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easter skit rehearsal, worship practice, tea with the bums and dinner with my year 6 classmates.

meeting up and catching up with everyone again is always special, and i’m very happy i got the chance to do so with so many of you today. kaijun, arjun and i pretty much just walked along orchard road absolutely aimlessly, talking abt anything and everything in the process, until we realised that we’ve already spent 2 whole hrs just… bumming. i think we can agree that if we could have continued, we would have continued talking until we fell asleep, before waking up to continue again.

and then there was the dinner outing with cheuk ho, jono and janice again! fish couldnt join us this time cos of his ocs confinement, and since it was jono’s first bookout this outing felt appropriate! to jono’s dismay, we ended up talking abt army for the most part anyway, although we did try to switch the topic numerous times (to no avail of course!). janice’s lumix also died on us again, presumably because she forgot to charge it before she came out, but jono and i know that THAT camera just doesnt like the both of us.
re: wow trip and us causing her camera to fall onto the ground and malfunction

easter skit’s up next week, and today was the first prac we ever had, with half of our cast unavailable as well. and then there’s the matter of not having any props to work with, plus agm tmr so we cant rehearse at all until after we’ve voted. absolutdependence baby.

drumming for worship tmr! first time in 2 months, and prac was awesome today. i pray i’ll let God lead me when i play tmr; not my will but Yours be done. 

all i wanna say is that i’m now braindead after being force fed truckloads of information repetitively, disgusted by the food in camp to the point where i feel nauseous if i just think abt it, and damn sian because i still have to do weekly reflections about the "most prestigious course in sembawang camp".

thank God for friends.

yes i officially hate my vocation. here are some of the reasons:

1. it’s a 10 week stay in course, the first time it’s been changed from a 16/17 week stay out course.
2. we have 3 outfield exercises.
3. we go through all this shit but most of us cant come out as non-combat specs because we cant do ippt.
4. it’s one of the shittiest (if not the worst) vocation that sb in pes c can get.

i stay in from tmr onwards. as much as we’re all inside trying to be optimistic and everything, and we have the comfort of familiar faces and friends, it’s still freaking miserable inside. see you on friday peeps.

well, the last day of block leave is abt to end in less than 40 min, and i cant help but feel like there’s still so much i have left to do before i’m back to green.

anyway, here’s my promised update of my kk trip! apologies abt the length, i really dun have the time or energy to elaborate much hehe.

day 1: we arrived in kk pretty late, so by the time we got there we onli could explore the city for less than an hr before it was dinnertime. we ended up at some asia city complex thing, which isnt really a complex at all, just an open area with many many restaurants. it was a crazy feast we had that night. our menu consisted of salted egg crab, butter sauce prawn, oyster omelette, satay, sambal kang kong, coconut… madness i tell you. i was so stuffed, but the food was really good. you dun get stuff liddat in army you know (;

day 2:  it was a full day of events that day. we went up mount kinabalu, and then we had a little jungle trek in the nature reserve. the highlight of the entire thing was the canopy walk, which our guide proudly proclaimed it to be the highest canopy walk in the whole of southeast asia. wasnt all that spectacular though, my mom was so afraid of the swaying bridge we had to walk on that she almost cried, so she ended up going back where we came from while my father, sheryl and i carried on. it didnt help that it decided to freaking rain like mad just when we got on the canopy walk, so it was nice and slippery for all 3 of us. the dinner though, was even more insane than the first night. we had crab fried rice, butter prawns, sambal kang kong, scallops, lemon chicken… basically too much freaking food. i took 2 bowls of rice alone, and i left the table feeling so full i felt sick. we still had leftovers after the meal, and all 4 of us were basically groaning "no more, no more…" by then.

day 3: whitewater rafting! ok, so the waters werent really white. but it was still pretty damn good fun for the family, esp since sheryl and i have never really done anything like this before, and my parents really enjoyed their own experience back in new zealand so this brought back some good memories for them. after that, we had a little city tour on the bus, which was a pretty last minute change from our walking tour because of the sudden change in weather as well. the rain just loves irritating us this time of the year huh? no seafood dinner tonight though, freaking sick of seafood by then -.-

day 4: we intended to do the scuba doo at one of the nearby islands, but the prices were so ridiculously expensive that we just ended up snorkelling. i was tasked with teaching sheryl how to snorkel, which wasnt very difficult since i was the one that taught her to swim, but it was the fishes that got to her. honestly, when your sister who’s almost as heavy as you starts freaking out in the middle of the freaking sea, and ends up climbing on top of you to escape from the "icky slimy fishes" even though you dun have a lifejacket and she does, there’s a pretty high chance that you might suffocate and die because your snorkel is filled with seawater and you cant exactly surface for air. but i survived, and so did my sister, so it’s all good.

