Went out to J8 with Priscilla to watch Transformers! YAY!! I'm very happy and satisfied today, because I didn't waste my Saturday away just like that! I mean, I've gotta book in for my Sunday guard duty by 2230 tonight, so the logical thing would be to stay at home and rest. But Priscilla suggested to go watch a movie, and I was determined to do something happy today, rather than mop around at home and sulking about my guard duty. So how could I refuse?? Haha. But before I met her, I was at Bishan library studying and writing lines. Yep you heard me right. I brought my Ted Hughes there to study! I miss studying for Literature exams and analysing poems. And I have to write lines!! I have to write "I WILL ALWAYS TUCK IN MY SHIRT WHEREVER I GO" two hundred times, because my sergeant caught someone in my platoon who had his shirt out, so all of us have to write that. What a lousy punishment.

And so my whole morning was spent at the library writing repetitive sentences, and switching to Lit after every 5 minutes or something. The girl across the table kept staring at me! I think she was trying to peep at what I was writing, because it's seriously weird to see someone writing neat rows of the same sentence over and over again. She was studying Chemistry. Sigh. Poor girl. Then I met up with Priscilla, and met my mum somewhere along the way (she asked "your new girlfriend arh?"), then went up to watch the movie! Whoo. Action-packed with cool graphics. Kinda amazing to have your own car turn into a robot anytime it wants to!

Oh oh! I adopted a new duck too! There were these people from some polytechnic who were promoting for the Great Singapore Duck Race, and I think they were really fortunate to approach me! It's like, I'm the world's greatest lover of ducks!! Naturally, how could I resist not adopting a duck for myself? So for $10, I adopted a duck for the day of the race and if it wins, I get $10000 or something like that. And for another $5, I got to keep a separate duck as a souvenir!! OOHHHH! And there were different colours for the beak! They came in red, pink and purple, so once again, no prizes for which colour I picked! PINKY PINKY! Priscilla said it looked like it was poisoned, but I don't care. This is one great duck, and I need to find a name for it to put it on the adoption certificate. Haha!

Yup, that's right, I'm back home after 5 days in Seletar Camp. Well, combat engineers doesn't seem that bad a vocation after all. We're all in some basic training course that includes fixing up demolition circuits and blowing things up and exploding pyrotechnics and signal sets. Kinda funky. My bunk inmates are pretty cool too. I mean, I've made enough new friends in 5 days, which isn't a bad thing by my standards of friendliness. Whee. But Seletar Camp is bloody big. And to top it all off, 35 SCE (that's my unit) is organising the National Day Parade this year, so almost everyone's involved in it in some way. For me, I'm one of the crappy chosen few who's not doing anything in NDP, but contributing in another way by being on camp guard duty for the whole of next month. Or rather, almost every other day till we reach ninth of August.

Which also explains why I am not going to be home for long. Gotta be back in camp for guard duty tomorrow night. Ugh. And my duty schedules are not exactly easy too. My next weekend is almost totally spent in camp!! That's like, 2 consecutive interrupted weekends. Poo.

NSmen need loads of sleep. I'm one of those kind.

THIS IS QUACKO-QUACK.BLOGSPOT.COM BLOG ENTRY POST #500!!

Wow. Look at how much junk I've written on this blog for the past 3 years plus plus. All my thoughts, emotions, deeds, activities, feelings, journalistic complaints and the occasional scatter-brained (though unlikely) banter. That's a sizeable part of my memory that I'm able to shelf aside. 500 entries from me myself! This is quite an achievement.

Anyway, here's what I did yesterday. Got out of bed at 8am, and travelled all the way down to Bedok just to have prata breakfast with Khairul. That must be the silliest thing I've done, wasting my Saturday morning sleep. But prata and curry was good! So that's sort of a redeeming quality. Then we took a bus to town from there and went to Borders. That was like, the second time I was there in 2 days, cos I was there with Luke just the day before. We got books and went straight for the kids corner to try and see if we could charm some really cute ones.

Then I left him to go meet Yurong and David! Went back up to NYDC for lunch. What are bell peppers? But that's not the point. Went for dessert at Macs, met Alicia and Clarissa, then went back to Borders again to spend an hour and a half in there reading. And that's when we all met up to go back corps or go home or stay in town.

