i want to complain

There must be a conspiracy going on among pineapple tart makers. They've launched a scheme to use less dough and still make us pay the same amount for their wares. Take a good look at al the pineapple tarts around you and you'll notice something. THEY ALL DON"T HAVE TOPPINGS!!!!!
You know what I'm talking about. There's the tart biscuit base. Then there's sticky gooey yummy pineapple jam. And then there's the itty bitty little star/flower/heart/dragon/Hello Kitty toppings on top of the jam! Where are those toppings!?!?!? They were still there last new year. Bloody hell. This ruins my time treasured pineapple tart eating procedure. Strictly adhered to.

1. Carefully nibble off rim of biscuit base.
2. SLOWLY PICK OFF THE LITTLE TOPPINGS!
3. Seperate the base from the yummy jam and pop it into mouth.

best part.

4. Slowly, lovingly, bite by bite savour the sticky icky gooey chewy yummy pineapple jam.
5. Recoil in ecstasy......

Ugh. First it was those stupid covered up pineapple tarts with the jam all hidden inside the friggin pastry. And now they come up with this.

Next time pineapple tarts no pineapple.

boys will be boys

My uncle is friggin hilarious. He's living testament to the fact that boys never really grow up. Had a big lunch at one of my relative's places today and Mr and Mrs Smith was blaring out on the tv just before the meal was served. The ensuing tug of war between my auntie and uncle was just absolutely hilarious.

'Dear time for lunch already, turn off the show.'

'Eh wait wait, exciting part la..' (trails off as Brad Pitt gets to a window in time to see his wife bugger off on a zip line)

'Oi! DVD right? Can pause first what!!!'

At which point my uncle rather distractedly obeys orders and shuffles his way to the meal table with his head still half turned towards the tv screen. He's not the only one. All the other men in the house are happily watching Brad dump his jacket in a mailbox a second before it blows up.

'Dear you want some chicken or duck? Soup?'

'Anything anything...' (the happy couple start trashing their house with shiny new firearms)

'Oi can you please tear your eyes away from the tv and pay attention to your food please?'

'The chicken. Chicken can already..'

'What the, can you just faster eat your food then you can go watch already?!'

Its only about now that my uncle realises he might be in a bit of a tight situation and hurriedly scrabbles up his food under his wife's watchful eye then buggers off to catch the rest of the movie.

'Aye what happen what happen? Tell me tell me....'

I hope I turn out like that. Not the wife bit. The never growing up bit.

typical

Ugh, just got back from the doctors. It seems I've somehow managed to contract some form of viral infection thats making the nerves at the back of my head hyper-sensitive. Not only do I get these excruciating bursts of pain every few seconds, but if I happen to so much as yawn my head explodes into a blaze of agony. Its like I have to stop talking, moving, even breathing just to cope with the pain. Wonderful timing. Just wonderful. Just bloody typical.

The history field trip early this morning didn't help my illness much either. Woke up so friggin early to get down to the Cenotaph by 0900. Well at least it was pretty interesting. Did you know that if you bother to observe our grand old World War I memorial, you'll find pockmarks in the stone, left by Japanese machine gun rounds as their Zero's came in to strafe British positions on the Padang during the Second World War? Or that pre-British Singapore was such an important place that a large and well maintained rampart/wall was actually built all the way from Fort Canning Hill to the coastline to protect these indigenous people, neither Malay nor Chinese nor Indian, from some unknown enemy? It seems Singapore history really isn't as dull as I might've imagined it to be.

Oh but something else I learnt on the trip is that there are really people who just can't get over their army days. I don't mean the talking incessantly about it. That can't be helped. But this guy on the field trip was obviously way too enamoured about his NS experience. Check this out. He was wearing a frikkin Recce unit black polo tee, carrying a camo-patterned tactical haversack (with a water bag inside!), olive green cargo pants, camo-patterned trail shoes and...this takes the cake....a friggin cao with SAF logo emblazoned proudly (and lamely) in front and 'The Decisive Force' embroidered on the back. Like, what on earth man. I know its a Singapore Military History field trip but that doesn't mean we're off to kill some Japs.