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alright, time for me to tie up whatever i can for easter before i head to bed.

SUP SUPVR, sembawang camp. here sean comes (;

hello everyone! my 5 day trip was a good break from all that army nonsense, but missing ppl was probably the most terrible part of the entire trip, other than the fact that i finally received my posting orders from BMT. so now i’m supposed to go to sembawang camp on monday, because i’ve been posted as a SUP SUPVR, which i assume means supply supervisor, or company quartermaster in the future.

i’ll probably update this space again when i feel better, my head’s still throbbing for some strange unknown reason. at least there’s still church to look forward to tmr! time to squeeze whatever little trace of joy i can from the remainder of my block leave ><

2nd straight day of soccer goodness, this time with platoon 1. there were 12 of us that came "on time", plus rayner who came when we were already halfway through our game.

the splitting of the teams was probably the most screwed up thing all day. all the ppl wearing admin or pt stuff were in 1 team, while the rest of us multi-coloured ppl split randomly. in the end, jeremy, hurwitz, muthu and i played on the same side, and we were winning every single game for more than an hr. the other 2 teams just couldnt beat us, so we had to keep playing without a break. after we finally lost to the admin team though, i think all four of us breathed a sigh of relief. 

anyway, we played for more than 2 hrs, and i probably ran more today than the rest of the year put together. which also probably explains why my left calf ended cramping when i was in the middle of the road. thank goodness ryan was walking with me, and i had him to lean on instead of toppling over and lying there because of the cramp. we made it safely across without ending up as roadkill, and managed to make it to the bus stop just in time to catch our bus.

things didnt get any better from there though. when i was standing up to get off the bus, my left thigh decided to work with my calf into failing on me at the worst possible time. i took longer to hobble off the bus than your average senior citizen, and it didnt help that everyone else seemed to be rushing off somewhere else, so i ended up getting a lot of weird looks from everyone. amanda was a great help though, chiding me for msging while i was crossing the road even though i onli texted when i sat down at the bus stop, and scolding me for cramping in the first place. sigh, why do i get into these situations all the time.

btw, i’ll be off to kota kinabalu tmr. will onli be back on sat, just in time to check my postings and sleep the jet lag off (: will be bringing my phone along though, so if you need to tell me anything impt i’m just a text away!

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crazytunarules@yahoo.com (E-mail address not verified) says:
anw w ur pic bigger u still look like a dog

i love my classmates.

church today was sooooo awesome (i think this word is terribly overused though, hehe). cell wasnt too bad, it was a nice time to bond with my cell members and teach them more about the Holy Spirit. it was especially encouraging when the littleboyboys stepped up, answering questions without copying each others answers, each of them bothering to think for themselves. marcus was especially receptive today, and he was able to understand wad i said pretty quickly, so well done there bro.

finally, after not being to stay back in church for 2 months, i had the chance to today (: it was once again soccer time with the guys after service, and the teams were actually pretty balanced so the game was really exciting. ian was on a rampage today though, he looked like he was in a bad mood when he was playing, so he got pretty physical as well. the game finally concluded because he took a shot so hard that the ball skyrocketed over the school fence, and disappeared into the trees next door. we searched really hard to no avail, so daniel and ian went off to buy another ball while the rest of  us just sat ard in church and played bridge to pass the time.

bridge got boring though, and by the time those two came back from their little shopping trip it was raining cats and dogs. so the half time break became a full time break instead, and i decided to ditch the bridge game to go play some board games with the girls. we settled on taboo, mainly because we would have taken 47180 years to complete a game of monopoly between all of us. the chaos that ensued was absolutely hilarious.

