It's hard to believe that 1 year 10 months flies by in the blink of an eye. It just felt like yesterday that i was entering the dreaded Tekong, lugging up 8 flights of stairs my field pack full of my army stuff, my duffle bag and my own bag, Jiayi thinking that i was some gangster with my golden brown har (i wasn't ok). It felt like yesterday where i entered SISPEC, getting unmercilessly screwed left right up down centre (with my section mates of course) by Shukri, eating late night cup noodles with a movie playing on the IPod, plotting on the a telted map our route to get lost in mandai the next night. It felt just like yesterday I entered TAB, leading a life unbefitting of a soldier, playing pokemon cards to pass time.
1 year 10 months have passed so fast, my ORD is in sight, another 2 weeks, 8 more working days, and i am finally reunited with my long lost pink IC, which has been kept in a dingy, dark storage room at CMPB. it's probably grown mouldy from the time in that dark room.
But i'm just glad that i have gotten through it. It's the day I and over 400 people have looked forward to since last year, 9th Jan. And it is finally here..... well soon anyways. In the meantime, it's good to start preparing to become an NSman.
One of them includes practicing my long rusty and mouldy piano. I'm making good progress with breaking free, though I'm still about a week away from fully learning the song, and at least another month away from playing it decently. And i've taking up the insurmountable challenge of learning merry christmas mr lawrence. so far after 3 days, i've managed to learn................. the first page >.< if you've seen the score, it's like an orchestra piece, it'll take months for me to play the entire song, let alone playing it decently. But i hope that i'll be able to do it. hopefully i can play it as well as Sakamoto Ryuichi.
while surfing facebook, i came across this video. interesting, so girls, if you can get your boyfriend's shirt, or some guy's shirt, you can wear it like this. I personally recommend the tube, it looks cool, just don't tie the sleeves around your neck like she did, it looks horrible.
Just finished reading the 3 trillion dollar war, after about 3 months. my first intellectually stimulating book. it reminds me that i have effectively returned all ym econs knowledge to Mrs Lim.
I could barely understand half the ecnons lingo in there. but it's an intersting book. the authors considered many factors, costs to economy, costs to country, costs of lives lost, and made it sound very cohesive. it's the long term costs that kill. and of course i don't agree about placing a value on life (it's quite unethical to do so, life is not quantifiable), but the authros brought up good points. it's a book worth reading, despite the fact that much of it is speculation, but economists deal with specualation.
after such a brain-draining book, i've decided to move on to something less draining (at least for now, until i move on to the next book, how ecnomics explains everything) called howl's moving castle. the book has been sitting on my shelf for 10 years, time to start reading it.
so it's time to move on, start planning for the future for which i'm uncertain, before life sets in again......
on the way home today, a nice little incident happened on the bus.
some lady fainted on the bus and then puked. so being typical singaporean, i was stunned for a while, like what is happening. but in the end, me in number 4 had to help her, make the calls to the paramedics and to her family. actually wanted to help her off the bus, but then she just puked. kinda scary, like how such things can happen on the bus. couldn't write my personal particulars properly when the bus driver asked for it, my hands were still shaking.
but at the end of the day, it's the fact that i did a good deed that counts. and i'll probably see my face on stomp sometime soon. lolz.
Just decided to post up the vids of some songs i'm quite addicted to nowadays.
Beautful song. she's got a nice voice.
Like the tune. kind of makes no sense to me at times but my chinese isn't that good to begin with anyway.
of course we can't leave out the local talent, mark bonafide with don richmond and venessa fernandez. great song. love the effects. i wish i could do those with my mac.
and of course, this song is playing non-stop on my ipod, especially on the ride to work in the mornings.
today was a good day. with nobody (or rather few people) around in office, some of us decided to make it an NSF day. we just slacked around a lot, went to the mess to play table soccer, played basketball and soccer. it's a fun day. but not everyday can be like this. tomorrow, everything will be back to the status quo and we'll be busy with work.
who can we blame but ourselves for the mistakes we've made, and the time we have lost?