Ouch, painkiller time....

to tell you the truth I haven't actually tried it yet. 

ouch

I don't know why but I woke up today with the back of my head giving me intermittent, explosive blasts of excruciating pain. Its so bad I have to stop speaking and hold my breath everytime another charge of pain detonates. Panadol's not working. Ponstan's not working. Argh.

I need help

don't bluff martha stewart

Recipe from some dunno what dunno what website:

8 ounces lasagna noodles
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onions
8 ounces mushrooms
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp dried leaf oregano
1/2 tsp dried leaf basil
1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
2 cups Monterey Jack cheese
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

What we actually used

8 ounces lasagna noodles
250 g minced Cold Storage beef
1/2 a chopped onion
1/2 a chopped garlic
300 g mozarella cheese
1 cup cream cheese

Oh and some raisins we found lying around in the fridge. Shows you really can't trust all the recipes you find online.

si be pai seh

Getting left behind is really not fun. Getting left behind by a bunch of 37 year old men in tights is not exactly an all expenses paid trip to Disneyland to bash in Chicken Little's head.
Joined Justin and some others for what they call TTTs. Thursday Toture Time or something and once again I get left spectacularly behind. Argh. Well at least I have a purpose to train for. I feel like when I just enlisted and realised this was my best chance to make my 2.4 timing less of a humiliation.
But one thing about these guys, Team Absolut they call themselves, is that nobobdy seems to have a real name. There's Old-man, Beef, Doc and (this takes the cake) Protein Shake. Sounds like one of those bad war movies where some Crayola smothered guy attempts ( quite successfully) to prove the theory that aiming is for wussies.Dammit I already told them my real name.

now road bike everything must think CHIO. uvex racer!! 

chip off the ol block

22 years telling myself that I'll never turn out anything like my dad and somehow I still inherit some of his frikkin characteristics. Luckily its only SOME. Not all. Bad news is I think I inherited his blardy kiam siap mindset. Everything also must cheap cheap discount. Free even better.
There was a time when I wouldn't flinch throwing 20 bucks on a meal. Now after experiencing the NUS canteen $1.80 ba chor mee I think I'll never be able to appreciate good cuisine. Not unless it costs $1.80 la. Or less. Stupid ba chor mee auntie.
Even when I went down to the Bike Boutique today to get Patience tuned up, dear ol Scrooge came a-knocking. Bought a pair of Uvex shades and a water bottle but I somehow got it into my head that if I bought a 100 buck pair of sunglasses, I ought to get a 10 dollar water bottle free.

'Eh so by the way ah...besides these sunglasses ah... give me one of those water bottles also can? The other one I lost it already la. Bring to school never bring back.'

'Wah, haven't one week you lost it already? Ok can, so you transfer 110 dollars to me k.'

'Err..oh 110 bucks...yah ok ok.'

*wah lau 10 dollar also want to gei gao. how to do business?*

Well I guess it could be worse. If I'd inherited my dad's chao-ji-power-elephant-rhinoceros-combine-hide-skin, that last bit would've been said out loud instead of being confined to the recesses of my head.

If for some messed up reason you're up at 2 am in the morning half dead and mugging for God knows what. This might prove quite a pick me up.

http://www.ryantown.com/gayboyfriend/

Click it damn it

maintain balen

Ok I desperately need to find a new way to get myself through university life this semester. Somehow my old strategy of just wandering around oblivious to everyone and everything just isn't working out. Today was yet another disastrous tutorial. It seems a set of questions from the textbook for Financial Accounting was dictated as to be completed by class today. A fact that everybody in class found out somehow or other and came to school with their answers all fine and dandy. Everyone that is.....except ME. Duh. Who were you expecting? Boppo the wonder clown?
To make things worse, people in the class seemed to know the answer to EVERY question she asked! EVERY SINGLE ONE!!! I spent most of time wondering what the hell cost principle was and whether or not I ought to start panicking now and save myself the trouble later.

