to another. We had to do all that and more, with our field bag and signal sets on our back. Fatigue was another problem. Rationing my food, I've only eaten what amounted to one meal packet and two packets of biscuits for the past three days. My body was past the hunger and the urge to eat, but it was sustaining on whatever was left of the energy from the Cadbury bar I stuffed right before moving out on the first day. Water wasn't a problem yet because we've been passing by a couple of streams on the way during navigation. We heard from the past batches that there wouldn't be streams up the mountain from that point on though, so we made it a point to ensure all our bottles were filled before we embarked on the climb. That was an additional 5.5kg alone.

It was tough, but like everything else, it comes to an end. I was pretty excited on the day of insertion into the survival site, with the end-ex of Ex. Explorer, transiting into Ex. Forager. Forager's a three day three night survival segment of JCC, where you're supposed to gather materials, build up an A-frame shelter, a monitor lizard trap, a fireplace and create other necessary survival equipments like fishing rods and spears. It was everything I was excited about. I heard about all the time you have, to think about life under your A-frame shelter in the complete darkness, to appreciate and enjoy nature for what it is. Truth be told, it wasn't exactly that. It turned out to be a pretty hectic few days, gathering vines to tie up the bakau poles, building up the A-frame, fireplace and monitor lizard traps for assessment, carving utensils into the night, looking for saplings good enough to make fishing rods and a spear out of, looking for leaves to thatch up into a shelter. Other than the time in the complete darkness when you know trying to complete any tasks would be completely inefficient, I hardly had time to sit idly around and appreciate the nature and quiet around me. So it wasn't as fun as I expected.

The first night of Forager was the toughest time of JCC. After the combat swim across Batu Apoi river, it poured extremely heavily. Following the insertion into site, I made the wrong choice. I spent the remaining of the one hour of daylight gathering vines and bakau poles, eager to set up my basic A-frame before nightfall. The entire site was muddy from the downpour, and the location was swampy because it was right beside the river. Mud up to my shins and all over my hands, I collected the bakau poles I needed and started on the basic A-structure. I started to feel bites and itch all over my body and my head, but my hands were wet with mud I couldn't do anything about it. It was still drizzling, and only after ten minutes did I take a good look at the survival site I picked and realised that there were red ants all over the bakau poles I collected and all over the two metre radius of my survival site. Red ants were crawling all over my body and the poles I was about to use for my A-frame. I panicked. I felt completely exasperated. I couldn't even set my groundsheet down because ants were all over the site. In the end, I abandoned my survival site and shared a lean-to shelter my friend created at his site. It was small enough for a shelter, but he was extremely generous to me. He shared half his shelter with me, so the two of us only had space to sit down side by side. We were wet, cold and I couldn't change out of my clothes because the wet ground would defeat the purpose of keeping dry anyway. I spent the night sleeping in a crouching position, pulling my knees to my chest and hugging them to sleep because there wasn't space to lie down. In the end, I drifted in and out of 15-minute eye-shuts throughout the night due to the uncomfortable position I was sitting in as well as the shivers from wearing damp clothes without being able to start any fire. I couldn't have been more glad for first light in the morning.

Day two of Ex. Forager was the day they brought us the quails. Yes, the highlight, isn't it? The message they wanted drilled into us was "for one to survive, one else must die". The task was that we were supposed to kill and skin a quail with our bare hands, no tools involved. I've always been a bit squeamish at the thought of killing the quail. I mean, fuck, I don't even know if I dared to pick the quail up. It's linked to my fear of small, furry things. I'm a tiny bit afraid of chicks. What about a quail? But well, people I've talked to previously assured me that by the day you see the quail, you're so hungry you'll be very carnivorous, so not much second thoughts there. Turns out to be untrue. My stomach's managed to survive on very little food. I think by then, I've only eaten two meal packets and four packets of biscuits for the past... six days. I've already been extremely careful with rationing. Instead, I've still got two meal packets, two desert packets and two packets of maggi noodles left from the 48-hour rations we've been given on the first day, for the next three days.


Captain Subash brought the basket of quails over to the five of us gathered in the same survival site, and asked us to go ahead and pick a quail from the basket. The other four went on, picked up a quail without hesitation, but when I looked into the basket, all the worries started pouring in. The quails were bigger than I expected, and I hardly dared put my hand into the basket, much less catch one. Under pressure, I dug my hand in, tried to grab hold of one but its smooth, furry body slipped out from under my grasp. It ran half a metre away with me trying to grab hold of it without any success. My friend picked it up for me. I was almost shaking. By then, CPT Subash was screaming into my face. Nothing could mask my lack of confidence in handling the quail. He screamed "you're a fucking officer cadet and you're scared of a fucking quail?". He screamed a lot more things, but I was more distracted by the struggling quail I held in both hands. I picked the quail up by its legs instead, and quickly inserted my fingers between its wings and body to stop it from flapping. By then, I overcame the fear of holding it. The next step's to kill. Second thoughts about killing it flooded my mind. Now that I'm less scared of it, I start to become aware of its warmth and blood pumping in my hands. With an instruction of "you can now twist and pull its head out once you're ready - make sure you don't let it suffer and do it in a swift motion", the rest of the cadets steadily pulled out the head of the quail. I was in a complete trance. More muffled shouting. I put my right hand over its head, covered its eyes and pulled. They said to treat it like a grenade ring. Twist, pull, done. If I'd think about it, you can actually feel the stretch of its skin. It was hardly a "twist, pull, done". Some blood spurts on your hand but you're past caring. You'll have to hold the body in place because the muscle contraction's causing the wings to flap extremely fast between your fingers. I panicked, and dropped the quail head on the ground, instead of placing it on the Simpur Ayer leaves we gathered. More shouting. The body eventually stops struggling, and then the pressure to skin the bird comes. I placed the mess of feathers and blood down on the leaf, and after some guidance from my friend, started to peel off the feathers and skin neck-down. My hands were shaking, dirty with mud and blood and sticky feathers. My confidence was zero. By then CPT Subash was standing beside me, shouting instructions into my ears because I was the only one having difficulty killing and skinning the quail. Between many instructions, I plucked out the wings before I skinned the quail fully. I received a smack to my head, ferocious shouting, and then he said it. "Fuck you, you destroyed the game. Go take another quail from the basket now". Stunned. I looked at him with the mess of feathers and blood in my hands, took a minute to comprehend what he said, and asked "Sir, can I not kill another quail please". I had to repeat that twice, because I was either too afraid to speak up, or I just wasn't speaking straight. But of course, a fucking pissed off man isn't one up for negotiations. I put down the bloody mess onto the leaf, took heavy steps towards the basket and picked up another quail. I was chanting prayers in my heart all the time now, sorry for what I've just done, sorry for what I'm about to do. I headed back to my leaves, turned my back on the leaves and tried to kill the quail there and then, but he stopped me, shouted for me to turn about and face the leaves in front of me. I looked at the sorry sight of what was once the quail I held in my hands, sprawled in pieces over the leaves, and tried my best to cover up the head of the other quail I held in my hands. It didn't have to see that. I killed the second quail under mounting pressure of CPT Subash, who was probably going to explode on me anytime. The second time was as difficult as the first, but once the struggling of the body stopped, I managed to handle myself from then.

