My light would never flicker

Tip of the iceberg

2009-11-20T05:34:00.003-08:00

Well, the 3-day stint for the NCC Aviators Course has ended. But it has barely started - time to face the 58th COC D:

I can do this, I can do this.

"Mr Chan! What's your opinion about this?"

Tip of the iceberg

2009-11-20T05:34:00.002-08:00

Well, the 3-day stint for the NCC Aviators Course has ended. But it has barely started - time to face the 58th COC D:

I can do this, I can do this.

Aftermath

2009-11-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

I have not blogged for a long time. So long, that now it feels...foreign. Oddly.

O levels are over. But, I don't feel that elated, explosive feeling Wei Yang and I were anticipating for months. I wasn't joining the people who were hugging and yelling as soon as we stepped out of the hall on Friday. I had this empty feeling similar to that to the end of POP. There's something very wrong with me - I can never celebrate and go crazy over such events.

Maybe it is true that the journey is more important than the destination. One may be aiming for the destination and all, but the process of getting there is what truly contributes to the feeling of satisfaction. Odd. It's the 'Mr Teo' feeling again: You work so hard for something and give it all, and when it ends, you feel lost and without an objective. And I felt that.

When I got home, flicked on the radio and CORRINE MAY WAS SINGING. My love for her music as been renewed :D

MORE PEOPLE SHOULD LISTEN TO HER SONGS :D

This was what was playing when I got home :D

In the afternoon of Day 1 of new-found freedom, I traveled to NCC HQ with a large bag. It took a full 2 hours to get my new uniforms:

-2 new sets of no.4
-2 new sets of no.3
-Loaned a full set of no.2 (Dining uniform)
-Loaned full set of no.1

Apparently there's a dinner event all officer trainees have to attend on the thursday night of the 2nd week of 58th COC. An awfully formal one :X

I've got to start training for Cadet Officer Course. We book in this coming Wednesday to start this new Aviators programme HQ suddenly whipped up for Air officer trainees. Will blog more about it after I've attended it.

In the evening I had dinner with Stace (: then it was AVATAR MARATHON when I got home. I shall not reveal the number of episodes I've watched till, but I should be able to finish the series before I book in on Wed. Heh.

11th August

2009-08-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

It was only a year ago. It's 11th August tomorrow.
But right now, the only thing on my mind is Os.
I really should get back to my desk.

Transformers :X

2009-06-28T21:19:00.001-07:00

Oh my.

I just watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen last night. Maybe there is some truth behind the ST's review on the movie, only giving it 0.5/5. A little harsh, but the movie could have been alot better given the expectations it was supposed to match up to after the first movie.

(My blogger's having problem uploading pictures so oh well. Transformer pics are everywhere now anyway.)

Overall, I think the movie was mind-blowing. But that wasn't the only thing they blew up. And I think it was really smashing as well. They smashed up a whole lot of other stuff as well. In general, the main selling point of the movie was it's awesome fight scenes and endless destruction. Well, a movie can't go wrong with giant mechanoids mashing one another in epic battles right?

Overall, I'd say it's a 6.5/10

Plot (5/10): There really isn't a need for a synopsis, seeing that so many people are going ahead to watch it :D But careful of spoilers if you have yet to (ever since Prelim 2 ended)! I think the scriptwriters got a little lazy besides the movie would be a hit anyway with the awesome graphics and success of the previous movie.

First off, I found it slightly predictable. There wasn't really much of a twist or personal internal struggles, the storyline started off rather linear about Sam being dragged into the whole issue again (okay the leading in by him finding a shard of the Cube in his old jacket was slightly too...convenient a reason to start the story). Then about the fall of the leader, Optimus, and definitely he'd be revived once again. The fall of Sam was kind of predictable as well. And that there was something obviously wrong with Alice and her sticking onto Sam like glue without a apparent reason. I think the machine hidden in the pyramid was fine, but the whole idea about the Matrix wasn't.

Please, I expected a large complicated riddle that wasn't going to solved by a conversation that the two of them had in the evening. And the position of the Three Kings were inaccurate in astronomical terms as well, according to Stace. But how did the Matrix re-constructed itself, revives Optimus, yet gets stolen again? But I think a movie like Transformers was best with their first plot and not make another one which is a off-shoot of it. Though the plot is kind of interesting mainly due to the action sequence making one constantly ask: "What's going to happen now D:"

Action (9/10): Well, it had better get a high score. Mainly because this is what redeems the movie and makes it so awesome in the first place :D Put the scrappy plot aside, this makes up for everything. Guess this is one thing the ST reviewers overlooked.

Nothing can go wrong in epic clashes of giant robots verse other giant robots and humans firing in vain. It was really detailed, every part of the mechnoids as they beat one another up, especially in the fight scene with Optimus VS 3 other Decepticons. But sometimes they get so complicated that it just looks like metal rolling about.

And everywhere they went, destruction followed. Sure, it was cool in the Shanghai scene were buildings collaspsed and everything had either been blasted apart or filled with holes, but after awhile it gets kind of....numbing. It's like too much of a good thing. But the special effects were awesome, undeniably. Can you imagine what will happen if Transformers goes 3D? :D

Another Angle (5/10): Well, this is sort of a...double-edged sword. The movie injects comedy into many of the scenes which didn't involve clashing. It was good many a times, with great quotes such as:

Agent Simmons: What you are about to see is top secret. Do not tell my mother.

annnnd:

[arriving at Sam's college]

Judy Witwicky: Look at this place! I feel smarter already! Can you smell that?
Ron Witwicky: Yeah, it's the smell of $40,000 a year...

and my favorite was:

Jetfire: My father was a wheel! The first wheel! And do you know what he transformed into? Nothing! But he did it with honor!

Yes Jetfire is awesome and I liked the little addition of him in the movie. It's interesting to watch defects, and him supporting the Autobots instead (and the awesome merging on the final battle). Such witty lines injected laughter here and there.

But speaking of jokes, there were many dirty jokes here and there as well. And it was slightly irritating that they kept playing on them. Like how Simmons said he was directly under the robot's scrotum D:

Dirty jokes and sexual references aside (which surprisingly were subtle enough to keep the movie at PG), I feel that many of the Autobots from the original team did not have enough screentime. Optimus had quite alot, Bumblebee dorminated (which is awesome because B.Bee is so likable :D) and the twins had quite alot of screen time, but what about the rest of the team? They only had about a few lines, and are mainly sighted only in clashes. Besides, the addition of the three female motorbikes had hardly any lines and were only seen for 3 seconds in a couple of scenes. Sad D:

But overall, it's a good movie to follow up from the first because you watch it mainly for the action and awesome transformation and battle graphics, right? Lest why would you even bother yourself with Transformers in the first place :O

I guess the ST reviewers were expecting a whole lot more and are already numb to action, even though the special effects are top-notch.

I'm attending the school's aesthetic concert tonight!

Balthus

Mash. Mash. Mash.

Equilibrium

2009-06-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Prelim 2s are over. I really don't wanna think about a paper that has already ended since it'd affect my performance and thoughts during the exam week, but now that's it's over....Gah :X

I think the worst paper was E math. Seriously, I didn't think elementary math will result in like 5 questions half answered D: Bye bye to A. Ironically, Amath was slightly easier (well, easier than expected) but I'm very scared I don't get an A or a high B for it, because...

On the way to school on Thursday, I met Mrs. Anna Tan crossing my path with her daughter going towards J8.

Mrs. Tan: Benedict! Do well for your maths paper okay?
Me: *cringe* Um, okay..
Mrs. Tan: Must get your A okay!
Me: *forced smile* Yes, yes I will.

Oh NOO I'm very, very scared to let her down now for my maths papers (both maths!). It's a very nasty feeling to let down someone who have worked so hard to help you. Oh no oh no please let me get at least high Bs to pull up to A by Prelim 3 D:

Out of all the papers, I'm most confident in the Chem paper and Elective Lit. Chem cause I could understand most of the paper (please grant me an A this time so no one can say I suck in every subject again) and because I found the Literature paper very fun :D

The question was based on Atticus' quote: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view --- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it," and I was supposed to write on 3 characters in the novel who demonstrated the wisdom of the quote. So I chose Mr. Dolphus Raymond (of course!), Arthur Radley and Mrs. Dubose. And spammed quotes, as usual.

Speaking of quotes, there are a heck lot of wonderful, memorable quotes from the sci-fi movie I've been dying to watch after Prelim 2: Equlibrium

(It takes alot to get me crazy for something. And when I do go crazy over something...heh :X)

A quick synopsis of the plot which got me craving for it:

In the 21st century after the World War III, mankind knew that it would not be able to pull through another war as such. Thus, the world leaders sought to create a world free of conflict. They decided that human emotions is the root cause of all conflict (with rage, anger, wrath, jealousy etc.) and thus a society, Libra, is form where feeling emotions and being in possession of objects that may invoke emotion (e.g. literature, art, music) are all banned and warrants incineration, and all citizens had to take "intervals", where they inject themselves with the emotion-suppressing drug Prozium, distributed from a factory named 'Equilibrium'.

The protagonist, Cleric John Preston, is a first-class fighter of the Grammaton Clerics serving the High Council, Clerics forming an elite team equipped with the art of Gun-Kata (fighting with firearms in a deadly manner without getting shot) who's job is to enforce the law in apprehending "Sense Offenders" and eliminating all EC-10 objects (emotional content). He unemotionally watches his wife gets arrested for feeling, committed suicide-by-cop for his partner when he realised he was feeling.

And predictably, he breaks his usual dose of Prozium and is unable to get a replacement. For the first time in his life, the first-class fighter experiences emotions. Then the story continues from there. Not going to spoil it for you if you intend to watch online ;)

Overall rating? 7.6/10

Plot (8/10): Classic plot of someone breaking out of the conformity of life (this time, to the extreme that the Council wanted to create a society of people leading identical lives) and it goes back to the basics, the core of what defines a human being: Ability to feel emotions. Before emotions, Preston felt nothing towards art, no qualms about his wife executed, no hesitation in assasinating his partner. Slowly, the beauty of feelings dawned upon him and he saw a deeper meaning in life. Being a lit student, this of course must be accompanied with quotes:

[Before he experiences emotions, apprehending a 'Sense Offender']

Mary: Let me ask you something.
[Grabs his hand]
Mary: Why are you alive?
Preston: [Breaks free] I'm alive... I live... to safeguard the continuity of this great society. To serve Libria.
Mary: It's circular. You exist to continue your existence. What's the point?
Preston: What's the point of your existence?
Mary: To feel. 'Cause you've never done it, you can never know it. But it's as vital as breath. And without it, without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock... ticking.

And one of my favorites earlier in the movie:

[When apprehending his partner, Partridge]

Partridge: You always knew.
[begins to read from Yeats]
Partridge: "But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." I assume you dream, Preston.
.
.
.
Preston: I'll do what I can to see they go easy on you.
Partridge: We both know they never "go easy".
Preston: Then, I'm sorry.
Partridge: No, you're not. You don't even know the meaning. Its just a vestigial word for a feeling you've never felt.

Action (7/10): Mainly focusing on the invented form of martial arts: Gun-Kata.

DuPont: The gun katas. Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically predictable element. The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents while keeping the defender clear of the statistically traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120%. The difference of a 63% increase to lethal proficiency makes the master of the gun katas an adversary not to be taken lightly.

So basically, you shoot, you kill many, but you're safe within the cross-fire. And Preston is a master of this art. Heh heh. Emotionless + Gun-Kata master = perfect fighter.

And when the protagonist was captured:

DuPont: And you, Preston, the supposed savior of the resistance, are now its destroyer, and, along with them, you've given me yourself... calmly... coolly... entirely without incident.
Preston: [Polygraph machine scribbling rapidly] No.
[Polygraph suddenly registers Preston completely in control of emotions]
Polygraph Technician: Oh... Shit.
Preston: Not without incident.

Then he goes on a rampage to blast his way through to the puppeteer of the whole society :D

Another Angle (8/10): The repetition of certain key lines by different characters signifies emphasise. The lines are repeated in different situations or those which mirror exactly what happens before. Such as:

DuPont: Be careful Preston. You're treading on my dreams.

'Treading on my dreams" was read aloud earlier from the book of Yeats. It may not sound original to hear the same lines over, but it does have an impact when placed in different situations, it's like the characters learning from one another (especially Preston learning about emotions).

Furthermore, there are many subtle signs which hold significances: Preston re-arranging his table (showing a sign of dislike against conformity) and him wearing all white while facing foes dressed in all black. Twists and traps keeps the movie from being predictable and at the edge of my chair throughout the movie (and making me extremely jumpy while waiting for Part 4 to load - people who talked to me on MSN last night understands XD)

I loved this movie, I'm going to fan-boy over it for some time and will definitely watch it again next time :D Next up will be on Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen which I just watched today :)

Balthus

A heavy cost, I pay it gladly.

Transformers :O

2009-06-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

For Physics students:

THIS is a Transformer:

However, this is as well:

And so is this!

And this one too!

So they are all transformers and have the same function, yet they all look so different from one another...

They must be in disguise. Transformers in disguise. Heh :D

(Wei Yang and I LOL-ed over this in class for 5 whole minutes until Mr Yong looked our way ^^)

OH and I've already got Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie tickets for the 28th June! I love my mom's company for the tickets :D

Balthus

art is never finished, only abandoned.

Bells

2009-06-01T05:32:00.000-07:00

I missed the church bells today.

Which sucks, because I spend every month counting down to the 1st day of the next month just so as to hear those bells again.

I'm not sure if many people actually notice it, but the church bells sound from most (?) churches around Singapore at 12 noon on the first day of every month. I've grown up listening to them, since I grew up living behind St. Nicks since I was 4. Used to run to my large window and climb up the grills to hang there for the 20 seconds listening to the magical tune :D But now I have St. Gabriel's church just behind to hear those bells :)

I never really figured out the frequency of the bells when I was younger (therefore leading to me running and stumbling on random objects on the ground just to listen to them) until my P3 teacher told us it was to symbolise the start of a brand new month. It's just, uplifting to hear them, to put aside the previous month and start afresh, anew :D

The "holidays" have officially started. Well, holiday lessons, that is. Physics and Amath is getting me down but am not giving up! ;D Because even though I missed the bells today (being stuck in the auditorium :X),

I still hear them in my heart :)

Balthus

Cry me a river, cry with me tonight.

and the tide turns

2009-05-29T05:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, quote James Loo when I talked to him, I've finally dropped all responsibilities :X

Well, sort of. Technically I have, but a chairman never stops their duty till the class disbands at the end of the year. Sucks right. Still, SLB Investiture was.....heartwarming. This was my 3rd and last one, and it does feel special to pass out.

I know this post is long, lllooooooonnnnnnggggg overdue, but it's still nice. We spent Tuesday rehearsing for the Investiture, it was boring but fffuuuunnn :D Talked alot with Chris Woo, KO, Joey and Yong Kee :D KO IS AN EVANESCENCE FAN AS WELL ^^ We realised that when we were looking at Michael's phone and we both asked him to play 'Bring Me To Life' by Evanescence~! Hee. And after rehearsals we had CMC pizza dinner :D I think that was the second and last time I had dinner with CMC in my 3 years. Sigh.

And the next day was -the- day :O We had one more round of rehearsals but got really bored waiting for the iMedia to get ready so..

PICTURES :D

From Left: KO, Myself, Irwin, Joel, Chris, John, Alan :D

Then Mr. Tan asked us to stop cam-whoring and get ready to rehearse :X

After our first round of rehearsals it was:

John and me :D John in his last hours of CMC PPRRREEEZZZZZ.

Joel!

And we hung about doing nothing but just talking and listening to music and taking pictures while waiting for invest to start, since Sec 4s couldn't do anything but just wait. Nor could we go entertain guests D:

When invest started, it was...well. I didn't know how to feel as I watched the excos pass their blazers on to the next batch. Maybe cause I'm not too involved in CMC (being a non-exco). But as we went downstage to receive our gifts, I felt a little..down. One was the feeling of passing out (just like in NCC), the other was the gift. It was...a slip of printed paper. With my name written on it. And printed behind is a picture of jets soaring (Theme of the invest was Soar). I was really kinda disappointed :( It's really not much to remember 3 years of being in the Chairman Board with.

And for the non-excos, we had a -little- something extra:

[http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id
=756162217&ref=profile#/video/video.php?
v=95303042808&subj=756162217]

See the video in the link! I don't have the video: this was videoed by Jeremy Cheok. Graduation - NO MORE TIES :DDD

By the way, I actually became a class chairman in Sec 2 was because Stefan decided to saboh me into by sneakily getting everybody to vote me into becoming one. But then again, all his judgements has always been good, I had my fun in CMC :D No more morning meetings to attend now.

And yes John, I feed off the joy of taking attendance every morning :)

Walking around without a tie for a week feels surprisingly good. It's like a relief somehow. But somehow I still miss sec 2 where Wei Yang and myself followed Ivan's words to the dot and only loosened our ties -just- as we stepped out of the school gate :D

Then there was the assistant chairman's tie bet with Damien, and DAMIEN IF YOU'RE READING THIS, I WON THE BET: THE CMC MEETING WAS A TUESDAY :D and Damien owed me Joel's tie (read post from way back to see the full story of the Assistant's Tie saga :D) but it got all resolved when Damien got me a teddie named Joel wearing a bowtie. So I owed Damien a bow. Hee.

Then there was ANOTHER tie bet, this time with John, Zongda and Yeung Kai. It was a disadvantageous bet: whoever caught one another without a tie in school uniform for the 2 weeks leading up to Investiture had to treat the others to Seoul Garden.

And I was the weakest link (seeing that I alway remove my tie after school hours). So they think they could beat me. But nooo :D I found a loophole: Change out into a t-shirt after school hours =D

And Zongda found a loophole with that, quote: "Technically, you can't take off your shirt without removing your tie, so for that one moment you're in school uniform without your tie." But no, Zong, technically I can remove my shirt without taking my tie off :D Just loosen and remove head first ^^ Ha.

Even without a tie, class chairmans we shall still be :)

Balthus

and a long way we have come and may the road never end

Hospital.

2009-05-15T05:40:00.000-07:00

I truly am the hermit.

I've spent over 24 hours without taking a step out of my room :D I feel both a sense of achievement and irritation :O Mainly because it hurt to even stand on my right foot. It's a long story, but we'd get to that eventually.

Oh side note: all these pictures of the sky I post up is usually taken when I'm walking towards tuition in the evening :)

On Tuesday after school I hung about in the Air Store and talked to Yuk Tim and the other Air sec 3s about spec course and how it goes about. I really hope many, if not all of them, can pass out with 2SG ranks :D Anyway after that I went to the auditorium to listen to a lecture given by a minister who was an old boy. I was really, really bored until Mr. Lim Swee Say started talking into the mike: he was using Chinese D:

I immediately had to perk up and concentrate should I hope to follow what he was saying. Then he switched over to English. He was trying to show us the importance of bilingualism, just as our school mission plans to imprint into us. He carried on by talking about his life story and humble beginnings, and I love how he can tell a joke with a straight face, like "My English got better and betterer." Without laughing. Sweet.

He went on to talk about 'the Singapore Way', on how we got to the society we are today through hard word and determination. And about the future of Singapore as well with all it's advancements. I found it very interesting mainly because the way he spoke made him sound very impressive yet so humble for a minister :D really amazing. And repeated quotes from him such as "don't believe in your own bullshit" :O and about the importance of bilingualism, innovation and creativity. We ended by singing a school song for he was an old boy :) And people like Ivan Ong keep making fun of how I look like him - alot :X I'm not interested in politics!

Thursday

Mrgh. Life just sucks sometimes. I joined PE, and finally we got to draw hockey sticks. Our class took some time to pick teams, I was just impatient to get playing. Finally when we got rolling, 5 minutes into the game I was defending the ball from Bryan Ching then he fouled and swung above the ankle, striking my right foot's ankle. Great.

I fell from the impact and the pain was like, crunching upon the joint. Mr Han had me stand up and lay myself down to relax. I spent my PE period lying down behind the tennis net keeping my foot straight and propped up by my shoe, just watching the other teams happily play hockey and defending my face from sec 1s playing volleyball. Those idiots asked me to get up and throw the ball back: I just yelled at them to shut up and do it themselves. Irritating.

As soon as PE ended Duo Geng ran to get me treated with cold compress and triangular bandage. With Jordan and Joey holding my stuff, Duo Geng piggy-backed me from ground to 5th floor single-handedly :X Even though I'm light it's still really heavy to do that right after he drained himself at training, and I'm really grateful for the three of them staying back to help me after PE :)

Things got bad to worst as I couldn't even concentrate on the math test with the pain, and the whole foot swelled till I couldn't move it without feeling sharp pains. By end of chem period I couldn't take it anymore, and Stef happened to drop by my class. He insisted that I was to get help immediately, so after much persuasion he got me to agree to let him fireman-lift me down to the 3rd floor to hobble to the sick bay. It was supposedly dangerous but Stefan made it safe, and I really thank him for that as well :) And Mrs. Tan has the habit of calling us "Friend!", it was very recognisable that I knew who it was before I turned around to see who called out to us.

Dad took me to Alexandra hospital, where I realised the hospitals are still stringent on checks in prevention of swine flu: temperatures were taken and we all had to wear face masks.

Random note: Talking on the phone with the mask on fogs my glasses up :X

Random note no.2: Wheelchairs aren't easy to maneuver when there are like dozens of people milling about with broken arms and headaches.