I'm packing all my stuff now. Room's in a huge mess. Tomorrow I'll be at Seletar Camp, staying in for the rest of the week, and finding out what exactly a bridge combat engineer's gotta do. Oddly enough, it feels as though I'm enlisting into army all over again. Change of environment, new things to learn, new friends, and I've gotta adapt again. Ahhh. I'm sooo not looking forward to that.

Okie. Sleepyhead. Entry number 500! Whoopee. I'll buy myself a cake or something when I get out from Seletar Camp.

Here's another quick update on my life thus far, if you're bothering to keep check with me hahaha. Got my new army unit posting today! They told me I'm in "BRDG ENGR PNR - BRDG". And I stared at it for five entire minutes, because I was trying to figure out what the heck that meant. Well, pretty soon I worked it out to be Bridge Engineer Pioneer, but that was hard work because I was thinking along the lines of Brigadier or Building or whatever else. Why must they omit all the vowels??

Anyway, I'm supposed to report at Seletar Camp on Monday with all my stuff. Crap I have to lug them all over the place again. And I discovered (by accident) that Ewis is going to Seletar Camp, and he's a bridge combat engineer too! Now I know who to look out for on the first day. And then I heard from Khairul: KEVIN IS GOING TO BE THERE TOO. Oh my horrors. I want to run away.

Yup. Hung out with Luke Wee today. He came over to Bishan to find me, then we took a bus to town for some walk-about, until he suggested to go over to his place. And so we did; had lunch at this small coffeeshop near his house. Then we watched music and dance videos till we drooped, and watched two-thirds of Schindler's List. That's when I came back to Bishan, bought dinner home for me and my sister, then I went out for youth service and cell group was me and David and Yurong's cell, and that's that.

You know something? I'm chatting with this girl on Neopets. Or rather, they call it Neomail. Don't tell me this is stupid or anything. Crap. I don't believe myself either.

Alright. Here's a quick one. Was at Eleanor's house on Tuesday! Tried to whip up macaroni and cheese, but I think she put too much butter so it became too cheesy, though it was still edible enough. There's still a huge pot of leftovers in her fridge. After that, I met Ben Ng to go Sungei Buloh to birdwatch! Okay we saw a lot of egrets and all the common birds, but the highlight was this little heron on a low tree branch by the river shore catching fish. And there was a banded woodpecker (brilliant orangey colours) who was so near to us. Plus a million other birds we couldn't identify. Today, spent it at home trying to do some research on mangroves. The trip to Sungei Buloh kinda inspired me, so I want to learn more about the ecology in mangroves now. I'm astounded at all the info! Oh I watched Lilo and Stitch too. Both the first one, and the sequel, which I borrowed from Eleanor yesterday. OHANA MEANS FAMILY! FAMILY MEANS NOBODY GETS LEFT BEHIND! Ahh the story's a bit cheesy (like macaroni and cheese) but it's heartwarming enough. I want to go out and get the first Stitch soft toy I see.

Hmm. I just viewed all the pictures in the Green Link photo-sharing website. It's a Snapfish; sort of my "legacy" for them to upload their photos in. Of course, I haven't done anything with them for so long already, so I couldn't be expecting me to pop up in any of the photo albums in the past 6 months! Well, they have achieved quite a lot. The usual exhibitions, riverkeeping, nature walks, orang asli visits in Malaysia. And they've helped in the mural paintings of GVN's new office on Ubin. Now, they've just handed over to a new batch of juniors! Ooh how time flies. I distinctly remember passing the baton to Hong Yi, and now she's telling me how she's already missing being in control, barely two weeks since she handed over.

I'm a bit lost in memory of the old Green Link days now. Kinda missed being busy and involved with a million green projects, saving the earth, and still enjoying every moment of it with everyone else in the club. Oh well, all good things have to end somewhere. Let's hope I'm still involved in environmentalism for the next 2 years! And it's not fair. Their current Green Link shirt is nice!! But I like the quote on my old one, although I have a feeling if I go search for it now, I wouldn't find the shirt in my closet.