some things i read about over the past few days, weeks, months, who really keeps track of time when your in the army?
singaporeans are notorious multi-taskers. according to a survey done, singaporeans try to do about 32 hours worth of things within 24 hours a day. wow, we sure maximise our day to do the most of things. no wonder we are so stressful. multi-tasking to the extreme. just like what i'm doing now, having restaurant city running in the background, listening to the radio ad blogging about these facts. lolz.
let us thank the LTA and public transport council for making just eating a sweet or drinking a sip of water a crime. the recent debacle about a woman trying to drink plain water from her bottle in the mrt station got her slapped with a $30 fine. when transport minister (TM) was questioned about it, he made no qualms about saying that he fully supports the decision of his staff and reiterated that NOBODY should be eating or drink even the tiniest amount of any digestables in a station. if you are sick, kindly approach our friendly mrt staff for permission first before deciding to do so. wad next? asking permission to board the trains?
next up is MM lee's comment about singapore depending on foreigners entirely. he's comments that foreign talent is needed to drive singapore's economy and make up population numbers has me cracking up. almost a third of singapore's poplation is made up of foreign talent, not including PRs. that pretty much makes singapore foreign-pore. ever considered that he's stop at two policy was the cause of this?
and the last thing i found interesting, we're recruiting more pharmacists and doctors from overseas to boost our healthcare system. 30 years ago, for "fear of an oversupply of doctors", singapore cut the number of recognised medical degrees from overseas schools to around 30. now, they've increased numbers to 120+ because we need more doctors, about double of wad NUS produces a year. splendid. ever considered it's the 6 (now cut to 5) years of "housemanship" in singapore's system that is scaring people away, especially the GPs, whom you would need the most to take care of singapore's aging population?
the only reason i'm this cynical about the last point is because i'm looking at how things are going to turn out if i go overseas to study. study until i'm 26y/o, serve my "bond" with HSA until i'm 31, too old to open a clinic (and admit it, "housemanship" doesn't pay much cause you don't have clinical experience, how to save up enough money to open a clinic?), too young to specialise (not that i want to). what am i to do? get stuck working in a hospital as a GP? wow.
in any case, my ORD wishlist is to buy a new basketball (preferably spalding gold series, or something leather and decent, not the one i'm using now where it's practically as smooth as a new-born's behind after 6 years of pounding the cement floor of the court), a new ipod classic (admit it, mine is too old, too out dated, too small-memory-ed, and has problems syncing my photos with my mac), and a crumpler (the ultimate fashions statement, though i have yet to find a nice colour with a decent sized one, but this is the one that is of least importance). but most importantly, is to ORD in peace!
and i'm planning on buying a simple laptop (or netbook as they call the size i'm looking at) for uni. just to play games (uni life is stressful you know) and do some simple typing like homework. i'm looking at sony's vaio and probably something else. still looking. feel free to drop me your recommendations.
according to researchers, uttering vulgarities when your in pain actually acts like an anesthetic, it allows you to endure pain a bit longer and your perception of pain is lessened. it takes your mind off the pain because of your emotional response, causing a fight or flight response. since our linguistic skills have hijacked our vocal cords, instead of yelling in pain, cursing and swearing takes over. so the next time your in pain, don't hesitate to let loose the occasional vulgarity. of course there is a catch. men tend to be less receptive to this than women, possibly because women curse less. the frequent use of vulgarities will lessen the effectiveness of this "anesthesia". so now you know why SAF personnel like to report sick for no rhyme no reason, because they curse so much it makes no difference on their psyche. haha. interesting fact.
so national day has come and gone. another public holiday gone. next up, 9 day hari raya holiday. less than 90 days to ORD!!! i can practically smell it!
but i made use of my 2 days leave. caught up on my reading, did the housework, watched TV. the old reruns on TV are really interesting. like growing up (if anybody remembers it) on channel 5. basically just lazed around. it's good to just stay at home and just relax, do nothing. just watch time go by. it's back to work tomorrow though. darn. it was good while it lasted.