In the end, yes, all my mates were jealous that I killed two quails and ate two quails. I did share the second one, but that's besides the point. It's pretty fucked up, because the guilt seeped away after the quails were dead. My body was still trembling slightly though. I was in a half-daze for the next hour. I talked about it quite a lot after that, trying to explain the story to my envious friends. But some did talk to me about it, and it made sense when they said that the quails in the basket were going to get killed, whether I did it or not. And it's also true when my friend said that if I didn't kill the quail, I'd never have known that I could have done it. I'd never have been able to do it again. Thinking back about it, I think I completely over-reacted. But still, it was an experience. Not an enjoyable one, but what is life without struggles? CPT Subash made a special visit back to our site an hour later and apologised to me for the harsh scolding, which was very surprising. For a superior in the Army to be able to do that, even when it's not his fault, it takes a lot. I don't blame him even slightly for shouting at me. Instead, I'd want to thank him for it. Without the pressure, I think I would never have been able to do it. But still, he came to me, said sorry, and even volunteered to take a look at my survival site and give me feedback on my progress.


Following that was assessment on day 8, extrication and then Ex. Trekker back to camp on day 9. Nothing much to talk about there. But JCC was a true experience. I'll never forget my detail mates, though we weren't very close to begin and end with, I won't forget how all of us helped each other, supported each other and all the nights we couldn't sleep, talking about the food markets at Bedok, Old Airport Road, Chomp Chomp and more over the fire. Tough times don't last, tough men do.



Oh yeah, and an update. I misfired a blank round during one of the missions as the exercise platoon sergeant. I was shagged okay, give chance. They call it negligence discharge, short for ND. In OCS, it's a big fucking deal. So I'm getting charged with RCP for 14 days, starting this coming Monday, after we book-in on Sunday. RCP stands for restriction of cadet privileges (sorry for the acronyms), where I'm not only confined for 14 days, but I'll have to report to HQ in FBO (full battle order - including field pack and items) every two hours in camp. So well, I'll be having Christmas in camp. Quite sad, but well, the things that don't kill you only makes you stronger. If I'm lucky, my charge might end on the 31st, before New Years. Otherwise, if you'd count a straight 14 days, the next time I'll be booking out would be 7th Jan.

It's ok. No worries. Today, after my haircut, I went out and got all the supplies I'd need. I'll be booking in with a lot of things this weekend. I've bought ten packets of Maggi noodles, a bottle of Nutella, a tin of cream crackers, cheese biscuits and a can of Pringles all ready. Also, I've borrowed four books from the library, and I'm bringing The Intelligent Investor as well as two issues of Monocle into camp. I'll use the weekends to do meaningful reading up. It's time I took some time out to get started with The Intelligent Investor. I'll probably put the whole of Glee season three into my PSP as well. I'll be loading in four albums into my iPod as well, for good measure. That's more than enough for three weekends I guess. Thankfully my family doesn't celebrate Christmas, so I'm not dead-emo for having being confined during Christmas. But then again, I'll be missing out all the Christmas gatherings and stay-overs with friends. Won't get to sip on the Kahlua I bought at DFS over a fire and Christmas tunes. That's pretty sad already. Guess I'll just loop Christmas tunes in bunk during Christmas.

Attica yesterday was awesome. Do I always start posts in this manner? "--- yesterday was awesome." But well, I lead an awesome life. What to do? Anyway bloody hell that trumps my previous near-vomiting experience. Well, I drank a bloody lot. I mean, with all the magnum bottles in front of me and all of us were prepared to pool $100 each anyway, so I just drank and drank and drank - cause it's good life being VIP. Lost my consciousness for quite a bit there on the dance floor, but I pride myself in still being able to take care of a friend who was more drunk than me. Zero-vomiting-record still holds!

As usual, being the penny-pinching guy I am, I'm here to whine about my biggest concern in my unexciting life again - my finances. Spent more than a full month's pay in this week alone. It's all with good reason though, so I'm not whining too much. Let me break it down to you. So, in the past week I've spent a grand total sum of $1150.10. There was that first $200 I parted with in camp, when we had to give the first payment of the Commissioning ball to the committee. The second payment would be another $200 #holeinmypocketmuch after Thailand, so thankfully, that isn't counted into my week's expenditure. And then, there's an iPod Touch for $330. I finally got a second-hand 64GB 3rd generation from this girl on HWZ.com, so now I will no longer be complaining about lack of space for new music. Jay Chou and S.H.E can now come back to my iPod music library, thank you guys for your patience. So it's pretty exciting stuff - I've been spending the last few days getting apps and all the other jingly stuff I'll need. I spent another 1.5 hours today at Funan IT Mall and bought the only matte screen-protector for iPod Touch 3G in the entire mall. There was also only one shop which sold covers for the iTouch 3G, but it was really disappointing-looking so I didn't get it. I came home to look online and found this really shit-awesome place overstock.com which sells a lot of cheap shit. Makes me regret spending all that time and money at Funan today. So I bought a nice cover (FOR USD$3) for my iTouch, and because things are so cheap, I bought another silicon case + matte screen protector (FOR USD$4) just in case. The only thing though, is that it only ships within US so you've got to have an international shipping service hooked on to your mailing address. My brother has Borderlinx so HURRAH for that.