The waits for my consultation, my X-ray (scary, scary large overhead device swerving above my right ankle silently like a white-cloaked ghoul :X) and my re-consultation took really, really, really long. Apparently they were short-staffed because of an emergency, so the wait times got extended. I fell asleep in my wheelchair about 6 times :X and the TV was playing endless episodes of Mr. Bean over and over :D I guess laughter really is supposed to help the patients.

My doctor told me during the re-consultation that: nothing was cracked or fractured (thank god) but apparently I fell from the impact of the hockey stick and my body weight sprained my own ankle (such a stupid way to get injured) and I'm BANNED FROM CONTACT SPORTS for about 6 - 8 weeks. Great. I play two hockey matches and I'm out of it already. I'm also not allowed to attend PE for another 2 months, maybe I can again at term 3.

Friday

In total I've spent 37 hours and 10 minutes (and possibly 73 seconds) n my room. Not taking a step out, just basically transferring myself from the bed to my desk to the toilet and back to my desk. I actually like staying in my room for some reason, maybe I should become a hermit :O not like Li would ever let me though...so yea I won't.

Saturday

I got out of my room (yay.) for Chinese classes. Uneventful, but I was wishing I had a couple of throwing knifes at handy for some loud mouthed schoolmates about my foot. Hahah I met Sir Anthony who was grading the NCOs' footdrill mutual and the first thing he said was 'Wah you also paika D:" apparently Yong Liang is also injured and Yong Hwee chipped his nails. Agh.

I watched the NCOs have their drill mutual and accessed one of them. Agh, at the rate you'all are going, your scores are going to be really low even though accessed by our own officers. Remember what I told you'all about co-operation between IC and platoon: mutual respect for both parties and everyone will benefit :) I really, really hope you'all will push for high foot drill mutual scores and everyone will pass out with 2SG after Air Spec Course.

The Part Bs are flying the electric plane - when are you all ever going to start flying independently! I'm worried you guys won't have enough time to practice before the competition at SYFC in June. I nearly got injured by RJC softballers who decided to lob a ball over to Len and myself while I was talking to him, luckily both of us stepped back (actually, I stumbled, but still.) If not Sheryl would kill me again D:

OMG HIGHER CHINESE INTENSIVE STARTS THIS WEEK 10 periods of HCL in a week will kill!

Balthus

I'm painting on the walls, cause I'm the one that falls.

tumble with time

2009-05-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

Wednesday

On Wed the sec 4s had a really interesting activity - we had the Careerfest organised by the school, with JCs, Polys and unis setting up booths around the primary school hall.

After Mr Leong had his opening address and presenting gifts to the professionals and the institutions, we were left to go free-and-easy. I had to catch the career talk at 3.30 (I signed up for both engineering and teaching talks) so yea, I decided to attend the engineering talk because the speaker was external. I waited there for awhile and De Sheng came in to tell us he'd be either really late or is cancelling on us, so I ran over to the classroom where Mr. Fernendaz was just starting his talk on teaching. He asked me why I was considering the profession, I replied because it looked like one which was really fulfilling :)

Miss Tan came in as well and sort of, explained to us why Mr. Fernendaz was picked for the job of telling us the life of a teacher - it was because he was one of much passion in it and one with a BIG heart :D He shared with us the requirements, the unwritten ones as well such has having paitence and passion towards teaching all sorts of students, and about being a civil servant. I realised that teaching as a career branches out to many different routes of advancement, progressing from the classroom teacher. So yea, education could be one of my options to consider in the future, like as Mrs. Anna Tan suggested I should try out relief teaching first. The talk was great because Mr. Fernendaz was doing it and I learnt more about being a civil servant :D

We walked back together towards the hall to view the booths and Mr Fernendaz and I just chatted more about scholarships. Back in the hall I visited NUS' booth and could not understand much of what they told me, just the sound advice to choose my JC subjects wisely so as to be able to open the path to as many courses as possible in uni. VJC sounded kinda fun and interesting, can see why so many cat high guys end up going there. CJC talked more about fulfiling NYAA gold. RJC was kinda cold, the ex-cat high guy couldn't even speak, the teacher had to swoop in. Hmm. A better insight in the JCs, though.

Thursday

The only few things eventful about this long, draggy day was PE and Chem O level SPA.

We finished watching the movie of the novel, 'To Kill a Mocking Bird', which Mrs Yap so vehemently forbade us to watch before we finished studying the novel, and she was right about it: the movie did dilute much of the novel and it's content, it only captured the key events and dramatised on them, and people kept making fun of the actor for Tom and Mayella. It was really alot more dramatic then I pictured it to be when I read the book. Then after the attack on the children came the scene where we finally saw:

BOO RADLEY. GASP.

Okay we seriously didn't expect him to look like that. He seems too muscular and healthy looking to be the Boo in the book, Ivan was like saying there's a problem with the casting, showing the best looking character only for last :O

During PE we played hockey, finally getting into the game :D It's fun and very, well, in two games there were like 5 accidents, so yea. Duo Geng hit the joint above my ankle while I was on offensive :X hurt like nuts, but I carried on playing (then DG got hit in the nose by the ball :X He's okay now.) and only felt the pain during Amath later. Mrs Tan had someone go get a triangular bandage for me I made a cast out of it :D I'm still on the makeshift cast, though finally the vein which was swelling is subsiding. This is why I love first aid :D

Chem SPA was kinda uneventful, just that it hurt to go and get the reactants. I think at most I'd minus a mark or two for getting too low an enthalpy change.

And I have my own fair share of encounters with creepy, middle aged men who stand up when a bunch of cat high boys board the bus, squeeze inbetween us in the crowd and keep knocking into us, not getting off the bus anytime soon. Usually when someone stands up it's to give the seat to someone or to exit the bus, but notorious Mr. Bishan G on bus 156 did it to squeeze into the crowd. I was really pissed with him and exited asap.

Friday

After school I was talking with Wei Kit, Wei Xuan and Samuel about how to fill up our testimonial forms. I seriously got nothing to fill in under 'Aesthetics' :O

After that I went to study till 5, and just as I sat down Ernest joined me :D We were basically just talking and making notes. Two NCC air part As who had too much time on their hands with no training dropped by and talked to us, and decided to do PT for the fun of it. So enthu :O

For some reason Leong Shuan came by and talked to Ernest and myself. Apparently he was waiting for his peer mentor. He, erm, introduced me his form of metal music...which was rather...extreme. Even females singing d-e-a-t-h metal sound tortured with their low voices, and the drum beats at such fast frequencies. Just listening to the fast drums scare me D: and the song titles are all...gory, with the singers screaming practically every line. Ernest and I were freaked D: I think I like my form of metal alot, alot, alot better: symphonic metal and goth metal incorporate keyboard very often with slower drums, and all the lyrics are very clearly sung. And they are slow in tempo. Like Evanescence and Within Temptation :D Never will I go near anything heavy metal-ish ever again.

And I know I've heard that LS can do it, but I didn't believe it entirely until I heard him recite the whole, frigging periodic table infront of me according to mass, from Helium to Actinium, then moving on to the lower group from Cerium to Lawrencium. In perfect order :O I was like, dumb-founded. He couldn't say what memory technique he used, he said he 'just remembered for kicks'. Oh god. Then we memorised like, in groups as well, like reciting the halogens in order of reactivity. Now I'm freaked yet amazed o.o

When it was 5 I went down to the parade square to watch the 30th CHS NPCC batch graduate with Ernest and Chek Wei:

Sebastian was super smooth with the drill cane, it seemed so light yet he could whip it into 90 degrees under his shoulder in one movement :D

Mr Daniel Yong inspecting the GOH

Sebastian returning the drill cane, symboling their stepping down as the NCOs of 2008-2009.

Then came the best part of the short POP:

That was the freestyle drill performance they exited the parade with. After I heard the MC cueing the performance I quickly hobbled to join Damien and Shi Min on the second floor to film. It was amazing from my angle. They basically thanked the Sirs and Madam, formed a circle to do a CHS NPCC cheer, formed the number '30' as they slow marched out of the parade and threw their berets :D

I know that many of the 30th batch didn't choose NPCC as their CCA of choice back when we were sec 1, but look at them now. Even though not everybody was highly interested in NPCC, through their four years together they have come out to be the most bonded part amongst all the uniform groups, proudly being the 30th batch. It's all apparent in the video, for a part to rehearse together to pull off this freestyle drill performance for their grand exit, it really is amazing :D

I'm glad I'm friends with many of them and was able to watch them make their grand exit :)

Balthus

Time in a blink of an eye.

rushrushrushrush

2009-05-04T04:43:00.000-07:00

Sugar rush is BAD, seriously.
It may appear as an awesome idea to help you stay awake, as demostrated during class today when Ngiap Seng offered homemade cookies to Wei Yang and myself. SUGARRUSHSUGARRUSHMRRGGHHH we didn't bat a eyelid the whole chem lesson :D

It was only until nearing the end of the period did the effects start to fade and you start to slip into a drowsy, weak state. Until you fuel yourself once again with more sugar, that is ^^

Choon Searn is still the king in sleeping. Today, we watched him sleep while digging his bag for physics notes. Amazing, really is second to none. I wonder what he does till late at night, seeing that he isn't a crazy gamer like his partner is.

Are our O level papers really that late in the afternoon? We were told so during the EL Mock Paper 2 exam in the hall in the afternoon, that the O levels would be about that late as well. Gah, then we have to train ourselves to be alert in the morning AND in the afternoon. Without sugar. Great.

Oh and if some of you are wondering, I didn't bleach my watch or anything. I just got the same watch, but in alternate colours: It's now black on white instead of white on black, so yea. When I said "It's white black, not black white." after lit lesson to a friend, Mrs. Yap was giving me the 'Are-you-being-racist-like-in-To-Kill-A-Mocking-Bird' look ._. Mrgh.

Walking into school through the sidegate today was scary - teachers were like staring you down there with face-masks on, it's like walking through a imaginary X-ray where they try and sieve out anybody who looks remotely sick or flu-ish. I seriously got a shock when I turned in and nearly walked into one of them. Wonder what would happen if one of us walked in and gave just a -little- sneeze: they'd either shoot us instantly to 'eliminate the source', or body-bind us, stuff a mask on us, carry us with gloves on and throw us into a nearby ambulance on stand-by to be transported to the nearest water body :O

Too much imagination :X

Back to note-making!

Balthus

sugarsuagrsugar"girlyou'remysugar,IcallyouCandy~"sugarsugarsugarrush :D

Super Achievers Programme!

2009-04-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

I think many people have already heard of this seminar. It's called Super Achievers by the High Achievers Consultancy. Quite a number of schools had this seminar already, and according to the organisers at Cat High, St. Nicks had theirs last year and apparently their results sky-rocketed, so they decided to implement it in Cat High now.

I was still apprehensive about such seminars ever since P6 with the horror Adam Khoo one and the disaster it melted into. Apparently, he DOES throw a wine glass at every seminar at least once to create an impact, and he makes all students put their heads down and close their eyes and visualise themselves walking down long dark corridors and meeting their crying parents saying how disappointed they were in us and making the whole auditorium turn into a sobbing symphony.

So I was rather reluctant and rejected this course when it was offered. But Mr. Leong came to weed me out, strongly recommending me to go for it for I was a high risk student. So yea, pay by Edusave? Fantastic :D

And I'm glad! The course wasn't a total disaster like I thought it would have been resembling that of A.Khoo's four years ago. In fact, it was actually kinda fun and they teach study techniques :D They weren't just teaching about short term success, but put across quite a number of life lessons through games. Alot of the videos of games (for forfeits) are up on Facebook with Jeremy who was taking away with his iPhone. There was a classic mix of characters in the Coaches as well, and the lead coach Sabrina was super hyper and could actually relate to us, even Mr Tan agreed on that point when I spoke to him during breaks.

Yea, so I'm starting to apply things that I've learnt at the course. My DISC personality changed from last year, anyone care to try and guess what it is? :D

I'm getting the blogging syndrome. Maybe it was Super Achievers and the time management component - blogging should be under 4th quadrant of un-urgent and unimportant issues. So either I become like Liyana (who leaves her blog there to rot though its still is very nice to drop by and read for fun) or like D (who blogs in pictures!) or maybe Joel (who blogs in short paragraphs). Hmm.

Happy 16th birthday Mandy!

Start of another week. Let not the horrid mock HCL marks put me down :)

Balthus

I sing myself to sleep, and hoping my dreams bring you close to me :D

17.04.2009 Passing Out Parade

2009-04-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

17th April 2009.

I've had endless teasing from so many people about this day that my terms of service to NCC would finally cease.

I know I shouldn't be dreading, but there was that...draggy feeling that trailed my footsteps throughout Friday as I went about my lessons, especially with Zong Da and Don (during Double Chinese) who kept poking at me about it.

Finally, after Geog ended I rushed down to the store (I'm gonna miss doing that) to change into full no.3 and to meet Yuk Tim to mark the parade grounds. Thank you Ken and Daniel for coming to help as well. One full rehearsal for the parade followed after. I had quite abit to say to each part just before the real parade (I lost my script! It's somewhere in the store now.) but there was a time constrain, so yea, I'd say what I wanna say a little later on this post.

Then the parade started. In D's words, pictures paint a thousand words:
(There are a whole lot more photos up on our Facebooks in albums, go check it out there.)

These are the most significant moments to me during the parade:

Taking over the parade from the 2IC Wei Kit

All four contigents of CHS NCC (air) 2009 ready for the commencing of Passing Out Parade 2009.

Handing over the pacestick to the next Company Sergeant Major: Tsang Yuk Tim

And the sash with the CSM post tag follows. At that moment I was thinking how alike it was with Sir Warren and myself a year ago.

The change of command of the CSM.

The new Parade Commander giving his first commands to the entire unit.

The Guard of Honour of Part D'09 Seniors.

-then follows the hentataki cheer-

At the final stomp, I braced myself to conclude my NCC career in the same fashion as the many batches before us. Alot was going through my mind as I threw my beret upwards, I really don't know how to put it in words.

Then followed everybody's high spirits as we took photos :D Here are the new batch of NCOs with the Seniors (Wei kit, Myself, Wei Xuan, Yong Hwee, Yu Cheng, Jared) and Sir SP. Nicholas Wee what do you think you're doing :O

And the Part Bs with all the respective seniors as well! Where is Hui Yang looking? :O

This is my favorite photo from the whole lot. With all our great teacher officers, Mr. Jeffrey Goh, Mr. Julian Teo (where is he looking?), Mdm. Valerie Chua and Mr. Joshua Chan. And of course, the last time us Part Ds will be in one photo together in uniform. I'm going to miss them so much conducting trainings and camps together.

This was the evening sky right after the parade. I wonder if it means something. We had cake in the middle of the field!

I know I wasn't at my best during the buffet and waterbomb, there really was alot going through my mind about leaving the CCA. Never in my life have I put so much time, effort and stressed over an organization. I'm sorry if I seemed abit...unresponsive in the evening after dinner. I watched as the Part Ds went wild with dropping beret, throwing water bombs at one another, cutting the flag pole for the fun of it. Thanks everyone who comforted and talked to me while I was feeling down that night, like Sir Anthony, Stef and many others. And those who talked to me on the phone, especially my dear niece =)

The sec 3s got me a pencilbox from 77th Street, thanks guys =D it's really nice. And the sec 2s learnt that I draw (stalkers :O) and got me a sketchbook! And there was a card that came with it. Someone wrote in the card, translated from chinese: "A teacher to me for a day, A father to me forever." :O May I know who wrote that su yu?

I'm very thankful towards everything that NCC has given and taught me. Truth to be told, like how some of you already know, NCC (air) wasn't my first choice when I was in Sec 1. Mr Goh K.Y. suggested that I did not continue with table tennis, as the school team has already been filled with DSA players. He suggested I went for my 2nd choice, NCC (air), and he felt that I'd do well in it, who knows. Taking his advice, I joined the unit and have come this far. I really have to thank him for guiding me onto my right path at the moment of decision.

I spent my first year in NCC struggling to understand the concept and system of how NCC runs. Training after training with our Part A UDI (omg I cannot remember what he's name. But I remember his face very clearly as he spoke to us before his POP to do our best.) and screwing up our initiation parade like crazy. Then came Senior Wei Liang (thank you for coming down to our POP!) who was strict, and he used alot of mental punishments. I realised that psychological punishment hurts more than physical. Friday after friday of learning new drills, giving it all during PT and spending the weekends aching. Our very first Hell Night. Wei Liang, Si Chuan and the joker Qian Sheng. There was also the ASM Daryl who talked and taught me alot as well. I was surprised when I was chosen to received Best Part A Cadet. I'd always remember being a Part A fondly.

Then followed the next batch of NCOs. Under Senior John, everything became a whole lot harder. Many began to dread training as things took a turn to become super tough. Many of us viewed John as a terror, scolding us like crazy for every little thing, endless pumping and running like bad. We had many setbacks then as a unit, even resulting in one of us leaving as a CPL. I still recall Hell Night no.2. This is the year where we participated in alot of competitions and honed our leadership skills.

Then came the POP, where the 10th batch of cadets stepped down and the 11th stepped up. I took over as Company Sergeant Major and I admit - I felt really lost. Everything is so different in the viewpoint of an NCO, there is so much more to training and behind the scenes stuff that must be done. From a cadet's point of view I never knew there was so many details to take of such a simple activity such as drawing rifles. I really don't think I would have been able to conduct many trainings without the support of many of the NCOs, everyone of them who willing offered to help in any way they can. All the camps we organised and went through, nevermind the screwups, they were all stepping stones and lessons to learn from.

To the Part As: Best of luck, for now your NCC life really starts as you will learn all the basics of being a NCC cadet. It may be simple to learn, but difficult to master, but I'm sure you all will do your best. I have faith in Toh Hong to0 to maximise your capabilities, but only if you'all cooperate fully with him as well. And remember to greet out of respect for someone more experienced than you are, and not because you were forced to. Someday, you too would want your juniors to greet you'all out of respect as well.

To the Part Bs: Things are gonna get tougher and you know it. Being the most senior non-NCOs now, training will be more advanced and harder. You'd be participating in many competitions this year as well, so do your best in them all and make us proud. Learn as much as you can from the Part Cs, and guide the Part As as they begin their career.

To the Part Cs: Now being the NCOs of CHS NCC (air) 2009, you guys will be leading our unit to greater heights. Juniors will look up to you in direction, and much decisions will lie on your shoulders. Don't be afraid to make mistakes and ask for direction, you'd learn as you go along. I have much faith in your abilities to not only bring the unit up to getting Gold in BUC or top Air district unit, but to also maximise the potential of the juniors under your charge. Remember, Serve with Dedication, Lead with Pride.

To the Part Ds: I cannot thank you all enough for everything you guys have done for the unit. I won't forget all the endless Hell nights we went through, under different commands and how we push each other to attend trainings on Fridays. Then as NCOs, you guys carried out your duties willingly, even going out of the way to make things right for one another. The many camps we planned out and stayed through the night just for the heck of it, and all the sentry duties, playing the piano in the darkness, etc. All these photos of us are memories to keep, but I hope we can stay close friends forever :D Onward to great O level results!

To the officers: Thank you Mr Jeffrey Goh for all your guidance towards leading the unit, and Mr. Teo for all his constant reminders to eat lunch because I need to :O and about discipline. Mdm. Chua and Mr. Chan as well. And Sir Anthony, for his guidance in Sec 1, than again in Sec 2 leadership camp and mainly in Sec 3 as NCOs, and for talking to me after POP. And Sir Warren and Sui Peng as well for their guidance. There is also Sir Qin Zheng who gave much valuable advice during Leadership camp that I'd never forget.

A Part A cadet asked if he could buy my badges during the buffet dinner. I'm not amused. Seriously, working for and earning them is far more worthwhile. I wish all juniors a fulfilling NCC career ahead of them.

Well, this is from 3 and 1/2 years in NCC. Each and everyone of them holds a memory dear to myself. The one I treasure the most is actually the Swimming badge, which was a gift from Hui Yang because he knew I qualified to wear the badge but there was no stock in the store so he went to get it for me :)

This concludes my NCC career as an NCO. Primus Inter pares :)

Balthus

The best choice in my life.

Knew it

2009-04-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

Weekends again.

Wednesday's training was odd. For me it was mainly going through the POP plan and admin duties for passing over. Opening and closing parade had to be held twice by the sec 3s, odd. I don't wanna POP, but I know I have to D: For the sake of O levels, and it's high time sec 3s got to go through what we did as well.

Li and I went to watch this yesterday. In my opinion, don't watch the movie 'Knowing'. You'd know how it's going to end halfway through the movie.

Spoilers ahead! Don't read if you intend to watch it D:

I didn't like how they tried to merge science fiction with horror. Sure, supernatural as it may be that this one child prophesied all the major disasters in the world for the next 50 years, stating the number of people who died and the exact location of the disaster. [Is it me, or do I always see Nicholas Cage starring in supernatural movies as such?] And well, the protagonist found this letter written by a girl 50 years ago full of numbers (which he accidentally found out it's a prophecy) and he attempted to stop the next 2 disasters (which he failed of course. Because they are bound to happen, and no one listens to him.) The movie sure was right about disturbing scenes, like Lucifer (the little girl who prophesied) writing numbers on the door in blood and scratching her nails into them in the opening scene, people running about burning in flames after a plane crash and another bunch being run over by a train gone off rails (the predicted disasters).

