5-10 anazazi

While searching for my running shoe on Thursday Morning, my 5-10 anazazi rock shoe fell out from the shoe bag, greeting me with an unwelcoming sense of guilt. Almost instantaneously i glanced at my slalom skates( its by the shoe rack anyway ), my forearms and my flabby tummy. I didnt really figure out the exact connection for my reactions.

I muttered to myself that one of my new year resolutions is to pick up bouldering all over again. What i've so passionately practiced during the years of 2003-2005 remained as beautiful memories when i started putting cones at the void deck in early 2006.

Enjoy.



From the same guy

Charlie Battery Commander

Now i truly understood what it meant when soldiers can actually look forward to reservist.... Though i may not be doing my operational Air traffic controller job yet, it is a good break away from my monotonous trainee life. I am one who doesnt like the green, yet i love to see familiar faces donning green, some whom cant fit into their uniforms and SBOs anymore.

I began to feel the effects of ageing this in-camp. Not because i choose to think i am, but those impish mischievous gunners whom i used to serve were a much mature lot.( note: the officers serve the men in my unit hahah )

I remembered Julian for being forever an a**hole, trying to test my patience in taking MC; I tot Hamster and Fitman would conjure up against me and my bsm, but i was so wrong. Even our dear aussie jockey returned a grown up man.

Seeing those guys for the past 5 days really hit me with mixed feelings. There were times during 20sa( 5 years ago )which i wished i could take a rifle and gun some of these "indian chiefs".

But right now i'm so glad to see many of them taking time off to serve.

I guessed this in camp gave me an opportunity to exercise some ownership over these boys. That wasnt the case 5 years back. When i first stood on the grounds of Amoy Quee Camp, i felt completely naked, not knowing how to handle my future gunners. Sometimes being an officer was so hard. I was afraid, not because of my technical competency, but was apprehensive over my capability to deal with those 'hokkien' soldiers.

When i out-processed today, i cant help but feel glad that i did what i chose to do 5 years back. Leading those boys certainly require alot of attention and heart, even till today. Some how i'm blessed with very cooperative specialist and fellow officers to work with.

Being a battery commander is nothing about being an individual siao onz garang officer .... It is anything BUT that.

Training to be soldiers....

Being so deprived of a good morning skate under the sun, both me and Christine made our way to ECP. Weather was afterall kind to us, despite the occasional showers for the past week.

We were happily chatting. Christine was kind of proud, lamenting every now and then that she wasn't falling. But i guess lucky has limited credit. Nearing the edge of a slope i saw a family of skaters on the other side, so i cautioned Christine while i initiated the gradient, in hope of getting attention of the fellas down there. I was soon experiencing the speed, sea breeze whizzing past my oily face, and all of a sudden i heard a YELP followed by a thud behind me.

I knew Christine had fallen, and i cornered to make a turn back to where she fell. By the time i got to her, blots of blood exploded from within the grazed portion of her butt ( Opps! ). As the red liquid oozed, i saw Christine biting her own teeth, eyes winching in excruciating pain.

Lousiness sipped into me.. there's nothing i could do... Felt like i was the cause of the fall. Maybe if i hadn't sped forward, she could have had some form of confidence in my presence.

Times like this make me weak. No, maybe weak is the wrong word. My emotions will get stirred up every time i see a loved one or a friend got injured or hurt because of something i did . A month back my Dearie couldnt negotiate the slope down the KPE entrance and bruised her face upon impact with the side concrete slabs( same situation, i skated in front of her to assure that the slope was conquerable ). That time, lousiness saw me weak and naked. I really hate it man...

A few hours later i would be putting on my No. 4 to report for reservist. I'm kind of lost touch with green, especially when the last in camp training was close to 1.5 years back. No body wants to return for reservist, especially when it meant giving up your daily routine of money making / enjoyment for 5 to 14 days of regimentation and lack of sleep in the wilderness / training area. Ask any of my men, and the only thing that keeps them going on is the thought of meeting up with fellow soldiers who started out serving their NSF days together.

I am not a role model of what an officer should be.... I curse, swear, do short cuts and sometimes set inappropriate examples to my fellow soldiers. All i can say is that i commit to responsibilities that ensure my men wont get into trouble. I wont die for my country , that's for sure.

The only thing that keeps me focused on in camp is the very thought of protecting my loved ones. Spare me the "DUTY HONOUR COUNTRY". Give me my 68 men and i will do my best to get every single soul out safe and alive, be it training or the real crunch......

Probably its my friends and loved ones that kept me going on strong in life.

That's quite some thoughts before in camp. Need to catch sleep. See you all folks out there while i fire fight shit for the next 5 days!

Deal!

Finally...

The hockey skates deal is off... for $150...

Presenting the buyer before the deal. Got to blanja her to make her happy.

Meeting the Goondoo has never been this 'happening'... it felt like the days back in 2005 when we had to meet up to discuss plans for PUMPFEST, except that this time, the topic revolves around gossips and rumours and bitchings. Feels good to rant out over a cup of teh tarik and a piece of cheese prata AND egg prata. Thanks for the supper meet up goondoo~!

After supper i drove the buyer back to her residence in blk 296 yishun ave XXX... Got her to try out the skates . Just look at how happy goondoo is...







"Fit to a T!" says goondoo who had problems searching for the right skate because she had broad feet.

I parted my dear goondoo with a faint smile ( because its almost 1am in the morning ), feeling so light headed and happy as i drove my way home under the hypnotic influence of the light drizzle.

