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i’m really too tired to do this tonight. being part of the rations team of the forward support group is extremely draining, but at least that’s one more outfield exercise down (:

God has been really great to me so far this past week! He held the rain when we marched to the cookhouse for breakfast yesterday morning, and it was pouring just before we moved out and just after we got back. i also managed to obtain 90/100 for my voice procedure test (we had to use signals eqpt to communicate with our instructors the army way) even though i was too tired to study the night before. plus, even though i havent touched a m16 rifle for abt 2 years, i still managed to strip my rifle in 19 seconds and assemble it in 27. today’s m16 conversion course, which was a miracle in itself for actually occurring, was honestly the most fun i’ve had in any organized army activity since i enlisted.

anyway, this will be the last post here for a while. will be heading off to my shoot on sat, before i move out to tekong on sunday to thurs. see you guys then (:

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army gives you a lot of time to reflect, and that’s wad i’ve been doing of late. i realise that there are quite a number of ppl i really miss, and i want to see all the time. perhaps for the rest of my life even.

don’t it always seem to go, that you dont know what you’ve got till it’s gone

blah, law test. it’s over and done with, that’s all i’m gonna talk abt it.

spent my entire day in church after rushing over from nus, with my cell, the youth camp comm (even though i’m not involved with them in any way), and the leaders during our leader’s meeting. i’m really too exhausted to elaborate much abt this, but i did end up writing (kinda) a song for the youth camp this year.

V1
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because the Lord my God has anointed me
sent me to bind the brokenhearted
to set the captives free
and release from darkness, the prisoners

Chorus
Cos we are gonna impact the generations
gonna sow the seeds for our future brethren
there is nothing that can stand in the way of us
because the path was wrought by our Lord Jesus

V2
Bestow a crown of beauty instead of ashes
anoint with a garment of praise and the oil of gladness
we will be oaks of righteousness
a planting of the Lord
a manifestation of the splendor of our God

Chorus
Cos we are gonna impact the generations
gonna share the Word in every land and every nation
comfort all of those who mourn, grieve and despair
share the joy of salvation as His children, His heirs

And we are gonna renew the ancient ruins
restore the cities destroyed for generations
As we come into your presence,  humbly ask and pray
that You’ll ignite the fire within our hearts today
  
Bridge
So that we might go and impact the generations…

And we will go out and impact the generations
that every tongue and tribe might know the gift of salvation
stand before You today, defiant in spite of rejection
praying that one day the world will come to know Your way

in case anyone’s wondering, the onli reason why i’m able to blog is cos i have a medical appt at changi general hospital tmr morning for my skin. last night of bookout before may day! pray for my safety during CBD, where everyone who isnt trained in the m16 is made to move in a formation while shooting live rounds, and that i dun die from that or operation sacred odyssey - 5 days of tekong jungle goodness.

ps. take care in europe dawn, see you in 4 weeks heh.

alright, i’m not gonna go into a lengthy discussion abt porn or anything here. my title is pretty much a summary of my nus law interview today, which ended 15min before i was even supposed to start. i got there at 1420, 25 minutes early for my 1445 interview. but it just so happened that 7 other ppl that were supposed to go before me hadnt turned up yet, so the moment i went up the stairs, somebody led me off to have my interview. amazingly though, i was hardly nervous at all. i did mess up a little, talking abt some nonsense that i cant recall right now, and not forming a proper argument to begin with, but overall i think i did ok enough to not beat myself over it. the best part was when i left at 1430, and i talked to gen huong at the waiting area. his was scheduled for 1430, but he hadnt even gone in yet, and mine had already ended even though i was supposed to have my interview 15 min later. sorry abt that bro.

last week of relaxed lectures in camp, although i did have like 3 tests throughout the week. the last one was some map reading and topographical nonsense, which was to ensure that the 80 of us didnt get lost in the jungles of tekong within the first 5 min of starting our ops. i’m also gonna be confined next weekend, because of the stupid combat battle drill on saturday, which involves a bunch of trainees who are absolutely unfamiliar with the m16 running ard shooting live rounds at each other, and operation sacred odyssey which commences on sunday. tis an exciting life i lead, no?

blah, i’m really not looking forward to my future in ns. granted, 4 months have already passed, and it wasnt as bad as i thought it would be. but the real shit starts now, such as all of us pes c personnel, even those excused running marching jumping, having to go through the foot topo exercise. chances are, we’re all gonna be walking for abt 50km in our full battle order, which means an insane load on our bodies in addition to walking an insanely long distance. the best part of this is their justification of why us excused rmj personnel had to do it: "it’s not marching what, it’s walking."

