It was almost 1.5 years since my harness was left hanging on my wardrobe. I thought i should shoot myself for neglecting this friend of mine who shared times of sorrows and joy during my varsity years. I remembered myself saying sorry to it as i packed it into my 11year old nike black haversack.
Today ( 29th April 2008 ) was the first time i mounted the wall. The consolation from all my negligence was the very fact that i could still loop a figure of 8 for the climber and do belaying properly for my pal.
Both of us really looked forward to this climb. And i never regretted coming for this climb. It brought me back to those days of b***hing by the wall, gossiping and happilly yekking our woes and stresses from school work. The only difference, is that we now have difficulty clearing rainbow circuits, very unlike those days when rainbow circuits were primarily used for our initial warm ups.
Though it left me typing this entry with soreness on my shoulderblades and lats, i should feel glad that both me and quanwei could still commit to this.
We are climbing this sat morning. Anyone joining us?
4/29/08
4/27/08
vegetables in Indonesia
To begin the story, let me present to you 2 vegetables in bintan, indonesia, imported from Singapore:
Vegetable number 1
Vegetable number 2
Story began with these 2 vegetables meeting up in bedok central for Mac Breakfast on a Friday Morning. They did not really know the public transport way to tanah merah interchange ( if anyone actually know about shuttle service do let me know via tagboard please ) and hence ended up hiring cabbie into the ferry terminal. From the looks of it you either drive in or you take cab there. Its quite ulu and its along the CHANGI runway stretch of road.
One thing good to know for wkend getaway couples to bintan, is that you should stock up your beer cans at the terminal DFS. Its those 3 for 6 plus SGD bucks kind of pricing ( heineken and Carlsberg ). Oh, and you dont have to change any ruppiah, because the vegetables later found out that the dominating currency for this Indonesia island is SGD.
Well, this goes to show that we sporeans dont really have the choice for entertainment and sight seeing avenues, and would still spend at cinemas and places like bintan.
One amazing feature on the bintan ferry , was this crisp clear provision of TV mobile transmission. I saw this trailer clip of
Nim's Island on their big LCD tv
, and one of the characters in this trailer caught both the vegetable's attention. It looked like this ( screenshot of trailer )
And when the 2 vegs reached Nirwana Resort( paid 296SGD to holidaybagus for a night stay in Nirwana resort, inclusive of free breakfast, ferry rides round trip and also transport from ferry terminal to the resort itself), they ended up mimicking the reptile
The vegies hadnt plan much in advance what to do, afterall they just wanna slack and enjoy the beach life there.
This is what i call a classical shot of a beach tree
This is what i see when i lie on the hammock....
As to when all these hammock shots were taken, i seriously had no idea, and it had to be the inside job of veg number 2.
So when it was veg number 2's turn to slack, i took revenge
Somewhat, lying on the hammock made us hungry. The calming sea breeze did not tranquilize the gastronomical sensation lurking in our tummies since we alighted from the ferry transport. We had to eat.
Nothing there was cheap seriously, and as i'm typing this, i cant help but feel that this trip brought me into perspective about escalating cost of living in Singapore.
See this plate of food here? Its the restaurant's local favourite dish. I had no idea what it was called ( and i smiled because i was so glad seeing the food being served ).
This is what veg number 2 ate.
All in all, we paid a shocking price of 45.2SGD. So "wow" right?
This was my look when i finally figured out mentally from looking at the menu the cost of the meal
As we journeyed into the late noon, strolling around brainstorming what we could do for to pass time, we somewhat figured out that in bintan, a meal for 2 wont be satisfying unless you were willing to part with the BLUE YUSOFF ISHAK SGD note. There were of course island activities like paintball and All Terrain Vehicle and some confidence course( i bet you have to trade in multiple blue notes for these ), but having graduated from NTU with an NTU ODAC background, those gimmicks didnt work on me. ( You dont see Ms Veg Number 2 look so nua nua, she can be quite an adventurous seeker ). The only consolation was that the resort had very good facilities, enough for lovey dovey peeps to chill the late night out over 2 cans of beer , some oreo love letters and ruffles bbq chips.