The F1 race

I decided to send an sms to one of my rather old time varsity mate in NTU to find out how she was. When asked what i had been up to, i happily keyed 'skating' as my reply. To that, she casually commented that i was forever skating....

All of a sudden, those words weigh upon me. Indeed, i really spend quite alot of time on the spot. I wont waste time typing my passion for it.

Have i been neglecting my friends?

I do not have a definite answer, but once in a while when i am on a long journey back from work, i often ponder about my friends' whereabouts, what they were doing, the difficulties they were facing etc etc. After a long day at work, asking friends out really requires alot of effort. There were quite a few times when i casually turn my friends down for meet ups just because i felt i needed rest or some time on my own. Personal breathing space has never been that valuable until i set my foot upon work.

But i supposed everyone will be busy. They have their own 'F1 race' to complete. We might have started out from the same starting line, but in everyone of us, there exist an ending point which differs from the rest... You think you are poor and you want financial freedom, so you work very hard for it and commit your personal time into it. You think you want to learn more about generating residual income, so you concentrate your efforts in reading up and enriching your knowledge towards the ways to do so.... You felt shortchanged previously so you wanted to challenge the convention to stand out from the rest.... There are just so many agendas....

On a happy note, I choose to believe that in this harsh and fast race that every one is so overwhelmed with, there will always exist a pit stop, providing some form of assurance to the F1 racers out there.... True friends are like pit stops that stood by your journey unconditionally, be it rain or shine, ever ready to lend a spanner for that loose nut on your rim.

My dear friends out there, sorry if i were too busy to be there as your pit stop crew. Just call me and i will be there in future =)

Of Slippers in KTV, Youtiao in Selegie and Cone tricks in Ecp

I wore my faded OCS polo tee( bad mistake, because the translucence of the tee made my tummy more obvious ) and salomon pants to supper with fakie, the parade commander and fakie's brother on friday night.
Fakie had chicken pox, but i wasnt that disturbed because i was hit by pox 11 years back. Could still remember days of not bathing and the stench... yucks...

I was surprised that fakie looked the same. Her brother, though never hit by pox, was brave enough to hang around with the germ carrier. The 3 of us tucked in first before parade commander came. We shared our fare bit of our good and trying times during the work week. Boredom set in real fast as soon as i munched the last bit of curry mutton, and fakie suddenly insisted that we should try HALO bar for ktv session . Haha..hanging around with fakie sometimes meant that we would all end up doing something on impulse.

Halo bar was located in Ngee Ann poly. Fakie's bro H assumed the vehicle commander, navigating the car from AL AHZAR towards the polytechnic. I felt so down dressed when we reached Halo bar. Apart from the pox germ carrier who wore shirt and jeans, the remaining 3 guys were cladded in slippers and shorts, you know, the typical supper attire. But i supposed no one there care, and we had our fair share of fun singing the irritating 'beautiful', complimented by H's "HELLLLLL-llo HELLLL-llo~!!!!!" gangsterism mic test and yours truly mimicking the vocals of a lady korean singer in the song 'mystical' sang by jackie chan... That was Friday for me.

Saturday began by meeting the great terrors. It was close to 3 weeks since i last tutored them, and was glad to see them again. I taught them as if they were really my children, and that's why i am so committed when it comes to tuition sessions with these 3 boys.

Haiz...speaking like this makes me feel so outdated and old...

I was glad to have Christine for a saturday late night movie mate. She went to cut her hair in the late noon , which implied that i have to go get the tickets first. I was home by 3pm and the movie show time we wanted to catch was 940pm. Played a 1 hr good game of chinese chess with Zhou Gong before i left for Cathay Building to buy the tickets in advance. Boy this Cathay building changed so much... the last time i was there was like close to 11 years ago. Those days there were only KFC and Orange Julius. Its a total contrast man. Like a mini Orchard Rd there.

Christine made me wait for about an hour or so...i found a seat outside the building and sat down alone.. suddenly feeling the lousiness in me. I set my sight beyond the crowd of moving youngsters, staring into the shimmering glittering lightworks that lined up the streets from Orchard Rd all the way down to City hall. The acidic juice in my stomach didnt help either. I thought i was gonna suffocate and die as a 2nd hand smoker. Christine came just in time, which explains why i am still able to type this entry..haha...

Dinner and dessert was good( we had ours in Selegie ), but the show wasnt really fantastic. We watched '30 days of nights' ( how i wished Dearie was around, because she's a sucker for gore and vampires ). To summarize, i thought they should have made '5 days of Nights' instead of 30. There were some scenes that were quite drama, and it left both of us giggling... so off. After the show, both of us headed down for some light indie music in timbre, somewhere near the old national library. We were contended with an Apple Vodka and a mug of beer, and left the place for the night rider bus stop...Its the 1st consecutive saturday night that i took a night rider home...

I woke up by 10am Sunday Morning. Munched the triangular shaped tuna-cheese-peanut butter-ham-luncheon meat sandwich Dad so fondly prepared for me without fail every morning since i started work. I dusted my bed after packing up for my afternoon skating trip and went into a state of slumber before heading out for the ECP Sun. Its so glaring today, as compared to the last 2 noons. Perfect for a mini SCE gang outing.


Poor fakie wasnt able to make it. She didnt really feel well.

I'm looking forward for the next saturday night movie session with Christine ( Mad Detective this time )and a good Sunday rest before my in camp which will start on the 10th... BOOOOO~!!!!!!!!!!