And eventually, apocalypse is going to come into the picture. Somehow. This time, he found at the end of the letter was the words 'EE', which later he found out stood for 'Everyone Else'. In this movie it was in the form of a nova blast from the nearest star (the sun) which was going to deep fry the earth. And Nicholas thought there was something he could do (by going to the place Lucifer tried to scratch on the door) but he got interrupted as usual. And he had to give up his child (who was being salvaged by these creepy looking angels) and while hugging his family in the middle of their living room, the world blew up.

Like -boom-. Kind of like volcanoes under every patch of earth erupted simultaneously. That's it. Everyone died. No twist, no struggle for survival, they all just stood there accepting it.

What I didn't like was the attempt of making it freaky yet holding back. Like all those creepy, pale faced silent people who apparently whisper to the children (and turns out these people were celestial beings). They kept appearing, disappearing, leaving stones everywhere, and eventually bring capsules down and salvaging Chosen ones around the world before the apocalypse.

In my opinion, maybe it's worth watching on TV, but really worth the money spent in the theatres because of the storyline. The special effects showing all the climatic scenes were great though. I prefer the other Cage movie "Next" where he could see into the near future and it seemed like they failed in the end until there was a twist right at the last moment that I rememebered made the whole theatre go 'AWWW.' Another nice supernatural sci-fi movie would be The Day The Earth Stood Still. There was still a apocalypse, but there was a struggle to go against it, a twist, and the world pulled through. And everybody learnt a lesson that violence wasn't the solution to everything. Happy endings are nicer, yes?

I just don't wanna know what's going to happen at the end half way through the movie D:

OMGOMGOMG WHEELOCK PLACE FIGURINE SHOP HAS DISSIDIA FIGURINE :DDD I saw a Warrior of Light figurine there for $20! :D Was staring at it for so long until Li came again and we had dinner there. Will miss her, have a safe flight back D:

When the next week comes, all I can think of is POP. Sigh, it'd be a closure to our NCC career. Lemme try and remember all the NCC camps:

Camp FEAST - [Stitch 2] Nothing spectacular. Only I remember getting scolded for sitting straight and diam-ing while waiting for things to happen because it was supposed to be a 'fun camp'.

Spec Course - [Hurricane 2] Where things got serious. Mutual lessons, teaching and teaching, Madam Fateha yelling at us. Meeting David :D Sir Taufiq yelling "SERGEANT CHAN." when I made a mistake :X hmm. Celeste yelling right in my face as soon as she became IC, and her shouting for me to get the broom. And RGS air taking like 75% of the awards, dominating the Air Spec Course. And Sir Taufiq taking his time and questioning me as he presented my 2SG with the RSAF-NCC badge. Running down the HQ road yelling YYYYEEEESSSS.

National Camp - [Alpha!] The most awesome camp. I'm so glad I was sent to it, where we made so many new friends over the course of 4 days. Well, technically this was a NPCC camp. And our sirs and madam and CO were all NPCCers, they put in so much effort to make it fun! :D I still have my loved cap from Sir Rizwan. And without this camp I wouldn't have met people like Li, Bryan, Xinhui, Jeffrey, Lizzie, Lingesh, D, and so many many more :D

Senior Spec Course - [Echo 2] Gah separated from all CHS guys. But I met Jeffrey and Joel who made my SSC really, really crazy. Take one nutty person and put him inbetween two equally crazy people, and you get chaos :D All the lessons, the teasing in the bunks, the chanting of 'Lanyard, lanyard, lanyard, lanyard' at the graduation ceremony, Sir Alfred donning my lanyard :D And yes putting the rank on our left and going 'SSOO HHEEAAVVYY".

Camp Pinnacle - [Hotel 2] Where everyone was so bored we went high. It was 5 whole draggy days of visiting military institutions, hardly anything physical but more of exposure to a military career. Where boredom comes nuttiness, put Joel + Me = whole platoon twiddling their thumbs at every waiting opportunity. Training thumb muscles! There came the 'rubber-band' art as well as everyday we eat packet meals and there is so many rubber band everywhere people start making rubber band balls and tying nets with them. We Alaka-Bonto-ed our way through the performance too :D This is where I too met Mandy while the Air cadets were grouped together. Joel and I were chanting 'Badge, badge, badge, badge' when they were presenting us the Camp Pinnacle badge :D

4th Advanced Drill Course - [Platoon 1 - Nighthawks!] Well, I did blog about this camp recently. It's still fresh in my mind, all the scolding and all the fun while learning :D

Ahh, and now they are all memories to keep. POP seems so near now.

Balthus

They assert our individually, for memories are truly of our own.

Preparations

2009-04-03T07:03:00.000-07:00

Beautiful :D

Something happened today that was totally hilarious, I'm still laughing in the inside :D

I met Clarence at recess on the way back to class and shouted out "CHIA." Clarence took one look at me and bolted. Confused, I gave chase and we ran down the corridor until he turned into the staircase. I ran after him and up the steps, until my classmate said Clarence was seen running down. Sly him :O I ran back down and caught him! =D

I wanted to talk to him about his probational training, then I realised he ran because he's scared I'd whack him...for forgetting to bring the contact lists to distribute during training. Again. I'm gonna kill you :D

Geography quiz on Tuesday was quite fun :D We went to ACJC and sat at the LT to take a 30 MCQ test on East Asia Geog. Turns out to be a game of luck - I have no idea about the facts question like names of tribes! Dawn was there for her school as well :) Gah, we didn't even advance to the 2nd round. But watching the other schools on stage (and the defending champions fffaaaiilllliinnnggg :D) was rather entertaining and educational. And I was betting for ACSI to win, while Zong Da was like "NANYANGNANYANG". Nutter. It's a good experience, my first inter-school quiz!

Something is seriously wrong with Kua Choon Searn. He is the most. amazing. sleeper. He can drink water and snooze in the middle of a lit poem test with the bottle on his lips. He can dig his bag for notes and fall asleep in that position. He can fall asleep while writing on his paper. I won't be surprised if he was sleeping during his 2.4km run. Maybe he sleeps in drama. Won't it be so cool if he falls asleep while saying a line of his? :D

Oh god, the new CMC shirt is....oh god. It's yellow. That's it. Just bright, SUPER BLINDINGLY bright YELLOW. Apparently it's suppose to show our 'energy' (trying finding some in me :D) and represent our badge colour. Why. WHY YELLOW? All the Sec 4 chairmans were like commenting on how we look like bananas or people in trenchcoats somewhere in London. Great. There goes $12 on a shirt you'd never catch me wearing for no good reason.

The Affirmation ceremony for the Sec 1s was a success :D Have to thank many guys who made it smooth and possible: Ernest and Kun Liang for Emcee-ing it, Ernest for his superb IT skills, Yong Liang and the Sec 3 Part B UDI and Specs to be (Toh Hong, Jacob, Daniel and Ken) for helping me teach the Sec 1s how to do pledge taking in such a short time. Keefe, De Sheng and other NCC land NCOs for their support to help :D We sang the NCC song, then viewed the NCC Corporate Video, Mrs Chua gave her speech, I conducted the NCC pledge (feels weird to shout in the LT o.o), they signed themselves in, we had the national anthem, and done :D Welcome, new Part As to the NCC family. heh heh ^^

Sir Anthony visited us and Sir Sui Peng kept making fun of his REC rank XD Gosh, the new no.4 is D: the pixelised uniform looks odder at close up, especially the little flap where you place your rank on the centre of the uniform o.o Not looking forward to it, seriously.

I spent most of the rest of the training speaking to Yuk Tim about his duties and taking over. He's going to be a great USM :)

Li is in town~! :DDD

rainbow rainbow rainbow. It came, high above over our heads, clear to all :D

Balthus

leave an impact; make it count.

Basic Airborne Course

2009-03-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

An urgent announcement for CHS NCC (air) Part D's 09.

HQ is offering the Basic Airborne Course for Part Ds from 4th - 20th June. I'm sure you all know what Airborne is: (A is for Airborne! I is for In the Sky! R is for Ready! etc. etc.) This is quite a rare chance, the only chance after this would be as an Cadet Officer.

Though I doubt many of you will be interested, seeing that if you attend it, you'd be missing like 298574395294590 holiday remedial lessons leading up to the Prelim 2. If any crazy NCO is interested (currently only crazy Gary and Wei kit) please tell me by the end of this week, Friday the 3rd April.

One prerequisite: You must be 16 years of age by 4th June. If not, join me and concentrate on studies during that period instead of rappelling down helicopters :)

Geography quiz at ACJC tomorrow! Back to workworkworkworkwork.

Balthus

we can be more than just amazing.

ADC the amazing

2009-03-19T06:36:00.000-07:00

And, ta-da.

Along with close friends David and Mandy, we've passed out of 4th Advanced Drill Course as full-fledged Supernumeraries :) They eventually decided to allow Part Ds to attend the course as well. I didn't expect to make many friends there as well, maybe it's because I alone donned the Cat High logo, no other CHS cadet or CLT :(

Day I

I rushed to Toa Payoh MRT only to be stopped from walking to HQ, but instead to take the shuttle bus. The catch? The shuttle bus would only move when it was full, and I ended up getting there late, and made Miss Mandy wait for me for about 40 minutes, which I'm VERY SORRY for ): I owe you two, I know.

Reporting at the MPH, I reported into Air district and was sent to Platoon 1 Section 4. Everything proceeded smoothly until we got to block 246 and we placed our belongings into a bunk on the 2nd floor in 5 minutes. Apparently we took too long. How did I know? I was standing in the front row and I could clearly see my PC asking "Okay, are you done? Good. BBLLOOODY HELL. *flings admin book*" I seriously was shocked o.o I felt like in Part C again. He was ranting about forgetting about breezing through this course, in the most prestigious of NCC camps, and I clearly remember he ended off with "Welcome to ADC, guys."

Still shaken, we marched back to MPH where SM conducted Course Opening. Then followed the Ice Breakers with Mdm. Corrinne, my section com. There's Wee Ting in my section from Camp Pin, and also David and Joel Matthias! In my platoon there's also Haiqal from Nat. Camp Alpha and Wei Yang from Camp Pinnacle. Madam didn't really know how to conduct Ice breakers as it was her first camp :X HA JOEL IS THE ONLY GREEN BERET IN OUR SECTION. For once the Majority is the Minority. Oh and I met Ariessa and Hakim then too.

Sergeant Major De Silva had a lesson on Managing Parades and Ceremonies and inspection points, and we went onto the parade grounds to watch the demostration of a formation of parade, just like in SSC. The lessons were punctuated with breaks in which David, Ariessa and I talked and David kept playing with my guilt strings.

Pull-ups was kinda easy, did 7 counted ones. After a quick dinner we settled down in our bunks and had bunk inspection - not too bad, we passed on the first round.

During night snack, Sir Romario explained his intentions of making us being the top-notch, and we adopted the name Nighthawks. I did not fully understand why then, but I do now :) I remember clearly before he sent us off to bed, he promised to make sure that regardless if we pass or not, we'd all learn more than the hard skills from this course.

Day II

I awoke to the violent shaking of my bedpost from David climbing down from the upper deck, feeling horribly drained. Thank god for morning PT, it shook me away with the fun jog around HQ :D

One draw-back. My voice progressively deterioriated into a state where my shout became a croak. Gah I sounded like a choked pipe and everytime I drink water, David and Ariessa cannot help laugh but watch me choke on it going down the wrong way nearly all the time. I'm not, not going to report sick. Mrgh.

There were lessons on the theory of foot drills and marching drills by SM in the MPH once again, and as soon as the rain cleared up we went down to lower parade square where we did super basic footdrills. This is where we addressed the problem of school units teaching even basic drills differently. We didn't have a standardisation for quite a number of timings, and 'Eyes Right' (Kekenan rurous) has been changed by HQ. Again. This means we have to re-teach our school units. Timing for 'Opening of squad' (Dalang puku barisan, gerak/kekenanrurous) and 'Moving squad' (Lima Langa Kekiri..) has been changed as well. Mrgh.

I'm also going to have to teach 'Hormat Kekiri'. First time I'm hearing it o.o It's bascially the same as hormat kekenan. Mdm. Corrinne could hardly understand anything I was saying because my voice cut off at the most inapproriate of times. "Madam, I said I --- , and -- the drill." "HUH?"

Spoke to Jeffrey, Ridhwan of Ngee Ann and Mandy during lunch. It's too bad they're in a different platoon :( After lunch we had planning for Cohesion night - it's a project for the CLT platoon as part of their training. I didn't really speak much, the only person who could understand or hear me was Ariessa as she explained to me what they planned to pull off in the skit o.o

There followed a lesson on badge placement by SM (changes AGAIN. Mrgh.) And due to the rain, we had to bring in theory for flag drills and sword drills as well. It wasn't much, you can't teach drills in words, you need to learn to imitate the action. It was more the learning of the parts of the drill item so as to speak the common language. When Cat 1 cleared, we had a lesson on the marking of parade grounds. We followed SM around the parade square as he used the pacestick to mark very key appointment holder's position with tape. I didn't realise how bad the sun was until it the next day :X

There followed a little more footdrills, then I did 7 pull-ups and dinner followed =) Cohesion night followed, but I wasn't the crazy hyper self Jeffrey thought I'd be :X I blame the stupid cold. The MCs were on high, dragging people up onto the stage to dance to the music from their iPods, playing treasure hunt which ended up having us remove our shoelaces and watch performances from our platoons which were all horridly rushed as they were prepared in less than a day. Ours was more like a....imitation of Sir Romario on day one. I could see Sir R trying to run away already but all the CLTs were pinning him down to watch the whole performance :D

We all were sent back to bunks right after night snack. Haha I felt kind of happy and relieved that night. We went back to bathe and in the toilet we had a close encounter with a crisis. Someone walked into a cubicle to take a dump, but when he closed the door the message on it read 'Cubicle Floods When Flushed' When I read it I was like O.O "Oh no." *hammerhammerhammerhammer* "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT IT'D FLOOD" and other people realised what was going to happen and started yelling as well and he got out looking all confused. Thank god he hasn't started. After my bath I went back to write appraisals with David and Wei Yang and fell asleep.

Day III

I awoke to my own coughing. Great.

During morning run, I was right beside Ariessa. The whole platoon were to run in step. I felt quite okay, the only problem was that I couldn't sing and run at the same time, I'd end up choking on my breath. When we settled for breakfast, Ariessa was just sitted near me in sight and she seemed perfectly fine.

However when we were falling in I didn't realise what the commotion was when there was shouting and frantic movement. Then I spotted people carrying a apparently unconscious person up the steps back to the canteen. I felt a sense of dread when I saw the person who followed closely behind carried Ariessa's pink bottle D:

Her collapse caused a real big ripple across HQ, and the whole platoon could feel it. We were all worried sick back in our bunks as we changed into half uniform. I felt quite horrid as well, but I couldn't identify any negative symptoms the whole time right before her collapse - she seemed perfectly fine until that short period of time when we were all moving in a crowd to fall-in.

After drawing rifles we marched back to MPH and caught a glance of Ariessa conscious in the back of Encik's car, hopefully being sent back to bunk. That was some comfort.

There was a little lesson on arm drills, then it was practical. Mdm. Corrinne wasn't around, so Staff Ridhuwan took over. Everything was the same as SSC, so it wasn't too hard, only remembering which command goes with which move was a little tough, and homat senjata :X

Lunch followed, then it was colours drill. Again, taught by our platoon sergeant Staff. It wasn't easy, the pole is heavy @.@ and aiming it into the pouch without looking takes practice. David and I kept going for the heavy pole just for the kicks. We did basic drills like hoisting the flag and marching with it, and taking it down. Ariessa rejoined the Nighthawks and was learning under Sir Romario, we were all glad she didn't OOC.

While waiting to draw swords, I saw Mandy taking the theory test then remembered we had yet to revise :X Sir Romario told us Sword Belt parts would be tested and we all studied like nuts about the belt (memorised and memorised every little nitty grit of that belt) but it never came out (the scabbard came out instead. Lesson learnt :X)

After waiting around long enough, we finally gathered to learn the theory of the sword drills. It took some time before it was my turn to don a glove and carry a sword 8D Sir Shafiq took the time to individually watch us draw the sword, carry it, salute with it and correct us one by one. It's not easy keeping it so perfectly straight and controlled when saluting, but it was an amazing experience to be practicing sword drills :DDD

The sunburn started to kick in. When we wipe sweat from our forehead, it hurts. And when we squint in the pain, our brows fold and it hurts more in a cycle of pain :P

THEORY TEST FOLLOWED. I managed to fill in most of the blanks in 10 minutes, they were mainly about qualities of a instructor and purpose of drills and inspection points. The 2IC Madam was going around hinting to us about the answers - she helped me with two questions by making me fill in the blanks of her sentence. Thank you :D

We marched back to change to PT kit, we had our PT test :D I did 8 but the last 2 pull ups didn't get my chin over the bar, so the end result was 6. I didn't know kicking was allowed! Mrgh. But at least 6 is one of the highest, and with no kicks is something I should be proud of. I'm glad I could do 6 even with the stupid flu.

Dinner followed. Then SM talked to us once more about the answers to the theory test, and it was graduation ceremony briefing, and playing around with many many MMMAANYYY 'claps'. Supper was kinda fun. Because I'm sheltered, warm, and happeh :D

Back at bunk, we all made fun of Joel on the phone with a 'classmate of his' while we set up our No.3. "JOEL stop hogging the lighters and pass them to me!" "Joel want some Ice?" Just for the heck of embarrassing him on the phone :D

Day IV

I awoke to the sound of odd rumbling and I thought it was Joel. Turns out it was rain instead. Mrgh we awoke for morning PT but ended up packing and cleaning bunk and chatting with one another due to wet weather. PT was canceled: I couldn't sit aside and laugh at the others running and choke on my own breath while coughing. I finally understood what the cheer Purple Light meant - the sky was so beautifully purple at early dawn :D

We had breakfast and then it was a Platoon AAR. I wasn't really listening, headache was striking ever so badly. I swear, washing your face in water has healing properties o.o

Then it was the Course AAR, in which SM addressed all the issues. Nothing much.

Phototaking was painful. Painfully long. The Platoon photo was okay, it was the Course photo (guys) that was a pain. We all arranged in a row by height. All the guys. Imagine how long a line that was. Imagine how squeezy it was with everyone back to chest. I ended up sitting on the floor infront of the OIC in the pic. I'd get the pic from the NCC site when it's up.

The last lunch followed, then it was Graduation ceremony rehearsals. Sat with David, Ariessa and Joel. The ceremony wasn't much, it was after that's more important :D The only thing significant that made me laugh was the MC saying 'Please remain SITTING as we sing the NCC song' when everyone stood up to invite the GOH :D Classic.

It felt like SSC again, just different as Mdm. Corrinne slowly donned the lanyards down the row. She stared at my contorted face, "If you're happy don't hide your smile." HAHA I didn't have to ask for permission to smile unlike in SSC: "Sir, permission to smile." "Granted." :DD Gold and white lanyard! Sir Romario explained that we were to put on the Supernumerary tag on the right sleeve of our NCC-related shirts.

Then we went WWWILLLDD. We grabbed Sir Romario and started tossing himup and down in the field. No grudges held, he really did keep his promise from Day I. Then the CLTs decided to diam us all and attack out no.4s by pulling down the sleeves D:

At refreshments I went to thank Mdm. Corrinne, and congratulated Jeffrey and Mandy, but somehow they ended up writing on my hand. Jeff wrote '58th CLT Course!" and Mandy wrote her name o.o Nighthawks did more crazy cheers and Sir Romario had his final words before we Besu-rised. Ahh. I took the same bus home with Ariessa, apparently she lives just opposite me.

Lessons learnt from camp?

-Never to trust everything that has been told; question credibility: From the theory test 'hints'. Sir Romario was trying to throw us off by giving us false information.

-Safety in groups; always watch surroundings: Ariessa's collapse caused a big impact on HQ and SM told us the importance of always being aware of the people around us, and that the impact of any run will take place within half an hour after it has ended (like her collapse).

-Being flexible to change: We don't always have control over everything, like the weather, per se. One has to make do with the situation at hand.

-Reinforcement on the idea of leading by example: As Sir Romario emphasized: we cannot expect our cadets to do what we ourselves cannot achieve.

People who made it special:

David - I don't remember how many camps we've been in the same section :D He kept trying to get me to report sick ever since I was down with flu, and helped me with note-taking during SM lessons. And slept a bed above me! We talked and talked and I thought he was talking in his sleep until I hit him and realised he was on the phone. He was also very encouraging and know how to talk me into doing stuff o.o

Mandy - Ahh she wasn't in the same platoon :X But she was really encouraging :) I'm so so sorry I made you wait for me for so long, I know I owe you two ;) Ahah we kept relaying an inside joke and communicated mainly through sign language (because we couldn't speak often, and I sound like a choked pipe :X), but I'm glad she pulled through and graduated successfully as well :D

Jeffrey - TWIDDLE. Haha he also cheered me up by twiddling thumbs and doing more inside jokes, and he was really concerned when I fell sick (he could tell, I wasn't my usual crazy self) He helped me quite abit too :) And chanted "Lanyard, Lanyard" without me around :X And ended up writing '58th Cadet Officer Course' on my palm after graduation. It's SSC all over again :D

Joel - Crazy bunkmate back from India :D It's SSC all over again with him around, the only green beret in P1S4. We spoke quite abit as we haven't met in awhile, and he was always a volunteer. Cannot forget how we keep poking at him while he's on the phone with 'a certain classmate' :D

Ariessa - Miss. Potential USM of Bartley Air :) I really admire her courage in joining a adventure CCA full of outdoor activities with her chronic medical conditions. She's super cheery and understanding of problems (that she learns of super quick o.o) and talk me into action. For some reason she reminds me alot of my niece. Her collapse was really worrying. Congrats for passing out of one of the toughest NCC camps :D

Hakim - our bunk IC =D Although he may be a CPL, he's drills are really good as well. And he really wants to learn, asking us about no.3 and helping him all the cheers we know so he can go back and teach his unit. A really nice fella in our section.

