• Will I be breaking anything when I book back in tonight?
  
  
• Will WO (warrant officer) Farhan make my life difficult?
  
  
• Will I be out of course?
  
  
• I'll be buying my digital camera. But how soon?
  
  
• Can I be just as profficient in my driving if I go back now to get my license?
  
  
• Will you have said yes if I ask you now?
  

Barely a week into the new platoon, I already can start making nicknames for people. Let's start with Fly Man.

I'm the appointed book-in/book-out in charge for the company. On Saturday itself, I was rushing around looking desperately for the book-out book. Don't know what might happen if I don't do the job, perhaps me as the I/C don't have to book out, perhaps everyone in the platoon won't have to book out. Hmm...that'll defintely be the case for Jenson or Ryan back in Platoon 3.

So I barged into the platoon office, just to find the book that I've been looking for, is right beside the door placed neatly together with other books like the report sick book, the Minor Offence Book (commonly known as 'The Book'). Err...thanks, sarge, for telling me after limping from the office to the smoking point and back.

I finished filling up the names from the namelist outside my bunk within the time we came back from breakfast, and before the speed-training lesson came up. I rushed downstairs to section 1, then shouting like a mad chinaman into the bunk for them to sign the book quick. First guy, second....so far so good.

Then the third one is one muthurfucking sonofabitch, I tell you. Instead of merely signing his name in the box, he has to be the first joker who writes the date he's booking in as well. Aye bitch, you sure you booking in tmr night? And what? You've been at the side observing the previous 2 person who signed the book leh.

"Dude, sign only. Don't try to act smart and write your book-in also, can?" I told Fly Man.

"Wah leow....don't have to scold, right??!" Fly Man stopped writing the date mid-way through, retreating back into the bunk hole he came from.

WTF. THIS is scolding? Can you wake up your idea? Which hole did you come from? IF this is scolding, I think you're gonna fucking cry like a little spoilt child when I scream at you, bitch. Not wanting to make a fuss of it all, I gave myself a =.= face, meaning well enough to have slapped him my reaction if he had said anything else.





Later that afternoon, I bumped into him again while at the cookhouse. Worse still, this bugger was sitting opposite me --- okaaaai...I was stupid enough not to look where I sit. Throughout the entire lunch, I didn't attempt to launch into any conversations, mainly because I thought mr Fly "Grouchy" Man will probably be the butt of my insults, and he'll call home and cry mommy if I tried any stunt like that. Imagine a fit boy who quit multiple CCAs, including AVA, hockey, face full of meteor scars, sobbing in broad dayloght, while pointing at yours truely

Whoah. Dies, man.

He had finished his lunch already, wheras those aorund him, uncluding me, had finsihed hardly started. All of a sudden, he stopped eating altogether, setting dow his fork and spoon like they're burning his fingers. I stared at his plate, and to my horror, two flies were hyumping each other on his plate!! The bigger fly riding on the top, while the smaller one was moving around the plate. The combo was so damn irking , throwing up didn't seem such a bad idea.

To make it worse the fucking pair of flies (literally) fell off the plate, banged onto the table, and started crawling around on the table like noone's business! EEEWWWW......GROOOOSSSSS.....

"Aye, kill it lah. You know if you don't, there'll be 200 flies next time liao," said one guy from my right.

"DON'T LAH....leave it alone," Fly Man replied.

"I think you better go get a new plate of food then," offered the same guy.

"No, it's okay, " "I finished already."

Momentariy slience.

"I think someone better kill it."

I lunged forward to grab Fly Man's spoon. Why not? If the fucking flies can afford to fall off the table, there's no reason why I couldn't get to smashing the fucking flies in time.

"EH, stop it lah," Fly Man pleaded.

Like a terrorist being cornered I had to put down my weapon of mass destruction. Okaaai....if you insist that being a Buddhist doesn't grant you the right to kill pests.

There's a saying among the instructors that all who come to SISPEC to train are warriors. They come in with the gusto to learn, to endure, have a vision that one fine day, they'll pass out with flying colours --- that they can mimic what their instructors had done to them back in BMTC.