Singapore National Freestyle Competition 24th Nov 2007

Handsome right?

翔子( xiang2 zi3 in hanyu pinyin )

As mentioned, i fowled up my cone trick routine while executing my toe toe traversing trick ( technically known as 'toe toe special ')



The picture on left shows my entrance and the right shows the catastrophe as i exited the cones. Oh well...

After the competition, i joined the boys to feast in ECP chalet. Team Micro had booked some chalets as accommodation for the foreign judges from Korea and China. Most of the boys headed home, except for me, Felicia, ZhiZhong and Andy, still gaming for a few more sliding sessions in the rink. I guessed they were still having the competition HIGH in them.

What we did not expect next was guest appearance 翔子( A member of Team Micro China ). I supposed you wont know him, so let me introduce to you here :


He was also down for the competition judging, and we had not expected his presence at the rink. Seeing him accelerate before sliding is a magical moment, so overwhelming that it would easily make any singapore skater wonder what they actually did with their skates. You can see how fierce he slides in the clip so i dont bother with the elaboration.

Here's a picture of us at the rink


Those young fellas in white and me are locals 翔子is the guy in black tee standing beside me. Best. The other black tee guy was his sidekick.

Felicia insisted on going Night Rider, because apparently the 3 young fellas were still reminiscing about how the competition went and all the 'bitchings' what not. Non of them wanted to go home early on a Saturday night. I stood for awhile pondering when i last skated at the rink after 10pm. So the 4 of us whizzed on the smooth green surface enjoying, occasionally stealing glances from by standers. Happy times really flies and soon the time on my Timex showed 1245am Sunday.

Yes, that mean we had to make our way from ECP to the Night Rider Bus stop ( the nearest one being Suntec City ). The guys dont seem to translate the actual distance into their heads... Oh well.

In less than 5min we got our stuff into our bags, and off we were, somewhat feeling the visual difficulty under dim lightings. Thank goodness we eventually pulled through the distance, fuelled by the sheer thrill of having the chance to skate a long distance together.

This night skate felt somewhat different from my past night cycling experiences with my university mates. Skating with these 3 peeps really make me feel so light and care free, chattering nonsense and bulls*** as if i were also a young boy. We got lost a few times in Kallang Stadium Area( we ended up on the other side of the Shears Bridge Hahaha )



Featuring Good Old Goat with Singapore Number 8 slider Andy

Thank goodness and in God's Grace, we found our way to the bus stop facing Funan Shopping Centre. Though with half eyes closed, we still managed some energy to hop onto NR2( Sembawang )with some drinks we got from 7-11.

Letting it go

Yup, i'm letting this new toy go. SGD300



Featuring Powerslide's Nexus Inline Hockey Skate.

-Brand new.

-Hi-Low wheel set up ( i.e 72-72-80-80)

-Can modify to a banana set up for slalom ( using configuration of 72-76-80-76 ). Weird configuration because of its hi low frame structure.

-Short frame, about 231mm i think. See the picture below; I place my slalom skates with it for visual comparison :



Here are some more pictures upclose




Anyone keen can approach me for viewing. I will come down to let you try on the skates.

Personal Hurdle Number 2 ( After Math )

I finally made it back from the competition in one piece.

There was basically 10 competitors in this year's National Freestyle Slalom Competition. The reason why i included the title of the competition is that the results would actually make its way into the international WSSA ranking. Dont get me wrong; i'm not trying to say i did very well this time. In fact I got the 6th Position among 10 competitors.

I'm extremely delighted getting this 6th position because:

1. In a run of 1min and 30 second, i did not manage to showcase all my routines on the cones. I ran out of time and had to go into a forced ending. Ha ha i did not actually include the time factor in my training since i thought i was just going for the experience that's all.

2. In one of my routines, my legs suddenly became jellified and gave way to pressure and heat. I had to exit those cones with basic moves after failed attempts to retain my control over my toe tricks.

3. Out of 10 competitors, 3 of the competitors were from the professional team, leaving the real competing down to 7. Among these 7 we had 3 international skaters from india who barely started out slalom( i wouldn't considered them ready for this competition since there was one of them who just started playing cone tricks like a few months back - nonetheless i respect their courage for taking part );So effectively in my realm the dogfight was down to 4 competitors, of which one of them was a champ in last year's slalom mania competition and the other a hardcore skater who seemingly spends most of his weekends in ECP rink. And so its down to 2...hahaha...I was really surprised i could beat the other fella who represented skatesports, because for that skate sport boy's run he did not lose control and seemingly did well in all his tricks.

( So you see, clinching 6th position was indeed a great boost somewhat )

4. I won myself a pair of inline hockey skates ( correct sizing somemore ) from lucky draw. Ha what luck i got!( i'm thinking of selling it at 300 bucks any takers ??? )

I only have myself to thank because i managed to persuade myself to try it out.

Probably this is one of the few occasions when i actually confronted my fear at the expense of my ego. The competition injected a certain level of humbleness in me, making me want to do more, not just in cone tricks but life in general.

Personal Hurdle Number 2

I've decided to give the competition a shot... after lying domain for quite some time.
I remembered the times when i was almost immobilised on skates because of my ankle operation.

I shall not press too much on myself. Afterall, i am giving shirley support for this competition. I think its one of those ways i can really get involved in spreading the sport, as well as getting myself more involved in committing to more demanding tricks.