Officers - Sir Romario, Sir Raj, Sir Gerald, Sir Shafiq, Mdm. Corrinne, and Sir Hafez. And platoon sgt. Staff Ridhuwan. Ahh, even though Sir Romario was super hard on us on the first day, he explained his rational to us on the same day - for us to be the best of our abilities, to push boundaries and learn many lessons that could never be taught by word. They all know and have taught us the concept of being serious and joking at the right place and time, that learning can be fun as well if done correctly :) Thank you all for making us work for this lanyard: it's worth more to us with our sweat in it.

And to remember:

I am a Supernumerary of the National Cadet Corps
I serve with pride and dedication

I will ensure a high standard of dicipline
and maximise the potential of those under my charge

I will overcome all odds
and uphold the prestige of a Supernumerary

And: As a person, I may not be able to change the world. However, I can change the world for one person ~ SM NCC

And the list of CRAZY CLAPS, some courtesy from Mandy's list:

Course RSM
*clap* Course! Lower down your volume! *clap* Course! Lower down your volume! Second time I'm telling you all already! *clap* Course, DIAM!

Course OIC
*clap* Where's my strength? *clap* Course, listen up! *clap* Baguuuuus~

Course 2IC
*clap* Don't pangseh me ah! *clap* The toilet over there! *clap* Ah-dugan!

Encik Mathy
*clap* Dehhhhh! *clap* Koteh! *clap* CLT!!!

SM NCC
*clap* Are you clear? *clap* Kanasai! *clap* I'd KICK your ass!

Best:
Sir Romario
*clap* Are you done? *clap* BLOODY HEEELL! *clap* The blue gate over THERE! [ultimate clap] *clap* I failed a Master Sergeant before! [All quoted from the few phrases he kept saying on Day I]

NIGHTHAWKS :D

When I got home, I looked up what exactly a nighthawk is. "The male Common Nighthawk has a dramatic booming display used during the breeding season. He flies around at a moderate height, then dives straight toward the ground. Somewhere just about two meters from the ground he turns upward. At the bottom of the dive he flexes his wings downward, and the air rushing through his wingtips makes a deep booming sound. The dives are directed at females, young nighthawks, intruders, and even people."

Now I know why Sir Romario wanted us to imitate the nighthawk: regardless of size, be fearful of none to take the dive with a lasting impact.

And Nighthawks we'd be :D

Balthus

a lie for the sake of my pride

round and round

2009-03-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

End of the week, start of the holidays. So as it says on the calendars.

NOT true for S4s.

Such a drama week. O level Physics SPA was really easy this round, I was quite happy at the end of it.

Friday was hectic. Crazy even. I joined like another 130 S4s down to the audi for the Motivational Talk by The Principal. Mr Lee came down and in his super enthu-ness had many of us state our absurdly high L1R5s. He showed videos, and talk about strategies and plans to lay out, mostly mental ones like first establishing that we're not entirely hopeless, and to set goals to halve our L1R5s by next Prelim, not scoring the 6 just yet. Small steps with little victories. It was quite helpful, I suppose. Why did I have to miss Math and Chinese for it though :( Why, why couldn't it have been double English I missed?

After recess there was a quick physics lesson then it's admin time - report books. Not fantastic, at least I was prepared beforehand. And I realised my class eats fast, there was no pizza left when I got to the canteen. Suits me - I took one sip of Coke and offensive comments shoot.

I rushed for training because I had a make-up Math lesson :X It was NCO-Post interview. No opinions here for now - it's entirely confidential.

I watched our very 1st Freestyle drill team practice they performance later. The steps were really good, the only problem was the coordination and the time taken. Wished them best of luck for the competition the next day. They tried their best, and even though we didn't win anything, I'm proud of their greatest efforts. And for NCOs Samuel our instructor, and Wei Xuan and Gar Wye for helping the team so much ^^

Parent-Teacher meeting after that. Was...alright, I suppose. I whole heartedly support Stef's mom, whom Stef said she'd hit the photographer if she could (Shawn going about with the stupid camera) for taking her picture talking to a parent without permission. I'm no No.3 as well as he took me with my parents :X wtf.

After classes on Sat I had a Dissidia face-off with Edison with Matthew's PSP, and face-off with Matthew with Edison's. Yes, when I play I'm a crazy gamer :D Dissidia is an awesome FF game, you can fight each other on and on without getting bored too quickly ^^

Last night, my bro thought there was a baby fox wandering outside our house, pacing back and forth. I went to investigate and found this little dog:

It was so unkept and hungry. We quickly took her in and groomed her (hair EVERYWHERE) We looked it up, she's a toy-breed dog, a German Spitz. We fed her and set a box for her to sleep in for the night out of the rain, but she wanted to roam about for awhile.

Look at her walk - she's super delicate :D The little lady even knew how to lift her head as I groomed her front. Nevertheless we let her go to sleep, intending to bring her to SPCA the next day.

Velvet got a hell of a time at Obedience classes. We learned out to drain his energy by making him run left right centre swing a piece of leather. He was really stubborn there and the trainers had to break into him the hard way. Mrgh.

When we got home I fed and set the German Spitz walking and a nearby neighbour lady came by and demanded to know why I had imprisioned her. I asked if she was the owner, and she said yes, that her dog usually goes walking about like this for the past 20 years (Dad and I knew she was bull-shitting, dogs have a life span of 15 years max. And this one was about 2 years old.) and she condemned us for being new and not knowing. We apologised for dabbling and said we won't bother her dog anymore. After we left the dog out she had her back turned and the dog went off the the opposite direction. By the time she turned back she questioned where her dog was. Sigh. I hate neighbours like that. But I'm not too bothered - I saw the dog home. As long as it's okay.

Advanced Drill Course tomorrow. I'm going alone in Cat High - I learnt that De Sheng backed out, as his teachers were all unable to make plans with him to catch up, so I'm going to be the only Supernumary in CHS S4 :X I'm so glad I have great teachers. Be back on Thurs!

Balthus

You may not see it now, but I can. because I believe so.

Cycles.

2009-03-11T05:37:00.000-07:00

It's odd.

Four years ago, I was a stressed-out P6 student who studied day in and day out. One fine morning, I was called down to the auditorium (Ai Tong had a auditorium? o.o I only realised that day) for a talk by -mumblemumble-. Yea, my teacher mumbled the name, I couldn't hear who it was. So I just went down with...Zhi Xin. Yes I still remember he came down with me. In the audi I saw this man in blue shirt and black pants, and when we settled he started speaking of his school. We then realised it was a school-promotion talk (like a couple of other schools slightly before this).

This man talked about (I remembered -very- clearly) a story about using clay as an analogy of a student. He spoke of his teachers being the craftsman, and he shaped the clay into a pot. Then, he put the pot into a baking oven, and turned the temperature up. The pot (talking pot!) protested much, yelling to be let out. But the craftsman refused, saying "A little while longer." The pot kept protesting and whining in the heat but the craftsman kept consoling the pot and refusing to stop. Finally, the timer sounded, and the craftsman took the pot out. It was solid, firm, and beautiful, should he have been taken out any earlier it wouldn't be this well-done.

This man compared the clay to being a student being drilled and burned and fried and cooked and...(okay enough analogy) by our teachers, and we shouldn't protest, for the teachers know what they're doing and will eventually mold us into the best that we can be. As a P6 child I didn't understand Mr Lee's story till later. Didn't really make much of a difference to my decision, I had already set my eyes on Catholic High.

It's just that now that I'm told I'm sent down for the Sec 4 Motivational Talk For The Underacheivers Of The Level (made the title up) on Friday. Mrs. Yu Lin warned us all about it. I don't know what to expect, but it just reminded me of P6. Seems like Mr Lee will be speaking to me on the year of another major exam.

Dustdustdustdust. Where the hell do they come from in the first place?

Why, oh WHY did the fire evacuation drill have to coincide with my FREE PERIOD. Mrgh. I heard the bell, cursed, left my stuff and locked the store, ran up to the staffroom to collect the class card, ran down to the field to see my class strolling and have everybody line up. There goes my free period.

And I realised that I only remember the smoke rolling in from the stage and into our faces during assembly. Everything esle in my mind is all foggy (haha.)

Please do check the Air Store board for messages put up by me regarding CIP this Sunday and 2-star kayaking course.

This Friday sure will be interesting. Special activities throughout the whole day till late.

Balthus

I took their smiles and made them mine.

One (More) Week.

2009-03-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

Well.

My grades suck. Big time. Everything was a mediocre pass (in the case of chem, a mediocre fail. Odd, seeing that it was the subject I spent the most effort on). And it gets ironic, I'm one of the top scorers in Lit, yet my English ended up with a C6 this round (Brandon is highly convinced my English was just fluxuating, I really hope so. I'm usually B3-A2 standard.) Gah. I'm going to come up with a study plan, I must must must continue to aim for RJC :D

Tuesday was Wei Kit's 16th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY. After school I met up with Mandy to go to HQ for ADC briefing. We arrived at 3.50, met De Sheng, found out that Keefe isn't coming for ADC D: Then we queued. Oh boy. I don't know how many queues we got into (queue for signing in, queue for surrendering handphone, queue for attendance, etc.) And by the time we went into the audi for the brieifng by SM, it was FIVE. SM called us "Latecomers" D:

Word of advice: If you have to go to HQ for a major briefing, be there like half-hour before stated time. For your own sanity.

Wed's training was.....Haaa..

I really should not have taken these right before training, but Jared was so intend on seeing me high. They weren't too bad, the alcohol was bitter-sweet and I felt my headache disappear and slightly light-headed. Then it came back and doubled the pain =X

STAND BY UNIVERSE. Oh gosh.
I underestimated Mr Teo's attraction to dust. He can find dust in the most inconspicuous corners of the store. As neat as it seems (the store was neater than I ever saw it o.o), we still got about 50 errors (rounded-down) and paid for them :X Mr Teo's other ability besides being able to find dust anywhere is that he can also tell when I did not eat lunch (but only heavy recess), as he pointed out to me again on Wed.

Sir Anthony took a final photo with the batch he saw through, from us being Sec 1s and him being our Part A spec, to now as NCOs and him getting ready to enter NS.

We'd miss his mentorship greatly, in nearly every camp, taking over as NCOs, prep before Spec course, and the many more. From basics of teaching us falling-in to leading a company of 80 odd people.

And he bought the NCOs pizza in which we 'yam-seng'ed with it, except we yelled AAAAAAAAAAAAAA- OOOOONNNNNEEEEEEE (yucheng: and you B! you C! me, A!)

We'd miss ya greatly. Do take care in the hospital before you go to NS.

Velvet can fetch now :D

Chem SPA assessment was actually kinda fun, I admit.

Truth or Dare isn't much fun to play because we all end up telling the truth to one another. We rather hear each other spill the beans rather than see each other play pranks on one another and end up lying on the floor bleeding XD

Cross-country on Friday was fun. Though I really should have thought it out before the day itself: I found myself rushing to 3 places at once on the day itself. I wanted to brief the NCC air marshals on duty; had to report for competitor run for S4; had to collect valuables and short vice-chair meeting. Mrgh. Some competitor was saying like "You win liao lor."

My competitive run wasn't fantastic. I wanna see the pictures from it though, Stef and I punched hands infront of the camera while running by. Now that's inter-house friendship :D
JOSHUA WORE A LICENCE PLATE ON HIS BACK AS HE RAN courtesy to Stef. I wanted to take a pic but I surrendered my phone before the run =X We ended up going to the end line and smacking hands with about anybody who sprinted by.

Chris and I were super sad - no medals D: But nevermind, there's always..SPORTS NIGHT :D Congrats Hui Yang on your double medal win ^^

Oh, just a little warning. If any sec 1, 2 or 3 outside NCC try and shout 'Knock it down' or 'recover' or any other orders to my cadets, don't expect me to be nice. That kid from English Drama got away after yelling 'recover' and 'carry on' after he heard me yelling after him, pissed off. Sheng Mao had to apologise on his behalf. Don't let me find you.

ADC in exactly one week's time :D

Balthus

Those words aren't enough to get me away from these jewels.

Such determination.

2009-02-27T06:18:00.000-08:00

I wonder.

Is it possible to kill him? I cannot phantom a way to kill M, for he has...no life.

John flopped over and yelled "LLLLLAAAAMMMMMMEEEE CCCSSSMM" when he heard that =D Oh and did I mention that Johnervan as naturally brown eyes (serious, no contacts!) and Joel and I are so jealous over?

And at least Prelim 1's over. Time to take a -short, short- breather. -Hoo.- Yea back to studying.
At least well, for Chem and Phy SPA. They are my stepping stones to science A1s =D

Yea, it's no time to relax. Especially after the Chinese department released the results for CL and HCL for Prelim 1 infront of the HOD room today. I didn't have time to check until some time later during training, what everyone was saying was correct: I scored exactly 50/100. Wow. I really am bad. So Mdm. Yu Lin wasn't exaggerating when she said my paper 2 sucked (she thought I was some Malaysian scholar or something with a bad chinese foundation. Boy, she's right about the poor foundation).

So, in view of our horrid grades, Wei Xuan has decided to...

Speak Chinese 24/7. Damn. Hilarious.

"Hey Wei Xuan."
"Ni Hao."
"Uhh?"
"Shen meh?"

A desperate attempt of his to improve his Chinese. I think it might work, but it's simply not practical to teach with it if you can't translate things like 'leopard crawl' or 'prone position' XD I heard that he conducted his Movement by Day practical lesson in Chinese!

Speaking of lessons, I reviewed the lessons after training and realised a mistake in the lesson I conducted, Target Indication. For the Clock Ray method, the reference point is NOT NOT NOT 12'o clock. It's NOT. I apologise for inaccurately teaching this method, and will re-teach it on Wed. For now I'd explain the correct way briefly here.

Using the prominent reference point, hang an imaginary transparent clock on the reference point (say, a tall building). The tall building is on the CENTER of the clock, not at 12 o'clock (this is the mistake). Imagine the clock as a horizontal plane instead of it being vertical. Now if the target is below the building (closer to you) and slightly to the right, it's 4 o'clock. It's directly below (and closer to you), 6 o'clock. I'd reteach this lesson.

Wei Xuan conducted nearly his whole training in Chinese ^^ His "Ti Yu Xun Lian" was very fun, jumping jacks yelling "ER ER SAN SI WE LIU QI BA". Best was the constant "JIAN ZHI XIA QU" he was yelling. I hope all his PTs stay this interesting =D

Some old photos of us from Sir Anthony. Mrgh. It feels weird looking back at yourself in sec 1, fresh into NCC (air).

There's us right before our first parade ever.

During rehearsals, our batch standing there all looking normal.

When suddenly the most unforgettable of incidents happened =X Looking back, I'm still thinking -he- made the right choice to leave.

OH GOSH WE'RE SEC 4s ALREADY.

Been listening to Evanescence's Even In Death on loop.
Back to making more IFC lesson plans.

Balthus

The softly spoken words you gave me
Even in death our love goes on

Whirl.

2009-02-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

Haa.

Wanna congratulate 2 SMs who beat around the bush for 10 whole minutes before they finally told me that their award recipients for Central District Outstanding NCC Cadets :D

Theeeeyyyy aaaarrrreeee mmmmyyyy primary schoolmates Keefe Tan and Tan De Sheng, the awesome CHS NCC (land) CSM and ASM respectively :) We spent 10 minutes standing about talking about our interviews and being all anxious about results until.

Keefe: "And you know what? Our district commander told us both of us got it."
Me: "Huh. Yea, great. -pause- HUH WHAT? REALLY THAT'S GREAT :DDDDDD"

Blur me, they saved the best for last to stun me XD Congrats you both =D Now it's only the matter if I'd be standing up there on the podium with you guys :)

I spent my thursday morning in Joel's house doing Home based learning. It was really fun, especially attacking the minds of Jun Hoe and Irwin by talking to them through two MSN accounts. WE'RE EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE :D

And I sang 'Since you've been gone'. Ho ho.

Training today was supposed to be suspended. But we needed it to teach the sec 1s how to wear the no.4 and the sec 2s building their aero-mod planes. At least now the sec 1s know how to wear their smart no.4s properly :)

Prelim 1 oh gosh oh gosh D:

Balthus

you trying to ease up, but you won't get far.

ACSI Invest!

2009-02-16T05:27:00.000-08:00

Was super fun, I tell ya :)

I arrived at school at 0700 at the airstore and waited for Garry. Waited. And waited. Until he turns up - without his blazer. So I waited. And he came. And he nearly forgot our ties. Then we waited for a cab. And waited. And we flagged one down. And we waited. Joked like crazy all the way to ACSI.

When we got there, the cab fare was a whooping $22! GAH. I'm so glad the school is paying for us. Garry and I exited the taxi to find the place deserted - no guide to take us in? We realised we were late, so we hurried to the audi and signed on the guest book, whispering apologises to the girl bringing us in =X

The investiture was really, really good. Prefects had nice co-ordination, the investiture video was HILARIOUS. Even if I get a copy, I don't think I can post it here, but it was very...creative. Quote, "Latecomers - Gotta catch 'em all!", "Prefect no jitsu!" "BAAANNKKKAAAII" lol. The scriptwriter is an avid anime fan =D

Funny as it is, it can be very serious as well. The master prefect gave an awesome speech, I was like :O wow when he finished. And his analogy of the school being a rope *ducks down behind podium for 10 secs causing confusion amongst us to take out a bundle of rope* was very interesting as well. And their prefects are top-notch of the school - not for the weak-minded. There was a vid of their prefect training camp where they pump, recover, pumping position and yell school cheers in that position. Hiong.

After the investiture we were led out to refreshments, didn't eat anything but just drank. Waved to Jun Kit as he went down the corridor. Then I burst into two verses of the NCC song (sing with me, Garry!) and played scissors paper stone with myself. Sit beside me in class, or attend an event with me alone at your own risk :)

Then DAVID CAME DOWN WITH SHAWN. YAY. They risked getting scolded to meet me :DDDDD Congratulated them once more on their victory =D Then our guide, Shirl, took us all around beautiful ACSI and showed us all it's coolness. Being an independent school, it's facilities are awesome - large libraries that look like public ones, concert theatre, LARGE football fields, swimming complex, etc. etc. Ho gosh.

Then we went back to the canteen, where Jun Kit caught up with us =D Met Tim. Then we hung out in the Prefect's room, writing in many congrats to ACSI air in the guest book, and thanking our hyper host Shirl and my cousin JK as well =D

And the prefects tried to entertain us, thanks =) And they presented the gifts to us - it's a mini tool kit with screwdriver heads and measuring tape - super handy, but not for display in the SLB room XD Garry and I then took a cab back to school to attend the last period of school. I realise this is the first time I spent so much time with Garry in 4 years in the same CCA. Hmm, learned alot about him, it was fun ^^

Then something happened again that reinforced the fact that I dislike my class.

And something's still confusing me.

But I felt better in the store. Thanks guys.

And tution was surprisingly fun. Whoo.

Balthus

bring it on, but leave resent behind.

Valentine's

2009-02-14T06:40:00.000-08:00

Wow.

Apparently, the chinese department had their odd way to express their love for us and present us with their...Valentine's day gift. Today's lesson was classic.

As WJ droned and droned, LDW decided that the parliament house (don't ask me why the room is named as such. School's weird. There's nothing special about the room either o.o) needed ventilation so he opened the windows.

Bad move. Oh wait, good move.

5 minutes later smoke started seeping in and rolling in like a fog.

Like the mist. Which catches and eats people. Oh wait, this isn't a novel.

And we all ran out and made a whole fuss while the fire alarm went off, there was a whole happy chaos (oxymoronic o.o) and class was officially called off at 9am and gave us a worksheet and we left =D Classic..

Really, this smoke is our savior from endless droning :D

While inside taking the worksheet, I tried to take a pic of the projector - the emitted light is so prominent in the smoke!

A little gift from Joel, apparently he managed to find a RAINBOW COLOURED CRAYON and he bought it for me :DDD ITS SO COOL. I love it loads, Joel, thanks sooo much =D

And I don't wanna talk much about learning journey day. With the visits of the exhibits by the SCDF, SAFTI, OCS, etc. etc., my classmates kept making fun of me about my thoughts of becoming a civil servant. Mrgh. Yes I admit I was a little hyper during the trip =D

My interview for Outstanding Cadet Award (Air) is this wednesday. Will be with other SMs such as Wei Kit and ACSI's USM David and ASM Shawn. Nervous nervous nervous D: Yes Li, I shall minimize unnecessary worrying :)

There goes Valentine's Day. Hope those who had someone to spend it with (someone animated, not like math equations or something) had a great time. Right? ;)

For those who didn't have a great day, here's a song for ya: http://www.imeem.com/shucaina/music/yMdGnMI4/don_drew_be_my_valentine/
please listen at your discretion. A little offensive, but I found it hilarious =DD

Balthus

and you're beautiful, regardless of what they say.

All rounded training

2009-02-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

Gah.

I'mma too tired to describe Part D Hands-On, it's not too worth it. The activities were really 'hands-on' only on the 2nd day, learning about the operations and procedure of air traffic control. Though catching sight of real examinations going on in the Air Force School was very intriguing., there were only two highlights that made Hands-On interesting: One was meeting David again. Two was the talk about...well...wow. It was crazy.