And that brings me to my next purchase. I bought a Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch through Borderlinx as well (they don't sell to international customers directly). Don't know what's that? Click on the hyperlink at nook in a new tab! My brother got his a few weeks ago and I hate to follow in my brother's footsteps in stuff he does (though sometimes as a younger brother I inevitably fall into them) but this is a really good buy. Mainly because I plan to load in all the lame-ass self-help books on starting a business (aligned with my plans of enriching myself about entrepreneurship during the two years of NS), all of which I'm either too embarrassed to buy from a book store or feel like the book could be all fluff and not worthy of my precious pennies. I felt happier (and more accomplished) buying this than the iPod Touch though. One step closer to future success. MUAHAHAHAHA. And because I bought the nook, I gotta buy a cool case to fit it in, of which Barnes & Noble's a monopoly of so yeowch all pretty expensive but really atas. I can imagine how I will walk on the streets holding my classy nook with my nose in the air and all. Must watch the lampposts in front when I walk like that though. Anyway. The only bad-surprise came when I was at checkout, and then I realised that my brother's been lying to me all the time, telling me the nook was $99 and all that, till it hit me that it was all USD. And then there's a coupon code I could use from retailmenot.com but that's just a few dollars. My final checkout totaled to an estimate of $168 in SGD.

And besides all the money I spent on a new mouse, a pair of cheap earpieces for jogging and the lunch / brunch / dinners, today I drew $250 to change to thousands of dollars in Thai Bahts for the pathetic two days of R&R in Thailand. I felt a sense of independence then - complete financial independence. Ohley! That sums it up I guess.


Two more hours now and I'll have to be on the car to the airport to be on the plane to Thailand to be on the 5-hour bus ride to Sai Yok camp. Quite exciting leh. Here are some photos to end it.

Thoughts from my reflections.

In the few days of interaction with commanders and 5SIR’s CO, then Lieutenant Zhen Ming’s talk to the platoon on Friday as well as the commissioning parade on Saturday, I have been thinking about what being an officer entails. Throughout the few months I have been here, my opinion of an officer has always been evolving, as I observe from the commanders around me and as I start to learn more about what the responsibilities of an officer are.

In BMT, I viewed officers as merely another form of leadership, though mainly in planning and organization, as compared to sergeants who are “on-the-ground”. It might have been the examples around me, or my limited vision of what an officer does, being an officer never seemed difficult to me. The process of becoming an officer sounded tough, but with commissioning, the good life comes. That was the impression cast on me, as well as most of the people around me. I’ve recently come to realise that was a completely warped perception. If one came to OCS with the hopes of having a “good life” after commissioning, one shouldn’t be there. It was only until recently did I piece together and truly understand how much responsibility comes with the word “commissioned officer”. Sure, with the black bar comes power – power by ranking – but most truly, as the Marvel Spiderman said, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

The best example of officers I see are those who dedicate their weekends for their duties and paperwork, because they want to be out on field with their men. They are the first to be down on the ground, the first to leopard crawl to lead their men by example, the first to wake up and start on preparation for activities as conducting or safety, and then on the other end, the last to sleep after a full day of activities, the last to finish up work and go home on weekends, the last to enjoy privileges such as nights out or to go on leave.

There is elation with the throwing of the peak cap, signifying the end of cadet life, the end of a grueling journey and learning experiences, but yet as it literally crashes back on the ground; the weight of responsibility landing squarely on our shoulders, it’s the beginning of another journey, tough in different ways, fulfilling in different ways, but a demanding journey nonetheless.

Phoenix at Kallang.
Lunch at Fat Boys @ Kallang, which is a pretty good place for food if you'd ask me - reasonable price, filling and good taste. Brought the camera out cause I thought the last time Phoenix cam-whored was ages ago, and I do miss those times, honestly. Coincidentally it was a shared sentiment - Su brought her polariods as well and there, some photo-count activity on Facebook again. Visited Katong I12 as well, quite a posh interior for a mall in the "heartlands", spotted quite a couple cool chocolatiers in the mall as well. And then there's that rooftop water-playground which totally pwns the Vivocity one flat on its face. Pictures will explain it.





Ann Siang Hill
You know what? I think the past couple weeks' been pretty solo. OCS's been eating up my weekends so much, what's left remaining of it isn't good enough to strike up a gathering, or maybe I'm too lazy, I didn't bother trying. Recently it hit me how much we actually do have to sacrifice for the sake of training up to be an officer, it's a tough life, honestly, and it isn't going to get better with commissioning. It's all about trade-offs, but that shall be another post altogether. This trip was taken on the previous Sunday, a short trip of photo-taking and book-reading before I booked in at night. I think the fact that I traveled somewhere else already makes me feel like I've made use of my weekend. More photos on Facebook.




Box of Memories.
If you have excellent memory, you might recall that slightly more than a month ago, before I headed off for JCC, I said I wanted to bring zip-locks to collect little artefacts from the Brunei jungle and do up something with them? Well, last weekend I completed it. A black RIBBA frame bought from IKEA a few months back, it was inspired by frames I saw at BooksActually, containing various interesting contents. So in the end, unfortunately I didn't manage to bring anything back from Brunei. I would, if I saw an interesting bug. But I didn't, and there were rules against us taking anything back. We couldn't even keep the utensils we carved. But if there was an interesting bug, I think it would be worth bending the rules for. But there wasn't. So anyway, the good thing was that the twigs I used aren't from Singapore. Minimally, you count them from foreign land. I collected them, together with the carved utensils, the last time we had the survival exercise at Pulau Tekong. The frame's basically like a memory box of JCC, along with a few quotes from Into The Wild. Honestly, it's wayyyyy below my initial mental projection of how the end-product should look like, so I might be making edits here and there in the next few weeks. Maybe spread some mud over the whole thing, for example. If it turns out a lot nicer, I'll tell you. But meanwhile, the frame sits on the small table beside my desk, awaiting to be hung on a white wall. Not for sale though.

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer.