If i were to nominate a personal objective, it would be to do my very best, given the unfavorable circumstances of lack of training plus the hot sun. Guess i really have to move on from this point.

The power of tongues

I felt rather helpless today.

Just a few hours during lunch, i was having a simple casual conversation with some of my coursemates. Somehow the topic drifted to my fiancee. My friend asked what her main diet in US was i think. So without any thoughts i replied sausages. I could still remember my short conversation with my dearie a few days back on MSN, when she posted a few pictures of packets of big sausages that she got from Walmart ( this real big hyper mart in USA ).

I got pretty pissed actually when this friend of mine actually could link sausage with male genitals, and happily tried to joke about it and my fiancee( implied ) in a lewd way ( in what way i shall spare the readers of this blog, because i dont really feel comfortable when people try to joke like this about my kin )

I am fine with people calling me all sorts of weird names, because i am also like that, giving people weird nicknames. Doesn't matter if you call me monster, ugly boy or some porn shit. I've gotten used to such things.Its just some ways people around you try to lighten up things. That i understood. But how would you feel if i start making lewd or any jokes about your spouse / parents?

I had to pretend not to feel affected. But deep down in my heart i feel rather disguisted at the way some people can actually make jokes about people whom they never knew.

Jokes are fun. You can laugh it off and make your day ( maybe others as well in this context ).

But make sure no one is being undermined at the expense of your jokes.

Where was i when i was 16?

A fruitful Friday passed by just like that. Time flies when you are really enjoying every single moment of it.

720pm, Friday : I whizzed past the steel doors of the passenger lift that ran through the spines of Admiralty MSCP. Was quite surprised to see Clarence, one of the team Micro boys,because i have not seen him in action since late September. As soon as he stopped his routine, i greeted him.

He smiled at me as if he was equally excited to see me. It did not take me long to realize that he had just cleared his Os and was happily dancing on 8 wheels.

"Hey man, finished Os liao right? "

"Yah, sibei shoik ah. Yay!!!!!"

It daunted upon me as the words of this 16 year old sank into my head. What was i doing after my Os? Where was i enjoying my free time after the major exams?

In that split second, my mind fell into a trance.............

Red Cross House, this building behind the present park mall, felt like my 2nd home 10 years back;I was a very "uniform grouped" person, who loves to assume this instructor role and share with others what i have learned in the First Aid Duty Department. Every weekends during my upper secondary school days were spent attending courses on footdrill, leadership and first aid duty management. Semester breaks meant camps, first aid duties, red cross committee meetings and MORE CAMPS! I was from an all boys school, and combined school activities were quite a motivation for hormone raging teens like me....

Looking back, i thanked my uniformed group cca commitment in making me who i am today: a very vocal and outgoing person who does not hesitate to voice out his personal fears and share with others what he knows.

As i stood on the smooth cemented floors of the MSCP, watching clarence demonstrating his slalom kungfu, i cant help but wonder what kind of a person i would be if i had chosen to commit to some form of discipline 10 years back.

Probably i felt insecure in that sense, not having some 'specialty' sport that i can claim with pride that i can do very well in.

Ok, maybe that's why i am penning this blog entry in the first place.

A mobile running tap

I had a mobile running tap.

Last Friday, i came home feeling spineless and wobbly. I was sneezing my way into the house as i slowly settled down and took my shower. A few hours before, i was shopping for winter clothings with dearie ( she's leaving for US for work for a month! argh!!! )and i had been sneezing after leaving that shop. Maybe it was the dust from the merinos and wool and cashmere... ....

Ever since that night i have been sneezing for as long as i'm awake, all the way until tuesday. Every sneeze shook the nerves within my skull i tell you... super bad. Thank goodness i managed to recover to do this post, but was equally sadden to learn that one of my course mates had kena STD (SPENG - TRANSMITTED - DISEASE). I felt sorry for him and offered him a packet of tissue on wednesday.

Right now ( Friday ) i'm home, enjoying the off day which rolled over from Hari Raya 2 weeks back. And so i will begin my 2nd part of my course mates pictures. No particular topic in mind.


I used this picture as my desktop background in the aviation academy. Guess what happens next....





Basically i am honoured to have an ardent fan in my class. And again i was equally sorry to have spread the STD to this boy. HAHAHAHA.

3 weeks ago there was some interclass ( i almost wanted to use the word 'inter-COURSE' ) games session following the hari raya celebration. We took part in some real ku ku games. Here are some pictures...

Can you see what i was kicking?


Holding hands with the 'koon sin' of the class

October ended with a slightly happy note, having realised that i have cleared 12 modules worth of test and 2 more coming. Theory course is coming to an end, and it will mark the beginning of a month of operational attachment in the radar centre.

God, please help me tide over this one month of radar centre shift work.

Bang Bang!

Here are some october shots of my coursemates. Well its not like we have time to take pictures and all. These photos below were taken a few days before my fellow international coursemates from brunei left after their 8wk stay with us.


Even though i braved the odds of university life, it is always difficult to keep awake THE WHOLE day sitting down and listening to lecturers talk.

Each of these little cans represents the sweets intake for one week. ( Your task is to guess how many weeks passed since i started the course. Winners can claim one of these 'eclipse' minty tablets from me. Taste like toothpaste though heh heh )

I stumbled upon a billard pro in my class. How did i know? Ok we dont have a billard table in the aviation academy BUT sometimes during our free time we do head down to Changi Airport Recreation Club for a few games of billard and KTV. I learnt a thing or two from this pro who started out cheating pple of money from billard table since his poly days.