After day 1 on the bus home, Wei Xuan, Brandon and I were talking and somehow we got into the topic about space, expanding universe, stars imploding, the Big Bang, time paradox, quantum physics, etc. (You -really- had to keep awake to follow the conversation) Apparently Wei Xuan wants to be a astronaut in the future o.o

Then when we got back to the store, somehow we started the topic of time dilation with the question: Is time relative? Bryan and Wei Xuan led the debate on for a full 45 minutes with no breaks O.O

On day 2, a whole lot of people joined into the conversation, but Wei Xuan, Bryan and Brandon were taking the lead. Wei Xuan's stand was, the speed of light is always constant in vacuum and time varies, depending on your frame of reference. Brandon's stand was both the speed of light and tome can be changed. Bryan's stand was time is always constant. Diagrams were illustrated and ideas exchanged o.o

Never have I seen us NCC air guys together speaking in such a sophisticated manner, it beats speaking about gambling and gambling techniques and gambling to win money anyday. As quote Hui Yang: "We're Air-GEEKS." :D Who cares, we enjoy such talks!

Actually to date, we're still undecided as a whole towards the relativity of time =P

And Friday was the first day the sec 1s joined our training. 30 of them. Training was super hectic, don't wanna describe how we were co-ordinating so many activities at once. The sec 1s had to go for theory of flight lesson ASAP for their HQ course next week (first badge so fast!) and had to try out all their uniforms. During their times of fall-in they weren't fidgeting as much as I expected, this batch might actually be good. Time will tell in the next few trainings, but I'm quite happy with them so far.

And for those who still don't know, we have a new Teacher Officer who introduced himself on Friday, he's Mr Joshua Chan, and he'd be 2LT as soon as he completes the NCC TO Course. So everyone greet him when you see him during and outside training hours.

NPCC had their master parade on Friday too. Congrats all those who got their well-deserved promotions! Jian Shen got his Staff, Hanwen got his Staff (still. I know you got it since last year!), and ESPECIALLY YOU JOEL! Joel got his promotion to Sergeant! CCOONNGGRRAATTTTSSS *snapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnap* haha NPCC SGT Joel. Cool ^^

I hope Yong Kang's okay after he apparently, "scalded" his eyes. One moment he was super hyper to go up and catch sight of Pierce Sec 2 NPCC girls, saying NPCC girls are cute, the next moment he was like RARRGH. Nutter XD

And Jackson, Si Hua, YK and Sebastian "attacked" me after training. Don't wanna describe how XD

Saturday was fun! After chinese remedial, I went to the store, then I went to cut my hair while some other air guys went to ready the lo hei. After I had my cut we went back to school and I 'played' tennis - or rather, kept whacking the tennis ball over to the other end of the court. Played with Keefe (CSM team!) against KO and Hanwen.

We saw Scouts come back from their Venture Run XD They all look like dying, yet Li Ren looks so alive (wow.) I wonder if Wei Yang and other scouts got the punch they wanted (by punch, I mean their promotion o.o)

After a call from Rong Xuan we all went to the canteen, and I called Mr Teo down. LO HHEEEIII for NCC air NCOs! We invited all the other guys who were playing tennis and basketball with us down also :D After throwing every other thing we were provided onto the dish, we readied our chopsticks, and attempted some Chinese phrases:

"Err, nian nian you yu?"

Then Yong Hwee went high and started the lo hei, yelling "A1!". We all ended up yelling "A1A1A1A1A1!" while throwing the noodles all over the table =D Yea, we'd get our A1s ^^ Yong Hwee was still high and shouting things like: "KO ONE A1!" Hahah we ate and then after clearing up, left for home. At least we had a lo hei too ^^

As eventful as ever, Li

Balthus

"A1 A1 A1 A1 our A1s~!"

HIGH HIGH NOTES.

2009-02-01T04:46:00.000-08:00

HOMIGAWD I'M SO HIGH ON EVANESCENCE.

ON HELIUM.

Well actually, it's people using some audio editing programme to change the notes of the song from C to high notes like G, G#, F#, etc.

Go nuts with Lacrymosa:

wow, right? =D It's like a little girl singing. If there ever were a little girl singing like that, she'd be hailed goth queen. omg awesome-ness.

AND AND the classic Evanescence song - Bring Me To Life...ON HELIUM.

Oh yea. I can picture the whole band of little kids rocking on stage with the appropriate head-banging. There's the voice of a little guy in Bring Me To Life too!

And another nice one from them - Weight of the World. Helium.

WHEEE SO HIGH.

Oh if you see nice large slashes on my hand tomorrow, don't worry, I wasn't playing with a penknife while listening to Evanescence on helium or something - Velvet was playing with me when he hooked his tooth on my hand, got distracted and turned away, cutting my hand.

I met Stacey to study chem earlier today. It was fun :D Learned aaalloootttt ^^ Thanks

I'm so going to get these songs converted to audio files and uploading them into my phone or ipod. Homigawd Evanescence on helium =D

Balthus

And somehow you got eeevvveerrryybbooodddyyy ffoooollllleeedd~

Tolerance.

2009-01-30T06:07:00.000-08:00

has a limit as well, you know.

The new sec 1s came in for try-outs today - a simple interview and a 2.4km run. That's it. And it was so hard for them. I'm already upset that I have to give up the lo hei with the other student leaders and my chairman board (which I promised Irwin I'd come down, but I didn't. I'm so sorry.) even though I went down early after lessons to prepare for the try-outs.

For one, I wish the sec 1s would learn some manners and not barge into the store while I'm changing uniforms. And try and ask questions and engage conversation while I'm putting on my socks. It's highly annoying.

I had a good mind to turn away quite a number of them. On grounds for ill-discipline. One guy actually left the holding grounds to buy a pao to eat and a drink, when I told him to put it away he said 'I'm hungry. Besides, I'd eat fast.' Oh sure, I'm not hungry at all.

(By the way, Mr Teo can always, ALWAYS tell when I didn't eat lunch. He can read me o.o)

I tried my best to let them entertain themselves during the long wait, but they kept saying their bored out (Oh sure, I'm having the time of my life watching you guys wait.) Then they kept ka chiaoing my unit guys.

I felt like some shepherd. And my sheep keep straying.

I see potential in quite a number of them, they are serious, and ask intelligent questions, are very calm and attentive as to how training was being conducted. It would be an injustice if Mr Goh doesn't take them in.

The breaking point when I snapped was when the sec 1s were doing something odd near the flag pole when someone's handphone dropped in and they made such noise and a big fuss. I told them to clear off twice but they kept coming to irritate until I yelled at them to shut up, as they created enough trouble already. Pah.

That all aside, now I can only trust Mr Goh and Mr Teo to choose the best 30 cadets from the 82 applicants for our unit. No matter what they may be, they are bound to be of better attitude (I hope) and we NCOs will play the role of molding them and preparing them for a NCC life. And all others have to do you part by raising your standards, setting a good example as cadets for the sec 1s to emulate when they join, right from the start.

Wanna thank a couple of people: Bryan Koh, he rose again to help me when I had problems, today with the handphone-in-drain issue. And he helped me multiple times before too in NCC. Really appreciate it, he's almost like an honorary member =D

All my NCOs for helping so much today, as detail ICs and with track duty. Thanks so much for helping to pull today off ^^

Yoow, you never fail to make a bad day better by snapping my hand :DDD

And sorry Irwin for not going for the lo hei.

Don't feel up to colouring much of the post this time round. Now all we can do is wait and have faith in the choice of cadets.

Balthus

so much for patience being a virtue.

Time like running waters - Part III

2009-01-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

Part III of the major update, on the new member of the family:

Velvet!

Isn't he adorable? :D We got him a week ago, so currently he's 2 months and a week old. A little precious German Shepherd puppy he is, he's really fun. But no walks for him yet until he's 3rd jab when he's 3 months old.

Fun he may be, we need to send him for classes as soon as he's 3 months. Toilet training isn't too effective and he's mouthing us time to time when we play with him because he thinks its a form of playing too, and it hurts =X But we all still love Velvet much.

And and annnnnddd:

Kinda says it all. Gold Unit '08! I have another good news too but I can't disclose it now =D Nevertheless it made my day on CNY celebrations.

But I wasn't looking forward to the next day.

Balthus

*runs around classroom chanting 'gold unit, gold unit' till classmates start throwing oranges*

P.S.

Please do take care there, Li. Know you're reading this, and I may sound naggy, but do sleep earlier there =X I don't wanna describe how my Saturday went, but you know how it was =)

Time like running waters - Part II

2009-01-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

Well, Part II of a over-due update. CCA Day Orientation!

I shall spam photos and talk about them.

All the sec 1s wandering around our booth with our cadets talking to them about our CCA. Love this angle - the aero mod plane looks kinda awesome.

The iMedia conducting their interview to all CCA leaders in every booth. Here's me doing mine - it was intimidating to be talking to a camera lens with a weird mike hanging above me and 4 crew members staring at me while I thought up answers to the questions.

NCC (air) in action during CCA day again showing the sec 1s around =D

The OALs (Outdoor Adventure Leaders) are crazy. Nich Wee made a bet to NCC land's Brandon to go and hug and wink all the Senior Specs in order. Apparently he went so far as to take a pic of him with the surprised Hui Yang. He came for me a little later =X Odd OALs.

If I ever have the chance to, I wanna ask Yong Hwee what on earth he was doing in front of the Ranks and Badges display o.o

Group pic for fun when there were no classes to attend to.
From left: Clarence, Myself, Joel, Darren, Yu Cheng

Another group pic for fun =D From Left: Hui Yang, Wei Kit, Sir Sui Peng, Myself, Yong Hwee

Sir wanted a pic with us =D His sword glimmered in the flash!

NCC (air) hentataki cheer! I wonder where the combined NCC cheer is. Hmm.

Well, that was about it. It wasn't easy at the start because it was very confusing, but it got better soon enough and we all gave our best shot :) Now we just wait for the good news (which I already know now! But I can't say =X)

Balthus

My secondary school life's devotion.

Time like running waters - Part I

2009-01-24T19:53:00.000-08:00

So much as happened since the last update (of Uniform Groups talk).

- Chinese O level result & First Aid cert ( I know damn long ago already XD)
- CCA Day Orientation
- Velvet & NCC (air)'s success!
- Li's departure :(

One at a time now. Gah. on 12th Jan, all of us sec 4 HCL students were waiting anxiously in the auditorium. My leg could not keep jumping as I sat. Wei Yang and I made a pact, regardless of what result we get, we're NOT(notnotnotnotnotnot) going to drop HCL. The Chinese department decided to lengthen our pain with slow powerpoint slides showing the order of performance of our Oral and Overall results.

3-3 '08 scored somewhere high in the Oral component, so some of us relaxed. But when they showed the Class Overall MSG results...we were all at the edge of our seats. *show our class last, last last last* it was shown by order of merit. then 3-3'08 came out - MSG of 1.11~! The whole class went crazy - all distinction~!

When it was time to collect out certs, Index no. 1 ran down to the table, took his cert and signed his name, and quickly looked at the slip. I actually got a A1 overall and distinction in Oral! :DDDDD Ran around congratulating many friends, and see shocked faces of -some- people who believed I'd drop HCL.

Then I quickly called Mr Suah and thanked him over the phone :DDD He was super happy as well when he heard and he congratulated me, encouraging me to work even harder for HCL. Then we put him on loudspeaker and yelled XIE XIE LAO SHI. We went crazy the rest of the day. All that we did with Mr Suah is now paying off ^^

To top that, I met Li later that day to collect mine (and all the other NPCC guys') First Aid cards! Now we're all official Red Cross first aiders :D Thanks Lizzie again for helping me get this in the first place. And congrats for getting into SJII~!

Onto the next post.

Balthus

Bring the beat back.

UG talk

2009-01-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

EEEE.

I love CHS NCC (air) :D

I think Uniform Groups talk went rather well, and everyone gave their best in the NCC (air) presentation. I wanna get the pics and videos of our presentation soon! As soon as I do, gonna post them up here for keep's sake ^^

I got down to the store and put my stuff down at 10.20, rushed a meal, and hurried back to memorise my speech once more. While changing into no.1, I suddenly got a report that Jacob hurt his thumb while rehearsing =X Quickly finished changing and rushed to get ice for him. Thank goodness it's only a hairline fracture - take care of it kay?

A full rehearsal of how our presentation would go, then the sec 1s came pouring in while we hid back stage. Truth to be told I was rather nervous, more than I was than last year when I was in the PDS performance team for the UG talk '08. When everyone had settled, we played Samuel's awesome trailer:

As soon as it ended, Sir Sui Peng and myself emerge from the curtains.

"And that is the trailer of our unit, NCC (air)!"

Then I started to introduce about NCC and our unit's special activities. Abraham came out to demonstrate how to start up the electric motor plane =D After that was screening of 2 videos, one of our activities and the other of PDS. I stared down a sec 1 who laughed non-stop at something in the video >:(

After a simple introduction of PDS... "Let us watch a performance of our very own NCC (air) PDS team!"

I want the video of this one sooo bad =D This has to be one of the best performances, if you look at it at the right angle. My heart skipped a beat and one point of time though, but that mistake was shadowed by the fact that it looked so cool. Really admire Wei Kit and Yu Cheng's recovery and composure. And once again, in awe of Hui Yang's awesome focus (Yes HY, you're awesome. And I'm sane.) in executing his classic Jumbo ^^

That about sums up our presentation. I think it's still a whole lot better to watch on video. Thank you everyone who gave in their best in making this the best presentation we did - the PDS team's endless trainings, and the usher's help. And Sam's trailer ^^

I stayed to watch the NCC (land)'s and NPCC's presentation as well. Land was...I can't find the right words. Skip. NPCC was kinda awesome =D Yong Kang did well too, but the best was their Black Knight's performance. CHS NPCC's baton drills are awesome, I want that viiidd~!

And please stop calling Wei Kit "Staff", Wei Kit and myself got our promotion to MSG on Tues, so address him accordingly =)

MSG!

Yes, Jeff, just like you. Except a couple months later.
And Mandy too :)

Balthus

In NCC (air), you'd be sure to experience a diversity of activities, but only if you give us the chance to give YOU the chance to :D

The Bet

2009-01-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

Now that the debts are finally resolved, I shall be super random and talk about the bet Damien and I made.

Damien and I were both innocent Class Chairmans of 2-3 and 2-2 respectively when we were in Sec 2. Ivan Yak, the president of the Class Management Committee (CMC) then, he recently asked for a meeting for all sec 2 chairmans only to talk about Class Chairman life and the everyday difficulties we face in carry out our duties. Now, Damien and I were talking to one another before morning assembly one morning after that meeting...

Damien: "Ehh Benedict, you did go for the meeting by Ivan the other day right?"

Me: "Yup, it was last Tuesday, I was there."

Damien: "Oh yarh, I saw you...WAAIIT. Wasn't it thursday?"

Me: "No, I clearly remember is was Tuesday lorh."

Damien: "Noo I'm very sure it was THURSSDAAY."

Me: "Tuesday! I'm even willing to bet on it :D"

Damien: "OKAY. What do you wanna bet that it was Tueday?"

Me: "I bet......WEI YANG'S TIE."

Damien: "FINE. I BET JOEL'S TIE."

By the way, Wei Yang and Joel were mine and Damien's assistant-chairman's of our classes respectively XD

So we ended up betting our assistant's ties over the issue of dates. I was wondering how I'd get Wei Yang to give up his tie if I lost =X So we went to approach Ivan and asked casually...

Ivan: "Err, Tuesday."

Damien and I: "Ahh. Thanks."

-later-

Me: "Ah-HA! YOU OWE ME JOEL'S TIE =D"

Damien: "D:"

However Damien really dragged looonnnggg to get me Joel's tie (mainly cause Joel refused to accept that the bet even took place) Even when Joel became an Exco in CMC, and the value of his tie really rocketed up, I had a hard time getting Dammie to keep his end of the deal and Joel to give me his tie =X

But then came first day of school of 2009...when Damien gave me for Christmas a.... Checkered Teddy Bear~!

Me: "Name it, Damien, give it a NAME!"

Damien: "Err, err, errrm. JOEL."

When I got home and Damien suddenly spoke to me about the bear Joel, I made mention that I noticed he had a BOWTIE.

Damien: "Ah-HA! I don't owe you anymore, I gave you Joel, and it came with a bowTIE. Now you owe me a BOW!"

GAAHH. Then I thought up of something. The next school day, I met up with Damien, and I did a bow =D
Damien didn't realise why I did that until I told him I no longer owe him a bow.

Well, that's that. A bet that has been finally all settled after over a year =D

Balthus

He needs not a penny of pity, but a handful of hope.

First day

2009-01-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

Oh thank goodness it's the weekends :D

First day of school, it didn't feel as bad as all the previous 3. In fact, I think this might be the happiest "1st day" I had.

I walked into class to see it in a horrid state - Where's the aircon promised for all sec 4 classes?! The aircon in our room is in a horrid, dusty shape and doesn't look like it can function. And our projector is non-existent: just random cables hanging from the ceiling. I chose my new seat and I got my christmas gifts~!

Let's see now: Today I got the cute checkered teddy from DAMIEN and he named it 'Joel', and also the little ladybug from him; The Chibi Saber on top of Joel from Hong Shing; The book lying down by Stef; The iPod protector by Bryan;

The little dog which looks like a diver by Mandy named 'Ixora'; The watercolour pencils by Angie; And the chattering teeth, and Art book by Li~
I have a card from Lizzie too for Christmas :D

Now, taking a closer look at Stef's gift...

Okay, looks innocent enough. I guess. Hmm, "Everything Men Know About Women"...

Ahh, looks very comprehensive. As quoted: "Fiercely frank and brilliantly insightful"

At this point of time when I opened the book I was thinking: "Wait, what?"

It's no trick - the whole book is seriously BLANK

After I realised what it meant, I cracked up for nearly half-hour straight XD This. Is. Classic.

I'm really worried about my Chinese O level results now. Please, please give me my A2 =X

Now, you're going down, NYAA Silver. This weekend. I must. Lest Mr Goh does something to us D:

Balthus

Feel you in my fears, and in my fascination.

the Eve

2009-01-01T02:26:00.000-08:00

You know, it's not all that bad.

I was helping out at the countdown party at Boon Lay with the RJC Boon Lay Youth Club. I was the only non-RJC student there, and the youngest volunteer =X There isn't much to say, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Arriving at Boon Lay CC at 11am sharp (along with a flood of other RJC students) I was wearing the CMC shirt (CMC! Crazy devotion for it :D) So I took my attendance:

"What is your class?"
"Err, 3-3."
"HUH WHAT?"
"Erm, Catholic High."
"OH."

Super awkward. Then a exco member gave me my new tee. Went to change, and while they organised themselves I sat in a corner and read "A Sense of Belonging". No, I'm not super enthu about the English books our school chooses, it's just that I need to do Mrs Tang's homework on it =X

We all got dragged out to shift barricades. Barricades look rather light until you try and pick up on of them. The first 10 were rather easy, we just put them around the main stage area which is at a very close proximity.

After a quick lunch, we hung around waiting for more duties, then it was moving boxes of water. Oh god. This was where physical strength became everything. We walked down one bus stop to the holding room filled with 80 over boxes of plain water. Omg. I suggested making a human chain to pull out like 30 boxes of water, then we individually carry one at a time back to the CC =X Not. Fun. Really. Tiring. But it was worth it, now water is easily assessable =)

More barricade moving, then it was slacking time since there were no other duties till the party started. I wasn't with anyone, so I ended up reading and falling asleep into my book several times.

Awaken by a sms on my phone, I had dinner, then we all stood by for the party itself. More. Barricades. Cannot. Get. Enough. Of. Them. This time we had to carry them and place them along the roads for the road parade - the whole stretch of the length of two bus stops D:

Skipping all the barricades part (which was a good workout, I guess), I sat in the opt.s room until finally there was a slot open for duty. Finally. There's meaning in my life :D I went down to the Games Booth to man the Accuracy Soccer booth with Margaret. She was my IC for flyers the other day. I think this was the most fun part of CIP - watching residents, young children and adults- all try and kick the ball into the hole in the board. It was free, so they only had to queue up for 5 tries to kick the ball in and get a little gift. The best player was this 6 year old boy - he didn't really concentrate or anything, just *boot* and he scored, 2/5! The other 3 all hit the rim of the hole O.O pwnage, that kid really own all the adults there.

After that we went back to the opt.s room, where I got invited by Margaret, Qing Yu and the rest of their group to play cards :D Someone took the lone boy in ^^ I was kinda grateful for their company. After one game we got summoned to....remove the barricades. Crap. All those barricades -far far- away and maneuvering through the crowd - rrraaaaggghhhh. We were all tired already, so it was amazing to see some of the JC guys still carrying the barricades with one hand O.O "Omg, more Wei Xuans."

And we went to watch the countdown itself =)

Hmm, my New Year's resolution is that I will not start watching a new anime, or start playing any new games until my Os are over.

And I aim to go RJC.

Yes, go nuts laughing, 4-3.

Happy New Year,
Balthus

And with a new start, it may have a new ending =)

Oh, beware the stupid new adware virus spreading around on MSN about "crazy party pictures", I've seen a few people getting it already and could be the reason why MSN keeps shutting down.

