Last Day of Reservist

[Friday, 12 November, 2010]

I spent the morning surfing, planning and blogging. I left for reservist straight without catching a wink. I met up Kang at the control station and he tempted me to get breakfast at a shop nearer to the bus interchange. I was expecting them to charge me an extra dollar for extra ingredient but I had to fork out two dollars and thirty cents, which I felt was cheated. Kang was quite worried that Terry would cause us to miss the base ferry and I assured him that we could even afford to miss one SBS bus to get there.

Kang made a move fast after checking out from the guard room and he managed to get into the squadron bus. I persuaded the NSF to squeeze in as well and there was only an additional place at the front, which Terry and I decided to give a miss. We took the base ferry instead and I was glad to meet Yutong. We had to walk a much longer distance to get into our headquarter.

While unwrapping the wooden chopsticks, I was injured by the sharp surface. I was not sure if any wood strap did get into my index finger but it hurt and irritated me for the entire day.

I started playing pool with Teng, and dart and Chinese chess with Terry. Finally, we moved to the table tennis table outside and I realised I had forgotten totally how to play the sport. After losing six sets straight to him, I got a hand of it and raced eight sets before losing another set. The final score was ten to seven. He gave up his bat to another guy and I won another two sets before calling for a break. I was drenched by my sweat but managed to doze off after some time.

I took a late lunch before playing table soccer with Terry and Yutong, and other NSmen. I dozed off a couple of times again to rest my back. Everyone was getting restless and we were extremely disappointed to be out-processed at 5pm sharp. We took Peter Chan’s car to Novena again. Terry was meeting his friend and thus I left without him.

It was already over 6pm when I reached home and thus I did not join my ex colleagues at Changi, considering that they were meeting at 5pm and it would take more than an hour for me to get there. I worked on my website instead and started dozing off.

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Voluntary Work at Sarah Home Centre

[Thursday, 30 September, 2010]

I began the day watching show with my elder brother, followed by the soccer match between Man Utd and Valencia. I thought I would doze off halfway but I did not. I went to sleep at 5am but it took me some time to knock out.

Waking up before 7am, I lazed around and decided to give up sleeping for another half an hour. Since it was early, I decided to meet Huiting and her friends at Tiong Bahru instead of taking direct buses over to Bukit Merah. It was warm inside the coffee shop as I waited for them to finish their breakfast before setting off. We took bus 195 over to block 105 and went for home visiting to distribute some of the buns bought by Huiting to the old residents. After that, we went to the Sarah home centre at level 2 of block 105 before we left to distribute the remaining of the food.

We had a short meeting at the centre before we left in four groups of two. I partnered with Dexuan and we faced some suspicious old people. We were supposed to help Sarah home to do some reregistering of their members and also to conduct a short survey. Starting off was difficult for we were not totally sure of the form. Halfway through, we changed partners due to language problem and I stayed inside an auntie’s house for around forty-five minutes to get the form filled while listening to her long stories.

Someone from the centre bought lunch for us and I was sure each packet cost more than three bucks for there were four or more dishes inside. The two volunteers, Yuqing and Hwee Ping, I engaged through Facebook arrived at around 2pm and 3pm, and brought a friend each. We continued the voluntary work till 5.30pm. My back was aching, my brain was exhausted and I could hardly speak anymore.

It was a good experience interacting with the kind and chatty old folks but it was quite sad to know about dark stories of Singapore through them. Apart from hearing from many old folks about bad things regarding the centre that stopped them from joining the activities, it was a good day.

It was actually a good chance to see Huiting home so that we could chat during the journey but I held back again in case of misunderstanding. It was such a waste since we had been communicating regarding charity work only.

After reaching home, I fed Lucky and later, had my dinner. Soon, I was too tired to keep myself conscious anymore. My brothers took Lucky down for a walk and I did not join in.

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One Task Down – Huiting’s Dry Shirt Design

[Tuesday, 17 August, 2010]

My elder brother’s girlfriend did not come over and thus, my younger brother and I moved our laptops over to play Command and Conquer together with him. We stopped at 2.30am as my younger brother needed his beauty sleep. I stayed behind to watch the soccer match between Manchester United against Newcastle United. I got sleepy in the midst of the 3-0 game but I was too lazy to get up to brush my teeth and thus I struggled to stay awake till the match ended. I was quite impressed with the Red Devil’s performance although they could have scored more goals.

I woke up a few times and finally at around 2pm. I had a puzzle to solve in my dream and I told myself to wake up in order not to waste my brain cells. My lunch was packet rice as usual.

I started working on Huiting’s latest tasked job, to design the shirt. However, I dozed off many times and the progress was slow until the evening. I called Huiting to confirm about it and eventually she told me the logo was already up and I had to design the back’s picture only. She wanted it to be in one colour and the entire shirt was supposed to be in white, and I found it difficult to design without using colours.