Argh its time to go ride all this nonsense out of my head again. Oh and if you're looking for a nice, non-Hollywood el crappo show, go catch Le Grand Voyage! I won't bother saying what its about. If you're lazy to google it, your own pasar.

dilemma

What do you do when you think clubbing is a total waste of time and money and you tell that in no uncertain terms to your friend who's just asked you to go to her pageant at some bash, only to see her face droop further than Ah Ma's chest with weights tied to them on a humid day?

Die la.

shoo

Its official. We need to get rid of Cisse. Darn it I fell asleep during the last 10 minutes of the match and woke up to find that Liverpool'd lost 1-0 in injury time. A goal scored by none other than everybody's favourite incompetant, Rio Ferdinand. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Well yesterday was a terrible day for football, in my view at least. Played my first match of the year for church in the afternoon and somehow we managed to let a 3-0 lead slip till we lost 5-4. And then at night Liverpool loses the game, giving Chelsea a huge sigh of relief after they screwed up against Charlton. Liverpool's the only team that even has a chance of catching up with Chelski now darn it. Man Yoo shoulda just given way.

Argh. I just spent half an hour looking for my bloody tutorial class. I get there half and hour late and then find out we're supposed to hand up some assignment I haven't even done yet. Helluva way to make a first impression eh.

disclaimer

Just because I don't mind wearing pink does NOT mean I'm in bloody love with the colour.

wahaha! this is friggin hilarious! 

all right lets do this 

man in tights 

i'm sorry i can't help myself 

all we need is just a little Patience

Wahaha! All these years and Whose Line still cracks me up so bad. Get this. Wayne plays a bachelorette who's signed herself up for one of those low budget, questionable dating game shows and gets to talk to her three mystery bachelors for the first time. Bachelor's who are, in no discernable order, Judge Judy, The Crocodile Hunter....and a guy who turns into a killer hamster when frightened. Who the hell comes up with this shit man!!

Today's ride was just so great, even if I had to wake up at 0545 to go meet up with the group. And then spent most of the time trying desperately to maintain my dignity as the gap between them and I kept getting bigger and bigger. But the great thing about cycling is that the community is just so darned friendly!
Met up with some of the group near my place at first before going down to Longhouse in Thomson to link up with the Northie riders. I'd envisaged 4 or 5 riders waiting there join us or something. What I didn't expect was a whole jin gang of at least 100 other bikes all parked there awaiting their Saturday rides. Like WOW!!!! If all the drivers in Singapore decided they've gotten bored with just knocking and running over cyclists and want to try something new, all they'd need to do is blow up the ba chor mee auntie's stall. And the best part is that everyone seems to know everyone! There were so many different groups there but the air was rife with people laughing and joking and slapping backs. Everytime another group passed us on the road there was always smiles, shouts of greeting and loads of 'good mornings!'. Like wow! The adrenaline rush starts even BEFORE you get on the bike.

I could get used to this.

i did this. 

check it out, my marketing project! hand stitched by yours truly! 

solitary

I just can't wait for the road ride with Justin's team tomorrow morning. Can't wait to get on Patience and just sweat all of this week's frustrations away. My parents are gleefully tightening the noose around Jamie's neck. Its not as if they don't know that my bike is going to get stolen in a flash once its down there but they're still insisting that its the 'ONLY' way. My mom even had the gall to chip in a snide remark that I might as well get insurance so I'll at least have some money back. Everyone's against me now. Even my sister's on my case because I won't give in.