Of course this is the colourful picture painted for us. Among ourselves, we still have to touch up the entire portrait with our faces. If you can't hang in there long enough --- too bad, you have to be dropped out.

I fear for my future, nowdays. Can I bring home enough money to start saving for the future? Can I be even walking around without help of crutches? These two problems come and go from the time I wake up, to the time I close my eyes and shut down for the day 18 hours later. I have the fear whenever I withdraw money from the bank. It was alot of my savings when I first got the card. My ambition was to top it up by another thousand by the end of 3 to 4 months, which in the end was not supposed to be. Expenses had to be shelled out by my own. I pay for my transport, my food, my entertainment. In short, I'm almost earning my own living. When I have to drawn money from the ATM, I'll stare at the balance diplayed, and flash backs of what I planned to do then, occured. It felt easy. In reality, nothing comes close to what I had planned.

Now nothing is close to what I had hoped for. Physically, I'm bogged down by this stupid knee.

If only... if only... if only...

If only I had landed on my toes on that day. If only I had begged and even took the effort to go to the Medical Centre to ask for a couple of days off to get proper medical care. If only I had fought for my right with my PC. If only I had been a bit less lazy. Nothing will be like this now.

My legs are weak from the lack of training. When I train, I feel powerless, unlike back in BMTC --- some rest in a minute will do my good for another 1 hour. Back then, time was abundant, training wasn't ridgid. Now I'm restricted from all 4 fronts. I'm supposed to do this, and I say that I'm scared --- more like traumatised. I'm afraid of simple jumps that are capable of ruinning the rest of my life. I'm afraid for what might come the next 3 seconds. I feel like I'm on a helicopter that has gone out of control --- and the only way to prevent crashing is by jumping close to the edge of the volcano threatening to explode all the time, splatering trouble on me, leaving scars.

I managed to jump off the low-wall, but I doubt if the fear will ever go away. I'm scarred for life. But I jumped. afterall.

Should I even call myself a warrior?

I can't contribute physically, but day-to-day conversations, I seem always the one conselling people. Like Desmond who thinks of OOC all the time, 24/7 ever since he found out that we are all not the same platoon anymore. I'm mentally stronger --- this I know. If I can take it, doesn't mean that I eventually will make it. Will I ever step out from BSLC thinking that nothing will stop me from ASLC? Will I be the son who had been brought up healthy, but one fine day turn a lame?

I'm scared.

It's supposed to be sleeping time now. Shaddap lah. Whatever.

BUT, I thought of writing down a few words before I go chill in the bed.

Oh wait. I haven't read the papers yet.

The break has been relaxing. All thanks to the knee, and the non-stop eating, my stomach has gained back its shapely round. I didn't eat any buffets, which makes me wonder, if my metabolic rate dropped a thousand times. The platoon mates didn't look as bad as me. =) Six-pack is taking his vacation, thanks.

Going SISPEC tmr. Heard its rather 'xiong'. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem. I do have my reserves lah. Mainly, it's the knee lor. Fighting fit soldier, although gained weight, can train hard to be a good working soldier. A person, if he has any form of physical injury, will have his reserves --- like me! heehee!

The knee isn't throbbing. (if it doesn, Houston, we have a big problem.) The joints between the thigh bone and the shin bone tends to pop out once in a while, especially when I run, balance excessively on one side, the bones will come out for a while, and pop back in. The sickening part is the excruciating pain that comes after.

There was once when I tried jogging for 20 minutes. I over-balanced and nearly collapsed. I jogged it away, and never once it came back. I was extra careful, of course.

There was another time when I was playing ball at Siloso Beach yesterday. Whoah, kicking the ball was rather hard. While passing and blocking, legs that weigh thousands of tons land on the RIGHT leg, and tada. I swear I almost cried. So from then on, I took a permanent break, pretending to watch the game. In fact, the sun was good enough for the different skin tones on my back and front to be less obvious.

OK. It's SISPEC liao. I've got Desmond, Hsien Han, RJ from section 2 going SISPEC. I really, really hope we're back together in the same section lor. Noisy, no doubt, and maybe we'll form a clique of our own, but it'll be like back in Ulysses again. FUN!