anyway, a few of us met up on friday night at vivo to celebrate hariz’s belated 20th. it was really nice to meet up with leong, jocelyn, cheryl and hariz again. the dinner at the mussel guys was not too bad, although the best part of the entire celebration had to be hariz’s gift. leong, jocelyn and i were racking out brains out trying to find a suitably un-retarded gift for him, and we ended up giving him a clock that screams "I’M VERY SEXY". but being the hariz that he is, we placed the wrapped present in his hands for abt a good 15 min without him realising that it was his gift. by the time we revealed it to him however, he was ecstatic and he loved it of course. hope your bunkmates dun think you’re 302 when you go to tekong dude (;

today was even better! we managed to have some sort of a mini .14 gathering to mark jiahe’s return back to singapore for a visit. shaoyi, thanh, cheuk ho, steven, janice, jono, asher, dinesh, cao, fish and i all made it today, and it was a very nice time just catching up and laughing super loudly with each other at tcc. it was especially nice to have jiahe back though, esp when everyone could pretty much say that we missed her without coming off as a hypocrite at all (: love my class to bits. 

law test tmr morning, which means i’m gonna be late for church. add that to me missing my drums duty next weekend because of sacred odyssey, and you have one very annoyed nsf.

so our little frisbee cum jazz on the beach outing today was quite a failure, since it poured heavily just when we got to sentosa, and all of us didnt have the foresight to bring cards as our wet weather plan. so we ended up getting stuck in a pavilion with tons of students from some orientation camp, who decided to make their variation of the henta kaki cheer "count by the count" their favourite cheer, to the disgust of jono cheukho fish and i.

at least the 5 of us (including janice!) got to throw disc for a bit, and other than not being very duper accurate i was quite thankful i still havent lost my touch. fish and cheukho decided to leave at abt 6ish though, so jono janice and i were left. we thought that the jazz thingo would start at 6pm, but because of the heavy downpour it ended up being delayed to 7pm. and just when the 3 of us decided to plonk ourselves in a nice central position at the amphitheatre… the rain just had to return. 

janice and i decided to bring jono to secret recipe for dinner after that, mostly because he hasnt eaten there before. ever. jono and i had their irish lamb stew, which was still as fantastic as i last rmbred, while janice took like 2 secs to decide on her meal of mushroom sauce chicken thingo. quite an accomplishment for captain indecisive really. the 2 of them decided to drag me to the arcade after that, just cos the last time i actually played in one was when my aunt dragged me there when i was 11, just cos she thought i had no life. time crisis 2 was enjoyable, but i really onli owned in metal slug heh. but thanks jono and janice, wouldnt have had the fun i had today if not for you two (:

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in other news…
Dear SEAN LIM HUI YAN

We are pleased to inform you that you have been shortlisted for the Law Admission Interview and Written Test.

nus has finally decided to reply, and the law faculty has shortlisted me for the first selection round. please pray that i go there knowing wad i’m talking or writing about, because army really does no good for uni apps, esp when you have almost no access to any form of mass media at all when you stay in camp.

and sorry for letting you down jocelyn. i’ll see what i can do abt getting into cambridge when the window for applications open later this year (;

i think i’ve been happy that today’s good friday mainly because i got to book out yesterday evening, which really shouldnt be the case. other than being too exhausted to attend the 57th cadet officers’ course POP, and not attending maundy thurs night prayer cos my father is ill, i think i pretty much just enjoyed myself flopping all over my room. figuratively i mean.

today was the first time in a while that i actually spent some proper time with my family! granted that shopping isnt exactly the best family activity, since there is always a gender divide when it comes to buying stuff, it was still enjoyable nonetheless. my onli complaint is that the onitsukas i wanted ran out of my size, whether in paragon, wheelock, or vivo. bah, it’s the first time that i actually liked sth enough to not have to consider other options before i made my choice in a long while, and this had to happen.

rawr i’m procrastinating again. i cant bring myself to start on my reflections, even though i have soooo much time this weekend. perhaps i should seriously consider practising what i preach to my juniors, and esp my sister. the stress of being really last minute is not worth it, trust me. i’ve been last minute enough times to know wad i’m talking abt (;