rachel: what is another word for… boobs-tick?
teammates: whaaaaaaat?! *explodes into mad laughter*
word = breaststroke

rachel: when i’m at home, i run around…?
dawn: NAKED!!! DD
word = barefoot

sarah: you wear a…
dawn: G STRING!!!
word = brazil

sean: you know, cuban…
ian: missle crisis?
rachel: nooo, it’s long and round! men men! men like them, they put them in their mouths!
word = cigar

kerilyn: it’s a six legged animal!
rachel: SPIDER.

sean: itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot…?
ian: BIKINI. yes lah!

oh man there were so many other funny things ppl did during taboo today, and the best part was that we didnt even have to spend any money to have this much fun. i suggest pictionary next time though, i bet it will be fantastic heh. rachel was rather sexual today though, never knew that side of her existed. the brighter the light, the darker the shadow huh? (; ian and i are just waiting for somebody to draw 2 circles in pictionary, anticipating the moment when the suggestiveness of the circles makes rachel expose her very freudian side again haha.

longest time i’ve ever stayed back in church for. but one of the best days in church i’ve had, hands down!

i think the amount of travelling i did by bus today alone is about half the amount i usually do in a year, but that’s not saying a lot. got to nus at 1040, thinking that i’d have to go for the law talk alone. to my surprise, i found kenny and derek were sitting outside hall 1, which meant that i had company for the day! kenny and i made our way to the law talk, while derek went for the fass talk. the speaker for nus law was slightly slow, and what he gave us was just an introductory talk to law. most of the stuff he talked abt could be found on the website anyway, so all that kenny and i took away from the talk was just a little information abt the staff in the law faculty and that nus law onli requires a 5 for sl english for you to be able to apply (: this is in comparison to that other university in singapore that demands a 7 in sl english before we apply for law in their school…

anyway, it was after the law talk that i realised that tons of other ppl from school were around. my blogpost would be insanely long if i named them all, but there were enough for acs clusters to form outside the halls before and after the talks so… you have an idea. i was greeting ppl left right centre the entire day, which was pretty interesting to say the least. i saw this guy that reminded me of mark yeow (it was probably him), ashley and hwee leong. basically, all the silly rafflesians who decided to spoil our market this year. and then there was aunty june and SALINAAAAA. omg when i saw her and called her name, she screamed and nearly fell off the stairs lol. too bad they were rushing off to the ntu open house though, it would have been nice to catch up for a bit. and since nobody wanted to stay for the business talk, derek jlow kenny and i decided to head out to wah chee for lunch. just for kicks, you know? so it was shuttle bus, then 74 to school.

so after lunch, i had to head back to dover mrt (by bus!) again to meet dawn and sarah, whom i accompanied back to nus (via the shuttle bus). the both of them didnt know where to go, and being the more experienced one by about 3 hrs, i brought them ard the booths and the food bazaar. i swear, the live bands were so freaking loud my ears were ringing after i walked out of the multi purpose hall. you know it’s loud when you find it really difficult to hear what the sports club, christian fellowship and social workers society are trying to say, even though your ear’s almost beside their mouths and they’re shouting as loud as they can. the two girls seemed to enjoy themselves in their little tour ard the area though, led by their friendly makeshift tourguide - yours truly.

so after our "lunch", which consisted of sarah having indian rice and pasta, and dawn having a waffle, we sat down to discuss and confirm the details of our easter skit. somehow, in the space of 30 min, we managed to decide on the cast and we also took note of almost everything else that we still had to think about. at the very least, we didnt end up having to meet daniel at dinnertime to discuss all this with him cos we already confirmed it there and then. it was weird though, cos ppl kept coming up to the 3 of us while we were discussing to introduce themselves and advertise their freshmen orientation camps to us, the same camps that were advertised inside the multi purpose hall. i think that if i didnt reject them right in their faces (nicely of course), dawn and sarah would just smile at them and laugh to themselves sheepishly ><

in the end, i joined the both of them in the fass talk and omg was it booooooring. dawn ended up reading my army notebook and the 3 of us were laughing at my brilliant first aid stickmen drawings. the stuff that the speaker spoke about was once again, easily available from reading materials or online. as she said, "you can go to our website, the internet…" the crowd there was huge though, but what amused us were the number of ppl that were just blatantly walking out halfway through the talk, most likely cos they were almost bored to tears.

it was pretty weird walking ard campus with the two of them though, and seeing all the familiar faces from school and ulysses. sarah commented that this really shouldnt be the case, and that she should recognise more ppl at the open house than me, seeing how us ib students are supposed to all head out to prestigious overseas universities. oh well, i guess i just have more friends than the both of you hahaha. xD so it was back to the dover shuttle, and then my field trip to nus finally concluded.

