a tough week ahead for many...

this is going to be a very interesting week. monday and tuesday we've gotta get through exercise jupiter. i'm the 2ic for one of the syndicates. the only obvious good thing that will come out of this is that i'm safe during exercise mercury, otherwise the thought of facing john andrew's wrath is looming over me, and making me feel worried... really damn worried. then wednesday we'll have a day's reprise, with a whole day of lecture (again...), then thursday and friday i'll be having my endurance exercise. should be starting around 4pm on thursday, and ending around the same time on friday. i'll be walking around singapore with either a signal set of a field pack on my back. total should be between 30 and 40 km. 30 if u don't get lost, and obviously 40 if you screw up somewhere. sort of a navigational exercise lah. so if you see a group of 4 army guys walking around with full gear, chances are they're from my platoon hahaha (hint we all start from chua chu kang, but don't ask me where we'll end =X) all i'm hoping is that it doesn't rain in that 24 hours. it can rain before, it can rain after, as long as it doesn't rain while i'm walking i'm fine. so all in all... PLEASE DON'T RAIN!!! =(

josh and derek will be having their 72 click route march on wednesday, then thursday they'll be getting their red berets. sorry i can't be there guys, coz i'll be having my own little route march. wish u guys all the best man, and may the lord grant you strength in your feet and perserverence in your heart and mind. it's been a grueling 11 months for you man, so just go for it, then u can finally shout POP LOH!!! hahaha

supposed to have played vball with wendy yesterday, but the weather was so hot we just ended up sleeping hahaha didn't want to get up to play. anyway next friday marks 1 year for us. not been an easy year with army cutting into most of it, but i'm just really really glad that we've gotten where we are, and i sincerely hope for many more of these to come. i love you baby :) i know you've got a really tough work schedule this week, and i'm sorry i might not be able to contact you for most of the days, but i'll try to call long after the sun goes down.

and now i've gotta take my shower, and prepare to throw myself into the 13th week of course. 2 more weeks for me to go before i can say so long and farewell to signals institute. after that i shall just have to see where the wind takes me again

we're all waiting for something... something to come our way

what do i have to do to make u happy...

sometimes i really don't know what you want from me. i already try to see you whenever physically possible, as long as the circumstances are favourable. i know you were unhappy that i couldn't go parkway parade to meet you tonight, but i'd much rather book out on time on friday to see you instead of being only able to see you for an hour or less tonight. then you call me and i answer. when u find out i'm playing my game you tell me to go and play, then i say i'll call you later then one moment you say alright and the next moment you say no i can't. i really want to talk to you too honey, but talking to you when i'm at home and talking to you when i'm in my bunk doesn't have much of a difference. after a while i lost my mood to play my game, after this i'll be rushing back to camp and have my shower and charge my phone so that i can talk to you. hopefully that's the least i can do, because i don't know what else more you want me to do right now, when my hands are tied by time and the power that wielded by that which is the SAF. i'm sorry dear.

we're all waiting for something... something to come our way

a horrible week and a wonderful saturday...

this week in camp has definitely got to be the toughest so far in SI for our platoon. shall just run through the highlights of the week...

monday - each person carried 18 chairs from the mph to various places all over SI. basically make like 4 trips each, including climbing up and down lots of stairs. that was the saikang for the day. at night spent quite a few hours planning for line exercise on wednesday. slept at 12.

tuesday - more preparation for line exercise, including drawing of stores. lots and lots of reels of lines and map planning had to be done. brought all the stores up to 5th floor to be kept in store for next day. slept at 1

wednesday - line exercise. near chaos as everyone trying to finish laying their lines in time. course commander made it such that we'd have to walk around the camp in order to lay our lines. so instead of taking the shortest possible route, we took the longest possible one. lots of entanglements, including a missing magazine which was luckily recovered. reeling back of lines wasn't fun too. slept at 6.30 on thursday morning

thursday - platoon had nights off, which is supposed to be good. but i had guard duty. and at the beginning of guard duty had saikang to do as well. even though it was really simple saikang, but it was saikang nonetheless. slept 4 hours that night. had to msg clar during my 3am duty to stay awake and not roll down the slope i was standing on doing sentry

