The second first

[Friday, 30 June, 2006]

The HLS was conducted at a different place from usual; the SI parade square. Since most of the more able body personnel were taking a longer route for the AHM training, it was another good chance to perform myself.

I was supposed to be in front of the running party but another unit beat us in starting off. We followed behind in steps until others did not follow instructions and overtook us, I decided to bring some glory to my unit again. I began to solo and then started to overtake the people one by one.

As I reached the main road, the small path was congressed with people who were running for the AHM. I faced difficulties in overtaking them, using extra strength to move to the grass areas where there were a few construction work; however, I tried my best to keep my speed constant. Just as I reached the junction where the HLS and AHM runners spilt their ways, there were only a few persons in front of me.

I never wanted to give up, keeping my pace at a reasonable speed, emerging the first runner soon at the end of the CCK Park when some of them stopped to drink water. I was strengthless just before I could turn into the camp but my mind was strong still. Just then, my left toes began to tremble as I was going to get a cramp anytime because I had not recovered completely from cramp the night before.

My effort paid off. However, the fear of worsening my injuries never left me.

Everyone could have thought that I was fit because they did not understand the pains I was undergoing and that they did not realise it was my determination that I had outshone the rest. It was a battle against the weaker parties anyway; nothing much to celebrate about but I was still proud of myself.

Commander’s talk

[Tuesday, 27 June, 2006]

It was a good initiated talk though probably at a wrong time. Soon after the HLS it was conducted and that everyone did not have sufficient time to cool down.

The new head was a quiet-looking guy but he impressed me with the good start off. He used the World Cup as a tool to dilute into his men.

I was not sure if he was nice because he was new or because he was born like that, his mouth spoke words of comforting and encouraging.

Nevertheless he would not know that often if you remained silence and got over the ill-treatment or unfairness, it would be better than you sound out and get in clashes with people obviously more scheming than you.

After he took his leave, ISM continued to mobilize us. He was funnier than usual and that he placed my team into greater delights; the past few weeks’ of suffering was very recognised by him. Though we did not receive any reward, it was relieving enough that he understood how enthusiastic we had worked.

Was that enough? We still got backstabbed by lots of other departments. Office politic was a terror.

Never say die

[Tuesday, 27 June, 2006]

The first time ever since so many months, I got to run in the HLS (healthy lifestyle) in the good weather.

The phobia lay within me for I had not jogged for months and that it was ultimately long since I last jogged around five kilometres. With the cough and sore throat, and the lack of sleep, I really doubted my ability to finish the tracks.

I really wanted to train myself up again though I was not sure if I should be jogging, at least not on hard ground. I was also ready to point to the medical officer if anything went wrong since he did not give me any excuse status after I presented him with the specialist’s letter.

I took off with my right thigh aching; I had not recovered from the exhaustion of the volleyball friendly matches two days ago. My knee caps were loose as usual and it greatly caused the fear within me.

However, as I moved on, the pains were no longer significant. My legs just seemed to be numbed from the aching and that I was too determined to complete the run. I emerged the first runner soon after I got out of the camp.

It was a good chance to take the lead since many people had gone for the AHM (Army Half Marathon) run instead. So, I persisted on though I had begun to feel my knees weak.

There was a minor problem that I did not really know the ways at the park. It actually slowed me down a bit when I had to figure out the actual paths.

On the returning way, the encouragement from the ISM was great but when Shep jogged past me, she found it weird that I could run even though I had been on excuse status and yet I was the first at that moment.

I was not sure who were behind me, but cared only about myself. I was expecting to be overtaken soon but I was quite lucky in fact. Near the finishing area, I almost could not make it anymore but somehow I was very determined not to stop.

It was my first time to take the lead but was too weak to showcase myself at the 2SIG parade square after I reached.

Finally ORD mood

[Monday, 26 June, 2006]

With the completion of the past two COC (Change of command) parades, mind was set to an ease. There would not be a major parade in my remaining days. Near three months to ORD, I finally had a little feel of the mood. As compared to all the more senior batches, I was much more responsible; at least I did not slack down since eight months ago.

It sucked when new manpower was not allocated and that it was not the end to setting up of PA system. Even the fire drill required the system and we had big problem over it when they specified to use two wireless microphones.

We managed to connect a few smaller microphone cables to stretch to the bottom of the stairs. Though there would be lost of signals for sure, it was still much better than using the wireless ones. We could provide up to one cabled microphone in this way.