anyway, i’ve finally applied to nus. law, business, fass. this is my first ever uni app, so let’s see how it goes from here. God willing, i’ll have a place in nus law and a scholarship to boot (:

SUNDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY = church!

ever since block leave started, i havent been up to much at all. i’ve just been spending lots of time at home, texting very very very very regularly, playing my newly installed GTA 4, catching up with loads of ppl, passing stuff to jono and advising him abt army life in general, helping my sister with work and general lazing abt at home. that probably explains my 2 day hiatus from blogging, mainly because i have too little material to work with heh.

for some really strange reason, many year 7s decided to head back to school today for various reasons. most of us just wanted to collect our diplomas, but a number came for other reasons like FRISBEE for example (; the year 7 turnout for ultimate today was pretty big: fish, shaoyi, me, wilson, benlee, joel, justin, yang jian. and then there were the rest of the ppl that showed up in school: david chan, derek, kenny, patrick ong, blandon, ian gan.

at this point in time, i think shaoyi’s shorts deserves a special mention. with a design like the fbts my sister wears underneath her school skirt, with just the saf logo replacing the brand, shaoyi cut an impressive figure today with his baby blue cks tank top and his really really reaaaally short saf shorts. you know it’s bad when fish, wilson and i look at it, and collectively go "WT_" in unison. (you can fill in the blank with an ‘f’ or ‘h’ or any other letter, we basically used them all)

frisbee today was very different from how i used to rmbr it. the size really exploded, and like 4 of my juniors from ncc air joined the team as year 5s. it was weird, considering that they had no idea that their awesomest senior every in the history of ncc air also joined frisbee, and when i came back today i was just getting strange looks from them. joel was very strict too, and the seriousness of the whole training could be felt as well. i suppose that’s what’s required when we’re training towards a respectable first showing in the A Div this year, so i cant blame him for that (: some things never change though, like me getting hit across my face by a disc within the first hr of training. sean’s still the ultimate disc magnet, and that’s why he’s an excellent deep lol. the discs are naturally attracted to me, and always find a way to catch me off guard at the same time.

the year 7s didnt really come back to school to do drills, run rounds, or train for competition like the rest of the team. thus, we pretty much ended up throwing among ourselves, encroaching into the touch rugby area (and annoying the shit out of them), and the soccer area (annoying the shit out of the teacher). and this happened even though there were onli like 6-8 ppl throwing at any one time, with 4 of us permanently plastered onto the astroturf playing bridge. and when we all got lazy or tired or wadeva, we sat ard and all we could talk abt was army. tiff can vouch for that haha. the title, botak club, is courtesy of our favourite handler clement, and his big mouth when he walked past us and saw us sitting down together on the astroturf chatting. watch out arh year 6s, make fun of us now… you all next year go army you see who your commanders are heh.

it was very encouraging though, to see frisbee grow like that! the guys were training pretty seriously, and the girls did put in much effort even though their discipline was more lax in comparison. the year 6s have improved tremendously, esp the girls like munching (HAHA I KNOW YOU’RE READING THIS), whose throws and catches are not too shabby now (: i dun need to talk abt the year 6 guys lah, they already own the year 7s in terms of skill and speed heh. it’s a pity that the club’s getting bullied though, but i’m sure God has a way of letting things work out in the end.

so after a seemingly endless drill session, scrimmage finally commenced at 1945. so essentially, i had like 15min to play a proper game before i had to rush off to meet section 1 for dinner. it was the first time in 2 months that i ran so hard and so much, and man did it feel good. it’s a pity that play was interrupted so often though, but i guess it cant be avoided when you have ppl who just picked up the sport playing with you. playing with fish on my line just reminded me of the good old days of the .14 team… we seriously need a proper class gathering of some sort.

so after frisbee, it was dinnertime! the bus took forever to come, and forever to get to the mrt station because of the rush hr traffic. and being the blur, tired idiot that i was, i alighted at raffles place because dinner was at raffles city. alas, i onli realised my mistake AFTER i tapped my card, and i had to retap it just to travel to city hall sigh. and when i got to raffles city, i was so lost and disoriented because i couldnt find din tai fung, and i was already 1 hr later than everyone else so that wasnt exactly the best thing to happen at that point in time. thank goodness i managed to find my way in the end, and i sat down just in time for the food to arrive, so i just tucked into the food voraciously and had a nice chat with everyone present.

