getting myself fit to serve the nation...

this morning was my first morning run. ran 2.4km... with the badminton people. but i don't think i'll be doing it that often. only will run when the badminton people are going to run. something extremely rare happened today as well... the CJC ODAC people were running on the track, and AT A SLOWER PACE THAN ME!!! wtf?!?! must've been their day off. oh well i think they deserve it anyway, but i doubt they were too happy running at that pace.

another thing i do is me pushups. the lovely companion since secondary one days in SJI NPCC. everyday do 50 diamond and 50 spider... hopefully is enough to improve my pullups. must beat ian yap ching loong... that guy is CRAZY!!! 0 to 5 pullups in 3 months... HOW CAN?!!? must learn from him... really determined dude!

anyway on to my teachers... english teacher is Ban, Jane Ban! hahaha (think james bond) it sounds about the same. then chinese i Dr. Goh. kinda crazy... but not as particular as Ms. Koh about shirts being tucked in. she's got more of a singaporean auntie aura :p Econs is Mr Kwee, my home tutor. nice guy who is super zao sia... but i think we take advantage of his kindness at times. Maths is Mr Ho... same lecture group as Mr Poh, not bad at least i still get to see that guy. Also quite funny lah... Physics is Miss Eng... omg!!! she's worst than tan eng hong!!! hair is puffier... and she uses her skirt as her bra!!! pulls it above her belly for goodness sake! so damn hilarious! but she's kind of naggy... gonna buay tahan soon.

finally did SOMETHING to contribute to St. Georges... my life is so sad. anyway just wrote a simple article for the YaYA herald, the youth newsletter of SGC, shall see how much of my original content comes out. Homework has begun to come in, and clarrisa took home my maths notes!!!! WAHHH!!!! left to do my physics, but tomorrow no physics tutorial!!! damn it... shall learn the wrath of Ho tomorrow. Cheers.

Orientation 2...

after going through another week of orientation, overall i would say that it was worst than the previous one held in january by quite a bit. 1st of all, the people refused to cooperate. moving damn slowly from point A to B and taking super long to settle down everytime we wanted to start something. even the atmosphere at the grand finale was quite sad. at O1, majority of us were so excited when we were going to do the mass dance, but this time you see some maris stella buggers standing still refusing to move, and some girls who just don't want to pair up with guys, and vice versa. the whole overall attitude of the J1s sucked at the orientation. got so f-ed up at one point that bro. paul had to shout at us. never once were we praised during this orientation by teachers, but at O1 we were praised twice or thrice!!!

anyway on to activities. now in 1T19, with 7 other T20 people. clarrisa, shu fang, xuan rui, tao han, tze wei, melissa and timothy. cool... then got ben tay and vignish, sji kakis. so on wednesday morning had a mini pushball competition. it's just a ball that's been extinct since like the 80s or something like tt. basically just a big ball about 1.8m tall, pumped up with air, and as you should be able to guess by the name, you just push it! all the way to the opponents side. it's tiring, using your entire body to push a ball. rather fun, only that some girls in my class simply refused to get involved. damn boring. luckily more than half my class was in CJ for 1st 3 months, so got the basic atmosphere there already. afternoon went dragon boat. spent alot less time there than compared to january, but got ALOT wetter comparatively as well. got into battles alot quicker. the instructor actually taught us how to toss water at other boats the 'proper' way. like what the hell!?!? but it was fun too. race came in 3rd, not bad lah. played some pretty interesting games after that along the beach.

thursday went for sec 1 swearing-in meeting as usual and had serene centre mcdonalds for dinner. friday went to youth park, but before that went to taka for mcdonalds. yesterday spent the whole day in boots again. 0700 - 2245 to be exact! tt's 15 HOURS!!! yikes... anyway had the meeting at KAP mcdonalds, so obviously i ate mcdonalds for dinner. 3 days of mcdonalds dinner in a row. i think enough to last me for a while lah...

the NPDP training yesterday went smoothly lah i guess. but what happened after that was a total disaster. SYF and NDP potentials flooded the drill shed. at least 500 cadets. the mess was just... too messy to describe. don't know why they bothered to take attendance on the field also, when all they wanted was to pick the cadets and send the rest home. haiz horrible planning but the drill training was ok lah. don't intend to go for either SYF or NDP... NPDP is already quite alot of me... and my mum is pushing me to study already, so can't do too much of these parade thingys.