I haven't updated, but the morose and depression died down the night after I had a sleep. Don't know why but people always have this impression that as long as you don't update your status / blog a new post about yourself feeling better, you're still there, stuck in that emotional last-post of yours. So I'd have to clarify. Well, on another occasion, for an advanced obstacle course + 3.5km run-down in SBO (the SEOC), I've managed to do my low-rope without much difficulty. So did my buddy Adrian, who didn't manage to during the first SOC as well. We were mulling over it together in bunk. BUT WE DID IT!

And well, I did manage to book-out yesterday before lunch. Pleasantly surprised, because our Wing Commander's a brilliant guy, he let us off early. So, first time I stepped out of SAFTI MI in "penguin", after booking-in from Brunei. Another two weeks gone, another two weeks shorter to commissioning. It's weird though. Staying in in camp doesn't seem so bad anymore. Of course, that's when you have the freedom of doing what you want. So I tried to make full use of the time before we left for our last RCP reporting on Saturday 9am. I went for a morning jog at 6am, after the first reporting. Ran up to PLC, and got chased by a pack of guard dogs. That was one interesting event for the end of 2011. I could say that now, but at 7am I was terrified to death, shuddering from the fears of having just scraped myself against the chances of getting gnawed up by a pack of guard dogs.

I do remember the dogs though. That one or two times when we did route marches into the late night, the trainers would let the guard dogs out at night, gates closed upon them, allowing them to be free to roam, neither leashed and fenced up. Even at those times, when we had a full company movement, one or two dogs might bark up fiercely at one of the fellow cadets, scaring a few and causing quite a stir. Yesterday, I was running into PLC even before the first light - the only way I could manage a jog that was close to an hour - having to report again in Smart No. 4 at 8am. Turning right from the end of the SOC course, I didn't expect the dogs. The last time I was there at 7am the dogs weren't there, it was only when I heard the first bark from the dogs through my MP3 did I take a swift look towards my right - in the darkness, I see dark silhouettes coming towards me, two, three then five and more fiery-orange eyes looking at me out of the dark. I had in mind not to run, so I tried to continue my jog, back from where I came from. A couple of dogs started quickening up their pace towards me, barking at me, and that was when I panicked. They were fierce guard dogs after all. Seeing the few dogs starting to advance on me, I sprinted off back where I came from. They gave chase, barking off fiercely at me. I took the most direct route back to the SOC grounds - down steep slopes, across wide drainage, and once, I fell down at the bottom of the slope after a leap across a drain. I still recall that exact moment - I looked back, saw two pairs of eyes chasing towards me, and for a split second, I remember how those horror stories of being chased by monsters / ghosts end - when one of the supporting characters falls down during the chase and gets killed / eaten up / have bad stuff happened to him. I picked myself up, ran as fast as I could possibly manage, and it was only after I ran a 200m did the barks die down, one last dog chasing me and before long, me panting alone in the darkness. Close shave.

Anyway, I spent yesterday counting down at Zirca. Not that I really wished to. It felt quite meaningless, unfortunately, compared to the past few countdowns I've had. In Zirca, counting down was just a unison of shouting, counting down to the next song the DJ spins, popping poppers and body bumping. Elsewhere, it would be where you would be in a round-circle with your friends, appreciating the moment with drinks in your hand, counting down and feeling the year really passing by with each second you countdown from 10. What happens after the "3, 2, 1" would be joyous roars, merry shouts of "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" across from strangers, group hugs and shouts of the new year resolutions. Perhaps even wishing up to the skies, telling the heavens what you want for the new year with cheery, celebratory songs blasted into the air at the background. Regardless, a year has passed, a new year has arrived, may 2012 be filled with wonderful moments with your friends and family and may you be closer to your dreams in this new year!

Bad day, bad week. I feel pretty morose and depressed now. Think everything's starting to sink in. RCP has been the start of the series of unfortunate events, and now everything rolls in - not being able to get marksmenship for ATP (advanced trainfire package, basically an advanced live firing target practice), and then today - not meeting the passing timing for SOC (standard obstacle course). SOC was never a problem for me, instead, I was always the one who was in the position to teach my mates proper techniques in SCS. The 8kg I lost in JCC is definitely muscle mass. I couldn't see any obvious change in my outer appearance, but my pull-up count's dropped by 6 and now I can't even manage a standard low-rope ascent.

I never felt more pathetic. Failure stinks, and I've sniffed up every single whiff of it today. I can't do ATP, can't do SOC - well, that sounds like a good for nothing to me. I think this could be just the lowest point of my NS term since enlistment. You know, it's one thing when your platoon commander shouts all those derogatory term and profanities at the platoon to make you feel weak and useless, but it's another thing when those same insults are coming from the voice inside yourself, and then you let it go on because you know you deserve it, and perhaps you'll be able to motivate yourself in that way.

Remember in the previous posts I was all hyping about RCP being not-so-bad? I take it all back now. I mean, at least for today. These couple days. I guess optimism doesn't last forever. Or maybe it's the sudden lack of freedom - though you're still at the same place (SAFTI) doing the same things (reporting every two hourly) - when training resumes. To add on to it, the rest are getting a long weekend this week, an early book-out on Friday by 2pm, and then a book-in on Monday night because of the New Year's off in lieu. The 14 days of RCP would end on Sunday, so if I'm lucky I might get to book-out after the last parade at 2200, but otherwise it's Monday morning. And now that I failed to meet the SOC timing, I'm going to have to book-in at 5pm on Monday for remedial training. Awesome. I just finished an entire can of Pringles, just so you know. Cause when you're emo and even music doesn't help, binging on food's your next best alternative.

I'm afraid I might be getting too comfortable with this whole RCP in camp thing. I actually feel pretty accomplished and happy today. So, I did quite a lot. I woke up to thunderstorms and a huge rain in the morning, so I didn't manage to do my morning jog thingum. But well, there's still not going to be anyone in camp tomorrow morning so I can do a round tomorrow, if it doesn't rain again.

But today Mooris bought in some turkey ham in celebration of Christmas, cause he unfortunately had to sign his extra duty for a Christmas day, so while I'm in my bunk, there's him and Edison downstairs in the duty room with me today. We're planning to have a Christmas feast tonight, with the other RCP dudes - maybe order in Sarpinos in addition to whatever of a dinner SFI (Singapore Food Industries) is going to give us.