Looking back at this post will help me remember how to write it under my NYAA silver :)

Tag replies:

JK - No. 1 uniform land has this little something on their collars, it's SO COOL D:
Bryan Seah - I brushed my teeth, had my coffee, read my papers, smoked my cigar, then went to meet my family.
Clarence - That's right Chia, cigar tastes nicer after a cup of coffee
Sunicia - It's all personal opinion, ain't it? You GOT to admit that dusk is really beautiful though :D Happy New Year!
JK - I KNOW I KNOW I MUST TRAIN TO LEVEL UP.
enthu kia - I just said, I wouldn't know, so it's anybody's guess that you could be right XD
John, JC, Alex, dg - Happy New Year to you guys too!

Enndd

2008-12-30T05:38:00.000-08:00

It's nearing the end of the year.

I don't really have the energy for blogging =X

I became a crazy fanboy over Kingdom Hearts II for 1 over hour before I was dragged away from the controller. YOU'RE GOING DOWN, SEPHIROTH in my next try, I swear D:

Today after the morning's activities I went down to J8 to have lunch to run into NPCC guys :D Apparently they ate already and they just hung around longer and talked at Mac while I had my lunch - thanks guys ^^

Then we had a nice family outing, something that almost never happens. I'm just going to spam photos again, want to turn in early :D

At a high tower on one of the beaches at Sentosa =)

Overhead view of somewhere in Sentosa as well. My orientation isn't fantastic, so I can't remember where we were O.O

Don't the silhouettes make this even more amazing? :D

Now you tell me that isn't one of the most beautiful skies during dusk :D

A Photoshopp-ed edit of Thirteen Wishes done by a friend of mine. I'm not saying who here~ It's amazing how the shadow and slight colour edit brings out the feel of the picture so much better :D

I'm going to Boon Lay to help out the RJC Boon Lay Youth Club in the countdown party the whole day there. I don't wanna move over to the new year alone surrounded by strangers =( Guess I don't have much of a choice.

Best of wishes for the new year everyone =) It'd be 2009 in a day, a new year, a new start, an old score to settle with Chemistry, and Physics, and the final boss:

Ordinary Level Exam [ code name: O LVLS ]

Oh gosh. Grant us strenght.

Balthus

One in a million, once in a lifetime.

Sigh.

2008-12-26T04:21:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

Hmm, I'm thinking back an article I read some time back - is exclamation mark (this one --> ! ) the new full stop?

These few days I've been in contact by email and sms by RJC people (don't ask yet), and nearly 80% of sentences used end with a "!". Hmm. At the rate it's going, it's value is going to drop to the norm. Guess it's time to find another symbol to denote excitement. Like "~". "Whee~" "Whee!" Yep, works ^^

Christmas was uneventful and kinda disheartening, thanks for the words though =) I really appreciate you for hearing me out.

What's worst is the fact that I know I'd not be celebrating New Year's Day with family, nor with close friends, not even with people I know. But instead, with total strangers surrounded by crowds and crowds of people, not one I even recognise, attending a loud countdown. I think just before midnight I'm gonna escape it to some quiet corner. Agh.

But thanks Angie for your gift =) It was really unexpected of you to get me that.

Lizzie, your card too was a pleasant surprise on Monday ^^ Thanks so much.

The only thing that made my day yesterday on Christmas was an unexpected email with something attached~

Shall have to start on my math soon or school's gonna start. Whee.
Oh. And my job was well =X
And drawing No.1 uniform as well =X

Bah.

Balthus

Let it go, if it comes back, it's yours.

Weekend

2008-12-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

I love CHS NCC (air) :D

During Sec 1 registration on friday, and guess who was the only CCA down to promote in uniform and with flyers?

US AIR GUYS ^^

Anyway nothing much to comment about that, 'cept I met this boy from Ai Tong I remember sitting the same bus with me and we used to talk alot - I can't believe he forgot my name or even who I was D: His parents asked alot about NCC air though o.o

The weekend was devoted to CIP. I don't wanna elaborate on my "awesome" orienteering skills =X But Day 1 was really fun. Day 2 became a bore :O

And today, Damien, Shawn and later Zong Da came down to Joel's house and we all studied...until we burned out :X I love the new screensaver I have now though, thanks to Joel.

Oh joy. Just what I need - Constant reminders.

Balthus

Sometimes faith isn't enough to pull the whole load.

Alpha outing 2!

2008-12-21T05:16:00.000-08:00

I regret not going eariler because of a headache. But later I decided to go anyway - better late than never (golden rule, Mandy, golden rule)!

I'm just gonna spam pictures ^^

Billabong Boys! XD Haha Zul. He's not holding his '**** Police' cap, phew O.o

Group Pic ^^

For some odd reason, we might make a appearance on some international Chinese TV station XD A Chinese camera man came by and we all waved and shouting AALLPPPHHHAAA!!

When Li gets me the pictures, then I'd show the surprise I had for Alpha =)

We played a secret santa game with the few of us who brought gifts (All A3 o.o) I won Bryan's cookies - and they were awesome :D

Merry Xmas, Alpha!

Balthus

It's the candles, flicker it might, it'd never blow out :)

Run Wild

2008-12-18T06:37:00.000-08:00

Wheeeeee.

I watched Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society (woah, long title - because it's a follow up of a follow up. I love in-depth shows). It was confusing, and I was on the edge of my seat most of the time like a crazy fanboy, especially when the male lead attempted suicide to save his daughter D: Alot of heavy referencing to politics and society itself - the whole plan was so well thought out of that everything fell perfectly into place. I'm so going to watch it again :D

After the movie I got dressed and rushed to J8. Sir Anthony was about to treat us Senior Specialist dinner (he insisted so hard on his 'tradition' that we couldn't refuse). I rushed there to find Yong Hwee, Yong Liang and Sir Warren going around J8 hunting a gift for Sir Anthony. We were just about to get a snowglobe when Hwee made the best suggestion to get the soon-to-enter army Sir a cap ^^

With the Bilabong cap in hand we rendezvous with Wei Kit and entered Cafe Cartel. Hui Yang couldn't join us because of a birthday party. So we sat around waiting for Sir and his 'surprise guest' to turn up. Then a guy in black vest pulled up a chair and sat down with us. We all turned to look:

Me thinks: *Huh? Who is this person o.o*
*Wei Kit and Yong Liang stun diao*
Hwee: "Oh! Hi Sir."

O.O So unrecognisable. It's a whole new look. The surprise guest was suppose to be Senior Samuel (Do NCOs still remember him as our Part A spec? :D) Nevertheless we had dinner, he treated us all. We just talked and talked about NCC life then and now and to be (the future of NCC with all it's textbooks and sorts XD), trainings, and NS (Oh-ho that's why the cap is for ^^)! It was 10pm before we realised it and had to part ways. We won't be seeing Sir Anthony for a long time, best of luck and wishes as you take on NS, sir!

Awoke early next day and rushed for training. Yong Liang was late, hmrph. The excos ran our 2.4km, my timing was slowest because of a sudden stomach attack on the 3rd round =X Nevertheless, 11.45 is a good timing for that case. After that followed IPPT and drills. Then I had to rush off early for a lunch appointment before meeting up with Li.

Hmm, I think I'd post about Alpha outing tomorrow =) My only regret about it was not going eariler because of my headache attack =X

The ground loves me so much, it just has to get me close to it by tripping me up. Whee.

Balthus

Give me eyes to see, the world surrounding me.

cheated.

2008-12-15T04:22:00.000-08:00

I feel so cheated.

Like, so many times yesterday D:

Where should I start? Oh, I had my first aider test yesterday. I awoke and rushed to Red Cross House - Yong Kang got all blur and forgot his EZlink so he was late. The morning was mainly revision, and practicing all the bandaging again. Finally learned how to do the elevated arm sling properly.

After all the theory and practical revision the Cat High group left early for lunch at Mac. I couldn't stop thinking of the test, kept asking questions regarding theory - but what's the point, besides me only He Yuan studied, the rest was so relaxed!

Back after lunch was more practicing and studying, until 1400hours. Everyone was real nervous, Royal told horror stories about how strict our examiner would be, that he's "a senior ranking Red Crosser that will not hesitate to fail people". I was rocking in my seat nervously as time ticked by (he's 45 minutes late!) and Rui Jie confiscated my textbook to get me to 'calm down'. Those 14-year-olds can go to hell.

Finally the examiner arrived, and Royal made a quick escape, wishing us luck. So we were all rocking in my seats, I could hardly fill in my evaluation form without thinking about the test. When the 30 MCQ test came, I finished it in 8 minutes. But I spent another 8 minutes redoing the test as Royal advised.

End result? 27/30. Whee. Same as all my non-mugging friends =X I feel so cheated (first time). Congrats Jackson - only Cat High guy with 29/30!

Now, was the dreaded practical. I was first on the nominal roll and was rarr-ing to do my bandaging.

Examiner: "Since I was late, let's skip bandaging and just do CPR, okay?"
Everyone: "YESSSH"
Me:"WHAT. NO!"

W.T.H. How could they cancel that part which Royal drill us like crazy! Anyway I did the CPR, which was easy...but I was expecting him to complicate the scene for me. I completed it, and he said:

"Here, your slip of paper. Come back with it in 4 weeks, you've passed."

The room was clapping, but I was like D: WHAT. that was TOO EASY. I don't feel like I really deserved it...but I still passed. By Red Cross standards.

I was angry with such a test. I felt cheated (2nd time!) so they guys brought me to Plaza Singapura with them. He hit the arcade immediately, and YK convinced me to play Time Crisis 2. So I payed $1 for one game - and got killed by area 2. I rushed to get another two tokens with $1, and re-tried. Yong Kang was saying "Blue guys don't hit you, only red ones!" So I was real confident with blue guys until one of them shot me.

"WTH NO BLOODY WAY." I screamed at the screen with a blue revolver in my hand. Then I died again, before Yong Kang's first round. I felt so cheated (3rd time!)

Then we played abit of basketball...before approaching the terror machine. It's one of those with a large claw at the top you control, bring it down to the plush toy, and it carries it up and releases it into the prize chute. SCAMS. Joey and I decided to split the $1 cost and try. We moved the claw directly under the plush, pressed the button,

it reached down,

picked the plush up,

lifted it 3 inchs high,

THEN IT SLIPS OFF.

I FELT SO CHEATED (4th time!)

RAARRRRGGHH. Then Rui jie and Sebastian tried also, and also put their names down as 'yao qu tiao low' people as well. SCAM SCAM SCAM.

We dragged ourselves out of the arcade before we got scammed more. Then we went to all the figurine and replica model shops across the top floor staring at all the figurines we cannot afford :D

Then we went down and I needed to pick up a card. The NPCC guys had to go home already, but I have something personal to do still =)

I love the place Made With Love in plaza Singapura, it's like stepping out of the mall all together and into a whole new places that smells faintly of fresh pine wood, surrounded by paper of such warm colours and art materials of all kind. Thank you, the two of you there at MWL =)

Cheated 4 times in one day...but all that starts ends well =) Because I think what Royal did was right - drilling us all like crazy to boost our confidence in the face of a real emergency, we'd handle it independently and more skillfully in a calm manner. Thank you for being such a great teacher, Royal!

A first aider now!

Today? I did more entries into my NYAA silver, went to Bishan library in the afternoon, met KO, and had the most awkward time there =X

But all ends well too =)

Balthus

So take a look outside yourself
And tell me what you see.

Sir Anthony's final message

2008-12-12T20:29:00.000-08:00

I would like every single Catholic High NCC (air) cadet of 2008 to read the final message by Sir Anthony in your email.

It is important, as a final concluding statement after his term as a CLT. I'd want to post it up here for easier reading purposes, but I think only our Air cadets should read it. It's personal.

If you have not received it, ask around. I really want everyone to read it. I'd be asking around randomly to check if you have seen it. Forward it to your friends if you know they changed their emails recently, etc.

Sir Warren and Sir Sui Peng are now the new CLTs of CHS NCC (air) :D Congrats both of you for passing out from CLT course last night. We are now under you =)

Thank you Sir Anthony for everything you've done for the unit, and for us, serving as the only CLT in our unit for 2 years. All of us from CHS NCC air wishes you the best of luck for the future and the time you serve in NS.

Balthus

Times change, people change, and we all have to roll with the punches.

Days like this

2008-12-08T02:32:00.000-08:00

I like days like these.

I awoke at 6am odd shivering, decided to sit up and turn the radio on to International 96.3FM and listened to lyric-less music till about 7.30, and many things were running through my mind. Mainly consisted of first aid course and the homework I eventually have to get around to starting. Can someone tell me exactly HOW MANY math papers are to be done? =X

I slept again at about 8am just to escape having to join my brother and father and sis in a MacDonalds breakfast, awoke later and got a scolding for awaking late o.o

I couldn't resist anymore, and just HAD to watch the final episode of Ghost in the Shell 2nd gig Stand Alone Complex. The ending was a little...dry. Interesting and all about the love relations, and a little satisfying to see the mastermind finally cornered and have exactly 14 bullets shot from an assault rifle run through his body and head. Serves him right for trying to manipulate people and trying to start a civil war :D This has to be one of the best anime series I've stumbled upon (I don't continue animes which don't interest me, and come to think of it, I stumbled upon this one because I was looking up the soundtrack), being under the cyber-punk genre, it was really really well thought out with so many philosophical and political aspects so true in real life being displayed. Time to watch the movie online as well :D

Must must must hunt Ghost in The Shell figgguuurrrriiinnneeesss :D

In the afternoon, I started work. I downloaded as many math worksheets as I could find and started on them. The air outside is chilly like heck, but I love it. It reminds me so much of being in Connecticut, US once more. It's been exactly a year since I've been there, and I miss it so bad =X Wonder when would be the next time I visit.

The weather reminds me of the NCC Cheer "When the cold wind blows." I think it goes something like:

In the early morning march
With my rifle (variable) in my hand
I'm a long long way from home
And I miss my lover so
-forgets the next part-
.
.
.
"When the cold wind blows~" X 5 times.

I collapsed at about 1600 for no apparent reason, just as soon as my head touched the pillow I blacked out. Looks like my body gave in on me after 7 days of packed activities. I really don't wanna knock-out like that again, it's a bad sign of falling sick =X

I will finish at least one A-math paper by tonight, and tomorrow I'd contact the Children's home that Rasheed introduced. The NLB's events are all packed and in no need of volunteers already. Pah.

When is the Alpha outing again? D: I'm still unclear.

Balthus

Save your fears, take your place, save them for the judgement day

First Aid Course~!

2008-12-07T04:11:00.000-08:00

You will never miss civilian life until you're taken away from it.

On Saturday morning, I awoke and left for the Red Cross House. I may have been tired out by camp the past few days, but walking around in my own clothes, seeing people everywhere in different clothes, no regimentation, no officers shouting orders, all milling about getting along with life, it was a really, really good feeling. I'd look forward to every book-out when I enter the Army, to get this surge of relief once more :) If Jeff were to be with me, he'd be like: "OMG, ARE THOSE GIRLS?" XD

Nevertheless, I made my way to the Red Cross House for my Standard First Aid Course, I was expecting to go alone, to know no one and do the course by myself, but I had a pleasant surprise: at the 3rd floor was Yong Kang, Jackson, Sebastian, He Yuan, Rui Jie and Joey :D omg, NPCC friends! Talk about small world o.o They signed on under NPCC, and paid only about $60 - by Edusave! Bah.

We went for the course classroom, our instructor's name was Royal O.o besides us, there were another group of teenagers (those buggers) and a couple of young adults. Instructor Royal was very knowledgeable, but his accent...being a Hong Kong-er, it was very hard to follow =X It's all about give-and-take ba.

We had theory in the morning, it was rather easy for me to follow as I read ahead (thank you Duo Geng and Lisa!) and I kept elbow-ing Yong Kang to keep his eyes open. How can you sleep - first aid is important!

After lessons (those teens from Compassvile were a hella buggersome throughout) we went to Plazza Singapura. I REFUSE TO EAT CHICKEN then, so we went to Long John Silver. The old man working there was really enthu about his job, wearing a bandanna and all - it's really nice to see that he spends his golden years doing something he enjoys. The guys wanted to go to the arcade for a shootout, so I watched.

After lunch was practical, learning to tie the broad arm sling, elevated arm sling, ring pad, hand bandage, and the procedures for unconscious casualties (choking and CPR). I was the first teen to do so after watching two adults, was kinda nervous XD I stumbled abit (rise, chest, RISE.) but I did it in the end rather well :) Then it was home-bound, still loving civilian life.

On Sunday, Day II, I left home blurry-eyed (was studying First Aid the night before) and ran into Yong Kang at Bishan MRT. Then we left for Red Cross House after meeting up with the other NPCC guys. First thing in the morning we tied each other arms up with bandages, Royal said my bandage was good :D

Then came more theory, and how to perform the Heimlich maneuver (I'm so blur, I thought the point of contact was the tip of the sternum like CPR, I was hitting the wrong place!) and then lunch break - we left for Plazza Singapura and went to...KFC...

I imagined my Zinger was fish which was molded to look like chicken. After all, fish is molded into so many things - fish balls, fish sticks, fish rolls, etc. Bah. I don't wanna think about chicken.

After lunch we went to the arcade again, Yong Kang talked me into playing the shootout game Time Crisis 3 with him. it was rather fun, till I died prematurely. Joy. There goes $1 I lost shooting virtual fellas.

After lunch we came back and learned how to tie bandages for jaw injuries and skull injuries. Seriously, those other teens piss me off. They look around my age or younger, yet they are noisy, disruptive, uninterested, during hands-on one asshole sat at his desk and listened to his MP3. They better not be Red Crossers or NCC cadets. At the rate some of them are going, pushing one another forward to do CPR when they themselves don't know how to after watching so many people do, I won't be surprised if some of them fail. I hate people like them who don't take first aid seriously.

The funniest conversation of the day?

Royal: "And that's how hand wrap is done better. Ugly?"
*everyone shakes their head*
Royal: "Huh? How come you no ugly?"
*everyone goes o.o"
Royal: "Do you ugly this is better?"
Everyone: "OH HE MEANT 'AGREE'."

LOL. His accent is tough to catch, but he's a real good teacher. After lessons, us Cat high guys hung back to practice on the mannequins and recovery position again. We took a group pic!

From Left: Joey, He Yuan, Mr. Big Chest, Yong Kang, Jackson, Mr. Forever-Unconscious, Sebastian, Rui Jie & Myself.

I'm slightly nervous (understatement) about my test on the 14th. I must, must, pass the test and become a first-aider!

And I'm still desperate for CIP.

Time to kidnap my brother and wrap him in multiple bandages over and over.

COME HOME SOON LI. =(

Balthus

Whisper me those words, and I'd fall silent.

Camp Pinnacle~!

2008-12-05T04:46:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to say, nor what can I say, so much is classified XD I'd be brief then. It was: fun, boring, comical, scary and traumatising, tiring but enjoyable. There was a hell lot of "Rubber Band" art because of the excess of them lying everywhere XD

Day I

I scared the crap out of Wei kit by arriving late :X But I met David and Shawn (ACS (I) air SMs) there and we took the same ferry to SISPEC (School Of Infantry Specialists) They had this sort of dog-tags on them with their nicknames and unit on it, in case they burn up in a fire or something. So cool :D

I ended up in Hotel 2. JEFFREY DE VIRES WAS THERE ^^ Hell Yeah. There was Jun Rui also from Nat. Camp Alpha. I met Ryan too, but he was in Hotel 3. All guys unit here in Hotel, but I'm kind of used to it already XD

Opening Speech was odd. Textbooks in NCC soon?! When I was in Sec 1 NCC was a escape from studies to me then. Bummer. Oh and the new no.4 coming in - man, the pixelied one?! Well, having cadets that can think sharp as well with the new textbook seems to be a good thing...

Then came the SISPEC Heritage trail. Basically, a trail. Walk, see pictures. Whee.

I started twiddling my thumbs by now with Jeff. It does train thumb muscles :)

Then was the viewing of the IGTS (Infantry Gunnery Tactical System). It's classified. See no touch. Joy. It was quite interesting, but I was more entertained by my thumbs.

So much admin time, that we ended up planning for Camp Pinnacle Night.

Day II

SYFC day. Familiar grounds for me, but it wasn't much. I don't wanna elaborate much because it was mainly talking about their simulators (both radio control and from a cockpit) and the officer there was psychoing us into becoming pilots (same as at Nat Camp) with his "Jjjoooiiinnn SSSYYYFFFCCCC, ssstttaaabbllleee ccaaarrrreeerrrrr...lleesss tthhaann $70 cccouurrsssee ffffeeeesss...bbbeee aaa ppiilllooottttt..."

Then was ARC talk. Classified!

We rehearsed for Camp Pinnacle Night later. :D Then we had a mini AAR with our Air OIC Sir Izzat (who reminded me strongly of Senior Wei Liang - Hair, face, skin tone, speech, everything!) who happened to be Hotel 2's 2IC as well. Whee.

Day III

The thumb-twiddling seems to be affecting more and more people, more and more people are twiddling as well. Heee, the madness is spreading :D

We went to home-ground: Paya Lebar Airbase! We sat the C130 (again. whee.) after the large mix up with forms (I asked Sir Izzat what was going on but he refused to say :X) and it was really funny. I cracked my plastic bottle during a misunderstanding from a conversation with Wei Kit XD I had the funniest time playing a deaf-mute (reference to The Laughing Man from Ghost in the Shell) with earplugs on, writing messages on a piece of paper and communicating with David and Shawn.