Just check out his goatie. That's what i called a true blue hustler.

During breaks we turn the classroom into gambling dens


Sometimes during class WE ALSO continue...away from the eyes of the lecturer that is.


If there's a gambling den THEN there must be a bookie or loanshark of sorts


And this loanshark only operates when there's life music


Sometimes the loanshark insist more music....


Again i had the honour to steal some tricks on strings from this guitar pro who started out his jamming life since his poly days. There is NOTHING that i request for THAT HE CANT play.

The gambling den requires some form of wireless communication with the outside world. I volunteered my laptop as a point of contact with the outside bookies / loanshark. Sometimes i get abit of pressure from the lady loanshark in the class


When i could not make the mark, the loansharks in my class send me to Terminal 3 to do coolie work


They also gave weird punishments to my fellow colleague who failed to collect money. This guy was made to stay still with a 1. 5 litre bottle on his head while the rest will torture him anyway they want


Ok, this one is a slightly more prestigious form of punishment done in the changi control tower. GETTING READY to be slapped on his fat butts that is.


So far that's it. More to come.

inspiration

Kallang Paya Lebar Expressway Skate

I still skate very often. Spent most of my free time doing cone tricks. Either at the void decks, the double court or the Multi Story Carpark during weekday evenings.

It would be hard to convince me to go recreational over the weekends in east coast park. The journey would be long, i would have to drive and you would subject yourself to the 50-50 chance of ISOLATED SHOWERS( that's what the meteorological officers in the aviation industry would say )

However, i responded to a calling to recre skate on a sunday morning of 21st October. No worries on weather( because it is a tunnel skate ), and its once-in-a-life-time-chance opportunity. Together i got my fiancee , edmund ( one of the woodlands skater doing speed skating )and my brother down. We had the luxury of traveling dry through the heavy showers along the journey, all thanks to dad's car, which saw us through from woodlands-> boonlay-> kampongjava rd(LTA HQ).

Most of the people in the inlinekaki forum were there. They had every reason to be there. They were speed skaters and they were avid fans of such events that allow them to parade speed skating to the public.



Those were just the early birds' pile of skates. We congregated to board the shutter bus which brought us to the entrance of the tunnel expressway. By the time we 'debus', there was already some crowd and a fun fair area before the tunnel.







To enter the tunnel, you have to walk / run / skate down a ramp that's about 15 degrees in gradient i think. The number seem small but on wheels it could kill. Quite a few of the newbie speed skaters suffered deep long gashing abrasions on their shins.

My dearie, though gutsy enough to take on the ramp, did not run away from the fate of falling. Thank goodness she had her helmets on( usually we dont wear helmets, but this one's a public skate event. ). She was smart enough to steer herself to the side of the ramp when her legs turned wobbly. During the whole mishap i was behind her, witnessing the fall, filled with helplessness. In the end she broke the impact against the side with her right wrist, in the midst her helmet rammed against the wall. The outcome : A slightly bruised right cheek, a slightly bruised wrist,a graze on her left shin and a bit of shock running into her. When i managed to get hold of her, her eyes welled up in tears. BUT she claimed she wasnt gonna cry; SHE SIMPLY FELT STUNNED.

That's where we skated from.


Some pictures that i took with her minutes after she fell




Dearie decided to take a rest at the first leg of the entrance , trauma still consuming her mind. Staying with her was my brother who wasnt really keen to explore the depths of the tunnel. I joined the caden of speed skate fellas to do the next 4 km. Folks on bigger wheels were a faster lot, and i soon found myself skating alone again( yeah, because on most occasions on any other days i did not have much friends who want to skate with me. Dunno why.)

When the runners and brisk walkers began infiltrating the tunnel, we were back at the starting point where Dearie was. After reassuring her that the skate was a DO-ABLE one, we both held hands and ventured into the tunnel, where booths selling snacks and game carts lined up along as we skate through. There were also posters explaining the construction of the tunnel from day one till today



Civil Engineers, guess which part of the tunnel this lady is facing.


Titanic, the KPE TUNNEL version ( I LOVE YOU HUNNY! )


Eyes feeling sore, with tummy growling from NO breakfast, we parted the tunnel goodbye at 1130am. Our hunger finally brought us to al azhar opposite beauty world, where my dearie , bro and i settled our acidic juices with a few plates of prata and mutton murtabak, complimented with cups of ice teh and fruit juice.

Driving home,i asked myself if i should try out speed skating on top of my cone trick discipline.

Nostalgic weakling

I didn't know why i just cant contain my feelings well.

I recalled giving Weiling her first tuition when she was Pr4, back in june 2005. Just a few weeks after that, my aunt attached another tuition 'lobang', Junjie in my care. Together, we trudged our way through endless brain tormenting sessions( yes, me inclusive, because the primary school syllabus is horrendous now ), sharing our fair bit of lame and silly jokes over cups of bubble tea. Once in awhile i would organise some free movie screening on my laptop for my aces, complimented with pizza ( yeah its on the house, from my own pocket )and tons of laughter. To top it up, i even brought them on an outing to vivocity ( and watched Ben Stiller's NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM )when the complex had barely started operating its business in late july last year.

It hadnt been easy for me for the past 2 years. Many a times i rushed down from NTU so that i can make it on the eves of their papers, just to make sure they were equipped with what they had to know. I must say that there were moments when i asked myself why i had taken up tuition and make myself suffer.