There was a great idea to move the whole media rack to the flag pole nearer to the parade square but Quek did not want it. He insisted on providing two wireless microphones. He dug up cables from the PA room which I had not seen before and refused to give up no matter what. All of us stood there watching, could hardly do anything to help him. I was too sleepy to figure out what he was doing, feeling so helpless.

He moved the whole wireless microphone’s receiver to the flag posts in between the parade square and the PA room, and then, the big power cable drum was used to send electricity over. The “new” extended cable was stretched back to the mixer inside the media rack just outside PA room. Since the receiver was nearer to the parade square, there was less loss of signals.

The firemen played with fire and that the kerosene caused headaches in Gilbert, me and another guy.

I was supposed to collect the stuffs back from my sister in 2SIG together with Yuqing but she was out of camp. I waited while I approached Jianhao to collect back the room 3-12’s key, where I met Mike and followed him throughout.

There was still some stress in my mind; I wished to complete everything but it seemed not within my reach sometimes. After a long wait, I personally got the stuffs from my sister and then passed the CD to ISM.

Staying back for night lesson was not a big issue anymore when jobs were equally distributed and that I did not have many chances to do it anymore. It was good with Ah Boon and Rongji’s company after all since they had to stay for lessons as well.

Until I was able to leave the place, I realised a few guys had claimed overtime when they were not even around at all. There was a big disappointment and badly reflected on the trustworthiness. Although there was not much of my problem soon, but it might get out of hands when others got to know about it and all the validity of the hard work might be soiled as well.

There was just only a little of ORD mood, more yet to come.

The sight of her

[Wednesday 28 June, 2006]

No exhaustion could battle the liveliness in her presence. It was the fruit from my previous life maybe; or probably the recuperation of heaven who was always unfair to me.

Though we may be far apart in certain aspects, it does not stop the urge to love each other. After all, isn’t the feeling the most critical part?

Seriously no one has appreciated me as much as she does. She is the first one girl who I believe is capable of having a serious relationship and is full of commitments.

I hate to part.

Friday’s karaoke

[Friday, 23 June, 2006]

Siu Hang’s invitation to the karaoke occupied my Friday night.

First was the meet up with Gilbert at Somerset MRT. I took bus 124 from Bukit Purmei which he boarded the train from Ang Mo Kio. So coincidentally, I arrived just a minute before him.

We took dinner at Cineleisure’s Long John Silver’s as I denied the options of MosBurger and Yoshinoya which he loved a lot. I ordered Cajun chicken rice for the first time. The meat was soft and appetizing but the reason for dining there should be for the cheap food, whereas that meal was in fact quite expensive.

We went to the Party World to join them, having given the false information of the level and room number. The five of us had a crappy night but however my throat was giving me problems again and that I could not really hear my voice at times and often being distracted by second voice that did not rhythm.

We did not make full use of the four hours there so as to catch the train. We left at around 2330h and dashed towards Somerset MRT. Tze Siang and Siu Hang crossed the wrong road (further away), while Yongfu, Gilbert and I smartly not wait for the traffic light at that direction.

However, Yongfu took the same train as Gilbert which was in the wrong direction. He managed to catch the last train still. Tze Siang was not so lucky that he transited at Cityhall and ended up at Kallang. Then he had to take cab home towards the west, costing him more than twenty bucks.

This night, I wasted a chance to get to see Vivi and send her home after her rehearsal at Chinatown again. Disappointment and guilt battled over the relief of accompanying my friends. Love and friendship were difficult to be balanced.

Anyway, that was quite enough for the money spent and I should be saving up more for my ORD fund.

The future permanent physiotherapist of MMI

[Friday, 23 June, 2006]

It was a different experience at the MMI Physiotherapy centre. As Miss Archana had resigned, I was seeing different physiotherapists and I got to see this one who was going to take over fully officially but currently still running two clinics at the same time.

I was informed of how military regimental she was. It was weird of her since she was not army personnel but a medical staff. I preferred medical staffs to be friendly and warm-hearted.

Then, I received a second call to push the appointment time forward from 1410h to 1330h. I managed to get there ten minutes earlier despites all the delays during the journey, but ended up having to wait for more than an hour.

Dom reminded me to greet her just before I went in for my consultation and that was quite redundant since it was my usual behaviour to be polite and respectful being mannered since young.

She asked me to remove my shirt and probed for the exact spot that was having the pain. It was not one but a few parts and I was quite stunned since the pains were living in me for as long as I was too used to them to take enough notice on how and where they were agitated.

She got me to lie down facing downwards to check my spine and commented that my towel was too small. It was the first time I had to use towel during review (not gym) and that she obviously did not know how heavy and bulky the *** towel and my bag were which would further worsen my injuries.

