One step closer to marriage

Had been going for Marriage Preparation Course since the 21st of January this year. For those who arent aware, the MPC certification is a prerequisite for marriage with a catholic in fufilment of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

The course came to a conclusion last Sunday 31st March. Got quite alot of tips and advices from the experienced BEEN-THERE-THRU-THAT couple ( the presenting couples ), steven and evelyn who was kind and patient with our woes and concerns as married couples-to-be. In total, we went down SJI 2 times for the opening and closing ceremony, and 4 other times for home sharing sessions.

My group mates were camera shy, so there's only 2 photos taken, on the final day itself.




This is Evelyn and her Husband Steven, our presenting couple who has been accomodating to our silly questions .

Even after this MPC, I couldn't really say if i'm excited or am i apprehensive on my role as a good husband, but i will do my best to provide for Felicia and my boys and gals in future.

Big words from a little man. Haha.

The Goat turns 27 on Easter Sunday

I had a real surprise treat on my birthday on the 23rd. For the past few weeks i hadnt had a good chance to attend mass. Going to mass has a very different meaning for me, because

1. I am a non catholic, and i want to learn more about my darling's Faith.

2. I am there to hone my sign language skills. Having graduated from basic sign language course on the 17th, i yearn to put my sign knowledge to the test, signing hymms and verses as well as communicating with the hearing impaired.

Jun ( one of the senior interpretors ) nudged us to stay behind for some potluck because it was also Easter Sunday. Since i didnt have much plans for my own birthday, i joined the folks to the Friar's common area for some snacking. But i was really surprised when one of the HI peeps got a cake on her hand for me.


Brother Rowland, my sign language guru who saw me through 10 monday nights of basic sign class, blessing me for my birthday.


I pray for Felicia to be with me till the end of time.


Finally, a birthday without Taupok ( but i really missed my taupok gang )

The gang that made it possible




Right after this surprise party, some of us, including Father John Wong headed down for Angela's house warming. Then came the 2nd surprise : It was also Angela's birthday! SO again, i had the honour of cutting the cake again with Angela and her little nephew





Thank you folks for the wonderful Sunday!

Muddle Head

I cant really tell how i fare in the eyes of the instructors.

I sat for my interim assessment for my non radar ATC course. There were 7 of us, and i thought maybe i was one of the weaker ones. Probably yes, probably not. During daily simulation sessions i tend to commit tantamount silly mistakes that i could have avoided if i take a 2nd look at details. Being hasty is some habit i always have for the past 27 years of my life.

I wont feel bad if a session was out of my control. The instructors are forever there to pile up traffic to test the individual's threshold and breaking point. Bearing this in mind i challenge myself against the aircrafts, relying heavily on my spatial awareness and memory . Initially perturbed by instructors' not-so-pleasant comments after a heavy session, now i got used to it. Just have to learn to get up fast the moment you fall hard on the ground.

To me, letting myself down is the worst thing, because the guilt of not fulfilling my own expectation lurks around even after i leave the hot seat. By this i meant to imply how opinionated i look at things, losing patience easily for the details around that might have changed how i see the whole picture if i had noticed it.

I guessed i was lucky to survive the interim assessment ( or so i thought ). And i will live to fight another day.

Wish List

I feel that i am in a sorry state to produce this blog. Hahaha

Wish list for my birthday

1. Get my ATC license by september.
2. Get a nice house from the bi-monthly HDB flats in april.
3. A nice watch
4. A meet up with my old bird friends.

Yah that will be enough

Feathers in the air

And yes, the pear still exist!

I sat down in front of my book-paper-accessory cluttered desk ( it has everything except food and clothing )checking mail on my laptop.
A few hours earlier i watched this all time favourite nuclear explosion incident during my HUMAN FACTOR WORKSHOP - The Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Explosion. My table somewhat resemble that. Piles of envelopes stood adjacent to shelves of university textbooks ( yup i need a thorough clean up ). Complementing those items were inches of dust. I bet they harbor the most formidable germ empires of all time.

My attention suddenly got drawn to my stomach. I shook my sore head in disbelief. Literally, my tummy felt like its expecting a baby 3months into pregnancy. I have no idea how it got so horizontally challenged, but i decided that something had to be done.

I am one person who detests gym. That kind of regime reminds me of a laboratory rat being made to run non stop in a ferris wheel-like mechanism. If i tried hard not to think that way, the next synonymous vision in my head would be this lonely goldfish swimming within the concaves of its pathetic midget gold fish bowl.

I could never comprehend why some people can subject themselves to this sort of public attention. Yup, I am referring to those folks running in their favourite nike/ adidas apparent, flexing every inch of muscle, running in deep concentration, trying hard not to lose their composure over fatigue.

For me, it is my good old nalgene bottle, my humble secondary sports attire ( they are limited edition btw ) and a trustworthy chapteh to see me through. After my sign language course which ended at 9pm, i decided to spend some time to deal with my tummy....I sweated a great deal, repetitively sending the chapteh cutting through the staleness of the multi purpose hall on a blue blue Monday night.

Running in my head was nothing but keeping the featherly object to my limbs. Maintaining the trajectory not beyond my eye level, I tossed it from left to right, juggled it from right to left, hooked it up using my ankles every now and then, in an attempt to bring it back into this rhythmic muscle memory ritual until the chapteh decided to take control over itself.

Sessions like this made me detach myself from the working world which i happily retired after 5pm every weekday. This sense of therapeutic-ness sank all the uptightness and lethargy that i accumulated over time since i last exercised.

Today, i effortlessly clocked 44 hits on the featherly toy before i lost my concentration to this skimpily cladded lady who strolled past me. What the hell right?