Okay, I gotta report in close to ten minutes, so I'll get back to point. I've done quite a lot of meaningful things today. First, I sketched. I'll scan that in for you soon. In some sort of remembrance to the quail I killed in JCC, I sketched a same quail out. Yikes. And then I spent an hour reading up about Buddhism / Taoism, because yesterday when I was talking religion to Wayne at the rifle range, I realised that I hardly know much about Buddhism. So yeah, I read it, and I'm Buddhist - contrary to what my friends believes - yeah, Yuting / Jieting. The thing is, I thought for a while that Buddhism refers to the worship of purely one single Buddha. Turns out I'm extremely wrong, but the story's too long to explain. Yeah, my family still does a little bit of Taoist practices though, the part about incense and all that.

AND AND the greatest thing of all - I just came back from a run. Yes, if the weather forbids me to do my morning run at first light, I'll do it at last light. As usual, running at new places never fail to make me appreciate nature and feel happy. Running past the link bridge between SAFTI MI and SCS, running past the bridge which symbolizes "crossing over", from a specialist cadet to an officer cadet - my journey, it already felt extremely pleasant. With the strong wind blowing atop the suspension bridge over the Pan Island Expressway at 5PM, I ran into the quiet of the wilderness behind Pasir Laba Camp. I was about to run leftwards, towards the SOC ground of PLC when I saw a less explored route - the route we marched for BSLC's 32km graduation march, OCS's end-of-service-term 28km march, the scenic route which I recall eventually heads toward the west of Singapore, in sight of Second Link. It took me about ten minutes, running into the route to find out that there was a gate which barricades the route. Of course, the M203 and MATADOR live firing range. I took a U-turn, but then saw another route I've never seen. It was a pretty magical feeling when I ran past an opened gate and found myself behind NTU's WKW School of Communications. I could actually reach Kelly and Su's hall within half an hour from SAFTI. It's nice though, exploring the school. Though once I passed the gate, I immediately started to feel self-conscious. I felt naked in my OCS PT attire, with the shorter-than-FBT-curve-cuts PT shorts, feeling my thighs jiggling and jiggling, even though everyone around are all ah-tiongs [come on, who else, with a choice, would be in school on Christmas?]. Oh hey a pretty girl with long, straight hair tied up in a tight pony tail did run past me though. Hmm I wonder what she's doing in school... HAHAHA, I kid.

And the whole experience felt kinda symbolic, more significant than it's supposed to be. It was like me running away from the present, running into my past, exploring my future, not stopping till I'm tired and breathless. SCS, OCS and NTU - it's interesting how these five years of my life's going to be all around the west, and even more so - literally connected to each other. Next time when I'm in NTU, I swear I'll put on my OCS PT attire and run to OCS, SCS and all the naturous training areas behind PLC. It will be so reminiscent. I could already imagine how much I'll miss all these training times in OCS and all of my fellow mates living in the now-empty rooms around me. Hmm, this kinda puts a full-stop on the eternal stuggle of deciding between NTU or SMU Business huh. NTU IT SHALL BE. No, I'm kidding, but honestly, this puts at least five points down on NTU for the score tally between the two schools.

P.S. I know I've been blogging quite a lot. And you probably don't have the patience to read everything I've typed. But welluhm I'm stuck in camp and I'm bored so oh well.



[EDIT: 261211, 1107hours] To prevent it looking like I'm posting five times a day, I'll add on my post-Christmas adventures here. Today was good weather day. I went for a jog in the morning after I woke up, one round around NTU (surprisingly only took 25 minutes on a slow jog pace - it's not that big afterall) then back to the link bridge and down into PLC compounds. I ran past the 100m and 300m ranges behind SCS and after fifteen minutes found myself going towards the M203 / MATADOR range I was talking about yesterday. I guess I got the routes mixed up in my memory. Skirting along the PUB catchment area, the lack of civilisation, you're suddenly aware of the increase in wildlife - squirrels on trees and chirps of the variety of birds and insects. One of the top ten morning jogs I've had. After I reached the end of the route, also the barricaded area of the live firing range, I stopped, took off my in-ears and sat down looking at the vast body of water before me. Fifteen minutes like that, without any sounds of wheels on the road, churning of machinery in factories or other polluting noises. I nipped off a yellow simpur ayer flower [pictured below] and nibbled on it - one of the interesting things JCC taught me, the simpur ayer flower's one of the only few (common) edible plant food which can be eaten raw - while trying to count the different types of chirping / humming noises I can hear from the trees above me. Peaceful.

Don't remember if I've mentioned (or if you guys have read) that I've been charged with RCP (restriction of cadet priviledges) for 14 days because of negligence discharge in Brunei. Anyway, this hour I'm blogging right now is the first hour of having RCP without the wing around. It's the first time I got such punishment - confinement, but it's actually not as bad as it sounds. Even though I'll probably have to pause and then resume my blogging some time later because we have to report to the Ops Room every two-hourly, there's much peace and freedom in this. Right now, I'm in my bunk, with light rain falling down serenely on the other side of the window in front of me, listening to slow Christmas songs [The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire)] on my speakers, enjoying the peace and quiet of SAFTI MI. Looking out at the empty Wingline and carpark in front of me, the absence of all the footsteps from marching, keluar baris, commands and shouts, an ability to plan my own time and do what I want instead of listening to instructions and timings over the Wingline broadcast - there is a certain peace in that.

It's funny how much I appreciate the freedom. The freedom of being able to do what I want, to walk out of my bunk without a top on, to use the vending machines, to set my own timings just seems so good in contrast to what we have on the weekdays. It's funny how the Army takes away things you're entitled to, and then when they let loose and give you a bit of freedom, we all become so happy and relieved. Like a bird allowed to flap its wings, like a starving child given some food, like an angel given her voice.

