Stolen: E61

My trusty Nokia E61 got stolen last Friday in broad daylight. The lost of my companion is the saddest day of my life, I went crazy at the realization of it. Suddenly, I find myself so disorientated, so blinded in my everyday life.

I am a firm believer of effect from cause, what goes around comes around. The thief who stole it, I hope you can sleep peacefully at night without feeling the slightest guilt and fear of repercussion.

Now I have to start hunting for a new replacement. I am absolutely sure my Nokia 6610 is unable to plan my life as well as my lost E61. While I thought of getting back the same model, it would be pretty senseless to buy back the same phone that has went EOL (Read: End of Life). Latest smartphones are out of the question with its built-in camera when now I am still serving my national service. Oh well.

This incident aside, I visited Chinatown the day before and bought a few hundred grams of Bee Cheng Hiang's Gourmet Bakkwa (经典肉干) for sampling. It's heavenly, the fat melts in your mouth with every bite. *Yummy* It priced currently at $6 per 100g, pretty expensive considering the more common pork slices are priced at $40 per kg.

Anyway, buy your bakkwa early and store for Chinese New Year. The prices go insanely high when nearer to Chinese New Year.

Random updates

Last week, my unit had a change of command ceremony. I was caught off guard when I was tasked to be the emcee the day before the actual event. I was all disquieted with the lack of time and the very little rehearsals they conducted. Worse still, four extremely high-ranking officers are attending.

Fortunately, everything went well at the end of the ceremony. No mispronunciation, no jumbling of words. Just as planned.

It was time to let the hair down after the ceremony. Free flow of food and drinks at the Officers' Mess. I set a new threshold, sipped 5 glasses of red wine and I am still as sober as before. A driver passed a casual remark that I was alcoholic 'high'. ha.

3 weeks to Chinese New Year. Can hardly wait. (:

A Birthday and Christmas Affair

Birthday and Christmas were never this joyous, it was a wondrous celebration!

A few days before birthday, paid my ex-lecturer and my friend at National University of Singapore a visit and do some catching up. They remembered my birthday is approaching and gave me a bouquet of Baby's Breath and blue roses for birthday, gee.



Celebrated my birthday at home with my family. Instead of potluck, we decided to have catered dinner. Food was great but it's the company that counts. My 2 little nephews brought much laughter and joy to the celebration, love them to bits.







Thanks everyone for the birthday greetings, I may not reply to each and every message but know that I appreciate it.

Now before I leave for camp, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

Classmates' Meetup @ Billy Bombers, Marina Square

Thanks to Noi for organizing this round of meetup for TB030 gang at Billy Bombers, Marina Square. Everyone has been busy, so the turnout was small, with Noi, Nadia and her beau, Sharon, Michell and Peter who joined us for coffee later.

Over dinner, we talked much, but the most interesting topic was on this someone amongst us who became a model. Gee, need I say who she is? After parting with Nadia and Noi at Marina Square, we strolled to Starbucks, Raffles City for extended catching-up session.

Speaking of Starbucks, I have been frequently it quite often these days after my days of 'staying out' from camp became history. Armed with my book (currently, The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom), I will spend hours there just to pass time by at night before heading back to camp.



The lot of us at Billy Bombers


The ladies


My lame attempt at being creative


Anyway, for my Hong Kong trip, I meant to blog about it soon after touching down from the airport while my mind is still fresh. But procrastination was a force to be reckoned with. The trip was definitely enjoyable, love the people, the weather and the company. I promise to blog more about my trip once I can afford the time, for now, it's time to pack my bag and head back to camp.

Some photos teaser for my Hong Kong trip, enjoy.



I love this, claypot rice!


Train to Disneyland

Procrastinated

I had dinner with an ex-lecturer and a fellow coursemate over at Jack's Place last week. I was tired having performed duty the night before, but it was all worthwhile. We touched on several topics, enough to cover our stay at the restaurant and our next chill out at Starbucks. In total, I had 2 cups of coffee. I am such a caffeine junkie.

If only I'm done with national service now, I won't have missed the opportunity to work at a local university gaining working experience. owell.

Also received my first early Christmas gift from my coursemate during dinner, as usual, every year.

All these procrastination, my Hong Kong trip itinerary is left undone, not even a draft of it. 6 days more to my trip and I am panicking. I barely manage to book the hotel, it was at the eleventh hour one of the rooms was available and did I grab this chance quick. Anyway, I will be lodging at Prudential Hotel, conveniently located above a MTR station.

Christmas mood is in the air again, I can smell it everywhere. *smile* It's the time of the year to be in Orchard Road and just do nothing but chill lazily at a coffee joint watching the world goes by. Did I say how much the decoration lightning cheers me up? awww.

It's 4am in the morning and I have a matriculation exercise at SMU to attend in the early afternoon. Hope I won't be late. *yawn*

Till the next update, later.

Cameron Highlands and Kuala Lumpur

Quite an eventful October, celebrated Michell's birthday and went for a short holiday up north - Malaysia with Ling and Ron.

Here's a group photo taken over at Michell's chalet,



Humph, regular faces seem to be disappearing from class outing. More participation please!

