I'm feeling extremely lousy now. Why is it that I'm always at the losing end when it comes to things like these. I don't even know why I'm bothering to engage myself in such a heart-jerking dilemma when I've already resolved a long time ago never to dabble in this again. I know it's mightily childish and immature, but I can't explain my own actions or my stubborn nature. For refusing to accept the truth. At odds with the incompatibility of everything. This is like stupidity times a trillion, all over again.

I had tuition today with this Primary 6 kid that I only met today for the first time. My mum's friend's nephew, from Taiwan, whose name is Gordon. He's pleasant enough, and he's chubby enough to remind me strongly of Hai Hao. I'm teaching him Maths. At first I thought he was Primary 5, so I thought it shouldn't be much trouble. But now I realised that he's taking his PSLE this year, I think I'm in a lot of trouble. Mostly because I don't even know the syllabus and I still remember those problem sums where it's one question per page and they give you seven-eighths of the page blank for your workings. DOESN'T THAT SOUND VERY DAUNTING???

So after I ended tuition (which is at Ang Mo Kio, across the road from where Qiling's fighter jet cousin stays), I went to Popular bookstore and tried looking for P6 assessment books and guides. Then I went to Thomson Plaza to get guitar strings cos one of the strings snapped. Then I dropped by corps for a while, before going home.

Hee hee this is my first weekend spent outside of camp since my 14-day confinement. And it was a busy day of sorts! Morning was supposed to be spent with Eleanor at Campus Crusade Media at Braddell, but we overslept and it got delayed and we couldn't find the place too, so we ended up eating yong tau foo for lunch over there and that was all. Then I rushed down to Khatib MRT to meet Ben Ng and David and Wilson (Dezmand came later) to go to Ben's home for a 5-hour board gaming session! Heh it beats spending money at Settler's Cafe or something like that. Had fun over there, the nonsensical games and back-stabbing each other and stuff like that. After we left Ben's, I went across the road from Khatib MRT to eat cheese fries at New York Pizza! That was to allow time to pass while waiting for dinner with Qiling. We went to Ang Mo Kio Hub, but wandered all the way up to eat at Suki Sushi (same place as the one the last time I went there with Priscilla). Then we went walking around AMK for a while after that, and did some last-minute shopping before all the shops closed at AMK Hub again.

That was my today's activities documented for my future reference.

WOAAH!!! I'm finally home after what seemed like a million days spent in my army bunk. Yeah my 14-day confinement started! I wasn't expecting it to be so soon, so I was caught unaware by the sudden news too. Apparently it was one huge fiasco too, because January 10th was the last day that they could impose the charges and they were all desperate to get it out of the way. So that Thursday I had to wait 2 hours for them to prepare the documents and find someone superior enough to read out my charges. Then I basically didn't get to get out of camp for 2 entire weeks. Kinda sucky feeling, since there were some off days here and there, and I had to go do weeding or clear drains or clean up some funny place during weekends. I took over a lot of weekend duties too hahahahaha since I'm already confined in camp. I had to attend utterly needless parades daily, which just requires me to stand there and look pretty. Fortunately it rained a lot, so a lot of these pointless crap were cancelled.

Had ICCT grading last week too. Everyone passed it was not such a big deal. I executed all my moves smoothly, and those that I weren't sure about, I was lucky not to get spotted hahahaha. Then Sherwin and I partnered each other for the sparring, and he knocked me to the ground while I tried to turn around to whack him. Then he kept on charging even after the instructor shouted BREAK. Hahahahahaha!!!

Then the past 3 days was spent outfield in Murai Reservoir again. Murai and Ama Keng are my nightmare places ever. But this time it was quite smooth because the ground conditions were not muddy or soggy, and I was not stranded anywhere, and I had uninterrupted sleep for at least 3 hours every night that we were there (although I only slept like 7 hours in total for 3 days). I have a new PC too! And we got lost while trying to get from Murai to Sungei Gedong camp. He navigated wrongly and we almost ended up near AMA KENG. Crap.

Yar lor. That has basically been my life for the past few weeks. The rest were slacking in camp and doing maintenance and wishing that I could get out. I had no choice but to miss the A01 class gathering, then a million people asked me out without knowing that I'm confined!!! AARGH.

So right now, it feels mightily awesome to be home. This feels like when I first enlisted into army and came home for the first time. Hahaha! My parents never looked so welcoming before. Oh oh! My sister got her O's results today she got 8 for her L1R5. Smart ass.

I need sleep. If not I'll get pimples tomorrow.

Met Ruijun on the bus while coming home. Hahaha that makes her the first familiar face (not counting my army bunkmates) I've seen since January 6th. Then she amused me greatly when she got down one bus-stop earlier and walked the rest of the way home. Reason being? There are a lot of cats at the other bus-stop. HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feels great to be out. Whoopeee Qiling let's go eat ice cream Priscilla let's go eat too.

Ahh okay I'll pick up from where I left off. Going back to camp after a long break is terrible, not the least because of the incredible mood swing from crazy euphoria to a mundane army lifestyle again. Actually my break was only like two weeks, but it seriously felt like a much longer time than that.