so after dinner, the guys still wanted to hang out and do sth together. in true army fashion, we all couldnt come to a decision and we just ended up wasting abt 30min deciding on a place to go. in the end, we (or some of us anyway) decided on the loof, which is like a sort of an open air rooftop bar. the place was really full though, so we had no choice but to leave. william then decided to lead the whole lot of us, with his gf, to the pool fusion place at bugis for some good ol’ pool goodness. unfortunately, almost all of us suck terribly at pool save for william, jeremy and kc. i ended up playing just 1 game, teaming with william to beat jeremy and mingyu, before it was 10pm and i had to leave for home.

so now, i’m back in the comfort of my chair, sitting in front of the comp yet again documenting my day here. sorry for running out of army stories munching, you’ll have to be content with the few posts i have before this one (: i’ll update this place as much as i can, so that those that actually bother abt how i’m doing can have a clearer idea of what’s been going on in my life. till then, cya ppl!

 

BMT is officially over. 7 weeks have just flown us by like that, and i’m sitting back here at home, in front of my comp, ready to reflect upon the entire experience.

i wouldnt exactly say i’ve learnt a lot from BMT, but i didnt come away without anything either. army is truly a place where you meet all sorts of ppl, some of whom you’d never ever speak to even if you met them in the civilian world. but army also has a strange way of making ppl from different backgrounds, attitudes and personalities bond into a unit of camaraderie and friendship. i suppose communal living with 50 other guys, sharing the same toilet and showering without doors for 2 months helped quite a bit.

the commanders i had werent perfect either, as you guys can probably tell from wad i wrote in my appraisal in the post below. but they too had lessons to teach us, and we learnt from both their successes and mistakes. i’m actually quite glad that i got to know some of them, and they’re more like friends now instead of superiors. rmbr, rank doesnt count for shiznit when you’re in civilian attire heh.

so, many of you might be wondering, "what is sean doing, blogging on a monday night?!" well for some odd reason, our passing out ceremony was pushed one day ahead. we didnt get any hints at all, until somebody said that leopard (another pes c company) was booking out tonight. during lunch, justin and gen huong just happened to sit at my table, and they too confirmed that mohawk (the other pes c company) was gonna pass out today. so the ceremony was held at 3, and we managed to pack everything and book out at 7 tonight.

some things i’ll never forget…

1. being armskote 2ic, and shouting "seeeeeeend aaaaaaaaaarms"
2. impersonations of our commanders
3. very very regular moans from random bunkmates accompanied with "guan hui…"
4. archie’s very obscene sleeping positions
5. rikh’s "shiok man… ssssss" whenever he starts talking abt food
6. guan hui’s constant smile and his cheerful walk
7. mingyu being explosive with expletives, expressing his general discontent with the world
8. ryan’s outbursts of songs and impersonations
9. nevin’s attempt to be a ghost at 4am on mingyu’s bdae
10. getting pissed off with section 4’s uselessness. :X

well, it’s also nice to see so many ppl that i know that are doing well in army. martin was awarded company best for mohawk, and he had the most awesome speech among the 3 company bests, partially because the other 2 were so freaking boring, predictable and monotonous nobody gave a crap abt what they were talking abt. zhi zhuang was ulysses’ best shot, beating our platoon’s jeremy ong on the 2nd day of range. eric’s infamy as the idiot boy of platoon 4, and blandon being one of the biggest guys in ulysses, ending up as platoon ic for quite a number of days and our favourite ulysses mascot for (the nonexistent) games day.

bmt is officially over, block leave is upon us. another whole new phase of army life awaits us in our units, and we’ll onli know our postings after the 20th of march. i trust that God has His plan for me, as with each and everyone else. and i really need to thank God for sustaining me through these 7 weeks of mindlessness. i really wouldnt have been able to survive without the daily quiet times, the sustenance he provided me healthwise, and the comfort he provided when everything else was so foreign, as well as the assurance when others were worried abt certain possible spiritual encounters.

your left, your left, your left right…
ULYSSES
left right…
PLATOON ONE
left right…
BANG BANG WEE WEE