I packed my work area finally, although it was only half done up. At 10pm, I accompanied my younger brother down for a half an hour slow jog around the neighbourhood. The Duxton Plain Park was quiet but foreign talents of different colours were resting around.

While catching the Taiwanese show at channel 8, Huiting messaged me and I confirmed my existing design with her. Eventually I sent her the final version of it and one task was finally down.

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Spain Won

[Monday, 12 July, 2010]

I spent the morning waiting for the world cup’s result while playing game. It was a boring soccer match with countless yellow cards and finally a red one before Spain won Holland by a goal during the end of the extra time. I tried to sleep after that but could not doze off until more than an hour later.

Even though I woke up only in the afternoon, I felt sleepy throughout the day. While trying to design a website, I dozed off many times. Nothing much was provided except for a logo.

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Visit to ITE Choa Chu Kang

[Wednesday, 23 June, 2010]

My eyes were unusually tired in the morning and I tried to make good use of the opportunity to doze off early. However, I remembered the air-conditioner’s warranty submission was going to be dued, and thus I had to start penning. Mitsubishi was cool for they provided an envelope that said addressee would pay for the stamp fee. However, All Best’s warranty was a postcard that required stamp and I found that troublesome.

After everything was done, I started dozing off but I woke up within less than an hour later. I could not doze off again and thus I joined my brother in the World Cup game of France against South Africa. France was pawned. Though I had no special liking in them, I still felt reluctant for the once champion team to not even get into the top 16.

A bad stomach was one of the main causes that made me unable to doze off.

I made my virgin trip down to ITE Choa Chu Kang. It was a long journey and I hated transiting from the East-West line to North-South line and finally to LRT.

The first thing I looked for was the toilet. After chatting with Mdm Seet for some time, I managed to survive to reach the toilet. After that, I went to find Diana before going down to meet Joy and Weitat at the foodcourt. After walking around the foodcourt and meeting familiar faces, I finally bought a bowl of liang doufu. Diana joined in and later, Juliana came with another section head. Weitat and Joy left and I felt quite awkward sitting down there.

After lunch, I went up and got to see Mei Hoe. She showed me around the campus but since it was raining, we could not get over to the sports complex, which I was most interested in. Magdalene arrived next and I went around with her together with Joei and Weitat. After that, Joei and I sat onto Weitat’s car to lead Magdalene to Yew Tee.

I went off with Mei Hoe to Choa Chu Kang and took our dinner at the coffee shop near the interchange.

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Gym and Poster Submission

[Tuesday, 22 June, 2010]

I caught the World Cup match of Spain against Honduras together with my elder brother. Other than the Brazilians, the Spanish players did well enough to impress me with their skill and teamwork.

I went to the gym in the afternoon and did my workout as to not waste Tze Khit’s effort. I knew he meant well for me to build up myself and also to strength my muscle against my injuries. I knew I would not keep up with it. Ah Hui did well to entertain me with his craps during the gym session.

Nevertheless, the main motive of going down was to show Tze Khit the poster I had done. Therefore, after the workout, I continued with a little amendment before reloading all the files into his laptop so that Bobby could get to see it as well.

After reaching home, I continued to help him to update his websites with his latest photos.

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Gym Advertising Poster

[Monday, 21 June, 2010]

I caught the World Cup match of Brazil against Ivory Coast and I was very impressed by the individual technique of all the Brazilians.

It was a boring day for me because I spent most of my time on the gym advertising poster for Tze Khit. The size was big and therefore it was not easy to work with. Moreover, the given images were not big enough and thus there were restrictions.

I made good progress.

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Marina Barrage under the Threatening Sky

[Wednesday, 21 April, 2010]

I caught the second half of the soccer match between Barcelona against Inter Milan with my brother. Having being jobless at the same time allowed us to communicate more.

I had a weird dream again. I was going to my uncle’s house and no matter how I tried, I could never locate it. I was as determined as usual and did not give up even though I got back to the same places again and again. I often had such dream with similar plot – doing my best and yet could not reach my destination. I came to sense and moved my physical body, after which, knowing I was dreaming, I forced myself to wake up to reduce my weariness of the search. Dream was taxing and after so many years of wondering, I could confirm it was due to one’s own imagination.

I had a slack afternoon before going off for a jog. It was one of the lousiest trips ever for I could feel my knees tearing apart at the first few steps. I persisted but the stitch on my stomach, probably caused by the water I took with the medicine before stepping out of the house, slowed me down a lot. In the mid of the journey, I could guess my timing was going to be terrible.

Even though it rained in the afternoon, the dark was still gray and threatening. By the time I reached Marina Barrage, I could only see darkness. I was not sure if the sun had set earlier or the dark cloud had made the entire sky much darker. The place was quieter than usual and only two groups of people were flying kites. I lay down near the corner after going up the slope and the freezing weather rested my mind. When I sat up, it took less than half a minute for the wet patch on the concrete to dry up. I was lazier than usual and collapsed again. Many things flew through the hollow sight with the towel covering my eyes.