Maybe I'll get lucky and a bus'll crush my skull tomorrow.

god only knows what i'd be without you.. 

it never rains but it frikkin hails

Gah!!! The story of my bikes is like one of those bloody channel 8 period dramas. Betrayal, family feuds, devious plots and stupid dilemmas. Right after I find a solution to keep Patience in my room, what else does the situation do but get worse. My parents received a letter from my condo's management commitee today saying that I can't put Jamie (my mountain bike) in the stairwell right outside my door now because she's supposedly obstructing the fire escape. Now that I can live with. What I can't get over is the abject refusal of my parents to let me keep Jamie in the house, which is the only solution I have now. My dad simply refuses to believe that if I leave her downstairs in the void deck, she'll get stolen faster than you can say Bob's your uncle. Instead he comes up with some lamearse analogy that if all the cars and motorbikes parked there don't get stolen, then why would my bicycle?? An excuse thats made far more absurd by the very fact that not 4 months ago TWO bikes were stolen from the racks downstairs when the owner decided to relax his guard a little and park them there. In fact I'm getting pretty darned suspicious about who actually even informed the management about the bike considering the only people who ever even set foot into that stair well is either me.......or my parents. It doesn't help that they hate both my bikes to the core either......

Goddamit I need a solution.

boom

My parents are having the study room renovated so there's been a steady flow of workers and contracter's these few days. The look on the contracter's face when he saw my lab rat get up today was classic.

"Oh..er....are you...um....sick?"

"I'm going to blow your infidel backside from here to the monstrosity that spawned you. You and all your hum sup brethren! Allahu Akbar!!!"

"Err ok thats nice.."

relief

I haven't had much of good experience with my other two business modules so I was pretty apprehensive about my first Entrepreneurial Marketing lesson yesterday. Hari Raya made it impossible to attend the first lesson before the add-drop period was over and if it turned out anything like the other two I was going to have a three hour torture session every Tuesday. So you can imagine my relief when the lesson turned out to be anything but what I was dreading. Quite the contrary in fact, though it did serve to underscore my belief that the purpose of marketing is to make people buy things they don't need with money they don't have. Of course marketers say it differently. They say they 'anticipate a need and fill it'. I'd like someone to tell me exactly what need Tamagotchi, or Aibo the wonder cyber mutt fulfil. Or at least claim to.
But that aside the lesson turned out more like an arts lecture than a business one. Lots of participation, good, interesting examples to back up claims. The powerpoint slides the lecturerer displayed just became completely superflous because he had everyone's undivided attention, even if he kept laughing at his own lamearse jokes.
So now I have to come up with a way to essentially holler my name without saying a word by the next class. And somehow I'm relishing the challenge.

old man winkle 

this is what happens when your mom hates your bike and you're too poor to afford a rack. 

remember joy. 

Check it out! Autographed by Oliver Grossman himself! Only two of its kind here and Patience's the only one signed! 

Mark said my time for love life would come and boy was he right. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Patience! Ain't she pretty... 

baby steps

Well today was starting to look like a bummer. During the course of the day I was somewhat casually reminded that there are drawbacks to going through life at a relaxing pace. In the morning I was happily informed by my friend that all this time I've been using a debit card, I've actually been collecting credit points! Points which the frikkin bank never ever bothered to tell me about. No notices, no balance sheets telling my how many points I've got left. No letter telling me the points expire after every year and I should get down to using them.
In school later on I happened to ask some friends when the balloting for tutorials started, upon which they started laughing like they'd just seen Russell Peter's pop a fart. Only after they regain their composure do I find out that tutorial balloting's been going on since Saturday and closes tomorrow afternoon. I was like bloody lucky I asked that question when I did.
Thank God the events after school more than made up for the shitty day I was having. Finally, after such a long wait, after so much difficulty, I was on my way to collect my bike! Things weren't looking promising at first though. It started raining, making the roads slippery and dangerous for a noob road rider like me. And my bike's front tube bursting spectacularly before I'd even made it 2 metres past the door really didn't help the situation. Luckily I wasn't on the bike when it happened, but I'm suprised the ppl around didn't start diving for cover when the bang went off. But somehow things started shaping up from there. I'm a first timer to cleats and clip-on pedals but somehow I got attuned to them pretty quickly and we didn't have to take the slow, tedious, stick-to-the-sidewalk route we'd intended to earlier. Thanks so much Justin for baby-sitting me all the way home. I have never completed West Coast Highway with such ease before. When I got back, I found my el cheapo bike storage solution atually works! And my mom didn't even protest much! And to top it all off, I got to meet Janice aka ickleoriental at the Bike Boutique! How cool is that!If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out her blog at ickleoriental.net
Ok ok this is long. Better get back to my financial accounting textbook. I swear I'm at a total loss in the lecture.

my lovely not-so-new northwave road shoes! thanks for the great deal justin! now all I have to do is collect my bike.... 

now when i snap my fingers....