I'm planning to go for a morning run tomorrow, immediately after I report for the 6AM first parade. My route's planned - starting down at SAFTI, I'll run past the guard house, then into the Singapore Discovery Centre and around the scenic lake, back to SAFTI before going to SCS across the link bridge. Yes, SAFTI, SCS and the SDC's all linked. Pretty wonderful. Plus it's an extremely beautiful route. And then I'm also going to start on The Intelligent Investor. Maybe a sketch or two if I'm in the mood. Maybe I'll get started on those novels. It's good though, this RCP has helped me put away quite some me-time for myself, something I haven't had the chance to enjoy for many many weeks now. Well, I've said my piece. Merry Christmas!

Been having a binge on food for the past week. I mean, from the day we came back to Lakiun camp in Brunei, after stepping through Cynthia Gate to officially complete JCC, my stomach's never been empty. I recall all the crazy buffets we've had since then. If you didn't know, every single meal we had in Brunei after JCC was a buffet. The point was for us to regain our carbos and build up mass we lost. In the end, I think I've gained back to more than 63kg by now. I was 63, then 55.5 after JCC, probably 65 right now. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if I accumulated a 65, though it seems pretty impossible to gain that much in such a short while. Trust me though, I look perfectly fat now. My stomach's been bloated ever since I came back.

Was at Sandra's house today, when I did realise my problem. I cannot stop eating. This is crazy. All the food we've been talking about during those nights on empty stomachs - I've had them all. On the day we returned, I ate two bowls of noodles my mum cooked, close to ten packets of cream crackers + nutella before that for afternoon snack, and then I recall going to Chomp Chomp and spending a further $20 on supper after that (oh glorious stingrays, popiahs, chicken wings, satays and milkcurds). Like as if it wasn't enough, after playing LAN till 5am, I downed four more plain pratas. Today, I bought Mcdonalds for the lot, then I think I ate up close to all three packets of french fries, on top of my McSpicy. And then Liqin came with a few sticks of Old Chang Kee and Gong Chas. I ate them all. OMG I ATE THEM ALL. I even asked for chips. If there were any opened packets of chips in Sandra's cupboard, they would've been in my stomach by now. I'm resisting the urge to sneak downstairs and pick up my Pringles I bought for book-in. I HAVE TO RESIST.

I now know what it's like to fight the inner demon. It's not an easy battle. I'm quite afraid. What has JCC turned me into? Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up for a morning run. Yes, not a morning jog, but a morning run. Prata after that, but I guess it's okay if I ran - right? And I'm quite determined. It's book-in day tomorrow, for what might be another twenty days away from home. I have to make full use of tomorrow. Sleep just seems secondary these couple of days, even though I'm constantly feeling the fatigue. It's a good thing though, I think when sleep's not your focus, you're having a fulfilling life. Somewhat. Maybe not. But well.

Anyway, today I was supposed to visit a TCM practitioner because I revealed to my mum during lunch at Jack's Place (OH THE STEAK) that my left hand's been numb ever since training in Brunei. That's more than two weeks already. The problem's that my hand's permanently numb. Like 24/7, sometimes less when I'm not thinking about it. There's that swollen feeling on the tip of my fingers. Like if you played the guitar strings for too long a period. Like if you have those finger blisters with pus inside, waiting to be pricked and burst. My mum brought me to this one close to my grandma's. I was willing to accept some form of treatment initially, but when I saw the TCM clinic, things changed. It was really a clinic. Air-conditioned, consultation rooms and all, queue numbers. The fact that it was too commercialised turned me entirely off. I was expecting some TCM old man at the back of a counter selling herbal medicine. It made me lose trust in whatever I was going to see / receive. The doctor said it wasn't a big deal, but recommended me for immediate treatment, either acupuncture or a massage therapy. $30 for thirty minutes. I thought "fuck, scam alert" in my head. I said no, and the annoying thing was everyone at once turned against me. I politely gave the excuse that I didn't have time. My mum assumed I meant that I was probably overzealous to meet friends, so didn't want to accept the treatment. She had to tell the story to the doctor and nurses. Then they all went "you can't possibly wait till it gets more serious before you look for treatment" in an all too Chinese and knowledgeable manner. It made me feel extremely guilty towards my body, but I think I'm too much of a miser to see money spent on medical purposes. Especially if it's not urgent at all. I don't know why I'm even whining about this. But it made me feel insecure. The response I got from Yuting and Liqin made me worry as well. Should I have really went ahead with the treatment? I hate this uncertainty.

There won't be eggnogs by the cozy fire /
There won't be glasses of mulled wine either /
There won't even be a Christmas tree /
'cause you're not here to light it up with me

Finally back from Brunei, back with the Jungle Confidence Course badge on my chest. This trip came with many firsts, so it was certainly eventful. Of course, after all the initial grouse about being away from home for so long, participating in so many consecutive days of infantry training and back-to-back missions, I reflect about it and in hindsight, there was really much to gain.

It was the first time I've been away from home, from my family for so long. It was the first time I was on an overseas mission and training experience. It was the first time I was on a plane with friends. The list could go on and on, but most importantly, it was JCC. It was the reason why I wanted to come to OCS. I was initially lazy to talk about JCC over here, but then I'm free today. Plus, I hope this at least pens down some memory for myself in future. I'll write it down while the memory's still fresh.

JCC, the Jungle Confidence Course, was much more than just a badge to me. The badge itself seemed like it mattered the world to some, but I always say it's up to you do define who you are, not what you have or what's on your chest, for that matter. I'm glad all my friends made it though. It sounds completely cliche, but what mattered to me was the experience - I went to JCC not expecting the badge, but expecting emotional development, expecting the experience of tough conditions, hunger, mental struggle, disagreements you have to overcome, obstacles you have to conquer, physical pains you have to endure. I think it must have been an extremely good thing that the weather was on our side throughout JCC. During our initial phase of infantry training at Brunei, it rained almost everyday. It was always "code black" from morning till 3pm, meaning heat waves and unusually high temperatures, then a heavy downpour at around 3pm. It was monsoon season as well, so all of us went to Brunei prepared for rain everyday anyway. Fortunately for us, it only rained thrice on the nine days of our JCC. You don't know how much the rain can fuck it up for you. Plotting on maps during navigation would be close to impossible with the rain pouring down on your markers and map overlays. What was once dry would become slippery surfaces, and what was originally slippery would become impossible. You lose your mental focus, you lose your visual acuity, you're cold and drenched, and over extended periods of wetness, you start to get foot rot. If unlucky, your waterproofing gives way, your dry clothes become wet, your equipment gets damaged, you'll have to spend the night shivering in the cold wetness. You're already counting your blessings that you didn't slip and fall a bad fall, or that dead-falls didn't collapse on you in the thunderstorm. So in some ways, our wing had it easy. We got lucky.