Tagged along with these gruelling tuition moments were pain-staking memories of varsity life. Sometimes, the tuition allowance and time sacrificing equation doesnt balance.Lethargy became 2nd nature; i kicked into a state of "semi-consciousness" easily during lessons and lectures, and often had to make alot of arrangements to prioritize tuition sessions over ODAC and my time with my loved ones. Simply put, tuition intruded deep into my privacy and personal life. It was always part of my consideration when deciding to go for a date or for a meet up with friends. Sometimes i would ponder hard about my life as i sank into the synthetic leather seats of bus 179 after a tiring 630pm lesson, rushing to meet my aces for another tuition session. There were days when i had lessons on friday evenings up to 930pm and i had to rush for tuition the next morning from my hall to Lavender. Just the travelling alone to-and-fro during weekdays could kill, especially when you are talking about a 9am tuition session and you knew you had to be back in school for lecture at 230pm the same day. I remembered having to excuse myself from FOOT 05 and 06 so as to clock my weekly time with the children.

Thank goodness, i pulled through everything. I smiled good bye to my aces after a simple lunch on a sunday one day ago. I couldn't say if i was actually relieved from all the obligations or was i feeling this sense of detachment from something i had struggled very hard to cling onto for the past 3 years.

Somewhere around the corner of my eye was this tinge of sourness and moist.

Demoralized

So far, training in aviation academy has been merciful on my mental health. Friends have been helpful in all aspects. Some of them were from the air force, having prior experience handling aircraft seperation in Singapore Airspace. If all goes well, i think i should have no problem till the end of my theory course. I will worry about the practical course later on.

Apart from spending time with my fiancee, the next best thing i could afford after a LONG-TRAVELLING-LACK-OF-SLEEP work day is a good session of slalom / running.

I tried running the perimeters of the field beside woodlands avenue 12 two nights ago. I was surprised that i could still finish the usual course, though the timing was kind of disturbing. Was glad to run cos if you never take time to run, you will fall into a viscious cycle of procastination and soon you will lose all your cardiovascular strength on the tracks.

I went slalom with brother last night, and was pretty disguisted at the amount of absolute progression that i made relative to my brother. Put it simply, i couldnt do much smooth transition runs comfortably and my toe heel tricks werent promising. I did not know why i got so perturbed over last night's skating session.

Maybe i had subconsciously developed the tendency to compare too much with my brother. At present, i think i'm pretty caught up with the amount of progression he made since he started slipping on his slalom skates back in February 06 (i started skating in december 05 ). All i could remind myself from last night's skating session, was to sharpen those techniques that i could already do and perfect those toe heel tricks that i always dreamt of doing since DUNNO WHEN.

Haha... a little ordinary being's entry of his typical day

The Thing

Ah Huat served as a range warden during his NS days.

Every evening was spent 'jaga-ing' the 25m small arms shooting range. These are places that's easily forgotten by many, NOT just civilians out there but soldiers alike.

One late noon when the range was finally not in operation, Ah Huat had decided to respond to the call of Mama Nature. He felt in control of the situation, because at that point in time, there wasn't anyone around.

Usually, the male range toilet would be relatively unsightly, with soiled marks around the bowls and wet tissue balls littering the path from the entrance into the cubicles.Ah Huat had a tough morning managing the range, and so decided to reward himself by walking like a king into the ladies.

Some cheap and readily available luxury, he murmured to himself as he headed comfortably into one of the cubicles and shut the world out.

The detox sensation was awesome. It felt like some sort of contained explosion. The load was lethal, but the job was chop chop. Everything ended the moment it barely started. Ah Huat was sure he had the nonsense fully excreted. His a** felt clear of obstruction.

Ah Huat decided to end the whole ritual. He parted the last piece of tissue needed to clear his a** and reached out to the toilet lever in half squat position.

Ah Huat wasn't prepared for what that was to happen....

PART OF HIS SOLID WASTE launch itself from the pool of excretion as the waters from the water cistern whirlpooled into the hole. It contained so much power, that IT made its way out of the water suction and landed pretty neat by his leg. Ah Huat fell into a 5 second state of ultimate shock.

NEVER IN HIS LIFE DID HE SAW HIS OWN SH*T WALK OUT ON HIM.....

Ah Huat's lower body remained motionless, mind struggling desperately to figure out the logic of what he just saw. All of a sudden he felt weak and vulnerable.

Eyes still transfixed onto IT, he finally figured out the whole evil force propelling this SH*T



Ah Huat swallowed the tastelessness of his saliva and cursed. That Thing lay motionlessly throughout the whole discharging ritual.

It scared the SH*T out of him. Literally.

Deprived sleep

Deprived sleep is like this:

You wake up at 550am, feeling the fiery sulphuric sensation in your blood shot eyes. Then you try to stumble for the snoozing button on your handphone.

You yawn easily as you stood in front of your bathroom mirror; Your chest vibrates reluctantly with each yawn. Even after you wash up, you felt that nothing makes sense apart from sleep.

You slip into your working attire in a mechanical fashion. Once in awhile you notice the tranquility of the darkness. Then you realise that both your parents are asleep. You wont recall hearing the morning chirps of the early rising birds because the time now reads 620am.

When you finally board bus 969, you wondered if fellow commuters on the bus would notice the dark eyebags that sag below your blurry field of vision. You found a seat and snug your sorry body under the blasting air condition.

When you force your eyes to greet reality again, 45min of journey from woodlands to tampines interchange via TPE had just passed. You started mumbling to yourself as you subconsciously make your way to bus booth with a number 19 on it.