Next, was my Cameron Highlands and Kuala Lumpur trip with Ron and Ling. Cameron Highlands have such breathtaking view, it was simply amazing especially when you are standing at the top of the hill looking down at the tea plantations. Given the altitude, the air is cooling here and it gets pretty cold in the morning.



Over there, we joined a local tour that brought us around and we climbed slopes to explore the nature. It was all muddy, but I escaped dirt-free in my white jacket, pity my shoes though. :)



Not much of a experience at Equatorial Hotel in Cameron Highlands. We got an apartment instead of a hotel room. There's 2 showers and a living room. Nothing out of the ordinary. Simple and spacious, good enough for short stay.

After one night at Cameron Highlands, we travelled to Kuala Lumpur via coach. The coach was late for 2 hours, spoilt our plan to visit "Eye on Malaysia" in the afternoon.

We stayed in Capitol Hotel, located right in the centre of the shopping distract, Sungei Wang, Bejaya Time Square and Pavilion (must visit!).



Food was great, just don't look at the environment it was cooked in lest it spoils your appetite.



Next in the line is my Hong Kong end of this November. Need to do more research to make sure time is not wasted there. I have yet to book my hotel, gosh!

It's October!

It's October finally! 11 months more to life as a civilian! Actually, it would be shorter than I thought, I might have to disrupt my national service to meet the start of my first semester. So it might just be 9 months more. The remaining 2 months I will serve during school vacation.

My overseas trip is confirmed! Travelling to Hong Kong in the month of November with an army friend. It would be my first overseas trip without my family, not considering my past trips up north. I am just so looking forward, almost everyday I will stay glued to the computer researching on places to shop and tourist attractions. The fun already began even before the trip. :P

Until then, I will have to scrape whatver I have and save up for the shopping in Hong Kong.

Ciao!

Chickenpox-ed

It was a nasty 2 weeks at home. First, it was 2 days of high fever, 39 degree celsius. I was in a state of delirium, alternatively feeling hot and cold. Both visits to the doctors, I was given only painkiller for the fever. It did occur to me maybe it could be dengue until the characteristic chickenpox lesions appeared on the third day.

First few days I was really in depression, seeing my face bloated with lesions, but thanks to an individual, I was brought out from my misery. =)

I was given 2 weeks of medical leave and I rotted at home doing nothing but reading the news, watching english drama series and gaming. It is just so unproductive and I missed my range! The only productive thing I did is probably monitoring the stock market. Did quite a bit of research on blue chips before buying 2 lots of SingPost shares.

The news reported recently that borrowers owed National Library Board $5.4million in unpaid fines and charges. And this week I received a reminder slip requesting me to pay up for my $0.60 for a overdue loan incurred in 2003. Felt a little odd writing a cheque for $0.60 but no way am I going to the library on my precious weekend to make payment.



Attended Chan Hui's birthday chalet the day before. Nice to see the TB030 peeps! Next event is Michell's birthday celebration on 20th October. Everyone please mark this on your calendar!

Reporting back to work on Tuesday. Till then.

1 Year of NSF, yay!

Today marks the first anniversary of serving the nation. I still recall vividly the transpired events exactly one year ago on a Saturday. Time flies, it's already one year and things are very different from what I expected on my first day - 09/09/2007.

Right now, having a high fever at 39.0 degree celsius. Gee, I've never had a fever ever since my enlistment. Guess I slacked too much in camp.

Chan Hui's birthday celebration coming up next week, TB030 peeps, please turn up in full force alright?

Anniversary of another kind coming up next week. *grin* =)

Wake me up when September arrives.

September is approaching and there is a reason why I am looking forward to it. My completion of 1 year of national service! Someone told me once, after your 1st year, counting down to your ORD (Operational Ready Date) becomes more realistic.

Participated in today's Army Half Marathon. It was quite a satisfying bay run although running with a backpack was kind of a hassle. I didn't deposit my belongings at the counter because the queue was insane.

More runs coming up next week, my battalion out-camp run and RSAF annv run.

Till then. =)

Corrinne May's Beautiful Seed

Last week was perhaps one of the best weeks in my stay here. 1.5 days off as a post-audit celebration, National Day and lastly, ADOC (Air Defence and Operations Command) 1st Anniversary. All in all, I was only in camp on monday and wednesday morning.

My unit audit was finally over! For the past few weeks, I have been working past my working hours, setting things right unorthodoxly. Yeah, to see regulars tremble in the presence of the auditors is quite a sight to behold.

Attended Corrinne May's concert - Beautiful Seed, at NUS University Cultural Centre. Her new songs didn't really leave much of an impression, but the more you listen, the more it grows on you. She is just as appealing as before. :)

Anyway, while collecting my tickets for "Hostel: Part 2", a R21 movie, the counter staff asked for my identification. I was grinning at myself for that. =)

Promoted.

Working with people of your age but not of equal maturity can be a trying experience. A friendly request was met with a lengthy email filled with personal attacks and threats. I actually laughed when he wrote about his professionalism.

I might be new, but I am not one who gives up without a fight. Through this, I also realise the importance of positive relationship with your superiors, to put it blatantly, 关系 ('guanxi') in my line of work helps. I have 2 officers to silence my critic.

A lapse of 3 weeks, the promotion order is finally in.