Even so, JCC was an experience. It started with Ex. Nomad, a three day navigation exercise - 4 checkpoints, a mid-point and an end-point. I'll remember how well my team did during navigation. How everything was so smooth, it felt almost too good to be true. How we plotted to the dot on the map, how many times we said "by my plotting, the checkpoint should be just another 50m north-east from here", and voila! there it was. I don't want to brag, but it felt good hearing from so many commanders that we were the first detail they've ever heard of who managed to find all the checkpoints during Ex. Nomad of JCC. We were legendary. Just kidding. But yes, there's certainly some pride there. The smooth-flowing stopped there though. Ex. Explorer was phase two of JCC. We scaled Mt. Biang, which was 430m above sea level. Mt. Telugong was even more crazy. It was a relatively smaller mountain, but it was the toughest climb I've done in my life. We had to climb on all fours, pulling on to roots and trees on sometimes near vertical slopes. We had to jump up and slide down slippery rocks the size of rhinos to get from a place to another. We had to do all that and more, with our field bag and signal sets on our back. Fatigue was another problem. Rationing my food, I've only eaten what amounted to one meal packet and two packets of biscuits for the past three days. My body was past the hunger and the urge to eat, but it was sustaining on whatever was left of the energy from the Cadbury bar I stuffed right before moving out on the first day. Water wasn't a problem yet because we've been passing by a couple of streams on the way during navigation. We heard from the past batches that there wouldn't be streams up the mountain from that point on though, so we made it a point to ensure all our bottles were filled before we embarked on the climb. That was an additional 5.5kg alone.

It was tough, but like everything else, it comes to an end. I was pretty excited on the day of insertion into the survival site, with the end-ex of Ex. Explorer, transiting into Ex. Forager. Forager's a three day three night survival segment of JCC, where you're supposed to gather materials, build up an A-frame shelter, a monitor lizard trap, a fireplace and create other necessary survival equipments like fishing rods and spears. It was everything I was excited about. I heard about all the time you have, to think about life under your A-frame shelter in the complete darkness, to appreciate and enjoy nature for what it is. Truth be told, it wasn't exactly that. It turned out to be a pretty hectic few days, gathering vines to tie up the bakau poles, building up the A-frame, fireplace and monitor lizard traps for assessment, carving utensils into the night, looking for saplings good enough to make fishing rods and a spear out of, looking for leaves to thatch up into a shelter. Other than the time in the complete darkness when you know trying to complete any tasks would be completely inefficient, I hardly had time to sit idly around and appreciate the nature and quiet around me. So it wasn't as fun as I expected.

The first night of Forager was the toughest time of JCC. After the combat swim across Batu Apoi river, it poured extremely heavily. Following the insertion into site, I made the wrong choice. I spent the remaining of the one hour of daylight gathering vines and bakau poles, eager to set up my basic A-frame before nightfall. The entire site was muddy from the downpour, and the location was swampy because it was right beside the river. Mud up to my shins and all over my hands, I collected the bakau poles I needed and started on the basic A-structure. I started to feel bites and itch all over my body and my head, but my hands were wet with mud I couldn't do anything about it. It was still drizzling, and only after ten minutes did I take a good look at the survival site I picked and realised that there were red ants all over the bakau poles I collected and all over the two metre radius of my survival site. Red ants were crawling all over my body and the poles I was about to use for my A-frame. I panicked. I felt completely exasperated. I couldn't even set my groundsheet down because ants were all over the site. In the end, I abandoned my survival site and shared a lean-to shelter my friend created at his site. It was small enough for a shelter, but he was extremely generous to me. He shared half his shelter with me, so the two of us only had space to sit down side by side. We were wet, cold and I couldn't change out of my clothes because the wet ground would defeat the purpose of keeping dry anyway. I spent the night sleeping in a crouching position, pulling my knees to my chest and hugging them to sleep because there wasn't space to lie down. In the end, I drifted in and out of 15-minute eye-shuts throughout the night due to the uncomfortable position I was sitting in as well as the shivers from wearing damp clothes without being able to start any fire. I couldn't have been more glad for first light in the morning.

Day two of Ex. Forager was the day they brought us the quails. Yes, the highlight, isn't it? The message they wanted drilled into us was "for one to survive, one else must die". The task was that we were supposed to kill and skin a quail with our bare hands, no tools involved. I've always been a bit squeamish at the thought of killing the quail. I mean, fuck, I don't even know if I dared to pick the quail up. It's linked to my fear of small, furry things. I'm a tiny bit afraid of chicks. What about a quail? But well, people I've talked to previously assured me that by the day you see the quail, you're so hungry you'll be very carnivorous, so not much second thoughts there. Turns out to be untrue. My stomach's managed to survive on very little food. I think by then, I've only eaten two meal packets and four packets of biscuits for the past... six days. I've already been extremely careful with rationing. Instead, I've still got two meal packets, two desert packets and two packets of maggi noodles left from the 48-hour rations we've been given on the first day, for the next three days.