I desperately need a solution to keep my bike in my room. My parents would rather die than let me put a hunk of metal in their precious living room and I would rather die than put my precious hunk of metal outside. As good as throwing it away. So far the best suggestion I've been given is to go learn hypnotism and make my parents believe the bike isn't really there. Either that or just drape a blanket over it and if anyone asks, say they're seeing things. HELP!!!!!

Broadway, Viv's 21st! I was supposed to be a warped version of the Phantom of the Opera but everyone thought I was Jack the Ripper. Go figure. Must've been the hammer 

oh shit

Luke has just informed me that all the time I was working at C&F, my bosses were under the impression that I was gay.

oink

It seems somebody with quite a bit of clout does read this blog. Someone did get about to fixing those pipes up there in the sky. At least for a while. But today's the first bright and sunny day of the week, and on Friday the 13th of all days! What a fitting end to the first week of school in good ol NUS, in not-so-bright, not-so-sunny Singapore.
I forsee a semester that might not be quite as enjoyable as the previous one. My two history modules are pretty good, pretty darned interesting in fact. Even if one of them involved watching 15 minutes of watching a video clip in which actors in bad monkey suits hoppped around thumping each other on the head with animal bones. No, my gripe is with the two business modules. My god the lecturers for both modules have just given me terrible first impressions of themselves.
One says his name is CCK. The other says his name is CCN. I say both their names are CCB.
One of them actually got more than a little miffed when i came to him to clarify my doubts at the end of the lecture. While I asked my questions, he gave me a look that basically told me what was going on in his head. Namely ' NBCB, who is this dumbass. So simple also cannot understand...'. Bloody hell. I'm a frikkin arts student. The speed he went through that lecture, I might as well have been a goldfish in a rocket science class for all I took in.
The other guy isn't so bad but the main problem is he's a Taiwanese, not that I have anything against Taiwanese, but he speaks English with an accent so bad, sometimes its hard to make out what he's saying. The rest of the time, when you can make it out, you can't stop being reminded of Russell Peter's 34.50 guy. I am so going to have a good time.

*Hot off the news* Some scientists have gone and created neon green pigs that glow in the dark. Both inside and outside. I suppose some of them finally got bored of pink.

Oh and thank you guys for coming down yesterday night!!!!!! Joanna, Shaun, Ian, Greg, Jian Hong and Mark (who took a cab all the way down from NTU to join us at Asteroids) I lub chiu deep deep!! Guess it didn't end up in Timbre the way I planned it, but oh well, DOTA's not too bad eh! Now if only someone would fix that giant leak in the sky.....

22

Well it wasn't exactly the birthday I had in mind, but hell, it was good fun! I've finally gotten my road bike!!! Couple of hundred bucks over budget but its just absolutely gorgeous! Red and white and beautiful and calling to me. Oh and to make it even better, its a signature model of which there only two in Singapore, only one of which is actually autographed...and thats mine!!!!!!!!! MINE!!! ALL MINE!!! Well...ok at least some of it is mine. The groupset and drop bars and brakes and god knows what else all belong to my cousin Justin. But the rest is mine. MINE!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHAHAHHAHA!! The frame's made by the German company that usually makes only mountain bikes but somehow made an exception and built these frames too. Thank God for that.
Might as well do some plugging now. If you're looking for nice bikes, go down to the Bike Boutique just off Tanjong Pagar MRT. Nice shop, good stuff, friendly propreitor... and one helluva fat shit cat.

grow old with...me

Darn it. That photo Gabe posted ( and I reposted) of my secondary school class is making me feel super super old. I'm going to be 22 in 2 days time. TWENTY-TWO!!!!! That photo was taken almost a whopping 6 years ago man.
If I find white hair I'll scream.

contacted!!!