I want a digital camera! It's been a long time since I wanted one, but never had the means to do so. Since I had already spent so much money this money, no harm spending more, right? After all, two months of a private's pay is enough to recover the amount I'm going to spend. =)

I give you the Sony DSC-W70/B. Picture courtesy of Steve's DigiCam.



Cyber-shot W70 Major Features:

• Sony 7.2 Megapixel effective CCD image sensor
• Carl Zeiss 3x Zoom (38-114mm equivalent in 35mm photography)
• MPEG Movie: 640x480 VX Fine w/audio at 30fps (Memory Stick Duo Pro required),
  640x480 VX at 16fps, length limited only by media
• Auto, Program AE, High ISO plus 6 Scene modes
• 3-shot Burst (98 at VGA quality) at 1.4fps
• Live histogram display in capture and playback
• 5 Area Multi-point AF; auto or selectable Spot AF point
• 2.5" TFT color (115,000 pixels) LCD Screen with Auto Brightness
• ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000
• Adjustable color saturation, contrast and sharpness
• Noise Reduction: Automatically cleans up long exposure images
• 14bit A/D Conversion - allows a wider dynamic range from highlight to shadow
• Built-in flash with Auto Fill, Red Eye Reduction and Slow Synchro
• USB 2.0 Auto-Connect to host computer
• Powered by Li-ion rechargeable battery
• 58MB internal memory plus Memory Stick Duo / Duo Pro compatible
• DPOF and PictBridge direct-print USB compatible

Loads of it is bullcrap, so I created one for myself:


Cyber-shot W70 Major Features that attracted Shawn:

• Sony 7.2 Megapixel
• Carl Zeiss 3x Zoom
• 2.5" TFT color
• Slim in size
• Black

Steve's Digicam is a top choice for people looking to buy mainly digital cameras(duh). They give good pointers, and one of the best points is that they give a category specially for the better cameras that they reviewed, which are both the best and value for money. (I refrained from using the word "cheap" because they're really not cheap at the price range of $200 to $1000 range.) This category will be useful for people like me who don't have the time and expertise to source around for cameras because the images load quickly and gives simple-to-understand reviews without much technicals in the first pages.

The site is very up to date, so if you are the kind who haunts websites, chances are that you'll know of a new model's reviews a few days after it has been released.

Came back from the platoon chalet this afternoon. Yesterday was crazy. Went to Pasir Ris around 3 plus, then directly to the bungalow itself. I tell you, the walk inside from Downtown East into Aloha Loyang was faaaaarking long ah. Wah lao eh. I walked....and walked....and walked alone into Costa Sands Resorts instead.

Strange, I thought when I was hanging around the Costa Sands reception area. Burt told me it's bungalow number 13. Yet, all the bungalow had letters instead. I took out the map I drew for myself, which resembled something like that:



To my horror, I was really at Costa Sands.



The next stretch of walk involved the hot sun, and damn windy roads littered with bungalows which have names below their number, that don't make sense. Like "Laughing Thrush" and "Munia" and "Cornflower". WTF are these names, I was thinking. Can't they have better names that brand after condoms like Durex or Trojan?

When I reached the palce, hardly half of 2 sections' people are around.

I was thinking, that if Blogger decides to take a long time to load this page, I wouldn't put any post here. So you probably guessed how come yours truely has a new post at 3am on a Saturday night Sunday morning.

Was with Burt and FuQuan at NAFA (Nanyang Academic of Fine Arts) 7 hours ago to support Lau's performance. Only because the entrance was free, and to support my bunk mate, I decided that Hey, it isn't too bad listening to something that Lau composed himself, instead of some crap that I probably had listened to, and his reindition is horrible anyways.

Finding the place was one of the more horrible things that ever happened to me this week. When I reached the NAFA building located along Middle Road, it was shocking. The building itself looked like it could come down any minute --- not the best place to hold a classy performance. All sides of the building was locked, and even the couple of them that were ajar looked like they could lead to the 4th dimension.