At the Air Force Museum we were given 20 questions and were to scout for the answers there. It was real fun swift walking everywhere, and Air knowledge helped! The worst question was the name of the assistant curator, that was tough D: In the end, we still don't know who won. Joy.

Flight Simulator Centre was up next, near the museum. Classified!

Then it was Camp Pinnacle Night~! I think Juliet 5's was awesome, their co-ordination and the way the skit involved everyone nicely was really great. Our skit was weird yet funny, with Jeff yelling "Join the Army!", and Ridhwan lifts his shirt up and show "The Steel Within"! Raja's idea of the "ALAKA-BONTO" came into play later, and we showcased our "best parts" to the rest of the auditorium :D

~~Then the CLTs had a competion of blowing "balloons".~~ Nothing happened after our skits. Seriously.

Day IV

Seriously, people are getting hooked. More thumb-twiddlers. I happened to play a game of thumb-wrestling with Salim and I can't stop - I lost all 9 matches I played with him throughout the day: his thumb is longer, and his grip is super tight. But I didn't give up! XD

Naval Diving Unit was the most interesting. The RHIB boat was awesome, the wind during the ride ^^ There followed a diving show displaying the basics of diving. I was expecting polar bears (haha you have you see it you get it XD) but the divers were awesomely confident.

Classified info, and more classified info. The little "shootout" skit displaying the combat divers was an eye-opener, no one pointed anything in a form of a pistol at me before :X

Area cleaning really gave my thumb muscles a work-out.

Not much to say about the cheering competition during the evening, but Hotel's CLTs were really close to one another XD Of course, an all boys company would win a cheering compt. =D

Day V

Classified. Hella classified. I was slightly (ok, understatement) disturbed then, but I'm fine now. I still want to sign on OCS though.

Badge presentation, thank you Sir Hazwan! Oh sweet, I stared and ogled at my badge :D

During the bus ride back to Boon Lay MRT we sang and sang and cheered. CIVILISATION ONCE MORE :D I never thought I'd miss newspapers so much.

I wanna thank so many people for making this camp's boring moments fun and enjoyable :D Although it had the classic "waiting to rush, rushing to wait", I think Camp Pinnacle was worth it nonetheless.

Wei kit, for being there most of the time during camp and helping me :D

De Sheng, although he was seperated from Keefe, he was a real company ^^

Jeffrey, he can twiddle as fast as I can now, but my thumb muscles are still bigger. "Today SISPEC, Tomorrow the world~!"

Ridhwan, a real charismatic guy who natrually gels people to work together :)

Salim, our thumbs fought wars but he was real nice. Although I won our last match before we parted, I know he gave chance in front of everyone esle for me XD

Rasheed, him making fun of Wei Kit was hilarious. But he means well ^^

Saufi, that nutter, he was Nat Camp I swear. Rubber-band man!

Raja, his idea was awesome. And I think he's the only, ONLY Supernumerary throughout Singapore born in 1993. Lucky ass, sent for the course this year. Such a pretty lanyard. He was funny while being all pissed off and cranky with Camp Pinnacle, and his thumb is hella strong.

Yao Ming, I was laughing my head off at your poor attempt to get a girl's number XD You HARDLY EVEN KNOW HER. I bet you didn't even know her last name XD But he was a great bunk IC.

David and Shawn, they were really great to be around with. Especially during the C130 -CLASSIFIED INFO- while playing deaf-mutes XD Too bad David caught a flu on Day IV =X Get well soon!

And many many more from HOTEL 2~! We had the best of times together stuck in camp wearing the same thing day in and day out :D

Something funny happened on the way home. I wore Long No.4 with my jockey cap, so in one glance I look like someone who just booked-out. At the bus stop opposite J8, I sat down. This mother with a young boy of about 6 and a girl about 3 came by. The boy smiled at me and waved, I smiled back. Then the little girl started to throw a tantrum to her mom, and the mom was looking around, saw me, pointed slowly and said to the girl:

"Look at the big kor kor, he's angry with you already."

I'm like D: -thinks to self- 'I'm not angry at all!' The mother made me the bad guy! I smiled at them and the girl fell silent and went to sit down beside her brother quietly and together with him, continue scrutinising me. o.o Oh boy.

I shall talk about my First Aid Course tomorrow :)

Balthus

Lies may come, but their intentions as pure as an angel, I can never fault them.

Camp again :D

2008-11-30T04:28:00.000-08:00

I. Am. SOOOO ENTERTAINED BY MY T.V. SET :D

I'm watching 'Nanny 911', and I'm laughing sooo much. The children are rogues, squabbling with parents, being beasts as they run around the house and skate around and smash rubber swords on each other's heads. The kids are in-charge of the house! All the chaos is so funny - weirdly XD The council of Nannies are so funny as well ^^ Well, all ends well, the parents are in charge now: no more fun =X It beats the show my brother was watching ._. some shallow anime revolving around the life of some high school girl. pfft. *hugs Ghost in the Shell*

Camp Pinnacle tomorrow. I have no clue how it's going to be like, I've looked through the schedule: it looks like a fun camp - nothing like a training camp. However, nearly 3 years in NCC led me believe that 'fun' in dictionary isn't the same as 'fun' in NCC. I hope they won't grill us, more importantly, that my group won't get us grilled XD Oh well, no point questioning how it'd be until I get there!

I get to see SSC friends again! HELLO JEFF DE VIRES.

I have something to look forward to after camp - more Ghost in the Shell episodes!

Balthus

Save your fears, take your place, save them for the judgement day.

50th!

2008-11-27T06:35:00.000-08:00

50th post :)

It's been some time, I should have uploaded this here a long time ago XD This picture is titled "Within My Reach". I don't want to explain it, go figure :) I trust your literature skills will pull you through, Joel. Stuck? Try my deviantArt XD

I've been at at for 2 hours now, with my torch and screwdriver, removing the casing of the CPU to find the cable being slot into the wrong place, and everything dusty to heck. I put everything back together, connect all cables, switch on the com, only to find a graphic card problem. Great. All for naught, it's going to have been sent for re-service in the end. At least it was a learning experience to keep watch of sharp, pointy ends.

Get well soon D! May the angel of anti-sickness come down and heal your fever =)

D: Joel, Imma sorry I *worried* you by not updating, as a compensation, I'd do one of your quizzes!

1. What is your best friends name? I'm not saying~
2. What color underwear/boxers wearing now? D: What? What do you want to know - brand?
3. What are you listening to right now? "Beauty is within us" by Scott Matthew, a OST from Ghost in the Shell.
4. Whats your favorite number? Seven. It has a nice ring to it.
5. What was the last thing you ate? I think a couple of biscuits. I was pissed with my com.
6. If you were a crayon what color would you be? RAINBOW. If it were a colour.
7. How is the weather right now? It's snowing terribly - with winds beating horridly upon the roofs- wait, oh, in Singapore? Hot. Humid.
8. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Uhh. Dawn, told her to go rest now.
9. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Uhh. Eyes =X
10. Do you have a significant other? Now you're sounding like that parent. I'm single.
11. Favorite TV show? GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX XD
12. Siblings? One younger chatterbox of a brother, one older sister.
13. Height? About 1.7m.
14. Hair color? Jet black =)
15. Eye Color? Black-brownish.
16. Do you wear contacts? I used to. I got sick of screaming 'OH GOD IT'S NOT IN MY EYE.' in front of the mirror.
17. Favorite Holiday? Chinese New Year - I get to see how my nephews and nieces are coping along.
18. Month? June. Well, birthday.
19. Have you ever cried for no reason? That's a little hard to imagine why. I might have when I was young.
20. What was the last movie you watched? Madagascar 2. Too many sub-plots.
21. Favorite day of the year? I have 12 days. I look forward to the church bells played at noon every 1st day of the month.
22. Are you too shy to ask someone out? Yes.
23. Can you do a headstand (not using the wall)? O.o no way.
24. Hugs or Kisses? Erm, both?
25. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate. Not the flavour!
26. Do you want your friends to respond to this? Well, no need. People have better things to do.
27. Who is most likely to respond? Hardly anyone does the quizzes I do. Maybe you, Chia?
28. Who is least likely to respond? My PRREEZZ JOOHHHNN XD
29. What books are you reading? I randomly tooked two novels off the shelve for Eng homework. One I started is titled 'Wired'.
30. Piercings? D: Goodness no bloody way.
31. Favorite movies? Hmm, King Arthur, Kungfu Panda XD, Advent Children
32. Favorite football team? I don't watch soccer =X I stopped soccer in pri school.
33. What were you doing before this? Signing up with the NLB =X
34. Butter, Plain or Salted popcorn? BUUUTTTEERRR.
37. Dogs or cats? Kittens!
38. Favorite flower? One that shows resilience even in the most prevailing winds.
39. Been caught doing something you weren't supposed to do? Yea, I wasn't suppose to be drawing during the most boring of lectures.
40. Do you have a best friend of the opposite sex? Hahah Yes =)
41. Have you ever loved someone? Yes?
42. Who would you like to see right now? =) Sealed.
43. Are you still friends with people from kindergarten? Uh-uh. Kindergarten wasn't a very happy time for me.
44. Have you ever fired a gun? Yea, and he hit me hard in the shoulder because I did. Dang M16.
45. Do you like to travel by plane? Not really, unless it's necessary. It makes me feel odd.
46. Right-handed or Left-handed? Right, sadly. If only I could draw on my left.
47. How many pillows do you sleep with? One. What sort of question is this? O.o
48. Are you missing someone? Maybe.
49. Do you have a tattoo? Gah NO! Even if I ever do get one, I'm making my own design. Jeffrey's one is on his back O.o
50. Anybody on myspace that you'd go on a date with? What's myspace?

Seeing question 3 reminded me of the beautiful lyrics of what I was listening to. I think I shall share it here. It's a OST from Ghost in the Shell.

Beauty is Within Us

O mother dear
Look what you've done
To your forlorn and once beloved son
Why was I born at all?
O mother dear
I'm such a freak
A mutant man, a woman underneath
Why was I born at all?

It's you I blame for all the shame
This anguish and this aching
The mirror turned against the wall
Myself despised, forsaken
*You say, "Beauty is within us, your mother knows"
"There's a beauty that's within us, just like a rose"
You say, "Beauty is within us, so let it grow"
But it's grown so dark and ugly

O mother dear
I curse you so
For breathing life into your wretched son
Why were you born at all?
O mother dear
I love you so
O please forgive this anger in my soul
Without you I'm alone

It's me who's been eternally damned
Trapped inside this cage, a ruined man
All damaged and depraved

O mother dear
This misery
Has settled like a stain upon my skin
-a vast unspoken sin

And my mistake is much too late
But your mistake was trusting
That out of grief, a goodness comes
And love comes out of lusting

*repeat

You say, "Beauty is within us, your mother knows"
"There's a beauty that's within us, just like a rose"
You say, "Beauty is within us, so let it grow"
But it's grown so dark I can not see you anymore

"O beauty is within us, mother knows"
"O beauty is within us, like a rose"
"O beauty is within us, let it grow"
O mother dear, let me out of here!

It really suited the episode that came with it. Even on it's own, i really think it's a beautiful song full of emotion from the point of view of the son. See it as you will =)

Because the 50th is special ^^

Balthus

Save your tears, for the day, when the pain is far behind.

Not good.

2008-11-27T02:29:00.000-08:00

I didn't blog for some time because I went crazy over watching Ghost in the Shell for the past few days - just finished watching the whole Series 1 (Ghost in the Shell 1st Gig - Stand Alone Complex) and the movie which was released in 1995. It's really more then just a sci-fi police action show, because of all the underlying philosophy hidden in many episodes - and I spent afternoons reading them all up like about the Stand Alone Complex. I knew I shouldn't have started on a new anime series =X

You know, I'd highly appreciate it if both of you didn't argue so -loudly- till everyone can -hear- you =) All matters can be settled peacefully one way or another, regardless of the issue you're arguing over, kay?

I had my hair cut today at J8, that weird hairdressing place with all it's high tech stuff and all. I'm not going back there. You pay $10 from the start, queue up, just so the lady will rush through and my hair is still too long in the front. It should be just nice for Camp Pinnacle, but I'd have to cut again by end Dec. My mom scolded me for spending $10 on a haircut that's still long =X

To NCOs: Regarding the training in Dec, it will mostly be focused on IPPT. It'd only be one or two half day activity, but I need to know who is not free from the 20th to 31st Dec (excluding public holidays and weekends) so as to not disrupt any plans you might have. I'd be mass-smsing you guys soon.

Christmas shopping is proving harder then ever ._. I have no clue how to buy for some people whom I want to buy for. I'd find a way though. I'd devise an ultimate plan.

I have a secret method of improving brainpower that Zong Da witnessed today XD

Today, after Geog class, I left with Gary and Jiada to J8 where we ate and had my hair cut -.- I'm going to give in and sign up with a library to do CIP. I really, really want to do something more meaningful though...maybe I can choose not to do shelving and volunteer for story-telling instead. PLEASE JUST NOT SHELVING. At Bishan library I pulled out two novels randomly just to do Mrs Tina Tang's damned homework.

We went to Vivo for awhile mainly to look at figurines. No sign of Ghost in the Shell anywhere (WHY. is it because it's not as popular is the ever-flowing figurines of Naruto and Gundam? T.T) But there was ONE ARMOUR SABER figure which I wanted! But I had no money on me, and we can't buy it unless you buy the set of 4 Sabers ($20), in which I wasn't too interested in collecting the others. Sigh =X

I don't know how, but my dad expects me to repair my desktop all on my own. Great, because the internet cable snapped inside the CPU, I'm going to have to remove the cover just to meddle with all the wires and remove the thing without damaging anything else. Maybe it's for my good that he doesn't want to lift a finger to help me with this.

Congrats Weikit and Bryan for passing your interviews to be accepted for the attachment with Pearce Air Base Australia! Have fun there and bring something back for the whole unit :D

Balthus

No matter what binds me now, it will all fade in the heat of the moment, that right moment, I'd understand it all.

Cat High Open House :D

2008-11-22T06:33:00.001-08:00

Because our CMC is so awesome :)

I rushed to attend my new tution at this house tutor. I never believed in science tutoring, but my mom forced me for this. At least my teacher is a nice lady. It was Chem tution, and I was early. Then when more and more students entered the basement classroom they all were staring at me =X I. Hate. Staring. It is bloody scary, especially if it's strangers trying to figure you out. Like at the recent RSAF Attachment. Pfft. I want to sit in one corner or something ._.

Class ended, and I bolted out. For two reasons: One, avoid contact with others; Two, rush for Cat High Open House =X Changed to school uniform, nearly forgot my tie, and ran to school. As soon as I settled down, John gave me a briefing, and I immediately took my first family. I had to speak Chinese to the father and English to the mother! Ahaha parents ask the weirdest things - "Is school here stressful?" YES. "Why are you still in shorts if you're in sec 3?" ._. Chinese heritage. We wear pants all four years. pfft. "How is the discipline here?" Oh my - horrid horrid. Thank god for discipline masters. And the worst - "Are you single?" O.O I stared at the father and stared at the grinning father: "What? Yea I am o.o" Great, what was going through their mind when I asked "Do you have any questions?"

Then we all ended, and had debrief by Mr Goh YH =) I went home to find my cousins visiting. Oh oh! Double rainbow!

It's faint, but it's there alright. :D I love rainbows.

I have an ultimate plan :D It has many sub-ultimate plans, but it still is ultimate :D *tries to cackle evilly*

I need CIP hours! Must do it this holiday, or I'd never be able to. Not shelfing! (Joel you know WHY? XD) I want something meaningful =( Anyone got any suggestions?

Balthus

There are just some things the camera can't catch, but the eye can :)

Alpha OUTING :D

2008-11-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

it was SOOO FUN. I cannot describe how much fun we had here, but I'd try XD

I left home about 11 to meet Xinhui and MRT our way to Harbourfront to meet up with Alpha :D I was slightly late - sorry! Haha we tried to see who could spot who first without specs, and she won =X When to Habourfront together to meet ALPHA .

When we got off I saw Bryan, he was on the same train! Left and went to the control station to see Audrey, Kimberly and Brandon waiting. Marcus came shortly after. Later Hui Ling found us all waiting and brought us to rendezvous with the rest. Zul had his guitar O.o Firdaus was playing GTA :o Umairah and Nadia was sitting and waiting. I twiddled by thumbs - 162 rounds in one minute! We hung around at the steps waiting for more people to turn up. Many hadn't eaten lunch, so we decided to meet back at 2.30 (for everyone to eat and wait for rain rain to stop =X). I ate beforehand so I did some proposal-work during their lunch XD

2.30, we met up once again, the rain stopped! We met up with them at the arcade (the pet shop was so cool :D) and went to the monorail station (there's a monorail now?!) It's been nearly 7-8 years since I went to Sentosa, so much has changed O.O We got tickets and went in, but we hung back and waiting for the next train for Dawn to come :) She came running in, but in her hurry we forgot the donuts =X Opps. On the way to Sentosa, I proved myself to be a mountain tortoise - I didn't even know the monorail exsisted XD

When we reached we got down to the beach (there is more than one beach? O.o) and we bought a frisbee and a volleyball. Then we started playing :D It was cloudy, so we played on shore first.

When the drizzling stopped they all jumped in the sea =X I wasn't all up to enter the sea *remembers horrific jellyfish attack* and the guys didn't force me to....until they got bored. Jeffrey (A.K.A 5cm - he has a real name o.o) was like "Come, come, lemme tell you something." *I walk towards 5cm**all the guys push and drag me to the sea* I'm so gullible =X I wish we stayed still sunset. I went to listen to Zul's guitar for awhile - I liked Firdaus' and Zul's verion of Guardian Angel from RJA and Hey there Delilah by Plain White Tees.

Later we got onshore to play volleyball! Dawn, Joey, Eugene, Marcus, Bryan and myself were playing. We played till Zul and Firdaus joined in XD it was really comical, and slowly the game degraded to 'getting the ball to the other side of the line' kind XD It was still loooaadds of fun ^^ I fell down running after the ball =X And Brandon decided to try and prank me. Mrrgh. After that we washed up and had many many photos taken at the tram station XD

We took the monorail back to Vivo - the sunset was awesome. Wish we could have taken a picture =X Back at Vivo, some of us left early, while the rest of us went to Food Junction (I think?) for dinner. Either Zul didn't like the Halal stalls, or he was truely, as he said, "DIETING". My gosh, he's almost as skinny as I am, and dieting? O.O Ahaha XD We chatted alot then we went to Haagen Dazs as we wanted some ice-cream. omg. so full already =X It was getting late already, so we decided to part ways =( OH. and Firdaus SNAPS HANDS ^^

Oh well. Just recounting it. I can't wait for another one in Dec (I can't make it for 1st Dec!) Pictures :D

Boys group pic! From Left top: Brandon, Bryan, Marcus, Zul, Firdaus. Left Bottom: Myself, Eugene, Jeffrey XD
Girls (mostly) group pic: From Left top - Huiling, Kimberly, Joey, Firdaus (O.o), Lisa,Xinhui, Audrey, Dawn. Left bottom - Umairah & Nadia.

Where is our big group pic taken at the tram stop? O.O

FOUND IT:

From Left, Top Row: Lisa, Xinhui, Kimberly, Brandon, Eugene (half-hidden), Bryan (half hidden), Me, Dawn
From Left, Middle Row: Huiling, Nadia, Marcus, Joey, Umairah, Audrey
From Left, Bottom Row: Jeffrey (5cm XD), Firdaus, Zul & Zul's Guitar

Zul playing ^^ No, that's not a plate for coins XD Why am I in the background? O.o

Jeffrey (5cm) posing o.o HAHA - ALPHA! <3

Ahh,

Balthus

I miss those skies, I miss those nights.

SBAB - Day 3

2008-11-14T04:46:00.000-08:00

Ahh.

It's over already. The 3rd day of RSAF Attachment. For some reason, I started laughing uncontrollably all morning. Mainly due to the many bizarre things that happened this morning. First, Bryan and I met early as we were going to another camp this morning - Chong Pang Camp. So we took the instructions from that Captain Teacher Officer (not sure which school): Take 169 from Ang Mo Kio interchange and 4 stops away from Sembawang Air Base. So Bryan and I guai guai listened to that and took all the way. We did see a sign "Chong Pang" somewhere, but we ended up somewhere in Yishun and Sembawang. Kept calling Hui Yang who thought we were on the right track until:

"The bus stop here doesn't service 169. It says only 167 here."

OMG. We jumped off our bus and started shouting at each other WTF WTF with Hui Yang still on the phone. If I ever sign up for Amazing Race when I grow up, it will NOT be with Bryan, we start shouting at one another as soon as we're lost XD We quickly flagged down a taxi. The taxi uncle is so funny, he saluted us as we entered!

"Woah. SO many stars arh. Shiny!"

:D "Thank you Uncle. Now, Chong Pang Camp please" As he hurried us there (he drove super fast), he cursed like nuts and laughed when suddenly a lorry blocked the whole road and shocked us, making Bryan laugh his head off. Wild man o.o Finally, he got us to Chong Pang Market, and we rendezvoused with Hui Yang and Yong Hwee. Weikit and Yong Liang already went ahead of us.

Then we got to the auditorium and watched Jeff Dunham. AHAHAH super, super funny XD Kinda racist as well =X From then on, I couldn't control myself XD I laughed at Hui Yang's injury (how ironic) while he was trying to help us, I know I'm mean =X then I was laughing at Weikit being hit on by a guy XD We had a quick brief on the equipment used during air defence, many anti-air units and sorts, then we got to see all the vehicles up-close. It was kind of short, but interesting nonetheless. It would have been more interesting if not so much information was classified =( By the time the exhibits were over I have sort of calmed down. Then it was home-bound for us already.