Okay. Today was a lot of bumming at home. Re-read Harry Potter book 4 (still halfway through only), cos I've never read book 5 and onwards and I've forgotten what the heck happened in the earlier books. I'm going to buy book 5 tomorrow! Then I got online and watched rubbish on Youtube. It has every crap imagineable! And I played all the silly games on Neopets. It's good to be home! Well, except in the afternoon, I went out to Thomson to eat prata with Eleanor! Then we went to Thomson Plaza to walk around, which sort of ended quite quickly because Thomson Plaza is kinda small. We've got a lot of catching up to do, old girl... Reached home in time to watch Bring Your Toothbrush on Kids Central!

Added some of my Tekong army mates on MSN today. And Zihao, ever so crappy, talked to me for the first time on MSN and immediately came to the conclusion that I was gay just from: 1) My display picture. 2) My message font colour. 3) My nickname. Then he informed me gays can enjoy "instant downgrade" and not serve their National Service. Let me explain. My current display pic has Leia and her sister, and Zihao thinks fascination with little girls is gay!! What a lousy reason. Okay, my font colour is pink, which is perfectly aceptable in my opinion. And my nickname! Currently it's this piggy face like this: (^u^). I didn't even come up with it. I'm only using it because SOMEONE is using it, and I think it's HIGHLY CUTE. Ahh. Zihao's nuts.

Call me slow, but I'm watching the past season of So You Think You Can Dance on Youtube now.

Today is another one of those days where my original plan goes haywire because of, well, unexpected turnouts. Original plan was to wake up in time at 11am for Sunday service, then get out after that to meet Khairul at Bras Basah at 2pm to go searching for books and art and craft stuff. Seems kinda flawless right? Except that I woke up at 2pm. That meant Sunday service was already over when I was still dreaming. Then I reached for my phone, and saw three missed calls and a message from Khairul. Good news was, he just woke up fifteen minutes before I did, so that meant both of us will never get down to Bras Basah in time. Not that it's an ideal situation, but at least it beats having either of us waiting foolishly over there.

And I have no inkling that today is Father's Day at all! Okay I sort of knew it'll be one of these days in this month, and I was thinking it'll be next Sunday! Was messaging Zan, when she mentioned it out of the blue, which gave me a huge fright because I can't believe I didn't know it was Father's Day today. Totally lost track of time!

My cousin and aunt came over today. So in the afternoon, I was at J8 with them having lunch and shopping. By the time I came home, I was dead sleepy so I went to sleep again. Woke up, saw Yurong online (she was at corps) and within an hour of reaching home, I was out again for dinner with her at market. Then we took a long walk up to Matthew's place cos she was going to watch a movie at Alicia's with Matt, and we played with these 2 kids at the playground while waiting. Remus and Venus? Venice? Ahh whatever her name was. Shermin arrived halfway through hide and seek.

I don't know what's up with myself. I'm constantly sleepy. Oh well, not that I'm complaining, because I like sleeping. Yay.

1am in the middle of the night! Hooray yep I just reached home. Today's a busy day! In the morning I was busy arranging my room because it's a mess since the start of this year. And everything that the army issued me are strewn all over the floor because I'm lazy to pack them. Then I went out with my family to J8 for lunch at Sakae Sushi. Ate a bit only, then I went down to Novena Square to meet Atiqah! She's working at California Fitness over there. Walked around the place, explored all the new shops (the place really changed a lot!), ate at Mos Burger, then went to the adjacent United Square to walk around somemore too. That's where she left me to go find Madeline somewhere in town, while I decided to go down to the floral shops along Thomson Road. One of the smaller shops beside Far East Flora was selling potted herbs at super cheap prizes! There's mint, basil, curry leaves, chilli padi, laksa, and goodness knows what else I haven't seen. I was debating for a long time whether I should get a pot for myself, but in the end I gave up because even if I was serious enough to buy, I'll probably be tempted to get one of each of the lot because I can't decide which plant to get. Then I went down to corps to meet the rest of the people who were going SAJC for the Graham Kendrick concert! Graham Kendrick is this mid-50s pastor who wrote quite a number of classic worship songs such as "Shine Jesus Shine" and "Knowing You". Well, he isn't exactly in my age group, but the entire night was funky enough. There's this guy in the musicians team who played the trumpet so well that I'm shamed into thinking that I used to play the very same instrument. After that ended, we all went for supper somewhere along Clementi, then Matthew drove all of us home one by one.