Heh okay this week we had our ICCT (intermediate close combat training) lessons. It's really fun, but it left me with muscle soreness and aches and bruises all over my body. We've gotta learn how to break falls on our sides and back and front and whatever, then we learnt how to arm lock someone, which I think is really cool because you can just about capture anyone in this way hahahaha! And how to get out from restrained positions when someone is attacking you. All that sort of thing. Sherwin was my partner on the first day, then Clarence on the next two. Got slammed around on the floor and you feel bruised and sore all over, but it's fun.

And when we're not voluntarily causing hurt to ourselves or our partners, a group of us are addicted to Heroes! Hahaha Alvin brought in his DVD player and Heroes Season 1 DVD, then Shi Yao started watching it and I got addicted, and Sherwin and Clarence joined in the craze and Jonathan joins us occasionally. Oh my gosh the series is very engaging hahaha! I wanna be able to have regenerative powers too and stop time and stuff like that. I always wanted to be a superhero! Like Buttercup.

Ooh. And my 14 days confinement isn't going to start anytime soon. Guess what?? Guan Zhi messaged me yesterday because he's a clerk at Mindef and he's in the department which handles cases of computer security breaches like mine, and he said he saw my name. HAHAHAHA how small can the world get!! Okay I'm quite astounded to hear that this got all the way to Mindef. But Guan Zhi says the punishment hasn't been approved yet. I hope it never gets approved!

Yup. I was supposed to be rushing down to Clarke Quay after I booked out yesterday. There's a "surprise" birthday party for Chiew Yee, but at close to 8pm I decided against it. And so I went for youth service instead. There was a recommitment thing. Then went for supper with a group of them at Kopitiam.

Last night Yurong and I started recalling the "histories" of our involvement in church, and how over the years we took up various things and stuff like that. Haha I've never thought of myself in that way, but I realised that I actually came a long way before being the person I am today. I first started out co-leading a cell group with Ben Wong, then I was with Lizzy for like half a year? And then it was with Biru at the start of my JC education and we've been at it ever since till the start of last year, so that means it's co-leading with Biru for two entire years. Wow. Okay I do remember more or less what I've been involved in, but I have never put things into a perspective such as this.

It's kinda amazing actually. I never knew I lasted this long. Puts me right up there when I think of how I've grown as a person, how my thoughts now were a lot different than they were 5 years ago, how long I've come in my walk with God. There were all the terrible times when I felt like giving up or felt too stretched or whatever, and there were also the nice good times when I've re-discovered myself in Christ, or being encouraged by simple things. I learnt the importance of being responsible for your actions, and that it is important to think twice before you speak, and trusting in God is vital when you're unsure of things, and to persevere even if you don't see the results, and to be less reckless...

This is just crazy.

Ohh. Then last night I started re-reading some of my really really old entries on this blog. The earliest one was when I was Sec 3! I nearly died of haemorrhage at my own old posts! I cannot believe that I used to be so naive and stupid and silly! And that's not all. I used to blog in these truncated sentences with a lot of ellipses at the end of every sentence! There's so many dots all over the page! And then as I grew older my blog posts became even more eccentric! There was a time when I was fascinated with exclamation marks too. OH MY GOSH.

Okaayy. It brought back all the fond memories of course. First of all is all my close friends throughout the years, all the crazy antics which I thankfully stored in print on this blog, for my quiet amusement years after it happened. Then there's horrible reminders of my failed relationships with people. Memories of church activities, and my past cell groups. Memories of school and Green Link and all the crazy stuff we did instead of studying. I miss those days, but I'm also mature enough now to know that I must keep moving on because I grow older every year and to store those as happy memories and to keep in touch with all the friends I know.

Check this out this was in May 2004! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

"The day was basically quite monotonous until tuition at night. Peirong was her usual sadistic self. Whenever we are stuck with any problems, she'll plaster a wide grin on her face and teach us enthusiastically... Biru was the crazy bird, Ngoh surprised us by turning up for tuition after his absence for two weeks, Yurong was quite normal until towards the end of tuition. That Yurong arh, because she didn't know how to get the answer to a question, and I managed to work out the answer to that same answer, so naturally she wanted to see my paper to see how I got it. But she didn't understand what I wrote, so she conveniently crumpled up MY paper with the solution to that question that I probably spent ten minutes on. After that was utter chaos. Biru and Yurong were chasing each other crumpling all the papers that they could get their hands on, then I was adding to the noise by singing 'Que Sara Sara" at the top of my voice. Needless to say, they crumpled up the rest of my papers as well... Then me and Yurong teamed up on table soccer to thrash everybody's sorry asses. You have to admit we make a good team, with Yurong on attack and me on defence. Darren and Yongwen lost to us miserably, Ashley lost terribly, everybody lost to us... Invincibility..."






I met her again last night. Actually I wouldn't say "again", because I only saw her on a few rare and unexpected occasions last year. Secretly I'm thankful that we haven't spoken a word to each other for over a year now, because the last time it ended up in a bitchy fight. We don't even look at each other in the eye. Which is a shame, considering how it used to be.