I really wished we got a chance to say good bye to the Singapura LCP Aloysius Teo. Ahaha he was really nice to us throughout the three day course, and it was fun and interesting to talk to him. He also gave me some advice which I won't say here =X But it was really nice knowing him.

Yong Hwee, Hui Yang, Bryan and I went back to Cat High to watch NCC land's parade, congrats to all promoted sec 3s!

I'm damned sure I'm being watched by people from other schools. It's getting scary =X

Balthus

With you around, everything will eventually slow to rest.

IMPORTANT - Overseas NCC trainign progs.

2008-11-13T05:25:00.000-08:00

Alright, it was Day 2 of SBAB Attachment. It wasn't really much, to be honest, day one was more fun =D We visited the various mechanical stations of the air base, such as how they maintain their helicopters (detecting cracks under UV rays), more details on the Chinook (CH47), and got to see the Apache Longbow (in all it's awesome weaponry :D) and saw the ammunition and weaponry used by the Apache as well. Very technical, but still highly interesting =)

Then I got very, very irritated. Males in no.3 sitting on the floor. Males in no.3 lying on the floor. SSGs talking non-stop while falling in and giving the IC a hard time. Really kinda pity MSG Amanda, having to try and do C&C with people laughing during drills. Must be really hard for them to train their own parts if they keep laughing like that during training =X

Later was the flight simulations. The Super Puma simulation was older, but was good nonetheless, it shaked and moved, and the graphics were quite suitable to the movement, nice :) what was even better was the Chinook's (CH47) simulation: you can control the course! I got to be the pilot, and crashed the helicopter =X Then I got the hang of it and we "flew" to Sentosa :D They did the Merlion graphics quite well! Too bad there was no shaking of the helicopter. Then a group photo of everyone who attended SBAB attachment, then home-bound =) Fara kept laughing at how tired I was, and Huiyang tried once more to prove his "Benedict-looks-old" point.

Now, there are two overseas courses offered to us NCC cadets, any NCO interested, please infrom me by the specified deadline from HQ NCC: 21st Nov. Now, the two overseas courses are...

1) a training visit to Pearce Air Base located in Australia. Dates are 8 - 13th Dec. The cost is $150.

VISIT PROGRAMME

The proposed programme (refers to Annex A) will include the following:

a. Courtesy-call. The NCC Delegation will make a courtesy call to Base Commander. After a briefing, the NCC Delegation leader will present a memento to the Base Commander.

b. Visit to SAF Training Activities. To experience SAF Overseas training, the NCCRSAF pilot trainee training.

c. Educational Visit Training. Participants will undergo a 1 day educational programme in Perth where they may experience the Australian’s culture.

Annnddd for 2): A Glider course conducted in India. It's from the 1st to 24th Dec (woah.) The cost is $100. Basically you get to do Aeromodelling, Glider Flight training, Parasailing, etc. I'm sure there's a badge for this.

I don't know why I'm saying all these, just disseminating information from Mr Goh. Though I highly, highly, doubt so, but if any NCO is interested in any of the courses, feel free to ask me for the AI and learn more about the courses. Remember, the deadine is on the 21st Nov.

Tomorrow's the last day of SBAB Attachment. Looks like I'd be missing St. Nick's investiture =( Hopefully, things would go much more smoother tomorrow.

I like my new specs XD

Balthus

Whistle with the wind, dance to the flowers, sing with the rivers.

RSAF Attachment - Day 1

2008-11-12T00:25:00.000-08:00

Day one:

I awoke by my brother's noisy preparation to go to school. I met up with Bryan (picked up a copy of Today fist :D) before we found our way to Sembawang Air Base (SBAB). The guardroom was 'just up the slope', said the guard so casually that we thought it was a short distance till we got there. Met up with Yong Hwee and Hui Yang, and they all entered the campus before I did because I hung back to wait (anxiously) for Wei kit and Yong Liang. They did not appear as I plotted how I wanted to throttle them. Ahah while waiting I met many more NCC friends - Novell, Fara, Joel Rasis, Hariz, The ACS(I) gang of David, Shawn and Kevin, and Xue Feng. And I just realised Novell is now CSM of North View NCC air :D

I would throttle Weikit and Yongliang for being late and making me worry, but I was in uniform. After all the attendance and everything we gathered at the Officer's Mess, had a briefing by the Captain, and he sent us for breakfast o.o Didn't eat =X When we went back we just watched videos about the heritage of SBAB and modernisation of our helicopters. Kinda interesting, but I highly suspect the rest of my guys were up to something on me with all that sneakiness ._.

Following that was lunch, where we talked to the Singapura LCP sir there (I can't remember his surname =X), and more comments about how blur I am by my partmates =X

We went back and got split into school level to get ready for our familiarisation flight on the CH47. I remember speaking to Xue Feng (who turned out to be the only Beatty there =X) for abit before we took a bus there. The Staff Sergeant there introduced the copter to us, all its features, and we got to roam around it and take a closer look. It was rather fascinating =) We even got to see the interior before take-off =D

Then my partmates decided to prove their point that I look older than my age. After their opinions (which ranged from 23 - 90 years old. funny. ha.) were voiced, we went to ask other people. I remember getting answers from: David (I think he said 18), Shawn (90. I'd pretend I heard 19), Singapura LCP sir (18, he said I look tired o.o), Novell (she said 17 - 19), Joel Rasis (23?!), Fara (16. thank goodness). Fine, Hui Yang and company seemed to have proved their point, but I'm not beaten =D

We got our earplugs on and boarded the CH47 while braving the winds =X We strapped in and WHOO =D It was very, very fun =D amazing view of the island, over housing estates, lush greenery, skies and more skies, I couldn't keep my eyes off the great view until they closed the back of the copter =X It was really really nice to see things from that view. Too bad there won't be anymore flights the next two days =X

Home-bound, I realised once more that I'm not a marksman =( Kinda excited for Day 2 =D

Everytime I'm offered an investiture, always, ALWAYS, without fail, a NCC event will clash. And which will I choose? I've been allowed by John to attend St. Nicholas' Investiture '08 on the 14th Nov (last day of SBAB Attachment, which ends at 11.30), and the time is from 10am to 12noon. Joy. Just, great. The up-side? John offers to let me go for the first investiture next year =) THANK YOU PREZZ.

Balthus

I can't believe it's nearing, so fast, so soon, I'd hear that laugh once more =)

wwwwhhyyy

2008-11-09T07:27:00.001-08:00

Johnervan, you betta be reading this D:

I should go for an investiture! DDDDDD:

It's been two years of Class Chairman service for me, and I'm going to be sec 4 already! Mrrgh, all the other Investitures offered to me ALWAYS clash with NCC events, even this one on the 14th Nov clashes with RSAF Attachment! I guess it's fate...

I better get one when the year starts or esle...I'd swap and rearrange some books in the school library. Muahahahah XD PURE evil.

I just showed my Dad my report book. Mrgh. I'm NOT going to be last again.
No one from my class really reads this anyway. 'Cept a couple of friends in my class.

I'm drawing again to rid my irritation. The sketch is coming out just nice :D I'm really amused by the Power98 advert on BMT, a couple of guys laughing their heads of, and someone asks why their doing so, they reply: "I just got a hammering from my platoon sergeant and now I feel terrible, so I'm, hhaaaaa, laughing to relief sttrreessss *laughs head off*" Heeee.

I'm soooo tempted to do one of Joel's quiz AGAIN *bites thumb in attempt to control urge*

Alpha outing right after RSAF Attaaacchhmmmeeennntt~

Balthus

It's all within your reach, you just have to stretch a little more, and believe in the radiant dawn.

OMG OMG OMG

2008-11-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

OMG IT'S CONFIRMED.

The Alpha outing has been brought forward to 17th Nov, Monday!

OMG OMG OOOOMMMGGG :D I cannot thank you both enough, Bala and Xinhui! TTHHHAAANKKKSSSS :D I'mma ssssooo HYPED now, I could start laughing for 15 whole minutes again (no I won't, Joel, I don't want you to freak again).

My specs snapped three days before the Os, so I had to super-glue them together as a temporary measure, but my mom insisted I got a new one done by today. Apparently, my eye degrees improved by about 25 and 50 respectively left and right, and my current ones are too powerful o.o My new specs are going to be deep, dark green o.o Go nuts, Damien.

I'm so hyped for the outing :D But I know I'm going to be down again, I plan to show my father my report book tomorrow night. Ragh. Should start drawing out the idea I just formed in my head :D

And no, sadly, I'm not an Art Student, though I was thinking of becoming one last time =X

I'm still waiting for Li to upload Biennale phooottooss =D

Balthus

And the river flows, and the river rides, into the ocean, and into my skies :)

Biennale!

2008-11-07T04:27:00.000-08:00

I WANT TO GO FOR THE ALPHA OUTING SO BAD D:

Oh, this is the latest drawing I did. I finally thought of a title! It shall be titled:

"Thirteen Wishes"

I'd leave you to figure out why :D I've still yet to have a caption for this piece yet, mrrgh. I don't know how to do a good caption, I'd usually end up describing the picture.

I went to the Singapore Biennale today! I met Li (2 minutes late =X) at City Hall MRT
with a few of her friends there, if I remember correctly: Sarah, Jazlyn and Muni. I don't wanna elaborate much on Biennale yet till I get pictures from Li =) If you can, you should go see exhibits as well! Those at the Supreme Court House are really ingenious and beautiful :D The second place I went to was the South Beach Development...it was really....dreary..like...horridly and rather painful looking art works. Wait for pictures from Li's camera first XD

I'm going to form up a plan of my own to restudy my Sciences. I can't believe my sister talked with her friend about it, and now her friend's brother wants to genuinely want to give me tutioning over my Sciences. agh. I don't even know him.

Take care Lisa on your flight to London! Not many are as lucky as you are to be going on a double holiday ;D Have fun and stay safe =)

No Li, I do NOT like maggots. Not even cute ones crawling all over red carpets.

I think I'd do a Joel quiz =D

(1)What have you been doing recently? Thinking up something new to draw :D

(2)Do you ever turn your cellphone off? If it's a school day the next day, I'd off at night.

(3)What happened at 10am today? Just left home in a hurry to meet Li at City Hall =X

(4)When did you last cry? Uh. When? O.O I don't remember.

(5)Believe in fate/destiny? Yes I do :D Some things -just- happen

(6)What do you want in your life now? Nothing in particular. Wanting doesn't help anyway. And I don't wanna say here.

(11)Do you tend to make a relationship complicated? I've never been in a relationship o.o

(12)Are you wearing anything you borrowed from someone? If you count wristbands...still no XD

(13)What was the last movie you caught? OH GOD DON'T MAKE ME REMEMBER. Fine. High School Musical 3. With Joel last Wed =X

(14)Does the person know that you like him/her? I'm good a secrets ;) Uh. But I'm not entirely sure.

(15)Who always make you laugh? A Couple of people :D And I don't laugh easily.

(16)Do you speak languages other than English? Chinese. Or Mandarin. Wait that's the same o.o

(17)Favourite website(s)? Youtube :D Oh, blogs, and...the Neopets newspapers - "Neopian Times". I like the short stories there =D

(19)What are you doing tomorrow? I'm pretty sure my dad wants me to do some gardening...

(20)What do you think you are like? I can't judge myself. Ask others. You'd get many, -many- differing answers.

(21)Who will you choose to die with? I'm going to die alone in a hole.

(22)Where have you been today? Singapore Biennale! City Hall area, mainly. And South Beach development. Art, art, and more art!

(23)What game do you play often? I don't really game nowadays. I know that if I start, I won't stop until I finish the RPG =X

(24)Who are you missing right now? *digs ears with finger* "WHHHAAATT?"

(25)If you had to chose between a friend and a love, who will you chose? A love would most probably a friend as well, right? So, both XD

(26)What are you doing right now? Filling this quiz up while looking at deviantART.

(27)Which primary school are you from? Ai Tong Primary School :)

(28)Name 3 colours that you like. Oh ^^ Silver, Turquoise, and Rainbow. If that's a colour XD

(29)What emotion do you like to show? ._. "oh, ok."

(30)What is your life to you? I'm the captain, and the people around me are like my compasses. But they are all pointing in different directions, and I have to choose which to follow. Am I quoting Mr Goh?

(31)If you have something troubling you, what will you do? Go home straight and sort it out myself. Confide in someone. List out a couple of solutions, and flip my coin to decide which.

(32)Who did you last chat with on msn today? Bryan Seah o.o

(33).Who do you admire most? Quite a number of people :) Mostly from NCC. Oh, one guy I admire in my level is Gerald Ling. I've seen him in sec 1 and 2 training every sunny day without fail just so he wouldn't pull his NPCC part down during PT. Such discipline and determination =)

(34)Which month were you born in? JUUNNEE :D

(35)How are you feeling right now? A little tired. And my mind keeps racing.

(36)What is the time now? 22:44:56

(37)What kind of person do you think the one who tagged you is? I took this off Joel. Really nice guy who goes crazy too. My hand-snapping partner!

(38)What colour did you use to dye hair? I can't imagine dyeing my hair.

(39)Why are you doing this test? Out of pure boredom. And hoping that inspiration would pop out

(40)What do you do when you’re moody? Drown in Evanescence.

(41)At which age you wish to get married? HA. I have really no clue. I don't really think about marriage. Hermit.

(42)Who are important to you? Family and friends ;)

(43)If today is the last day of your life, what will you do? WHAHAHA. I remember this question asked at camp. "I'd conduct NCC training!" <-- The super enthu NCC guy XD "I'd draw till I drop dead, pencil at hand" I really don't know, but I won't spend a single idle moment.

(44)Who is the person you trust the most? The most? A couple of friends, but I won't name.

(45)Do you believe in seeing a rainbow after a rain? Always will, things can't stay horrible forever. Even if no rainbow comes, the light drizzle is enough to bring smiles :)

(46)If you have a dream come true, what would it be? I would be able to say what ever I really wanted to say deep inside o.o

(47)What is your goal for this year? Year's ending. Pull my all my grades and shock my class during Prelim 1 tomorrow. Or pummel some of them into submission XD Nah, I won't hit anyone (really!)

(48)Do you believe in eternal love? Yes, it does happen :)

(49)What feeling do you love most? Being wanted =)

(50)Do you really think its Global Warming now? Uh huh. I do think so.

(51)What feeling do you hate the most? Bitter anger.

(52)You like doing quizzes? Not enough to make me go nuts =X

(53)Do you believe in God? Yes I do.

(54)Who cares for you most? My parents are always saying I don't look out for myself enough. Yea, it's my parents.

(55)What do you think is the most important thing in your life? Discipline.

(56)What will you bring when you fight? I really don't like fighting. If it boils down to it, I'd bring my keychains. Keys are painful, what my keychains are can make it worst. But I won't use them unless he draws something out too!

(57)What have you regretted doing in your whole life? A whole plenty full of mistakes I made in primary school

(58)What would you do if nobody cared for you any longer? I'd find a hole. At least the Earth cares.

(59)What if your boyfriend/girlfriend two-timed you? If I ever do have one, I'd trust her enough not to do so :)

(60)How do you feel now? Evanescence-ish. Is that a feeling? Kinda...neutral. Like ._.

Oh god. I'm so bored that I answered 60 questions for the heck of it. I should sleep soon...or I'd go read ^^

Balthus

I'm missing this one chance to see you once more to fulfill a duty, but it won't make a difference, I just have to look up at the starry night sky.

Bam

2008-11-06T06:03:00.000-08:00

New cupboards came to the Air Store today :D Stare at awe in its awesome silver shininess, and it's lockable function, with keys ^^ Too bad we were only lazy enough to fix up ONE out of two cupboards, because we ended up getting distracted badly...

I played a Naruto fighting game on Garry's PSP today. Yea, I must be innately violent. I have no clue how to go about, yet I managed to choose a team and fight through normal, hard and insane stages of team battle XD Gaara may not move fast, but who cares when you can own the enemy standing still? GIIAAANNTT SSAAANNNDD BUURRIIAALL - then he whispers: "Pathetic." sweet.

I just got my IC done up today. I never expected ICA to be so easy to navigate O.o But it was rather a easy process! Except the fact that it took 4 times before the woman was satisfied with my thumb print. Thanks Li for helping me out :D

On my way home, I realised I've picked up the same leaflet the 7th time already. The person seems to recognise me by now =X Oh and I saw Senior Wei Liang run by me to board a bus - seeing Wei Liang again reminds me how it was to be a cadet under him: lost, confused about system, following his instructions to the best I can, and him leading us through PT and training us. Ahh. I wish I could have talked to him today =X Oh by the way, Wei Liang was the Part B UDI of our batch, during 2006. It was him and Senior Sui Peng that inspired me to want to become a Part B UDI. Er, yea, during my post interview I did say "What post I want? Part B UDI." Sigh: time flies so fast - My NCC NCO life is coming to end already =(

Welcome back Lisa :) I bet Aussie was a blast, but you're leaving again! Take cares in your trip to London kays?

I really feel sore about not being able to attend the first Alpha gathering. I'd be at Camp Pinnacle and on Day 1 I know I'm at camp while Alpha gathers at Vivo =( I'm sure somehow, there'd be a second =) Maybe even a chalet ^^

I'm going to the Singapore Biennale tomorrow :D I wonder what I'd see there, but it's bound to be awesome ^^

Balthus

Now she's up there, sings like an angel, but you can't hear those words.

"O" RLY.

2008-11-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTJ)

Your personality type is logical, uncompromising, independent, and nonconformist.

Only about 3% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 4% of all men.

You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

Oookkkaaayyy. I admit it kind of sounds like me, but THAT rare? o.o

The Chinese O levels ended today, it wasn't as bad as I expected! I don't wanna elaborate much, but I read the Bao Zhang Bao Dao topic (on handphones) the night before, so it's all good there. Paper 2 was rather simple as well, compared to what Cat High throws at us.

oh well, ITS ALL OVER. I might even get my A :D

After the papers, I have a promise to keep =X High School Musical 3. Oh boy. I met up with Joel, who couldn't resist having a game of soccer with some others since we were early. I went to my store to get into the 'Dead Fish in the Lockers' drama.

This is the perfect example why I don't agree to pets kept in the Air Store. They will rot as soon as you guys forget about them when there are holidays. Thank god I didn't take the hamster from before that Bryan tried to keep.

Now, when Joel finished his game, we walked to J8, and got chased by the rain :D It was so cool to look back and see the rain, but you're perfectly dry! The rain got to us eventually.

I tried to convince Joel SO HARD. "Watch 007 instead! PLEASE =X" -sigh-, we bought 5 tickets for the rest to come. I bought Joel lunch since he bought my ticket.

Finally, Damien, Zhong Da and Wen Wei turned up, and we armed ourselves, and trooped to the theatre. I braced myself and was highly amused by a little hamster praising HSM and immitating the songs before the show.

Oh boy. HSM's plot was rather....flat. Sure, it's senior year, and we all are going to plan one final musical together and we part. Alot of the show focused on Troy's decisions to make with Gabriella, their love story and sorts. I really prefered the little subplots here and there, like the uber great backstabbing London transfer student. Sharpay got OWNED.

My favourite song? Troy's solo - "Scream". Oh yea. That was seriously the best song in the whole film. Alot of emotion, alot of change in tempo, just sweet. At the end on the song, it went like this:

Troy: "aaaaHHHH!"
Baby:" WAAAHHhh."
Theatre: "BWHAHAHAHA."

The timing was super coincidental, it was super cute ;)

If I squint hard enough, Troy in a tux could look like James Bond.

Oh, I did a real immature act. During the kissing scene, I decided to negate the effects my eating 5 cubes of ice from Damien's drink. I ended up covering my mouth with my hand and for some reason, giggling non-stop. Primary School girls were staring at the immature sec school boy shaking uncontrollably in his seat. I nudged Joel and whispered:

"Tell Damien...my mouth..hee...is sooooo...hee..soo nnnuuummmbbb."

WHAHAHAH XD I went a little nuts. Well, little being an understatement. After the movie, I couldn't stop laughing at practically, ANYTHING. We were the last to leave the theatre, Joel's idea, and I started laughing when I saw Wen Wei's seat was the messiest XD

I laughed when I pulled the 'Push here' bar.

I laughed when we couldn't find a way out.

I laughed when I saw Damien.

I laughed when I remembered how numb my mouth was.

I was practically abit nutty already. See what "Too-happy" movies do to me? That is why I really, really didn't want to watch HSM, with a ending so perfect like a faerie tale, and it's all....TOO HAPPY XD Ironic as it sounds, I feel bad being so happy o.o I was even still laughing when I picked up the same leaflet for the 3rd time that day XD

Could be the popcorn. Or Damien's drink.

Numb mouth. HAHAHAH XD

I counter-effected the laughing spree when I got home by listening to Troy's "Scream" a couple of times, and Evanescence. I think my emotions are either neutral (yea, the stone me throughout the whole school day, as Ernest usually points out) or at extremes. XD

Anyway, thanks Joel for making me watch a movie. Your popcorn helped me get pass it juuusstt weell. ^^

Oh, I got a little sad when I got home. Audrey sms-ed me talking about the Alpha gathering on the 1st Dec - the first day of my Camp Pinnacle! Sigh, I really don't wanna miss Alpha's first gathering...Thanks though, Aud =)

Balthus

It's like the whole world flipped, everything had something which just tickled me.