Suddenly, many people walked pass and I was sure they were tourists but their languages were quite weird. They sounded like Thais but I could not confirm. When I looked at my watch, I was amazed of the ticking time. I was down there for around forty-five minutes without feeling the length.

I took off soon, feeling tougher than before but my knees were pleading me not to move off too fast. The heavy traffic at the T-junction before the Marina Bay MRT station, leading to Shenton Way, was probably slowed me down for more than half a minute. I reached Singapore Conference Hall at another disappointing timing, even though it was better than the earlier one.

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http://www.lifeissobeautiful.com is up

[Thursday, 8 April, 2010]
I spent a couple of hours helping Xiao Mei with her web stuffs before starting to watch soccer with my brother. I wanted to sleep early but the early Manchester United two goals kept me interested in the match. However, into half time, I started dozing off.
In the afternoon, I messaged my ex colleagues to check out about web design prices but not everyone replied me. I did not have satisfactory answers except from Russell.
I had a game of Command and Conquer with my elder brother and it took us less than forty minutes to take the computers down on a four on four game.
In the late evening, I finally purchased the domain name http://www.lifeissobeautiful.com. It took me some time to configure it to continue to host under blogger. Next was Facebook marketing.

Hougang, Bukit Timah, Clementi and Volleyball

[Saturday, 03 March, 2007]

The day did not start off good, but perhaps, it was just me.

I was waked up by my mum’s numerous phone calls but decided to go back to sleep until Kaven sent me a message. I came to full conscious immediately when I read that he was meeting me at 2pm. I called him directly and realised he had cancelled his appointment and wanted to take a look around the surrounding of the Hougang flat.

I remembered about Mrs Ng’s SMS a week ago about a gathering. I tried to call her but could not get through her line and thus I called Sichun instead since his name was mentioned. I realised the gathering was on this day at 1.30pm, but I had to accompany Kaven to Hougang as his agent and most importantly, a friend. Jingkun called me and asked me if I wanted to join him at Clementi ITE. I had my sudden events aligned properly – Hougang, Mrs Ng’s house and Clementi ITE. I had intended to look for Ruoci at night but had to change the plan to the next day.

I felt quite sick especially with my throat. I could not even finish a quarter of my mum’s chicken rice. I could have been running a fever as well that my entire body was weak.

Just when I went down to wait for Kaven, I approached Lulu to arrange for time but realised she was dragging the date of handling over Uncle Sam’s flat. Most of her words were filtered off and I did not care whether if she was really going for another operation again because her tales had already exceeded my limits; her greedy character had totally turned me off that I was not going to take any pity on her in future whether if she was really a stray-animals lover.

I hopped onto Kaven’s car soon and it was the first time I realised the usefulness of a driving street directory book. We almost got lost but later we realised Kaven had marked the wrong flat on his printed out map. We walked around in the hot weather and both of us were quite pleased with the location and facing of the flat.

Uncleared table

Corridor to bedrooms

Kitchen with toilet and maid room behind

Living room

Scenery from balcony

The front view of the building besides

View from swimming pool’s side

Front

Stairs

Condominium besides

Then, Kaven drove me to Railway Mall and treated me to the Xiao Mei Kaya Toast. The milk tea was very nice but the service was extremely poor and disgusting. I had some bread and since I had not tried other brands’ before, I could not really compare the taste. Afterwards, Kaven showed me to his rented flat so that I could help him to advertise it.

It started to pour but stopped very soon. He droved me to Clementi and just when we had reached the swimming complex, Junrong called me and told me they were near the Clementi NTUC already. I was quite taken aback and was terribly disappointed for making the wasted trip down once again. It reminded me of the previous chalet which I lost track of them when I reached. Anyway, Kaven drove me over to pick up Junrong and then sent us to Clementi ITE immediately.

If all clients were as good as Kaven, I would probably stick on to this line forever.

I got changed and replaced my spectacle. It was a mistake that I did not use the older pair when I waked up for the slight changing of degree was giving me hell. The giddiness added to my sickness and I could have collapsed any time. However, I stick on to the game and sweated till I got better. Of course, I did terribly badly the entire day.

After Mingfa’s Zhenghua students left the place, we started playing among ourselves. It was until the Hwa Chong alumni arrived, we did some free spiking and I realised I had forgotten how to even take off. I was badly drained after practising but did not make much progress. During the matches, I had quite enjoyed myself with all the friendly people around.

Mingfa handed the key of the main gate to me and he left with Meijun in Mingen’s car. The rest of us had to wait for everyone to leave before locking up the gate. We took a cab over to the usual coffee shop. I tried the fish and chips and realised it was really not so fantastic as compared to the chicken chop.

We managed to catch the ending of the Manchester United versus Liverpool match when the only goal was conceded to Manchester United. The cheering all over the coffee shop was nice. After the dinner, Junrong and I took the same train home. It had been quite long since we last chatted together. His question pierced through my heart directly unintentionally when he raked up what Mingfa had told him days ago.