just now played badminton with ian, chris, dono and ming yuan at temasek club. my legs absolutely refused to move at first, so kept screwing up. then just jump jump jump then can play better already :p was an interesting time bullying ian, but he's improved a bit lah i must say. tomorrow lessons start again. must actually pack my bag tomorrow morning with books loh!!! ok maybe not books but my file and my pencil box. that's about all :p first time wearing the philips factory worker uniform tomorrow, and that blue tie, no more green and white. oh well time to move on... since npcc uniform is blue, and cj uniform is blue, my life is going to be quite blue from now onwards aye? Cheers.

i will miss the feeling...

was walking down the street on the way home today in my SJI uniform. had this feeling of nostalgia and sadness. will never wear that full uniform ever again in my life. been wearing it for 4 whole years, and now i'm trading it in for a blue one. listening to Hero from mariah carey now from my friend's blog, damn touching. we sang this song a few times during LLTC 2002, and i remember almost tearing... and now i also feel like tearing.

walking around in the CJ uniform is just different from walking around in the SJI uniform. there's a completely different aura that people will feel when u walk past them. SJI is a brand name, just like ACS and RI, unfortunately CJ is no such kind of name. and whether you like it or not, people nowadays DO look at your alma mater. even though they don't say it out loud, deep down there is some sort of impact, because there is a certain type of student that comes out from every school, they all have certain similar qualities that people look up to and respect. haiz i'll miss the all white... never felt so proud of wearing it until the beginning of the year, and now it's all gone. once again, thank you SJI. Cheers.

postings are out...

and in the end, majority of 1T20 looks to be staying. those that are posted back to CJ:
1. me
2. ben
3. elaine
4. wei xiang
5. xi wei
6. walter
7. ronald
8. clarrisa
9. shu fang
10. melissa
11. he jia
12. tze wei
13. yew kin
14. tao han
15. timothy

still haven't found out about chew yi yet... seems weird.

anywayz last night was class BBQ at timo's house. most of the class turned up. poh turned up too. didn't actually cook at all, just ate the pre-cooked sotong balls, noodles and canned sausages. ate a bit of BBQ-ed fish and chicken. talked rubbish. everyone seemed a bit mellow, probably because we'll knew that we were going to see most of each other next term again :p but it was fun to just sit there and tok rubbish.

eventually me, clarrisa and si yuan wandered to the playground. played around for a while on the slide and the bars. some might say that i had a deprived childhood, but seriously, i did in terms of playground fun. for those of you who have been to my house, you would know that there's no playground around here, which means no monkey bars, no slides, no running and climbing up and down. so playing there for a while was fun for me, releasing my inner-child in a way, something which i haven't really done in a long long time. i actually felt free of troubles while i was up there, even though everything around me was rather small :p

oh well no one got dunked into the pool, and quite a few people were falling asleep up in timo's house. the ODAC people had just come back from climbing 3 mountains and running around tioman. but the royal rumble in the water platform sounded fun. alot of camera flashes went off last night too... must get those pictures from sera and ching lee. oh and finally thanks to clarrisa for those t-shirts. THANX THANX THANX!!! Cheers.

detached in many ways...

the most large scale and intensive campcraft training i've ever seen has ended. it was a good idea i must say to hold a CCTC, but i wonder if the cadets felt a bit stoned after a while. anywayz it was a good prelude to UTC, only i expect UTC to have more drills... (my favourite) and therefore tougher.

but i had this cold feeling when i went back to sji on wednesday. i felt as though i had not known them for so long, as as though i was a stranger to the place. even after the cadets greeted me, i still felt a bit detached from them all. i think it's because i haven't been to a training proper since january because i've been going to PA for NPDP trainings, but then i never expected to feel so out of place. another reason i could think of, which would be most enlightening, is that the cadets and NCOs have matured a certain amount, and that is why i felt as though i did not know them.

as this week was a tiring one for me, i felt a bit zonked out by the time thursday afternoon came. at that point i felt detached from the world outside NPCC. was messaging a few friends throughout the course of the camp, and at certain levels of the conversations i felt as though i had absolutely nothing to say to them, but being me, i just replied after squeezing my brain. i've had this feeling before, but never to this kind of scale, i felt bad. thank goodness today it wasn't as bad, i guess the fatigue gets to me relatively easy as compared to others.

ok on to CCTC. the camp was well planned, NCOs knew what they had to do, cadet discipline was enforced, although at times they relaxed a bit, which is ok since it is campcraft, but they did go overboard a few times, and as a result were punished, but that's the same problem we've been having for a while. wonder when they'll finally understand self-constraint. on the NCO side, programme was followed relatively strictly, but there were problems during transition of period, not as smooth as it could have been.