Okay there's a slight improvement. For the first time in months, I'm astounded to hear you respond to a trivial comment that I made. Crap, you didn't even speak to me directly, but at least you still greeted me (though out of formality) and I know I'm not thin air in your eyes.

I realised that I'm quite a sentimental person actually. Even though things were over a long long time ago, I still cannot quite let go. Okay I'm long since over the depressive stages already, but those wonderful memories still affect me in a certain way. Like how I can never forget the time when you stared deep at me, face to face, and whispering soft words of promise and hope.

Oooohh I can't tell you how great it is to be having a break from army! You can wake up as late in the day as you want, and you don't have to abide by any lights out timing. No training, no sergeants telling you to do what, no nothing. You eat all the junk food you want. WHEE! Something tells me I'm going to enjoy my one week block leave like never before.

Anyway, about my doings for today. I decided to go town! The last time I've been anywhere near there was three months ago; one day before I enlisted into army. So it was with some relief to be back in a proper street civilisation. Didn't do much there. I hid myself in Kinokuniya for about 2 hours? There's tonnes of books screaming BUY ME! I was sorely tempted to get this field guide of birds in SE Asia, but it costed forty bucks. Then I wandered into the children's section and there were a million books I wanted to buy. I got to the literature section and there were another million books.

Then I got sick of the horrible temptations to break my bank account just to transform my study room into a library, so I went up to Art Friend and got myself some clay! Going to play with it soon, like mould some weird shape or something. It air dries on its own, so I don't have to trouble with baking it. Then I decided I've seen enough of town (which is stupid because I didn't even go shopping), and decided to take a bus down to NJC to collect my A'Level certificate. To my surprise I realised I actually paid for the new College Annual last year! So that meant on top of the certificates I received, I had the last Annual. Whee. I look like some dragonfly in my class photo.

Had a very late lunch (nasi lemak) at Adam Road. Then I walked up to Serene Centre cos I wanted to get to Tierney's Gourmet. For those of you who never heard of the place before, they've got some nice German food products which I enjoy. Whoo I'm feasting the German way. And I went down into Island Creamery to get myself a cup of ice cream, because I haven't been there for ages too. The photo of me and Khairi and Qiling and Annie and Beets is still on the wall! Except that now, the photos cover practically every inch on the wall.

And I went for youth service at night. Joined in for cell group with Ben Ng and Wilson. Been a long time since I went for any proper church service.

Anyway, I'm now wasting my time away on The Impossible Quiz! Came across the link on Debra's blog, so I thought no harm I might as well go exploring what's so impossible about the quiz. My gosh I'm starting to think it is really quite impossible! Kinda addictive to keep advancing on, but it's quite annoying. The furthest I've gotten so far is like question 30 plus plus!! Ahh. I'll leave it for you to find out yourself.

Oh. This is going to be a random post. Hee hee! I've decided that most girls who can play the guitar and sing their own composed songs are attractive. I think there's just something charming about them. I think it takes genuine effort and extraodinary talent to write good songs, and more so to perform with musical instruments. Good vocals are even more difficult to find. OOH don't you think they'll all be so cute??

Look at Avril Lavigne! I used to like her not-so-rockish, bordering on pop music. And her new album's got some nice songs. She's quite pretty! But too bad she's married already. I used to like Alicia Keys too, mainly because I thought that banging the piano and crooning in a smooth voice at the same time was really sexy. But she doesn't fit the bill because I think female guitarists are more unconventional.

Anyway, I'm sort of listening to this new female singer-songwriter that fits my criteria as "the attractive girl". Have any of you heard of Brooke Fraser? For the Hillsong geeks, she led her self-composed song Hosanna on their new album. Besides that, she's got a few albums on her own too. Go search for her on Myspace.com!





Ooohhh she's pretty enough, and she's only 24, and she's got curly hair (which, in my opinion, is a major plus plus point), and from New Zealand. Alright she shall be my new celebrity eyecandy.