Burt called me right at that moment when I reached the edge of the building. Then I got directed like a blind bat to the NAFA building across TCC. This one looked much better, trust me. Wah lao, at least there's light and a couple of posters pasted on the otherwise empty walls.

The performance was fantastic. In fact, most of the pieces that didn't have to include any reproduction from previously-cut CDs sounded awesome. When Lau's piece came up --- which is like after 11 other pieces that we've heard --- three botak boys waved like nuts at the stage. I'm not sure if he had seen us then, judging from the slit-like eyes.

At the interval, we had this old aunty who helped us take pictures.

(Awaiting Burt's digicam pics)

This aunty was weird. Instead of taking pictures holding the camera correctly, she flipped the camera 180degrees around, and pressed the shutter of the cam with her left thumb instead. We did try to correct her because we thought she made a genuine mistake, but gave up after a few sentences from each of us cos either she's

1) too stubborn to unlearn and re-learn how to press camera shutters with the right thumb, or
2) she bloody hard of hearing:

"Err...aunty, the camera is upside down liao..."

"Aunty, hold wrong."

Even the young lady sitting beside this aunty was giggling away while listening to our pleads. Right after that, I nearly lost the battery of my mp3 player only because I was so busy showing off my mp3 to Burt, I couldn't hold the battery cover properly while attempting to take out the USB module. The search took about 10 minutes, no thanks to the little girls sitting infront of us, and the Aunty who's blocking our way with the extremely big butt.

The three of us didn't want to stay for the singing part anymore after they found the cover. FuQuan was complaining of hunger. TCC across the road was the best solution. However, there was another TCC located in Bugis Junction. All of us thought the TCC @ Bugis Junction would be a better bargain, considering the number of cussions other outlets supply compared to the current one.

So we walked to the Bugis one. Little is expected the Bugis one is going through renocations "refurbishments". COffee Bean was the next best choice. And after that, it was heading to MOS Burger for their fries. First time I tried anything at MOS Burger. The fries were fatter in MOS --- surprising, and taste rather good. Yummy.

While in the lift of my block, I got an SMS from Lau saying that he won second price.

You know it when you talked to...or in my case, listen to Desmond so much of what he does in his life that suddenly, you life is a complete n00b. You'll start thinking "WHY is my life so fucking boring?"

Was supposed to go out with Iqbal and Anand for Scary Movie 4, but

"Dun haf scary movie leh. it waz a premiere"

WTF. Choose other movies can??

In the end, I went out with Desmond instead to eat prata at Jalan Kayu. I'm telling you, the Thesavi people got their priorities wrong. The prata kosong itself is really like raw dough mashed up slightly to make it look like it's fried, but in the end, the other flavoured pratas overpowered the originals. How can anyone get anything right if their basics is wrong? Lucky for them, I couldn't find fault with the curry. (And for picky Ren Kun, finally I found a plate of curry that's steaming hot, despite being poured onto a plate.)

The chocolate prata that Desmond ordered looked like the Indian man just wiped up some crap from between his asscrack. It was dark brown all over, yes, kinda like shit. The patches of fried dough couldn't make up enough area to cover a toddler's palms. And worse of all, the shit-looking prata was half a plate big. Who in the right frame of mind want to eat a shit-looking thingy worth half a plate??!!

However, when the chcolate prata reached the mouth, maaaaan...everything vanished...heavenly. It's sweet enough to cover the entire mouth, and chocolate paste almost to the point of flowing out from between the dough. The tenderness is just right enough to chew, then swallow with the chocolate paste moisturing your throat to guild the Milo Dinosaur.

The cheese prata did tasted like there had been some form of cheese inside. The colour is obviously yellow (duh, unless you've been eating rotting green cheese your whole life). The cheese fragrance did spread to the entire nasal area. Quite shiok for someone who doesn't mind eating a lot of cheese.

BTW, I think some of us are capable of making better Milo Dinosaur. Like what I'm going to do tmr afternoon if the continual hot weather holds up.

Anyways, back to how crazy Desmond is.