class having a BBQ now at ching lee's house, hopefully it goes along fine, no rain and no glitches. tomorrow is the BBQ at timo's house, i'm going for that one, hopefully it doesn't rain tomorrow either, coz that's the day where majority of the class people are going. pray ah.... Cheers.

a new record for me...

yesterday morning i zipped on my boots at around 7 am, and i took them off at 9.30 pm when i reached home... about 14.5 hours wearing my boots, thank goodness they're not that tight, otherwise would've been damn uncomfortable!!

anyway yesterday was the 1st time i did flag drill... even with the flag on the pole. wasn't that difficult to learn... i guess that's because all the essentials for drills are the same. sharp and precise movements... alertness, and of course discipline lah. anyway have watched people do flag drill since sec 1 at every AP, so maybe ideas got kinda drilled into my head. i'm now the state flag bearer reserve instead of flagparty contingent commander reserve... i'd rather carry the flag then be commander, mainly because i've never been a flag bearer before. so once i do this flag bearer thing, all i'll have left to do is... supporting contingent commander (hope i never get downgraded), flag party commander, parade marker, and parade commander. been in supporting contingent, guard-of-honour contingent, GOH commander. at least i'm learning new things yeah? :D

left PA at like 4+, went straight to KAP for yanru's surprised birthday party at 5, which eventually dragged to about 6 :p, and after that sec 2 ATC meeting. luckily i went, because they were all coming up with weird ideas like 100 dowel poles, 100 apples and stuff...

some people in 1T20 now want to appeal back to CJ, even though CJ is not even one of their 1st 2 choices... yeah i'll miss them, even though it was only 3 months, but it was an EXTREMELY interesting 3 months. rumours going around class of who likes who, making mr poh laugh even though he's damn pissed with us, listening to ultimate-lamer leong during econs tutorials, absolutely not listening during chinese lesson, girls drawing smiley faces on guys papers during lectures, with PINK highlighters!!! haiz... who knows what it'll be like after this holz, it could be the beginning of hell in CJ for me, or it could be even better than what it was like, no one knows except the guy up stairs... just got to believe that it's all for the best. Cheers.

CJC's going up... and that means the rest are going down...

oh well bro. paul announced that ever-so-fine news that CJC has improved 3 positions since 2002 :) so one of my 7 reasons to stay in CJC is being proven... that bro. paul can work his magic again!!! WAHAHAHAHAHA!!! oh well nothing much really happened in the past week... except that class is getting emptier by the day.

doing this brochure for GP, in which eve is our group leader, who conveniently absents herself from most GP lessons, and even when she is there, she doesn't do much lah. so left herge and i to do most of it. xuan rui also not really doing much lah, disappearing most of the time as well. damn brochure is a waste of our precious slack time... :(

monday went out with some ppl, just walked around, ate KFC, listened to ben spread his wealth knowledge and experience, spit ice at eve, and the best part is she didn't even know it's me!!! WAHAHAHAHAHA....

anywayz yesterday's training was ok, not as bad as before... so either that means i'm getting fitter, or the training yesterday was just more slack :p i could do the 100 pushups at the end of training alot easier... so either i was slacking, or i'm getting fitter. :p talking about getting fitter.... mr 6 pointer ian yap can now do 4 pullups, albeit in the kind of weird fashion, but a pullup is a pullup, well done ian!

today the girls had some "enrichment" talk. according to clarrisa, it was advertising for triumph (the bra brand) and uhhh... forgot the name, the sanitary pad brand lah. taught them how to wear bras properly, and apparently there were some really hot models in the presentation!!! oh well... i guess you can see those sort of things if you are of the same sex, as long as your sexual preferences are not... skewed shall i say :p

oh well a look at my holiday schedule...
NPDP training- monday (TBC), wednesday (TBC) and saturday
CJ Badminton training - tuesday and thursday
SJI NPCC Campcraft course - wednesday to friday

haha luckily got no holiday homework man... otherwise sure die already loh!!! poor glenn and kah wee have common tests the week after the holz, sad NJ buggers :p

don't ask me why... but i just like this picture alot :p

some stuff...

added a new pic album titled sentosa blah blah, and added a few more pics to the CJC album. feel free to take a look yah? Cheers.

a poem...

i don't think many rafflesians come to my blog, so i think it's rather safe to put this up...

The Truth

A decade years or more ago;
Where my ancestors lived and roamed.
There lived two men of great renown;
Whose names are still well known.