Time to head for a good sleep. Good night everybody~!

The Pear in the Water

I had a fast-and-furious YET fruitful Friday. 5 of us stayed behind after our ATS HUMAN FACTOR WORKSHOP to clock simulation time. Frankly, a session in the simulator after 2 days of break ( we halted simulator training since tuesday to accomodate 5 days of Human Factor Workshop )brought the 5 of us back into perspective.

If any of us hadnt learn how to see traffic during this impromptu session, i would say it got us back into non complacency. 5 of us took close to 4hours 15mins; by the time we bade each other farewell in the pitch dark SAA carpark, the illumination contrasted the digits 920pm on my timex watch.
Thank goodness Daddy agreed to let me drive out the Latio. I rev the car at 110km/hr and in 30 min i was back in level b2 of MSCP. My head was constantly working out a relaxation regime for saturday morning. No i cant go ECP because i had MPC in clementi in the afternoon. I didnt really want to jog because i dun wanna wake up THAT early.

Ok, i would settle for a swim in Woodlands on Saturday Morning. Before i slept, i said my Prayers to God asking for good weather...

True enough, the glare from the white edifices opposite my room broke my sleep. 8hours of rest, and i wake up on a Sunny Saturday!!!! My dried lips( thanks to all the dry air conditioning environment ) bent into a smile and in no time i slipped into my super trunks ( some cheap SAF swimming trunks that works well for me ), grabbed my toiletries pouch and my goggle case along with me.

Everything was smooth, from parking the car to changing up......... But when i saw the pool, there were plentiful submariners learning swimming. I cant count well, but i bet with my last dollar that there were easily 40 children at different parts of the chlorinated pool...

As if that wasnt bad enough, i stumbled upon my worst fear.

I realized i only had an empty goggle case with me. The sight of emptiness sent milliamps of ku ku electrons into my neurons. I must have left the goggles to dry up after the previous swim.

Ok, i told myself, i had already made my way here and i would continue the swim, no matter what.

Then came another chapter of horror after i entered the pool....

I stared at this part of my body below my chest,submerged by the waters. It looked like a huge pear.

After 50min of swim, i decided to spare my eyes from the chlorine attack, and brought the pear back home, feeling disgusted.

One time for All Time

I got this real rude shock when i got tagged by my secondary school mate on this



This is one picture that i could really connect with. Never mind that its from 1997.

Anyway, just noticed that the trend back then was all but spiky. So different from now.

And the way my friend scanned this picture made all of us contenders for roles in the channel 5 documentary MISSING. Gosh looking at this picture makes me wonder where the rest of the fellas were.

The postulated fate of the escapist

Over a hearty post lunch chit chat in the simulator, a few of us trainees and our instructors were complaining about how costly it is just to survive on an inch in Singapore.

Owing to the nature of this topic, we couldnt really progress it further with our instructors( no constructiveness in complaining ), and some wise guy among us carefully shifted the attention to this character , someone of great influence to the northerly folks in Marsiling and Woodlands - Mas Selamat. For those who were near kranji mrt for the past 4 days, you could vouch for that statement.

Just last saturday night i was told by my MPC facilitator to make last minute plans to travel to another place( in holy innocents secondary ) for MPC session the following sunday morning because the original venue ( St Joseph Institution) was out-of-bounds to the public.

If this Mas Selamat was really smart enough, he wont even think of staying a few km from where he found freedom on the 27th Feb. If you were to ask me, i would disregard the option of waiting for ants to crawl into my pants among sparse vegetation, gambling my time with the SOC peeps searching hi and low for me.

Or probably this guy werent as smart. Maybe emotions got over him - the fact that he made it out all by himself ( i'm really assuming here from the news and reports ).

He might have braved his guts across the thorny vegetation ( was it called mimosa? ), surviving on his pure instinct of survival yet in the end succumb to elements of no food, unfavorable tropical climate and most importanly lack of insulation ( it had been days of isolated showers )

Maybe this Mas Selamat already had reached his physical limits and is now part of some fertilisation process of those trees you conveniently whiz through as you drive along BKE/SLE.

Till the day someone can prove this, we will continue to see the jams and traffic pile ups in Northerly Singapore.

Trimming my GOAT furs off

It has been awhile since i trim my goat fur ( updating on my life )

Maybe i can start like this:

My Mondays - Attending Religious Sign Language class....
My dear Parade Commander would probably understand why i want to take this course up. It started 6 weeks back and there's a couple more Monday evening sessions to clock before i have some form of sign language knowledge to fall back on when crapping with the HI( Hearing Impaired ) church goers

My Tuesdays and Thursdays - Sports day, Tuesday i swim with fiancee and Thursday i run with her. What to do, we both want to look in shape for our wedding day.

My Fridays - Tuition in the evening. After my ACE kids left me for secondary education, i have 3 more boys to juggle.

My Weekends - One of the mornings will be spent attending Marriage Preparation Course. Its 6 weeks in duration and i have clocked 3 weeks with my dearie so far. The course provides insights on knowing your wife/ husband better, managing expectations and family planning according to Catholic Faith

My work - Every day i feel like a Hindu God.(Imaging me with many arms, looking burnt)
Since the beginning of my practical training, there has never been a day when i feel this yearn-to-escape sensation when i'm stationed at the hot seat. After every practical session managing traffic, my head burns like a joss stick, devoured of life and energy. I have yet to see the 'LIGHT' ( as what experienced controllers would call it ), and i spend up to 1-2 hours every day reading up on my mistakes on practical sessions and materials for next day's training.


My slalom skates?

I'm working hard on some tricks, provided that time really allows.