I think today was my proudest moment ever. I can't think of another significant memory in my life that can rival this. Crap, if I can wrangle it, I think it's probably the happiest day of my life as well. Happier than the days where I got back my PSLE grades, or O's grades or A's grades. Happier than graduating from Catholic High or NJC. Happier than my Orientation days. Happier than Officers Commissioning. Happier than getting elected as Green Link President. And I'll never believe myself saying this, but happier than achieving Lotus for Green Audit Awards for NJC in 3 consecutive years.

GRADUATION PARADE DAY. Which marks the grand finale of my Basic Military Training on P. Tekong. Which also means I can up my military rank to Private now. Not that great, but it sure beats being a whack-ass Recruit. 3 months of tough training. I let them throw everything at me during all those physical trainings and field camp and assault courses and route marches and SITEST and live firing and grenade throwing. Oh wait I threw a grenade instead of them throwing it at me. But still, nothing can beat that euphoria of marching into the parade square with five hundred pairs of eyes watching you. And of course, my parents among them. We all stood proud and tall on the parade square, executing all the drills perfectly. For once, we didn't complain about the heat.

And my proudest moment came when my mum came down into the square to help me put on my cap. The tears in her eyes. And my dad, ever so quiet, had a beaming look on his face. And I tried so hard to remain nonchalant, but I think my voice betrayed me. Because I can feel their love for me.









I'm going to miss my platoon mates and commanders. Tai Wei and Jon, you two are the best buddies I could have. Khairul, my closest friend for the past 3 months. Hector and Zihao, awesome taxi buddies.

Well, it sort of all ended the moment we threw our caps into the sky. But BMT was only 3 months! It signals the start of vocational unit life, and there's still a long way to go before my 2 years of National Service is up. It's only the beginnings of being a "trained soldier". But heck, let me revel in my glory for a little while more. And besides, I've got a one week of block leave for me to rot at home. Whoever wants to go out can give me a call.

POP loh!

I have a million good reasons why you should not wake up at 6am on a Saturday morning. In fact, even more so if you have to book in for guard duty on Saturday night. Add the fact that you will be with one of your closest buddies in army, whom you've hung out with in army almost every minute and now out of army too, who coincidentally will be your guard duty partner so you probably will see him EVERY DAY for ONE AND A HALF WEEKS. And I need plenty of rest. Why should I wake up at 6am on a Saturday morning.

Yet, despite all the odds, I still did. And I'm very glad I really did. At 6am this morning I was up, and within half an hour I was out with my mum at Kopitiam having breakfast. And by 7am I was on my way to Yishun MRT. Waited for Khairul, and his friend Akila (whom I think is very pretty) to arrive, before we all went down to Kranji MRT. Oh, I haven't mentioned the occasion! We were on our way to Sungei Buloh to help facilitate a kid's nature camp.

And guess what?? While we were waiting at Kranji MRT for this lady named Linda from NParks to ferry us in to Sungei Buloh, I saw Choo Pei Ling! And the best thing was, she was going for the kid's camp too. Oh my goodness I haven't seen her for like half a year, and suddenly I decide to volunteer for some green activity (which I haven't done so in like, half a year too) and there she is too, being all greenie-freak. And she informed me that Iris is going too! So that meant that at Sungei Buloh today, there were three separate NJC Green Link presidents roaming around over there. HOW COOL IS THAT.

And the kids! It was like, being in primary school all over again. It was just a day camp for them, which included all the kiddy activities like craftwork, treasure hunting and exploration of the wetlands. And if you knew me well, I'm a sucker for kids aged between six to ten. I just love the interaction with them which I know I will never quite achieve in the same result with anyone else out of that age group. The best thing was, they are mostly the spontaneous kind; not those shy-like-nobody's-business kind, which made conversations and participation really smooth and easy.

The guided tour was kinda funky. NParks got some volunteer guides to lead the kids on a mangrove tour, and I learnt more about the wetlands although I already knew quite a lot. Haha I'm boasting. And I spotted a gigantic PURPLE HERON! Oh my gosh I've never seen one before and that was the most splendid sight I've seen in a long time. Majestic, powerful flying. Then we saw an unlucky grasshopper fly into a huge golden orb spider web, and the golden orb spider, quick like lightning, swooped down and started wrapping the grasshopper round and round into a cocoon. It was kinda tragic, but in the ecosystem it's a eat or be eaten world, and one animal's predator may be another's prey. Anyway, it's not everyday that you get to see a 20 centimentre spider devour a grasshopper on a one metre diameter cobweb. Then we had a treasure hunt which the kids had to find answers at the exhibitions. And then there was lunch, and after which was craftwork! We made spiders out of used egg cartons, and moulded mudskippers out of paper clay, and spun tailorbird nests, and planted mangrove roots. Whee that was fun.