Whoa! It's been a crazy New Year Day celebration!! Okay. Here's as brief an account as I can give. I haven't slept all night at all! So my bed's really beckoning me to go sleep now.

New Year's Eve started out with breakfast/lunch with my mum at J8. Then I followed her to go get a new steam iron for clothes hahahaha! Managed to get Shi Hui to come out of house after that to go shopping together, and Tammy decided to call me out of the blue and she joined us eventually and thus, without knowing it, we were out on a Bimbo Club outing!! So cool I got new Converse shoes and some REALLY GORGEOUS (literally) shirt and face towel, and that's not to mention the two Esprit tee-shirts that Dezmand helped me buy. So all in all I spent $130 today!! Wow. Shi Hui got a new haircut, Tammy and I wanted to go to the bank to apply for NETS account and debit account respectively, but the bank was closed. Weh. Then we went to eat. Then Tammy rushed off to meet her choir people, while I went over to Shi Hui's house and we played guitar and piano and sang to our hearts content. Whee.

And then Sherwin arrived in Bishan close to 6pm, so Shi Hui and Sherwin and me left for church to get first dips at the barbeque! The food was splendid haha I like the yam paste thing. I like barbeques. And I met Jaime (the little 8-year-old girl) again and she kept poking me from behind and calling me bad names. Weh! But it's okay I eventually gave her a free ride on the Cambro water dispensers hahaha. Then they were screening Narnia the movie, so Sherwin went in to watch while I had a heart-to-heart talk with En Ning! Yeah haven't talked or played with her since forever, and although she's 6 years old we managed to find enough to talk for close to half an hour! Hahaha we share each other's deepest secrets. Then I went market with Amelia Yeo and Shi Hui and Joel with the intention to get logan red tea jelly (a.k.a. MENSES), but the dessert stall wasn't open so we got bubble tea instead. Then they left for Shi Hui's house again, while I went back to watch the second half of Narnia. Thought it was really amazing! Shucks should have watched the first half.

After that Sherwin decided to go home, and then Alicia happily put me in for back-up singing for the watch-night service which Chris was leading. Okay cool! I like back-up singing. And there was the testimonies which undeniably left me guilty, but the aim for the night was to surrender all your guilt to God and start a new life afresh.

Decided to stay over in church, so while Tammy was trying to sleep, Shi Hui and me decided to go do our music thing thing again, then Yurong joined in and Ming Ren too and soon after quite a lot of people suddenly just appeared and either listened or joined in. Hahaha! I mutilated a lot of songs. And Shi Hui ditched us to go sleep with Tammy! Okay not sleep with Tammy, but they slept. And the music thing continued for quite some time. I tried to serenade Lydia by playing a song for her but she didn't buy it hahahaha! Then at around 5.30am Matthew decided to drive all of us to KAP for breakfast! And so we did, and back, and home, and now I'm here.

Exciting right!

Yay. 2008 is finally here, so I can finally say I'm going to ORD next year! Previously I have to keep telling everyone two more years, cos 2007 and 2009 sounds like it's two years apart, although it's a shorter time than that. Hooray! But the sad thing is, I kinda wish my 2007 went a bit more slower because I still think that it zoomed by too fast for me to take stock and accomplish anything. Come to think of it, I've never really had much achievements in 2007. I took three months to finish one storybook! I wrote quite a fair bit of stuff, but most were nonsensical. I was Sentosa boy for three months! I'm served NS for nine months!

Yar lor. If I could put a timeline to 2007, it'll be January to March: Sentosa, March to December: Army. What a boring life! Okay la Sentosa was awesome I met funky friends that I still keep in touch, and I've got helpful connections, learnt a great deal about customer service, and found my ideal eyecandy hahahahaha! Then in army I survived Tekong's BMT, and Seletar Camp's bridging, was PC runner with a million things to do like plan NCC camp what kind of weird thing is that!!! Oh I cut my finger very deeply! That was a major thing.

Church was a lot more of a peripheral thing for 2007. The best I could do was turn up as regularly as I could, helping out in miscellaneous stuff here and there. Feels funny when it used to take up a lot more time! Like studying. YAR YAR YAR I really miss going to school too! What would I give to go back studying now. And I got to know some church people a little bit better, like we talk more now than in the past. I'm still magnificent with the close friends! And I still see my good friends from JC occasionally, doing random stuff and things like that.

Oh oh oh! I almost forgot! Nutseed died! So sad I know she's old and lonely and I don't have time to take care of her but still I'm saddened by her death. Then I adopted a little girl from Bangladesh! Which reminds me that I should write her a letter soon.

Which brings me to my 2008 resolutions! I shall strive to be as frugal as I could get, because of the Bangladesh adoption and I want to save enough money for university! Or rather, I'm trying. I need to be more disciplined in God's Word and going to church! And I need to be more focused in what I do. And I need to read more and write better. And I need to find more commitments outside of army! (NOTICE I'M NOT MAKING ANY RESOLUTIONS FOR ARMY-RELATED STUFF BECAUSE IT SICKENS ME) I should find a curly-haired girlfriend!!!!

Okie. That was crazy. Pictures time!


Bimbotic moment.


Moments.


With En Ning!