And then there was this morning queue, made up of working class heroes of all ages , all heading towards changi cargo.

You breathe very hard as you climbed up the bus, tapping the ezlink card, at the same time remembering that just 50min ago, you had boarded the bus from one end of the island at 640am. You repeated the find-the-seat procedure again. As soon as you sit down, you sank into dreamland.

Once in a while you open your eyes to check your position along the way....


Ok i think i should sleep now.

Not the value combo one from long john silvers

This clip is interesting. Could be my source of training aid for the next few nights to come.

The Goat's Sweat.

Seeing this clip reminds me of my sweaty state after a good game of sports.

Darn it..i watched it 4 times and never failed to burst out laughing.

Tan Chee Siang

This boy made a call last night about 1210am. I was about to rest my day of nonsense and heading for the bed....

CS: Hey Hello Siangpingahyououtsideizit?

Goat: Huh? No i'm already back at home. Back from skating. Just showered

CS: Erh...Oh....i see...tot you still outside...

Goat: Uh huh..why lei why lei?

CS: Actually... i wanna ask a BBBBBIIIIIIGGGG favour from you

Goat: Uh huh...what what? Just say.

CS: I'm actually abit stranded here in Woodlands. Just thought if you could drive me back.

Goat: * Drawing in a huge column of air via the mouth* erh.... orh... hmm... but i going to sleep liao lei, very tired. Already clean some more...Erh... you miss 168 to sengkang izit?

CS: Yah dunno y i'm unlucky. Missed it.

At this point i reckon that the boy may not have enuf money. Proved to be the case when he told me he didnt have more than 10 bucks with him.

Goat: Ok, gimme 5min. Call you again.

And so i got my sorry sore body up from warm cosy bed. Grabbed car keys and said my usual promise to dad about driving safely. In 10min i was starting the engine. I did not have intention to pass him money in woodlands and drive back home. Have worked out the mid night charges and decided not to let the cabbies earn the money that way.

Out of pure kindness, i drove the 22 year old back. No grumbles and no complaints in my head.

At the very least, this boy didnt grumble nor complain when i asked for wall crew help desperately one year ago .

Ok CS, you earned this ride back.

The greedy week

I think I'm a greedy boy of sorts.

Now that my work kicks in( Ouch!!! ), i have to reveille 6am everyday so that i can comfortably reach changi village( that's where the aviation academy is ) at 750am. Lesson typically starts at 830am. But i dont really like to rush in to class anywhere near 830am. Hate that sense of insecurity and nakedness when you are not punctual.

Life is good so far, with a fair dosage of aerodynamics and aerodrome lessons. Coursemates were mostly diploma holders, but a real fun and whacky batch to be with. It felt different as compared to my uni days. Back in NTU the people i hang around with were more sceptical and cynical about life; over here people are more hopeful about life.

Daydreaming became my part time hobby. I often thought of my fellow grad counterparts. A few days back zaki told me about this 2.9k/mth job he clinched with an IT support department in a bank. Woot! Way to go! Looking at how things are going in the next one year, i will end up to be the poorest and unpromising bummer among the SCE gang peeps.

We had 2 brunei-IANs in our class for the next couple of weeks. Both are guys. That made the bulk of the class(90% guys) even more boring. I became dull and quieter since job began, cos the topics of discussion were often a mismatch between me ( a 26 year old happily attached ) and the rest ( many of them single, at the age of 23 ). But i guessed being quiet makes you more mindful and analytical of how people behave and the world around me revolves. If there's something i wanna get out of this, it would be to sharpen my listening skills.

I fell sick on tuesday night, running a fever complimented with muscle aches running through my limbs. Mom's conclusion: Lack of sleep, trying to skate even when i'm home at 1030pm (class ends at 430pm, i rush to tuition after work ), lack of fruits, lack of water.

You see, that's why i said i'm a greedy boy. I tried to do too many things at one time.

Weekend Makan part 2 - Malacca's bloat-my-stomach ordeal

Dearie and i head off for a short Malacca getaway over the weekends. We were really looking forward to going on an overseas trip together.
I think the last time we had such an outing was like...erm.... in september 2005. That's like almost 2 years. Since then she had been to places like USA and Japan with her friends while i had my fair share of travel to SEA countries to M'sia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

One thing we did not expect during this trip though, was the amount of food we ate in a span of 1.5 days. I thought we would spend most of the time walking around to sight see and expose ourselves to abit of sun, even though there wasnt really much historical sights in Malacca. Malacca wasnt really our ideal weekend getaway. Had intended to go Bangkok but realised that going there alone would cost us about 240 sgd per pax. Yeah, that's the budget airline pricing. You include the fuel surcharge and it suddenly makes a whole lot of difference even though the actual ticket cost from 10sgd-60sgd.

So on a saturday morning, the bus took us from golden mile to m'sia via 2nd link. Most of the travellers on board were older than us. I suddenly found myself falling into the visit-malaysia-middle-age-group gang. When i was much younger, i often pondered why my parents/ aunts love to go m'sia so much over the weekends.

By noon time, we checked into this accordion hotel that i booked online a week ago. It wasnt really a hotel. More so of a motel i would say. The rooms were small, especially the toilet. Imagine sitting on the toilet bowl; If you lean your head forward you could actually rest your head on the walls. That's how cramped it was.
Well, we did not really paid alot for the room but definitely accordion wasnt a place couples would choose to sleep over. The rooms were worst than those i stayed over in vietnam a few months back.