Before dinner, we saw this huge SNAKE AND LADDER board game, and veg number 2 happily toss the humongous dice to appease her long lost childhood days
"Huat ah!!!" says veg number 2
We came across the alluring swimming pool that overlooked the sea. If you go to Nirwana, you must take a dip in this!
We wanted to catch the shuttle bus( 12 SGD for 2 pax ) out of resort to pasar OLE OLE, a local market selling handicrafts and souvenir, and decided to leave the swimming part out from our evening itinerary. This pasar Ole Ole sounds like a cheap place to get filling and tasty local delicacies, but we were quite disappointed to see a run down version of CHOP-VEGETABLE-HEAD syndicate as we alighted from the shuttle bus. Not wanting to waste time, we both decided to take a walk and have dinner there.
Just to highlight the disparity in pricing, a wooden handicraft of a statue which is priced at 2SGD, could be as expensive as 15 SGD over there. The vendors claimed proudly that those items were made in bali and its hand crafted. Some items were indeed unique, but i couldnt even convince myself to buy their reasoning, let alone buying the item itself.
The vegetables however did manage to settle for a good steamboat dinner consisting of adequate portions of crab, GONG GONG ( sea snails ), tau kee and dong fen, diced carrots and button mushrooms, slices of beef, chicken, fish, prawns, an egg, some slices of sea weed plus many other usual ingredients at the price of 36SGD nett.
We had everything dumped into Tom Yam soup base. Bagus man!!!! I didn't have the attention span to take much pictures because both the vegs took time to bitch about the day and the high cost of living on bintan island.
Veg number 2 felt good after the dinner, and decided to let out the creativity in her in taking photographs in the hotel room. She insisted on posing for shots like these :
baring our feet shot 1
baring our feet shot 2.
She just liked this idea of showing our feet to the lens. What an inspiring concept.
The night just passed like that (we really did drink 2 cans of beer, had some oreo love letters and finished one whole pack of ruffles bbq chips ) and we woke up the next morning with full of hopes. Because we hadnt visited the pool by the seaside!!! So off we went for a quick dip in the jacuzzi and the main pool, BECAUSE WE DIDNT WANT TO MISS OUT THE BUFFET BREAKFAST included in our 296SGD package
"Justice is finally served", veg number one exclaimed
Veg number 2 with her serving.
An indeed hearty meal it was, so good that it made the ALREADY burpy veg number one Burp even more. He kept burping even after reaching the room.
veg number 2 intoxicated by number 1's burpings.
We had quite some time to spare after checking out the rooms. So under veg number 2's instructions, we found ourselves back to this big board game area, where i was forced to pose with the pawns in the gigantic chess set
veg number 2 standing proud amongst the medieval icons
We had almost 4 hours to spare while waiting for the ferry transport to bring us to the bintan ferry terminal. To kill time,both of us tried working on a sudoku puzzle that literally left us PUZZLED(For the past month training in SAA simulator, i have been secretly doing underground training on sudoku puzzles found in TODAY newspapers. Having cleared the 5 PLUS rating puzzles, i thought nothing more of number games). This particular puzzle that left us stupefied and USELESS was a level one ( out of five ) puzzle found inside this advance sudoku book veg number 2 bought during her AMERICA-JAPAN trip last November.
Then, we took a short walk along this animal enclosure and bird sanctuary within the resort. We both got amused when we saw a parrot eating using its claws,in a way humans do by eating with their hands
We both decided to take the earlier transport to the ferry terminal and bade farewell to the resort.
We realised we hadnt had lunch after all these attempts to kill time. The gastric juices didnt manifest all thanks to the F.R.E.E huge buffet breakfast servings until we were loitering aimlessly at the bintan ferry terminal for close to an hour. I thought of grabbing a light meal and carry on solving the sudoku puzzle, with an intention to seek vengeance back in singapore later by feasting my guts out on Bedok Central hawkerfare using only one red YUSOFF ISHAK note with veg number 2.