Settled on the toilet today to find the newspapers full of reports bout the big emergency exercise yesterday and I happened to chance upon a few pictures of the so called 'casualties' of attack. It took me a little while to realise that aside from them all wearing the same damn thing (white t shirt and black pants) they all had one big thing in common. They were all frikkin recruits! Free labour from the SAF! Botak head, sian diao eyes. Their expressions gave away what they were probably saying to each other.

'NBCB, wake up so frikkin early come play casualty. Later still got to go outfield. Cham la.'

'Aiyar at least we no need casevac la. How you know maybe tonight can book out.'

'Book your lan ah. Later confirm got sai gang one. All the body parts you think move themself one ah. Then later somebody complain tonight hong gan liao.'

'Oh yar hor. NB'

'CCB. Stupid SAF'

'ORD lo.'

Gabe put this up on his blog and I just had to repost it. 4.9 Elijah Class of 2000!!! 

Bangkok Bangkok (sung to New York New York)

Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it
Bangkok Bangkok

These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
I say its time to get
4 new pairs today!

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
And find that pirated goods, are all frikkin cheap

This little red dot
Can kiss me goodbye
I'll buy a whole new fashion line
In old Bangkok!

If I can make it there
Its on a Jetstar Asia fare
But darn its worth it, Bangkok

BANGKOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fug

I seem to be getting outbidded at every turn for every module. I don't even have enough points to put the minimum bid for some of them. What the hell am I going to do next semester?

strike 2

Argh I just missed another great deal for a road bike by a hair's breadth! I feel like I'm in one of those Turn Left Turn Right moments and I'm on the up escalator looking away when my bike's on the down escalator. So here's the story. Got this email from this guy on the NUS biathlon team saying he's selling his bike for a mere 1000 bucks. And its super good deal somemore.
Damn pretty la! And I already had a name for her! Pinny! But as usual, somehow circumstances happened such that I got so close to a deal and missed it by an inch. Dammit. I recieved the email really early and thought that finally my time had come. But somehow I sent the reply to Justin instead and went about the 36 hours wondering how come he was taking so darned long to reply.
When I finally realised and resent the mail, someone else had already bidded 980 for it. I'm desperate so I straight away offered 1000 and then went to shower and get changed to go meet Derelyn. What I didn't expect was that he emailed me again a mere 5 minutes later with his number asking me to contact him to go and view. Didn't check until I got back 9 hours later. By the time I got in touch with him, too late. Someone else placed deposit already. Ugh. I feel like I'm never going to get a bike.
On a better note, went down to town to meet Derelyn after soccer in school. Caught this movie called Merry Christmas and it really was pretty darned good. Was about these French, Scottish and German troops sitting in opposite trenches in WW I coming to a ceasefire on Christmas eve 1914 and actually having a small party to commemorate the season. Each of them learnt that the enemy wasn't the bloodthirsty, evil twisted pagan he's been taught to believe but was just another man like himself, fighting because some lard ball sitting in his office said he needed to. When the lardballs found out however, all the men were disgraced and punished in one way or another by their own forces; by the roly poly higher ups stuffed with turkey and wine. Good stuff.

Not a something to let your men watch before going on mission.

zhng my ride

When someone from church offered to pass me his road bike on a semi permenant loan while he was in medical school in Sydney, I don't know why I somehow conjured up images of some pretty pretty bike all decked out and adorned with the lastest equipment. And of course me riding pretty on it with shades and one of those cool riding suits. So when I went down to the guy's place to pick it up today I was...um...well...more than a bit disillusioned to say the least.
He'd already told me that the bike was years old and essentially rotting in his house, only being ridden once a year when he came back here on holiday. What I didn't expect was a rust ridden, age bitten frame that looked as if it had seen its best days during Mao Zedong's cultural revolution. Though I think anyone riding a bike like that in China would probably have been robbed, killed and blamed for bringing it on himself for being a capitalist.
Give or take a few years, the bike is at least 10 years old. One entire decade! Bikes these days have up to 10 gears in the rear gear set. This baby has 5. And tubeless tyres were all the rage 7 or 8 years ago but lost popularity because they had a knack of bursting at the most inapportune times.
Ah well what am I complaining about. I have a road bike! Well sorta anyway.

