Entertainment in my room?

Went to NTUC hypermart in Hougang Pt just now. Saw a LCD TV, 19", going at only $389.. I'm really tempted to buy. Will use the next week to see if I should buy one.. Heh.. Then can play game, watch DVD and tv in my room, that is if my dad helps to put one antenna in my room.. Really enticing. Looking for a dvd recorder also to record any missed programmes. Hehe... Cool eh?

Anyway, busy is the word for now. Burning my Saturdays like nobody's business. Next Saturday there is demolition live firing again. Hai.. And still have 3 of it!! There's a chance that my Sunday will be burnt as well... We'll see..

There's an article by Neil Humphrey this weekend in Today. Though taking a serious matter in his usual candid tone, but I think it's worth some thought. It's about our education system..

Wet weather..

The weather has been pretty wet the past week. Which is bad news, cos I'm going outfield again tml till Wednesday. Sian man.. Losing count of the times I gotta spend outfield, compared to Gab's one and only "field camp" in BMT, where he did not need to stay over night.. -.- I'd probably rather serve his 2yr 4 month in exchange.. Haha.. Kidding.

The past week was also tiring, even though I was off on Monday and worked only 4 days. This week's gonna be a bitch cos there's live firing on Saturday.. Wad the hell.. Shall take things one step at a time.

Anyway, probably haven't told most people, might be going on holidays to Brisbane in mid-October. haha.. Thanks to Daryl's luck and himself, he won a contest by Ch V and invited me to go on the trip with him! Coolness. Haha.. He's still yet to tie up the details with Ch V so I am waiting. And still yet to apply leave. So budd, now u know why we going Brisbane?? Haha.. Try to go with us ok!! And try to take a couple days off so you can be with us throughout the 4-5 days that we'll be there? Hehehe...

Isn't he cute?!?!

Photos..

The coveted khaki beret.. - Mine!
3 for $10 durian, lousy! But we still very happy.. *Shrug*
2 happy women and my 'V' sign.
The little one turns 8!
Lower Pierce Reservoir.. Beautiful..
Upper Pierce. Serene..
Huge ass spider web..

Jacky's World Tour

Tickets - checked.We were there! Thanks for the treat, sis.

Singing his heart out..

Went for Jacky Cheung's concert just now with sis.. One word, ROCKS!!

Jacky Cheung, though my idol, but I have to say that my comments here are really typed objectively.. He's one hell of a singer. Damn solid and totally mesmerising.. It's lucky that he did not sing too many of his new songs, a very nice blend of old classics and new songs throng the concert together.

Some dance move, really energetic, considering his age and that he's not that famous for energetic dancing.. Nice, but had him panting like a bull after 3 songs. Not that easy. He asked after the 2nd song, "Do you like my dance?" And of course everyone yelled "Yeeeahhhh!!". So he gamely announced, "Ok, come'on next song." And finished dancing and singing one more Canto tune before he asked again, "Do you like my dance?" To another chorus of "Yeeahhhh!!" But this time he replied, "Even if you all like I won't dance also already, very tiring.." That was funny..

The concert also had a mini musical where he used songs from Snow Wolf Lake and Perhaps Love for a 20 minute performance.

Thereafter, we had like an endless encore. I think he already planned to sing that much anyway.. Haha. But he treated us to another 45minutes of Canto and Chinese classics after crediting all of his backstage key personnels and thanking the audience together.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable night, if not for his democratic decision to poll the audience on the language he was suppose to use when talking to us. He spoke in Canto.. -.-" I can't understand 95% of what he said! Really took off half my enjoyment. Because, his words help connect the audience to the songs that he was going to sing. Sian... If not, it's really worth every penny of the ticket man!

He wrote a song each for both his wife and daughter. The song for his daughter was cute and very sweet. I liked it a lot. Though it was in canto, the lyrics was flashed on screen, and it was just beautiful. The song for his wife was sweet no less, and loving of course. But I liked the daughter's one better, sings out the simple fatherly love and the hope he has in his daughter to grow up well..

The concert finally ended at 11.45. Really very satisfied and he really showed why he is the Heavenly King.

Guardsman!!