Bold Raffles from Western shores;
Seeked trade routes thru Eastern doors.
St. John Baptist of noble Rheims;
But gave it up to bless and preach.

Both had a wish, a hope, a dream;
They hatched a daring plan.
To educate all yound minds;
Thus their schools began.

Now each of these schools;
Formed their own believe for each.
Both valued different virtues;
In the ones they had to teach.

Raffles snobbed and only accepted;
Those with a ready mind.
Where those of wit and learning;
Will always find their kind.

St. Joseph's ignored results;
Anyone worthy of admission.
Be you rich, able or poor;
As long as you've ambition.

Raffles taught them to be power-hungry;
Trained them to be strong.
They taught their students cunning means;
To be the best among the throng.

St. Joseph's valued different virtues;
In the ones they sought and heed.
They taught them to be helpful and kind;
To those that are in need.

Rafflesians were smart, intelligent, witty boys;
Who couldn't hold back their lust.
They then produced a plan to quench their
desires;
And RGS came at last.

You might think all boys are like that;
But Josephians are pure at heart.
Their abstainence, chast and innocence;
Set them miles apart.


-eugene wong hsien ming
sji 404/2004

My dearest sentosa, nice to see you after 8 years...

went for a little sentosa outing today, as bro. paul our wonderful principal gave us J1s a day off as it was the release of the A level results... i wonder how CJC did this time, hopefully a great improvement :) i arrived at harbourfront at around 7.35, just sat there listening to LP on my mp3 player... and stoned. soon after timo came, then later clarrisa, ron and emil came together, the "bishan gang" :p herge and ben came slightly later. played dai dee for a while on the mrt floor, then soon after went macs to have breakfast. then mad, si yuan, sera, eve, xuan rui, shu fang and shamane came long. after makan breakfast, we were leaving for sentosa when emil realised that he lost his wallet!!!! so he went around like a mad person looking for it. couldn't find it... but just as we got on the bus to sentosa, the person from the information counter called emil on his handphone and said that someone had returned his wallet. thank goodness there are still good souls in singapore :) emil got his wallet back safe and sound, with nothing missing AT ALL!!! eve was wearing this large ring earrings... so herge tried hanging a carabiner on it. and she yelled out loud. hmmmm....... on the bus came to the conclusion that sji guys are quite well equipped for outdoor life. that's because all josephians can swim, canoe, cook outdoors, and camp outdoors. :) i bet no other school in singapore can equal that record. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

went siloso beach, played soccer and volleyball for a while. playing soccer on sand is bloody difficult, got a few small cuts on my feet from the sand. then even though we originally decided not to go swimming, we just jumped into the freezing cold salty sea water. all the guys jumped in as clever timo didn't bring any spare clothes... bloody genius :X then we eventually got the girls wet one-by-one. through our cleverly devised strategies... we first targeted shu fang, but not really counted because she kind of willingly jumped in. :( but anyway.. next target was EVELYN!!! me, si yuan and herge got out of the water and "escorted" her to the sea. she kept insisting that we don't push her, so we didn't :) then xuan rui PULLED HER!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHA so obviously she got all soaked. we lifted her up by her hands and feet a few times after that and tried in vain to toss her into the water, and she just kept shrieking..... as usual. after evelyn, was SERA!! this time needed 5 guys lah, we kind of cornered her. herge went from the back, i from the left, si yuan centre and ron from the right. she started running lah, but not very smart choice... soon after ben joined us. her reason for staying dry was "got contacts cannot get wet". dot dot dot so anyway she had a royal entourage of 5 guys escorting her to the sea. after that she suay suay never hear what evelyn said, so also said "don't push me" because we were all behind her. so xuan rui again... pulled her. :P life sucks doesn't it girls :D we left mad, shamane and clarrisa alone. alone meaning never pull or push them into the water, but we just splashed water at them lah that's all. :D

splash splash splash... play volleyball in the water for a while... spit out a whole lot of saliva... get stung by some little puny piece of shit... then wei xiang, walter and xi wei came, the "ODAC gang". got in and out of the water a few times... still playing soccer and volleyball occasionally till lunch time. while walking... ching lee joined us. went to BK to eat. just as we were almost finishing ordering, a HUGE group of german people came by, and started scolding vulgarities when they found out that only one service station was open :p there must've been at least 25 of them!!!