The kids were awesome! Their level of innocence and playfulness is an experience that I'll never trade with anything in this world. I just love the way how their world revolves around with such simplicity. I wish I could be like them. After a while, I no longer feel as old as I ought to feel, and I join in their fun with pure delight. But still, there is always that responsibility on me to take care of them and bring them to toilets and help them with the crafts and blah blah. Oh oh, Pei Ling, me, and another girl named Rachel are the group leaders for Spider Group. Rachel is like a 1st Sergeant in the Navy??? And me and Khairul, being the typical army boys in awe of those ranks and stripes, were like, WOW. And she's in her very early 20s.

You know, I will go on waxing lyrical about the kids. But it will be an acrimonious crime not to mention about Leia. This little girl, aged seven, was the darling of my heart. Eh no, the darling of me and Khairul's heart. She's absolutely gorgeous, adorable, charming, pretty, cute, all in one. And the two of us went crazy; we started taking huge amounts of photos of her with our cameras. You know what she did? She sat there shyly and started smiling for us. Leia Leia Leia. Oh gosh she was really angelic. She's got an older sister named Liv, and when the two of them started playing with each other, it was a truly heartwarming sight. Lost in their own world, squealing with laughter, jumping with joy, doing absolutely ridiculous things. I wanted so badly to join them. But me and Khairul went voyeuristic by taking numerous photos of her, taking advantage of her willingness to pose for us.

Photos! It will not be complete this time round without all those angelic moments captured in my camera. Of course, I uploaded the whole dang photo file into my Ipernity account, so click here for the full album. But be warned though, some of those kids ran off with my camera and started shooting really horrible pictures of me, and some poor kid's neck. And loads of Leia.


Eugene, with the Spider Group signal.


My Spider Group making spiders.


And of course, this is my spider. Although it just looks like some cute dustball.


Renaeta.


Chervon and her very pretty heart which she cross plaited herself.


Our rendition of the wildlife in Sungei Buloh!


With Iris and Pei Ling. Green Link presidency.


Khairul, me and Leia.


Me and Leia.


Leia again.


Leia in the foreground, with her sis Liv at the back.

Oh please please go to my Ipernity album for all the photos. There's more of Leia in there. I'm going nuts over her just from looking at those photos. And there's a lot more nice ones of other kids in there too. Here's the link again if you missed it the first time. Click here.

I need to go prepare to book in for guard duty now.

And I just came back home for my weekend off. For the first time, I'm booking out in a shirt and long pants, instead of my usual smart No. 4 uniform. But for the last time, I'm booking out from Tekong, because next Wednesday is my graduation parade which marks the end of my BMT phase. Had to lug back all my belongings back home, and crap, my duffel bag was crazy heavy even while I was dragging it everywhere using its wheels. I never knew I had so many junk in my cupboard.

Worse, my Sunday rest is scribbled off because I have to book in for 24-hour guard duty tomorrow night! Khairul (next-to-my-bed buddy) and I drew out spare rifles for inspection last week, and we ridiculously forgot to sign our names in that stupid book to certify we sent in the spare rifles. And it's not just one rifle that we each took; it was two rifles apiece. That meant there were 4 rifles unaccounted for, which was a serious enough mistake to get us charged or something equivalent. And guess what?? Khairul asked me to go facilitate for some kids camp at Sungei Buloh tomorrow with him, and I agreed to. The brilliant thing is, Sungei Buloh is not in my area, and I have to be up early by 6am tomorrow, and it will last the whole day, and I have to book in at night, and Khairul will probably be my guard partner so that means I'm spending the whole of my weekend social life with him.

What a crazy way to spend my weekend. And how stupid can I get for not remembering to sign that crappy book.