To our dismay, we spent close to 12 bucks on this:
This is one snacking experience both of us would never forget
Vegetable number 1
Vegetable number 2
Story began with these 2 vegetables meeting up in bedok central for Mac Breakfast on a Friday Morning. They did not really know the public transport way to tanah merah interchange ( if anyone actually know about shuttle service do let me know via tagboard please ) and hence ended up hiring cabbie into the ferry terminal. From the looks of it you either drive in or you take cab there. Its quite ulu and its along the CHANGI runway stretch of road.
One thing good to know for wkend getaway couples to bintan, is that you should stock up your beer cans at the terminal DFS. Its those 3 for 6 plus SGD bucks kind of pricing ( heineken and Carlsberg ). Oh, and you dont have to change any ruppiah, because the vegetables later found out that the dominating currency for this Indonesia island is SGD.
Well, this goes to show that we sporeans dont really have the choice for entertainment and sight seeing avenues, and would still spend at cinemas and places like bintan.
One amazing feature on the bintan ferry , was this crisp clear provision of TV mobile transmission. I saw this trailer clip of
Nim's Island on their big LCD tv
, and one of the characters in this trailer caught both the vegetable's attention. It looked like this ( screenshot of trailer )
And when the 2 vegs reached Nirwana Resort( paid 296SGD to holidaybagus for a night stay in Nirwana resort, inclusive of free breakfast, ferry rides round trip and also transport from ferry terminal to the resort itself), they ended up mimicking the reptile
The vegies hadnt plan much in advance what to do, afterall they just wanna slack and enjoy the beach life there.
This is what i call a classical shot of a beach tree
This is what i see when i lie on the hammock....
As to when all these hammock shots were taken, i seriously had no idea, and it had to be the inside job of veg number 2.
So when it was veg number 2's turn to slack, i took revenge
Somewhat, lying on the hammock made us hungry. The calming sea breeze did not tranquilize the gastronomical sensation lurking in our tummies since we alighted from the ferry transport. We had to eat.
Nothing there was cheap seriously, and as i'm typing this, i cant help but feel that this trip brought me into perspective about escalating cost of living in Singapore.
See this plate of food here? Its the restaurant's local favourite dish. I had no idea what it was called ( and i smiled because i was so glad seeing the food being served ).
This is what veg number 2 ate.
All in all, we paid a shocking price of 45.2SGD. So "wow" right?
This was my look when i finally figured out mentally from looking at the menu the cost of the meal
As we journeyed into the late noon, strolling around brainstorming what we could do for to pass time, we somewhat figured out that in bintan, a meal for 2 wont be satisfying unless you were willing to part with the BLUE YUSOFF ISHAK SGD note. There were of course island activities like paintball and All Terrain Vehicle and some confidence course( i bet you have to trade in multiple blue notes for these ), but having graduated from NTU with an NTU ODAC background, those gimmicks didnt work on me. ( You dont see Ms Veg Number 2 look so nua nua, she can be quite an adventurous seeker ). The only consolation was that the resort had very good facilities, enough for lovey dovey peeps to chill the late night out over 2 cans of beer , some oreo love letters and ruffles bbq chips.
Before dinner, we saw this huge SNAKE AND LADDER board game, and veg number 2 happily toss the humongous dice to appease her long lost childhood days
"Huat ah!!!" says veg number 2
We came across the alluring swimming pool that overlooked the sea. If you go to Nirwana, you must take a dip in this!
We wanted to catch the shuttle bus( 12 SGD for 2 pax ) out of resort to pasar OLE OLE, a local market selling handicrafts and souvenir, and decided to leave the swimming part out from our evening itinerary. This pasar Ole Ole sounds like a cheap place to get filling and tasty local delicacies, but we were quite disappointed to see a run down version of CHOP-VEGETABLE-HEAD syndicate as we alighted from the shuttle bus. Not wanting to waste time, we both decided to take a walk and have dinner there.
Just to highlight the disparity in pricing, a wooden handicraft of a statue which is priced at 2SGD, could be as expensive as 15 SGD over there. The vendors claimed proudly that those items were made in bali and its hand crafted. Some items were indeed unique, but i couldnt even convince myself to buy their reasoning, let alone buying the item itself.