after a long and draggy lunch, emil, clarrisa, ron, mad, si yuan and shamane left. rest of us headed to palawan beach. herge, wei xiang, xi wei, ching lee, timo and me rented bikes, the others took bus. wah rush like shit... damn fun but thighs wanna catch fire liao!!! poor wei xiang had to ferry his weight and eve's weight all the way to palawan beach :p cycle there, found walter and xuan rui already sun tanning there... if you know me well enough, you'll know that i don't exactly need a suntan :p soon after we REALLY rushed back... only used brakes when we were going downhill, as the gears on the bikes were rather stiff even in the smallest one. but it was fun to have the feeling of wind against your face for a long length of unobstructed time. :) really miss that feeling... after returning bikes xi wei and i left for home. i don't think i got sunburned, because no part of my body is exactly red lah...

campcraft comp results came out today as well... we got 14th again... which means with regards to each batches standards, this batch drew with my batch which took part 2 years ago. Well done guys... but the best part is, we're the best boys team in area 15, and 2nd overall for area 15. NYGH took 6 in the girls competition. chinese high and acs b didn't do too well this time. cedar girls got 1st for girls loh... omg!!!! gary sim is gonna be so... uhhhhhh... upset? upset in that his previous unit could do so well, but his new unit could not. :( oh well, good job sji npcc campcraft team of 2004, you guys have trained hard, hopefully you are happy where your training has gotten you, even though getting into the top 10 would have been better, but let's just be satisfied with where we are shall we...

long entry, but really must write this in. sec 3s... NCOs to be, don't know what is going on in some of their heads. were we not strict enough on them last year? maybe yes... some of their attitudes should be partly blamed on us, but then it seems that even though they're a year older some of them have not matured by a year... seem to be frozen solid stuck at a sec 1s mentality... running around in the freaking range... getting an EXTERNAL instructor to criticise our unit, spraying water and running around... it just doesn't make sense that sec 3s can do this sort of thing. looking forward to CC camp, with the one night stay over... it will turn out to be a prelude to UTC if the sec 3s remain at this rate. very, very saddening news... if the sec 3s somehow continue to show to us that they are not matured enough, they'll get hell at CC camp and UTC, if they improve, they won't get as much hell... hell yes but not as badly. all part of growing up. got another part about sec 1s lah, but that will just have to wait... way too long entry already :p Cheers.

5 hour school days...

well in case you didn't catch in my previous entry, school ends at 1.10 everyday for me now :) that's a hell lot better than getting 3 days off and ending at the normal time for the rest of the 1.5 weeks. anyway i'm taking as much opportunity out of these shorter days to relax a bit more. monday went out to taka seoul garden with neo, gc, shaun, herge, fuzz, clarrisa, shu fang and julia. our cooker just couldn't cook, took damn long before anything was done. and usually by the time anything was done it was burnt, because once we left it there to slowly cook, we kinda forgot about it :p i was sitting by fuzz, neo and clarrisa. ate a whole lot of noodles, fishballs, crabsticks and chicken chicken chicken. neo was really bored and was talking to his sotong, saying sorry everytime he put one on the cooker :p we also had a fun time trying to cook chicken omelette. the girls were so shocked that us josephians did not take home econs in school, but yet could cook. reason being because we've all camped outdoors before at one point of our lives, and therefore had to learn how to cook. neo is quite good with eggs, probably because that's all he eats at camps. :p right at the end neo and clarrisa had a dao geh cooking contest... cannot say anything about it lah, except it was DAMN salty...

yesterday stayed back in school to play basketball with neo, gc, fuzz, herge, shaun, julia and some of shaun's classmates. it was an "interesting" game, as i got whacked in the face twice. :p 1st one... ball was flying out, and the other guy (dunno his name from shaun's class) flew out to try to keep the ball in play, and he swung the ball right into my face... WHAM on the nose... specs got VERY bent out of place, and i couldn't feel my face for a second or 2 :p head felt a bit light after that for a while, but it was ok towards the end. now it's as if nothing happened yesterday. 2nd incident, shaun my dear teammate ran into me... and his forehead whacked my upper lip, sending it into my teeth. so naturally it got cut, and it bled for a while. wash wash wash, stung like hell, and now u can vaguely see 2 teeth marks on my upper lip :p luckily it's not as swollen as yesterday. oh and i really pity herge, he only played for 2 minutes and he sprained his finger... today saw it, bloody hell so damn swollen!!!

today decided to come home early, get my homework done, and study a bit of physics for tomorrow's test, and hopefully get to bed early tonight. gotta go down to east coast park one of these days to book BBQ pit for class party, damn mafan cannot book over the phone. oh well 1.5 weeks of 1T20 left... gotta enjoy the rest of it. Cheers.