Captain Subash brought the basket of quails over to the five of us gathered in the same survival site, and asked us to go ahead and pick a quail from the basket. The other four went on, picked up a quail without hesitation, but when I looked into the basket, all the worries started pouring in. The quails were bigger than I expected, and I hardly dared put my hand into the basket, much less catch one. Under pressure, I dug my hand in, tried to grab hold of one but its smooth, furry body slipped out from under my grasp. It ran half a metre away with me trying to grab hold of it without any success. My friend picked it up for me. I was almost shaking. By then, CPT Subash was screaming into my face. Nothing could mask my lack of confidence in handling the quail. He screamed "you're a fucking officer cadet and you're scared of a fucking quail?". He screamed a lot more things, but I was more distracted by the struggling quail I held in both hands. I picked the quail up by its legs instead, and quickly inserted my fingers between its wings and body to stop it from flapping. By then, I overcame the fear of holding it. The next step's to kill. Second thoughts about killing it flooded my mind. Now that I'm less scared of it, I start to become aware of its warmth and blood pumping in my hands. With an instruction of "you can now twist and pull its head out once you're ready - make sure you don't let it suffer and do it in a swift motion", the rest of the cadets steadily pulled out the head of the quail. I was in a complete trance. More muffled shouting. I put my right hand over its head, covered its eyes and pulled. They said to treat it like a grenade ring. Twist, pull, done. If I'd think about it, you can actually feel the stretch of its skin. It was hardly a "twist, pull, done". Some blood spurts on your hand but you're past caring. You'll have to hold the body in place because the muscle contraction's causing the wings to flap extremely fast between your fingers. I panicked, and dropped the quail head on the ground, instead of placing it on the Simpur Ayer leaves we gathered. More shouting. The body eventually stops struggling, and then the pressure to skin the bird comes. I placed the mess of feathers and blood down on the leaf, and after some guidance from my friend, started to peel off the feathers and skin neck-down. My hands were shaking, dirty with mud and blood and sticky feathers. My confidence was zero. By then CPT Subash was standing beside me, shouting instructions into my ears because I was the only one having difficulty killing and skinning the quail. Between many instructions, I plucked out the wings before I skinned the quail fully. I received a smack to my head, ferocious shouting, and then he said it. "Fuck you, you destroyed the game. Go take another quail from the basket now". Stunned. I looked at him with the mess of feathers and blood in my hands, took a minute to comprehend what he said, and asked "Sir, can I not kill another quail please". I had to repeat that twice, because I was either too afraid to speak up, or I just wasn't speaking straight. But of course, a fucking pissed off man isn't one up for negotiations. I put down the bloody mess onto the leaf, took heavy steps towards the basket and picked up another quail. I was chanting prayers in my heart all the time now, sorry for what I've just done, sorry for what I'm about to do. I headed back to my leaves, turned my back on the leaves and tried to kill the quail there and then, but he stopped me, shouted for me to turn about and face the leaves in front of me. I looked at the sorry sight of what was once the quail I held in my hands, sprawled in pieces over the leaves, and tried my best to cover up the head of the other quail I held in my hands. It didn't have to see that. I killed the second quail under mounting pressure of CPT Subash, who was probably going to explode on me anytime. The second time was as difficult as the first, but once the struggling of the body stopped, I managed to handle myself from then.

In the end, yes, all my mates were jealous that I killed two quails and ate two quails. I did share the second one, but that's besides the point. It's pretty fucked up, because the guilt seeped away after the quails were dead. My body was still trembling slightly though. I was in a half-daze for the next hour. I talked about it quite a lot after that, trying to explain the story to my envious friends. But some did talk to me about it, and it made sense when they said that the quails in the basket were going to get killed, whether I did it or not. And it's also true when my friend said that if I didn't kill the quail, I'd never have known that I could have done it. I'd never have been able to do it again. Thinking back about it, I think I completely over-reacted. But still, it was an experience. Not an enjoyable one, but what is life without struggles? CPT Subash made a special visit back to our site an hour later and apologised to me for the harsh scolding, which was very surprising. For a superior in the Army to be able to do that, even when it's not his fault, it takes a lot. I don't blame him even slightly for shouting at me. Instead, I'd want to thank him for it. Without the pressure, I think I would never have been able to do it. But still, he came to me, said sorry, and even volunteered to take a look at my survival site and give me feedback on my progress.


Following that was assessment on day 8, extrication and then Ex. Trekker back to camp on day 9. Nothing much to talk about there. But JCC was a true experience. I'll never forget my detail mates, though we weren't very close to begin and end with, I won't forget how all of us helped each other, supported each other and all the nights we couldn't sleep, talking about the food markets at Bedok, Old Airport Road, Chomp Chomp and more over the fire. Tough times don't last, tough men do.



Oh yeah, and an update. I misfired a blank round during one of the missions as the exercise platoon sergeant. I was shagged okay, give chance. They call it negligence discharge, short for ND. In OCS, it's a big fucking deal. So I'm getting charged with RCP for 14 days, starting this coming Monday, after we book-in on Sunday. RCP stands for restriction of cadet privileges (sorry for the acronyms), where I'm not only confined for 14 days, but I'll have to report to HQ in FBO (full battle order - including field pack and items) every two hours in camp. So well, I'll be having Christmas in camp. Quite sad, but well, the things that don't kill you only makes you stronger. If I'm lucky, my charge might end on the 31st, before New Years. Otherwise, if you'd count a straight 14 days, the next time I'll be booking out would be 7th Jan.

It's ok. No worries. Today, after my haircut, I went out and got all the supplies I'd need. I'll be booking in with a lot of things this weekend. I've bought ten packets of Maggi noodles, a bottle of Nutella, a tin of cream crackers, cheese biscuits and a can of Pringles all ready. Also, I've borrowed four books from the library, and I'm bringing The Intelligent Investor as well as two issues of Monocle into camp. I'll use the weekends to do meaningful reading up. It's time I took some time out to get started with The Intelligent Investor. I'll probably put the whole of Glee season three into my PSP as well. I'll be loading in four albums into my iPod as well, for good measure. That's more than enough for three weekends I guess. Thankfully my family doesn't celebrate Christmas, so I'm not dead-emo for having being confined during Christmas. But then again, I'll be missing out all the Christmas gatherings and stay-overs with friends. Won't get to sip on the Kahlua I bought at DFS over a fire and Christmas tunes. That's pretty sad already. Guess I'll just loop Christmas tunes in bunk during Christmas.

Attica yesterday was awesome. Do I always start posts in this manner? "--- yesterday was awesome." But well, I lead an awesome life. What to do? Anyway bloody hell that trumps my previous near-vomiting experience. Well, I drank a bloody lot. I mean, with all the magnum bottles in front of me and all of us were prepared to pool $100 each anyway, so I just drank and drank and drank - cause it's good life being VIP. Lost my consciousness for quite a bit there on the dance floor, but I pride myself in still being able to take care of a friend who was more drunk than me. Zero-vomiting-record still holds!

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