The vegetables however did manage to settle for a good steamboat dinner consisting of adequate portions of crab, GONG GONG ( sea snails ), tau kee and dong fen, diced carrots and button mushrooms, slices of beef, chicken, fish, prawns, an egg, some slices of sea weed plus many other usual ingredients at the price of 36SGD nett.
We had everything dumped into Tom Yam soup base. Bagus man!!!! I didn't have the attention span to take much pictures because both the vegs took time to bitch about the day and the high cost of living on bintan island.
Veg number 2 felt good after the dinner, and decided to let out the creativity in her in taking photographs in the hotel room. She insisted on posing for shots like these :
baring our feet shot 1
baring our feet shot 2.
She just liked this idea of showing our feet to the lens. What an inspiring concept.
The night just passed like that (we really did drink 2 cans of beer, had some oreo love letters and finished one whole pack of ruffles bbq chips ) and we woke up the next morning with full of hopes. Because we hadnt visited the pool by the seaside!!! So off we went for a quick dip in the jacuzzi and the main pool, BECAUSE WE DIDNT WANT TO MISS OUT THE BUFFET BREAKFAST included in our 296SGD package
"Justice is finally served", veg number one exclaimed
Veg number 2 with her serving.
An indeed hearty meal it was, so good that it made the ALREADY burpy veg number one Burp even more. He kept burping even after reaching the room.
veg number 2 intoxicated by number 1's burpings.
We had quite some time to spare after checking out the rooms. So under veg number 2's instructions, we found ourselves back to this big board game area, where i was forced to pose with the pawns in the gigantic chess set
veg number 2 standing proud amongst the medieval icons
We had almost 4 hours to spare while waiting for the ferry transport to bring us to the bintan ferry terminal. To kill time,both of us tried working on a sudoku puzzle that literally left us PUZZLED(For the past month training in SAA simulator, i have been secretly doing underground training on sudoku puzzles found in TODAY newspapers. Having cleared the 5 PLUS rating puzzles, i thought nothing more of number games). This particular puzzle that left us stupefied and USELESS was a level one ( out of five ) puzzle found inside this advance sudoku book veg number 2 bought during her AMERICA-JAPAN trip last November.
Then, we took a short walk along this animal enclosure and bird sanctuary within the resort. We both got amused when we saw a parrot eating using its claws,in a way humans do by eating with their hands
We both decided to take the earlier transport to the ferry terminal and bade farewell to the resort.
We realised we hadnt had lunch after all these attempts to kill time. The gastric juices didnt manifest all thanks to the F.R.E.E huge buffet breakfast servings until we were loitering aimlessly at the bintan ferry terminal for close to an hour. I thought of grabbing a light meal and carry on solving the sudoku puzzle, with an intention to seek vengeance back in singapore later by feasting my guts out on Bedok Central hawkerfare using only one red YUSOFF ISHAK note with veg number 2.
To our dismay, we spent close to 12 bucks on this:
This is one snacking experience both of us would never forget
4/17/08
Flight Level Coordinated was 250 FT at Lusmo
Thank goodness, for those who are reading this,i wanna tell you all that i passed my practical course. It's like half the battle won for my one year training with CAAS
Come to think of it, i wasnt satisfied with my performance.
Right from the start, I found myself slow in reacting to instructors' inject of new and weird scenarios that command split second judgement and decisive actions.
Just 2 weeks before the assessment, i somewhat thought that i had gotten the momentum of things. People in ATC call it SEEING the LIGHT. For that past 2 weeks, my sub conscience had worked out a way in seeing and resolving air traffic. I told myself that i had finally conquered this bad habit of hastiness and had grasped the technique of traffic analysis. I thought i was ready for assessment until i went through a super rough session during my final assessment yesterday.
I came out of the simulation assessment feeling frustrated yet clueless as to why i cant climb aircraft to the fuel efficent level. Fellow colleagues who were the pseudopilots comment about my bad session. As a result i was asked to do another session for RE-evaluation.