Anyway, this week in camp wasn't too bad. Graduation parade rehearsals. Loads of hiding or sleeping in our bunks, cos there were new recruits enlisting elsewhere. The most major event this week was 24km route march! I think that must have ranked as one of the greatest achievements of my life. Never expected myself to last that long, with a huge bag loaded with enough heavy equipment, and my weapon, and walking on tough, uphill terrain. My shoulders got so numb from carrying my field pack that I really, really could not feel it anymore. Blisters, cuts, tired muscles from walking that long. Whee I'm amazed I survived.

Okay. I'm going to bed to be in time for tomorrow. I need a lot of rest.

Dragged myself out of bed at 8am this morning because I wanted to go to MacRitchie's TreeTop Walk. And I was pretty excited about it! The last time I went for any nature trek into some jungle was a long long time ago. Well, that is, if you discount my field camp which was like, slightly more than a month ago? But field camp isn't a nature trek because it's a bloody rubber tree or oil palm plantation, and there's no biodiversity. And when I told my mum I was going MacRitchie, she sort of went hysterical. After all, somebody died two days ago from a falling tree at one of the trails there. I think it's the fourth or fifth fatality from a falling tree, if I've been keeping up with the news. At any rate, I decided that that shouldn't stop me from going for a trek, unless my mum forces me to bring my helmet which the army issued me.

But guess what? Just as I entered the start of the trail from the Venus Drive carpark, there was this information sign stating that the TreeTop Walk is closed till 9 June 2007 for maintenance. Shoots. I was kind of mentally prepared for the Walk to be closed anyway, due to the fatal accident. The 3km trail up to the suspension bridge wasn't closed though, so I decided to continue on and stop at the entrance to the bridge.

And boy, I realised how much I missed my nature guiding days. It was a good thing I went alone, because that meant I could take as long as I wanted. There were so many plants and trees! And tonnes of birds chirping all at the same time. The first bird I saw was a common iora! And then, I got some woodpeckers up on a rain tree. And a brilliant blue plummage of a kingfisher. And I think I saw a warbler, couldn't be sure because the bird was brown and I think all brown birds look alike. And green pidgeons flying in pairs. Gosh the forst is just alive with sensory appeals. And the plants and trees are equally brilliant! There's a rambutan tree that I never noticed before! Tembusu, african tulip, bamboo, rattan, etc etc. Whee!

Had lunch with Tammy at the market, after I got out of MacRitchie area. She was at corps in the morning to retrieve her phone which she left there the night before, so I just took a bus down since I was going back to Bishan anyway. Then I went to J8 for a while to walk around before heading home.


Strangling fig. This tree was like 30 metres tall.


Huge monitor lizard sunbasking on a tree.


African tulip seeds and casings. Hai Hao used to love shredding the paper-thin seeds.


Tembusu tree!


Rills and gullies. I still remember what Ms Ting taught me in Geog!


Termite mound.


It looks like a photo from my Geog textbook. Dang those rocks.


Smilax (name of a plant genus) weeds smouldering these trees. It looks like 3 monsters.


And my favourite picture of the day. Lost in thought.

I'm planning to go back there again once the TreeTop Walk is re-opened. I want to be 30 metres high above the forest ground! Anyway, there's more pictures saved in my Ipernity account. Click here.

Didn't do much today. Stayed home, was online for sporadic periods throughout the day, packing some of my stuff, reading a bit. I watched the DVD of the new Hillsong United album! I believe I was quite patient enough to sit through the entire of Phil Dooley's recorded sermon. Then I got out of house for youth service, where they decided to show the movie Facing the Giants. After that ended, I found myself chatting with Ben Ng for half an hour about birdwatching and nature trekknig and stuff like that. And I took a long walk to the market to get milk and cereal at 11pm in the night, because I felt like eating them.

I learnt another thing today. You can only get through certain obstacles in your life through sheer grit and determination. That faith has to be there. And once you manage to pull through that first hurdle, it sort of becomes a baptism of fire which hardens and strengthens you for the worst there is to come.

Tonight. All those times when we might have, at the very least, looked at each other in the eyes, but we didn't. My first emotion went something like, "crap, I feel like the scum of the earth". Then I was utterly flabbergasted. And now, I think you don't deserve the precious, personal things that I've once offered to you. Foolish me.