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anyway, to those who were expecting me at the 57th’s POP, i’m sooo sorry. i really messed up the dates, and i was really so tired after the whole week that i crashed into my bed right after i got home. i miss all of you, and i actually miss ncc even though i thought i never would have in a million years. please please please, catch up soon?

and tmr! sentosa, frisbee or wadeva else you have in mind. 3pm at vivocity, followed by jazz at the beach from 6pm to abt 1030pm. join me, jono, cheuk ho, janice and fish (i hope) if you want!

booked out tonight! i have a bone scan at nuh tmr, since the mmi ortho specialist decided that he didnt have enough to work with to do anything useful for me the first time i went to consult him.

anyway, today was a pretty nerve wrecking day. i wasnt ard when staff tan gave us a list of stuff to memorise for the stupid 10 line items test, i couldnt attend the manpack lesson because i was at the mmi ortho, and the vehicular set was just… the vehicular set. i had to mug like crap and pray really hard during the entire time we were waiting for our turn to take the test. after a while though, things kinda just  degenerated into absolute boredom. i waited from 9am to 430pm for my turn to take the first two tests, before waiting for another 2 hrs before i could do the vehicular set.

amazingly though, i managed to assemble the PRC 940 even though i never learned anything abt it, and i was the onli one who managed to completely assemble my VRC 846 within the time limit in my group, scoring a 24.5/25 for myself. plus one for the guy who was panicking like mad before his test, heh.

ah i love staying out. hopefully there’ll still be nights out tmr, and bookout on thursday. woots, cant wait (;

1 hr left before i book back into camp, but i had a very enjoyable sunday indeed!

cell today was pretty special. may decided to do some passover thing today for everyone, complete with palm leaves, lamb shanks and blood smeared on the tops and sides of the doors. (ok so the ‘blood’ was orange crepe paper, but you gotta commend her for the effort) after we learnt abt the significance of the holy week, we had a nice time of praise and worship together. just worshipping God in the darkness of the room, illuminated only by the three tealights that represented the Holy Trinity… that was a nice experience.

and then there was soccer! sadly, there were no winners today cos the match ended at 4-4. i opened the scoring with a beautiful (and absolutely taiko) lob from halfcourt, hitting the netball pole to score. then… we basically just sucked and the other team made it 3-1. by some amazingly messy way, we somehow managed to claw our way back and level it at 4-4. that was when both teams just couldnt score anymore, despite letting play continue for like 30 extra minutes for our last goal. the game pretty much ended when ian tried to dribble past jonathan, kneeing the poor little boy’s back in the process of jumping over him. jonathan didnt have a good day today, being wrestled ard in the church office and pushed ard for the most part of the game, so that was pretty much the last straw for him. thank goodness he didnt cry for too long, and we managed to cheer him up in the end. yeesh, we need to learn to play less physical in the future.

okay, time for me to stop now. please pray for me, cos there’s a stupid test on tuesday that i have to pass or i’ll have to come back on saturday to retest. that’s no fun btw, esp since there’s good friday and easter sunday this week. whoo, cant wait (;

ahh… yet another week past, yet another bookout.

this week passed by relatively quickly, with our schedule almost entirely filled with lectures and practical lessons. the most annoying stuff we did all week was probably memorize all the different parts of the signals sets, and we’re gonna have to be tested on them this tuesday. setting up the sets shouldnt be much of a problem i reckon, but it’s the memorizing all the technical names of the cables and shit that will probably fail me.

saturday youth service today! it was meant to be a special easter youth service, evangelical in nature, but there were onli 5 newcomers and 4 of them were dawn’s friends. it’s a pity sarah, sam and sal couldnt make it in time to join us today, but the service still had to go on! the worship was a bit mmpf at the beginning, but things worked out towards the end. and the easter item that the youths put up was sooo awesome! kudos to all the actors, and a special mention for dawn and sarah, who worked so hard on this. so much for me being in charge, the two of you pretty much ran the whole show, and i thank God for that (: we did record everything down though, so if you missed the performance today, i’m sure you’ll have a chance to watch it online soon enough!

so all in all, it was a pretty uneventful week to say the least. my mmi (military medicine institute) ortho appointment wasnt very helpful, though they scheduled me for a bone scan next week and a medical review next month, so there’s still a chance that i might have to OOC if i do downpes. i also still have my reflections to do, and the stupid test to study for, and my logistics philosophy to memorize. oh well, it’s still the weekend! and in army, weekends are meant to be enjoyed (;