YES!! GCC is finally over!!! And I'm a converted Guardsman! Whee!! Just damn happy that I manage to go through the course and finish most of the things, except for first day when I fell out of the Ex Welcome, if not I went through all of the stuffs. Though with much pain and thoughts of giving up, I still went through them all... =)

This week was quite hectic, gotta complete all the veto factor events to pass the course. First up was live heli rapelling on Tuesday.. Damn fun. We rapelled down from a helicopter! Whoo... Quite an experience. And you'll never have a bigger fan than that of a heli. Haha.. The weather was quite hot but whenever the heli ascended to a height, it was like a ceiling fan, and my sweat will slowly dry up while we were waiting for our turns to rapel on the ground. Hehe.. It was fun, probably once in a lifetime kind of event..

Next up, and probably the most shiong one, was a 12km fast march. Had to do it under 108 min.. Walking with a buddy really made things easier. Pushed each other on and maintained the discipline of speeding up whenever we reached a certain landmark. Might not have done it if not for buddy-ing up. And it would have sucked to have to re-do it all over again. But luckily, I passed it on first try and in a timing of 101mins. Not too bad at all..

Had the final veto in coastal swim yesterday.. Coastal swim itself was nothing much, cos I swam with a life jacket half-inflated. Hehe.. But still drank abit of sea water cos the waves just came splashing in at times. But it was the first time I was swimming out at sea, so it was pretty fun too. However, right after the swim, we truncated into the next programme, which is also the last on GCC, called the Guards Assualt Course, in short GAC.

Let's see, first we had to carry rubber boat with 2 full jerry cans (2 jerry cans = 38 litres of water) in team level.. First destination was back to camp from East Coast Park, which was maybe close to 2km. Then walked one full round around the camp compound, which was a further 1.7km, before putting the boat down and embarking on the super shag mission. It's called "7 hills". Basically, it's climbing up and down the staircase of my Battalion block, 5 storeys high each time, totalling 7 ascends and 7 descends. It's killer because we had to do it in FBO (Full Battle Order) and it's no joke. Nearly died of shortness of breath. Thanks to KP, he asked for toilet break midway through it and we managed to catch a breather.. If not, really up the lorry man..

After getting done with 7 hills, we picked up the boats again and headed for the SOC ground to clear the SOC in reverse order, with the boats of course.. Before we headed to the Guards Tower to do rapelling from the tower. It was another point where we could catch our breath cos we had to do the sit sling. Lucky man, really damn shag by that time. After rapelling, we went back to the parade square where the last challenge awaited us, in "psycho stride".. It's really quite psychotic if you play the full version. But with the boats, we basically just had to walk a certain distance la.. Can explain to you all in person if you are interested to find out. And, after psycho stride, it all finally ended!! We've finished the course!! And it's worth noting that my team started the latest cos we had a very weak swimmer who came in very late during coastal swim, but we ended up being first to complete the whole GAC. Good work, syndicate 3!!

Words really can't describe the feeling of finally earning the Guards tab and Khaki beret.. I really earn it, with gallons of sweat, streams of blood, S$50 in medical bills for my feet infections and other intangible contributions. Sweet reward. No less..

Summary Ex is over!

Ok, the most shiong part of my GCC is over.. And I'm barely surviving... My feet are swollen cos of infection from blisters. Hope it recovers by wednesday so I can participate in the route march. It has to... It's the last week of the course and I'd hate to fall at this last hurdle, especially the shit that we've gone through..

The last week was shag. Trust me when I say shag. It's the toughest training I've gone through so far. Starting from Monday, the summary exercise was in Tekong. You've no idea how much I walked over the 4 days, because I've no idea too! 8 missions, no less than 30km walked on battled soles, 12km pedalled (yes, we pedalled from Tekong to East Coast), carrying loads that weighed like a tonne on our frames. All in 4 days, and without proper sleep. The only time to sleep was when you are waiting for the enemy or when walking. It's no joke when pple say they learn to sleep while walking in the army. We did a whole range of missions la. It was damn tiring, but on hindsight, it is eventful and it's definitely something I'll remember for life.

Just trying to enjoy my weekend here, and let my feet heal. Sat in Gf's car last night. He is one hell of a lousy driver. Bo wei gong. Hopefully next week when I blog, I can show off my hard earned khaki beret and Guards tab. =) It will definitely be hard earned, with sweat and blood, no less. (think wounded feet and a nose bleed after reaching East Coast). Chill! It's gonna be over!!!!!!! Yeah!!

And oh, GST hike is in place. I can almost hear our PM aka Finance Minister laughing his way to the bank. I guess his must have popped a champange with his Cabinet at the Istana at 12am this morning.