Before, he told me of how common it is for him to cycle from his house in Punggol to town area. Mind you. Town area as in downtown Orchard Road. Worse of all, he occasionally walks with his bunch of just-as-crazy-friends the same distance, i.e. from town to home in Punggol. One of these times was after SRJC's prom night held in town. There wasn't transport around. And even after pooling their money, the sum wasn't enough for them to take a cab back. Maybe because they were all high from the activities after prom night, they took about 4 hours to reach home. Imagine opening the house gate in your prom gear after walking like 20 plus KM.

Absolute madness.

And Demond walked me to my block just now, despite the night already. Plus, he's never been to Yishun saved for the CVD event in YJC held at the beginning of this year. Crazy, right??? Said he'll call back his girlfriend on the way back, while trying to retrace the route back to central.

In the end, I got a ping on the computer some 30 minutes after I entered the house.

"Back home liao."

He cheated. hurhur. Took the cab back afterall. Told you he's crazy.

I hurt myself while jumping.

Sounds rather stupid, doesn't it? How can a 19 year old get injured while jumping off??! WTF, MAN?? On Monday itself, there was a half-run for the SOC test conducted on Tuesday. Initially, it reallt was a half-run, about 400m run before the 11 obstacles, and another 200m run to the finishing point. The first one was in SBO attire, and after that, the PTI thought we can practise another time, without the running.

So far so good.

It's only the third time that everything off, except rifle that the shit hits the fan.

Shagged and cannot think, I supposed, I sprained my knee while jumping off the low-wall. The point in time when the right leg hit the ground, everything literally slowed down. I could feel the thigh bone and lower leg seperate from each other, twisted that much, snapped back into place, and next thing I knew, I was at my side on the floor, tucking in my entire body.

ARGH. Then I was whining like a little girl. Then someone was putting a hand over the wall to prevent another guy from jumping off that portion of the wall to taupok me.

That afternoon, the Medical Officer gave me a week off training with RMJ (running, marching, jumping) status, excuse stairs, meaning I'm entitled to full-use of the lift. And it's also the same afternoon that I realised I'm not ever going to make it for the 24KM Graduation Route March which I sooooooo looked forward to to march with the platoon.

Then there's the GP (graduation parade) which I'm not going to participate in. And the half-arsed POP(passing-out parade) that I'm going to take part in --- meaning I'm coming into the parade square only for the throwing of the cap. This really sucks (I mean it, Sir Jenson, incase you're reading this and think I'm chao-genging and wayanging all the way ;-) ) cos I came this much for the pass 12 weeks just for this. All the tekan sessions of marching, practicing under the scorching sun to straighten the elbows, dig the frigging boots till the knees felt like it could give way anytime, the screaming sessions that I gave to the others to tell them not to drag their boots.

Wah lao eh. Soon Hui was bitter over this as well, him worse off cos he's in the drill-competition as well. His NPCC background could have taken our company's drill-com furthur into the competion stages. Instead, we have a couple of blur arses who don't know the distinct difference between the commands(okay...they are abit complicated, no doubt).

OMG. I went to see the sinsei last night, a follow-up session this morning. Guess what? The knee problem is the least of of my concern, according to Dr Li. She said it's my spinal cord that's not in the right shape. Obviously I can't see the shape of my back, furthur more deduce whether one side of swollen. Ma was around, though. Even she said it's akward shape. Dr Li did a bit of hard massage to readjust the spine. Painful, a little.

The follow-up session this morning was slightly more painful, involving the actual acupuncture because the massage wasn't working fast enough. According to her, the session today it's going to be helpful to heal quickly. One of the needles that she tried to poke into my back didn't go in successfully to relief the nerves. After that, she connected the 4 needles (2 in my back, 2 on my leg) to a machine to vibrate the needles. Hur hur.

After that, I'm ordered to lie still, relax for 20 minutes to let the needles work. It felt weird to have my leg muscles vibrating on it's own --- like kena humped by a hamster, only the hamster was getting on it with my feet. Hur hur hur.

I paid $20 and told to go back as soon as possible for a last session to completely heal the back and knee, and second warning to NOT to jump, lest the shock goes right to my spine.

*Whimpers*

= ^ (