In the end, she expected my condition to improve after the next four gym sessions, which the condition had lasted over so many years and I had been there for nearly a year already without improvement.

Before she sent me off, I questioned her about my knees. She did not know that I had put my injuries together as a case so that I needed not go for more medical appointments, despites that each of my gym sessions was dragged so long. I was quite regretful for there was an essential to pay attention to my knees problems as well.

My website is running on a super duper server

[Monday, 26 June, 2006]

I was waiting for my sister to return to camp to collect some PA stuffs from her. Meanwhile, I went to collect keys from Jianhao and saw Mike who brought me to his office. He was working on his sites and he began to advise me for the at least fourth time.

He also helped me to set up an account to store files into his personal dedicated server, which cost around three hundreds plus per month. However, before I had uploaded my files into the new server, he configured my domain name “sillydumb.com” to point into that URL and it took effect instantly. My domain was thus down again for that afternoon before I reached home to upload my files.

Mike is a great friend who is so unselfish.

So, my website is now hosted on a very expensive and high efficient server, which is shared only between his and my websites. This is so cool compared to others who are paying little but sharing their servers with so many other webmasters. It is also masked properly that it will point directly to the server’s URL instead of just opening the URL inside a frame.

Anyway, there was a bad news that Mike was not going to disrupt soon, but to wait for another year such that he would not have to lose more than thirty thousands dollars; therefore, he would not be renting his office space soon like planned earlier. My plan to learn things from him had to be postponed as well.

Without any doubt, I love my website more than ever now. Next is the plan to revamp it to make it neater.

Sleeping beauty

[Tuesday, 27 June, 2006]

On my way home in a big group from Choa Chu Kang MRT towards Jurong East, my friends alerted me on an amazing sight.

There was one girl who was wearing a uniform like the AJC one, sleeping inside the same cabin as ours. There was nothing wrong to sleep of course but she was sitting on the seat, arching forward, having her body flat on her thighs.

None of us could have done that. Firstly, the back would be terribly tired and most probably would ache after some time. Secondly, the thighs area would be numbed. Lastly, we could not have stretched so much.

We were joking about her throughout the three stations. We thought she could be practising gymnastic or Yoga and that was why she could do that. I guessed it was the World Cup fever that she was so tired. We also guessed she could have missed her station already.

She slept so soundly that she did not wake up even when we reached Jurong East. Then, being kind-hearted, we got Louis to wake her up. He gave her a poke or tap on her shoulder as we were going to alight and she finally woke up in a shock but not knowing who had waken her up. She seemed to be searching for something at first and then stood up. She did not alight.

Then, we continued to joke that she could be furious that Louis had disturbed her sleep.

My lateness and the hypocritical world

[Tuesday, 20 June, 2006]

Things would always go head wire somehow and I was only informed of the duty the day before. The worst thing was that the officer in charge was a paranoid. I was expecting it to be early but never as early as 0645h in the morning.

I was worried at first but the first train got me there in time. Since I had asked Pang to give me a lift from the MRT the night before, I decided to just wait for a while as it would be stupid to walk instead.

Anyway, I realized I had a different approach to ask for a free ride. I made sure it would be convenient for the driver first by asking if he would take the same route and be early as the required time; I would never insist or even ask at all if it was troublesome for him. However, to some people, I just seemed wishy-washy. They never would understand my intention.

I waited there fore more than fifteen minutes and he even asked me to get a large packet of Lays potato chips. As the time tickled off, I started to feel pressurized and truly regretted to ask for the ride. We were later than the first shuttle bus and that I could even reach earlier if I were to stroll from the MRT.

I was so embarrassed when facing the coordinator; although his timing was unreasonable, I was late after all. It strongly reflected to others that I was not responsible enough. The grief hurt me so much. It was not that I had overslept or moved slow; I had made my greatest effort and it was not within my reach to teleport Pang’s car over.

It started drizzling. I did not mind my effort to wake up early to go into waste as long as there were fewer things to do. The sky pardoned us and the run was cancelled.

The officer in charge started giving us briefing and he thanked us for making the effort to go down to help out. Also, he indirectly said about my lateness, which quite irritated me. He insisted on taking actions against the person who did not turn up and as well as the person who did not inform him of getting Mani as the replacement.

Logically, he as the highest rank, the only signed on guy, an experienced warrant officer who was in charge of the run and as well as the only person insisted in taking revenge should be doing the evil job. However, he made Edgar to report to Shep instead.

We went back to report to him and he claimed that he did not know Quek was in charge of getting us to help him and that was why he told us to report to Shep in the first place. That was so fake.