I think I'm gonna call it Rusty.

e ah long

I hope this isn't telling of things to come. I seem to have started this year owing just about everything to everybody. Lets see.

Gabe - Timberland windbreaker, fleece and 5 bucks because I didn't bother checking my wallet before getting into the cab.

JH - One great fitting Mohan's jacket that I kinda wish I didn't need to return.

Jason - Microsoft Office installation CD

Justin - Shimano gloves and a beautiful Giro helmet that I also don't want to return.

Marc - God knows how many seasons of the Simpsons, loads of movies and the whole Elfen Lied series. Eh bro Elfen Lied is frikkin sick la. Now I know what you do in your spare time when you're not in South America or wherever.

Dad and Mum - 3000 bucks at least for the work and travel trip.

NUS - 2000 bucks for the lifebook I'm typing this on.

happy new year.........

brand new colony

Its that time of the year again. Everyone's all going about doing their reflections on the year past and resolutions for the new one. As if they had any intention of keeping them in the first place. But then 2005's been a pretty eventful year for me so I just feel like going with the crowd and doing the cliched thing this time.
I suppose I might say I've probably sat on a plane more times this year than in all the years of my lifetime combined. Lets see. First ride was on a C-130 that I didn't even have the privilege of landing in. But that jump was significant because it came right after my horror jump previously. I had been making my way out the door of a frikkin Fokker 50 when I got hit by the blasts of air outside. They call it the slipstream or windshear or something. But whatever it was was enough to knock me off my feet and slam me into the side of the aircraft door, leaving me stuck with my upper torso inside the plane, my lower body dangling outside in the 125 knot wind and me in a semi-conscious state, barely able to comprehend what was going on. The jumpmaster literally kicked me out the door. Good thing he did too. According to him, if I'd been a little less lucky that day it would've taken a helluva lot of thread to sew me back together. I was scared shitless by that event and was actually considering coming up with some nonsense to escape the jump in January this year. But I'm glad I went ahead with it and managed to overcome the fear somewhat. It was a far from perfect jump though. I think I screwed up my exit posture and managed to get myself drifting to God knows where, landing just behind some parked C-130s with a frikkin long walk and one helluva pissed off jumpmaster to face.
The next few flights were nowhere as exciting but the fact that I could make them served to emphasise a very significant event. ORD LO!!!!!!!!!! Down to Chiang Mai, Thailand to visit and bless the Lahu village that my church had adopted and then to Hong Kong for a wonderful and well deserved holiday with the rest of the guys. And finally the recent trip to Turkey! Ok so maybe its not more than I've ever sat, but its the most number of countries I've been to in a single year. Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Turkey...and Thailand again in a few days time!! Woo!
The first four months of this year seemed to crawl by like a sloth with narcoleptic tendencies. I still remember griping to someone while doing guard duty about how this the days seem to give new meaning to 'drag-ass'. The wait for ORD is perhaps the longest wait a Singaporean male will ever accomplish. Army sucks. Big time. Everytime I start remembering donning my no.1 uniform for the ORD parade or putting on the red beret for the first time, I also start remembering myself having to clear a huge rubbish pile and scrub the floor on the my frikkin ORD date. My CSM wouldn't sign the release forms unless we did one last area cleaning for a place that someone else had messed up and not bothered to take responsibility for.
The months after that though seem to have passed in a flash. Going to the NUS Arts Faculty has been one of the best decisions I've made in recent years and the semester seems to have dashed by like a shopaholic to a sale. For once going to school has lost the aura of being a chore and become something that I actually find myself looking forward to lots of times. Ok I'll admit it. I'm a geek. But I'm a happy geek so who gives a shit. Think I'd better stop rambling. I could go on and on. Its been a good year. And so far the next one's not looking too bad either.