We both waited for dearie's friend chin ping(our hero of the trip) to show/drive us around malacca. This picture was taken outside the hotel. We didnt bother to use the hotel as the backdrop.


We waited quite awhile because the road leading to accordion was jam packed with traffic.


Was glad to meet chin ping in her nissan sentra (its called nissan sentra in malaysia instead of nissan sunny). The last thing we munched on was some roasted peanuts and biscuts on the bus. Hungry! So she drove us to try out some famous laksa/chendol she often visit when she was a school girl. But the shop closed by late noon and we had to skirt around for alternatives.

Chin peng walked us around after that. Seriously i thought she would leave us after meeting us for lunch. She also doubled up as our photographer... HA!










Sigh...when will i ever grow up?

Our next stop was to be a walk into JONKER STREET, this stretch that is stocked up with lots of food, food and GOOD FOOD. It was already close to 5pm. I was here with the pumpfest 05 gang back in 2005 january.


We held our temptations as chinpeng told us about more good food that's out of JONKER STREET. She promised to drive us there for dinner.

Meanwhile we had to sustain our craving for food by sampling various kinds of pineapple tarts. Those we tried were rich in butter, super appetizing. After visiting 3 famous pineapple tart shops we got ourselves a total of more than 5 boxes of tarts for our friends and relatives.

We kept seeing this huge restaurant selling chicken rice ball as we walked around, and decided to give it a shot. To be frank it was nothing great really. The chicken rice ball was given that name simply because they dont serve plates of rice; they serve rice that's rolled into balls the size of fishballs. Apart from that it tasted similar to the ones back here in Singapore.

Chinpeng told us not to miss this local delicacy called Satay Celup( shall elaborate more below ). She brought us to a famous one. But the queue was just too long. And we left for another satay celup outlet 5min drive from the one she intended to bring us to.



There was a little crowd outside this other celup eatery by the time we got off the car. But we didnt wait longer than 5min before someone ushered us towards the tables.


I didnt really know where this celup stall is located but i took some pictures of the sign board.




Thought we had quite some chicken rice balls since the time we parted JONKER STREET, both me and dear were really keen to try out this satay celup. Chin ping said it's superb, and we wanted to validate her words.

Basically, the word celup means dip in malay. There will be all kinds of food, be it tau kee, quill egg, taiwan sausage, chicken and pork, prawns etc etc. These food will already be skewed on satay sticks and all you need to do is to dip them in thick hot satay gravy sauce contained in a gravy pot( consistently heated up using LPG tanks below the table).



According to Chin ping,some people did not really like this satay celup concept because the satay gravy in the gravy pot is not refilled i.e you are simply using the satay gravy that previous customers had used. And what's more, the blunt and burnt ends of the satay sticks used suggest that the satay sticks might be washed and reused after daily operations.

But heck we didnt really care. Just whack!


I walked to the fridge area to get more re sup.


This one's taken when we all had our fill. Check out the number of sticks. WOOOT!


By the time we left the celup eatery, our stomach was quite bursty. Dearie and i had intended to go pubbing but realised that our fatigue had actually set in. Chin ping then drove us around to show us the places that we could go to shop on sunday as well as a little tour on some streets and buildings in malacca. Before our final stop in accordion, chin ping stopped by this famous oil fritters stall and treated us to some 'butterfly' and oil fritters(of course).

We headed back to our hotel with the 'butterfly' and oil fritters and purchased some soya bean milk to compliment those snacks. We decided to get 2 cans of beer to reward ourselves for the long day we had out there EATING...haha..



Long live youtiao and vitamilk!



The next morning, we headed out to St Peter's church, a real old one.




I was quite taken aback when they started to conduct part of their mass in malay. What's more interesting, is that you have to pay to take the newsletter


After sunday mass, chin ping met up with us, wanting to bring us to that chendol stall that was closed the previous noon.

Something that really caught my attention, was the presence of illegal parking attendants in malacca. I saw chin ping put a parking coupon in her car, and yet she proceeded to pay some money to this person lurking around her vehicle. Here's our illegal parking attendant


These people might do something funny to your vehicle if you dont pay up. And so chin ping handed over a 2RM note. Payment to these illegal parking attendant varies from carpark to carpark. Scary!

Again i forget to ask chin ping where this place of famous chendol was. Both me and felicia were too reliant on her nissan sentra to take note of the street names we cruised by. I only took pictures of the place though



This chendol we had tasted very different from the ones in spore. Visually it did not look fanciful. No jelly strips or chin chow strips. Apparently the coconut taste dominated the bowl of dessert. A very refreshing taste if you ask me.



Next we headed for bah ku teh. We were lucky;we didnt bump into those illegal carpark attendants as the blue sentra came to a halt.



Instead of normal white rice, we were served with yam rice. In addition, the bah ku teh was complimented with needle mushrooms and kuay chup dishes. Actually customers had the option of including pig's tail and other parts, but i wasnt ready for pig's tail, so we skipped that.


By the time we finished our bah ku teh lunch, it was almost close to 1pm. Our bus will leave by 230pm. Guess it was time to say good bye to our nice friend.


Thank you chin ping for showing us around. It certainly enriched our stay in malacca. If you hadnt drove us around i think we wont even know what's hot and what's not. If not for the car ride, we probably would have spent most of the time walking around, maybe falling under the prey of overcharging taxi drivers.