friday - after guard duty immediately had a test. then we had to do more saikang. this time had to clean up the store, and our entire area. it was in a mess after line exercise coz of all the D10 cables and stuff. had 6 bags of rubbish to throw away in the end. i carried come cupboards from my block to the 3rd floor of SI block. by the end of the day all i wanted to do was sleep. end of a long and tiring week. was more than happy to end it

today i got to see wendy first thing in the morning. so got to spend alot of time with her which really made me feel a hell lot better. in the evening went to meet the classmates for dinner at suntec. on the way there i remembered that the singapore motorshow was on! so i went to check it out. not many european brands around at all! only had ferrari and lambo. even then they only showcased 2 cars each. not much lah. alot of japanese brands though. they took the opportunity to advertise and sell as many cars as possible. surprisingly mitsubishi wasn't there. subaru, honda and nissan all showed up in force. saw the new subaru R1. really damn cute car man. perfect for little ladies to drive hahaha and i realise that going to a motorshow when you know how to drive is really a different experience from going when you don't have a driver's license yet. you tend to view cars completely differently, because you just don't help but picture yourself driving the car you see hahaha

during guard duty on thursday between 3 and 5 am, i suddenly thought of something since i was just standing there. our shadows are in many ways, us. but there's just one difference. and that is they don't have souls. your shadow does everything that you do, but they don't show any expression. no joy, no sorrow, no laughter and no tears. they are, in their own right, zombies, just a wee bit faster i guess. and they aren't that intelligent either, imitating your every move. so all i could think of at that wee hour of the morning was, don't go through this world like a shadow. following along what everyone else does, and having now expression on your faces. smile, be happy, and those around you will be affected in a positive way too. be yourself, not a shadow =)

we're all waiting for something... something to come our way

4 more weeks of this...

another 4 weeks and counting till i graduate from this course. hopefully i do lah. if something bad happens to me during this last month i'd be really irritated and pissed beyond words man. just pray nothing bad happens. the only real place where something can happen to me now is at exercise endurance, but we shall see.

this weekend was slightly better i guess. ok fine much better. considering i wasn't bed ridden and i got to spend alot more time with her. of course i would've liked to be able to spend more time with her, even a day would've been much better, but there are just so many things that are absolutely out of our control. and being an NSF is one of them. oh yeah and i met her parents too hahaha being the person that i am, meeting people for the first time isn't something i'm good at at all, so it's been postponed many times before, but i knew it was inevitable hahaha so what better time to meet them than on her mum's birthday dinner hahaha oh well... it all went along fine in the end. thanks goodness =P

bought nfs carbon today, but it wouldn't load because one of the files can't be read! damn it. so got to ask my dad to help me go down sometime this week to get it changed. i would do it myself next weekend, but i'm afraid that they won't entertain my request by then. u know, shops being shops, businesses being businesses. hopefully it can be changed. next week after i get my paycheck for this month i'm thinking of getting battlefield 2142. shall see how lah.

tonight's book in timing is officially 2359, but no way i'm going to do that, because i wouldn't be able to wake up tomorrow morning if i booked in at that time. and i've still gotta fold my uniform and write my journal entry. technically i can write it at home, but there's absolutely no inspiration to do army things at home, except pack my bag, and even that can be a torture in itself.

one whole week of line laying to look forward to. it'll be a new physical experience. running around camp with reels of D-10 cables behind your back, and then rolling them all back after that. another week towards the end of this course, another week towards ORD. just got to get through it, and soon it'll all be a distant memory.

not much chance of having nights out this week, means i'll only be able to see you next weekend. we can't have everything we want i guess...

tags:

anonymous: my course commander is 1WO John Andrew. he's quite famous man

ko0n: how right you are koon... hope u're doing fine swimming around hahaha

derek: you'll be shouting ORD LOH 4 months before me man hahaha then u can start suaning me for once =P

we're all waiting for something... something to come our way