Deep down in my heart, my final fears were realised; Maybe my career path could crumple after this 2nd chance....
Today, our instructors gave us the outcome of the final assessment. No one failed the practical course. A cause for joy, many would say. But to me i wasnt the least bit happy, because i thought i could show consistency in my performance to the last stretch of the course.
Its times like this that i feel lousy and little, because i couldnt impress myself after weeks and weeks of self learning and study for my ATC course. There's just so much you can do when it comes to impressing others, and i never bothered about that.
My greatest ultimate enemy is myself, and until the day i defeated him, i wont feel good and in control about my work and life.
Having said that, i told myself never to screw around with air traffic any more and focus fully on the final leg of my ATC journey.
Come to think of it, i wasnt satisfied with my performance.
Right from the start, I found myself slow in reacting to instructors' inject of new and weird scenarios that command split second judgement and decisive actions.
Just 2 weeks before the assessment, i somewhat thought that i had gotten the momentum of things. People in ATC call it SEEING the LIGHT. For that past 2 weeks, my sub conscience had worked out a way in seeing and resolving air traffic. I told myself that i had finally conquered this bad habit of hastiness and had grasped the technique of traffic analysis. I thought i was ready for assessment until i went through a super rough session during my final assessment yesterday.
I came out of the simulation assessment feeling frustrated yet clueless as to why i cant climb aircraft to the fuel efficent level. Fellow colleagues who were the pseudopilots comment about my bad session. As a result i was asked to do another session for RE-evaluation.
Deep down in my heart, my final fears were realised; Maybe my career path could crumple after this 2nd chance....
Today, our instructors gave us the outcome of the final assessment. No one failed the practical course. A cause for joy, many would say. But to me i wasnt the least bit happy, because i thought i could show consistency in my performance to the last stretch of the course.
Its times like this that i feel lousy and little, because i couldnt impress myself after weeks and weeks of self learning and study for my ATC course. There's just so much you can do when it comes to impressing others, and i never bothered about that.
My greatest ultimate enemy is myself, and until the day i defeated him, i wont feel good and in control about my work and life.
Having said that, i told myself never to screw around with air traffic any more and focus fully on the final leg of my ATC journey.
4/4/08
Basic Millitary Training
Pretty much like it i would say, except that it lasted only 5 days.
I had to report to work from 230pm to 10pm every day for the past 5 days. So last Sunday i finally had a good taste of a 8+++ hr rest. Woke up on Monday feeling so fresh that things around me seem to move very very slow. There was this very faint yet consistent fragrance coming from the crisp dry laundry from the kitchen area. The sun was so tempting that i decided to load all the essentials into my Osprey bag and drove down for a quick 20 lap dip in Woodlands pool. After the swim and lunch ( at home ) i made my way to work, and thank goodness we ended our simulation slots by 945pm that night.
So this little routine on Monday carried on all the way. I slept, woke up feeling shiok, swam, lunch, work, came home, slept, woke up feeling energetic... bla bla bla.
As i am finishing this paragraph now, i cant help but wonder when i last slept for more than 8 hrs everyday for almost a week.
I can really feel the difference folks. Sleep is VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT.
I had to report to work from 230pm to 10pm every day for the past 5 days. So last Sunday i finally had a good taste of a 8+++ hr rest. Woke up on Monday feeling so fresh that things around me seem to move very very slow. There was this very faint yet consistent fragrance coming from the crisp dry laundry from the kitchen area. The sun was so tempting that i decided to load all the essentials into my Osprey bag and drove down for a quick 20 lap dip in Woodlands pool. After the swim and lunch ( at home ) i made my way to work, and thank goodness we ended our simulation slots by 945pm that night.
So this little routine on Monday carried on all the way. I slept, woke up feeling shiok, swam, lunch, work, came home, slept, woke up feeling energetic... bla bla bla.
As i am finishing this paragraph now, i cant help but wonder when i last slept for more than 8 hrs everyday for almost a week.
I can really feel the difference folks. Sleep is VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT.
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