Day 3. Saturday. Significantly more thing, and more tiring too. There were several performances, by the SAF Music and Drama Company String emsemble and a vocal group. Also a dog show by the MP, and a performance by the Silent Precision Drill Squad. The last one was very cool and very nice. haha. Definitely worth seeing.

All in all, a pretty busy day. The performances got boring after then 2nd time though and i'm glad the MDC sent down a sound engineer to help out, so he could take over me during the shows. Burned a third CD to bring, but somehow the last few tracks were screwed up. =(

Near the end I started to get really bored. Around 8 plus. I was kinda holding out in the hope that someone would drop by to surprise me. Even though in the end I knew it wasn't happening, it took an effort to convince myself otherwise. =( Damn sian. Waited till about 930 then started packing up, helped out with the other stuff and then left for home. A relief to be back. tomorrow same thing again. Burn weekend. Haha. And I start work at my new company on Mon, but need to pack up ACE stuff till late. So...I'll probably going to have a really long sleep-deprived week.

Day 2. Pretty much the same as day 1. Forgot my wallet was empty. =.= Set up the music, and went to find an ATM, drew money and bought KFC for breakfast. Argh. All this fast food and no running. But no choice. Whole day work, plus where else can you find food at 930 in Marina Sq? Only fast food branches are open. Played music, etc. Did quite ok I guess. I burned 2 CDs from yesterday to use, so there's more variety. Gonna make one more. =)

Today the girls standard not as nice as yest. But the one in black was cute. I was asked how I passed the time there. Well basically, every 20 mins or so the DJs would go up to emcee and give away goodie bags, and I've have to stand and monitor everything for a bit. So in between those and the stage games, I just sat on the chair and stoned and rested for the next thing. Pretty much the same as yesterday.

The girls were surprised when I gave them their bags correctly. I mean, well, it's just 3 bags. Tomorrow there'll be 6 girls! Yay me! Right. Lol. Anyway, was quite surprised to see Ben and Raye drop by in the evening! Raye brought muffins! =) They were quite nice. Fuck. My laptop just seized up again. I switch it off by yanking the power. Piece of shit. Now need to wait about 5 mins for it to boot up fully.

Ok. Back to today, they hung around till I got off work (Somehow today the cleanup crew was much more efficient...) so I went to the arcade to find ben and we walked out. But got sidetracked at the really cool playground. (It has a manual car and a Lambo!) And took lots of funny pictures. Hahahaha. Damn fun. Another day of work tomorrow it's Saturday! =) Oh, one of the girls from Thurs left her bottle behind. Wonder if she'll come back tomorrow.

One thing funny I saw on Thurs was that the girls actually had an entourage of 3 guys behind them when they returned. They were also from the SAF, working for the event, and I think they were giving out flyers too. The guys were concerned about their every need. This could be 1) Their job too, 2)Respect and concern for the civilians working with them, 3) Them just being guys. I'm gonna go with....mainly 3). Hahahaha.

First, shall we say, day on the job? Yup. Came in bright and early to power up the audio and impose my choice of music on the general public. Yayness. Brought in Breadtalk. I don't really eat breakfast in the morning but I forced myself to because i knew I wouldn't be able to leave properly soon after. Played music. My colleague, Zee came down to watch over me for today.


Everything was alright I guess. Not too complicated for now. =X Of course, Zee was there to help out a bit. I made a mistake once and blasted some music as in BLASTED, but yeah. Careless. Whoops. Other that that it was alright. I can stream music from my iPhone, but it's not as good as a CD. Burning them now. =\ But I wonder why my 500MB CD burns only 22 tracks in? WTH. I put 99 songs in my playlist! I see if I can figure it out somehow...WHY. =.=

Listening to music for 12 hours straight does take something outta you. I've got 3 more days to go. =X Hope I don't go insane afterwards. Oh well, at least they hired cute girls to give out flyers. Something to look forward to. Lol?

Shall blog while waiting for my hair to dry. Got off work at 0040. Was on the train till Potong Pasir when I was informed the meet was shifted to 2100. Okay...there's nothing to do at Boon Keng, and going home would be just dumb. Neither was I going to be caught dead at PS wearing SAF PT shoes. So I chose the least dumb option and took the train to Harbourfront, waited for the next train, and took it to Boon Keng. Still early. Took the bus down, and spent 15 mins at the bus stop playing my iPhone games before going up.

Finally the van arrived, we grabbed some equipment and drove down to Marina Sq. They were still setting up the place so we went to Macs to chill first. [Just hit double space there...] Start at about 11 plus. Set up everything. That wasn't so hard. Later came testing of everything which was fun. Then we synced and tested all the mics.

That was when my inexperience was woefully obvious in front of the boss. Oh well, watcha gonna do. Never actually done any of this stuff before. Including playing with the equalizers. Learning experience I guess. Finally got everything set up. I don't have a chair dammit. It's either that or sit on the floor. Can't find my SAF field chair! Grr... Hmm I think I blog differently when i'm tired. Well. Can't be bothered to think. Needa wake up at 8 tmr. Thursday. Maybe less people, I can practice more.

Anyone wanna come down? When u see my full setup you'll be like WHOA. Wanna get Starbucks but it's gonna be damn ex.

At home. I report to work at 8 today. I wanna sleep. Got woken up by sms this morning. But trying to while away time till 216, when I can harvest my country story trees. Then oging to sleep till evening. Prolly go for another run, then have dinner and go out then. Nothing much today. I thikn for now I just wanna catch a few zzzs. I accepted another job offer. At Bugis there. Seems promising.

Yesterday was training. Today was preparation for the event. Came down at 1030, and helped hunt and pick out stuff from their store we needed to bring. Amps, mixers, cables, speakers, speaker stands, mics, etc. Cool stuff. And once u get the basics, it's not too hard but just, ahem, connecting the male ends to the female ends. Settled the Marina Sq event by lunch. However, because their store isn't that big, most of it is all stacked up and behind each other, pushed to one wall. Thus begins the great game of Scavenger Un-Tetris. Lol.

We unpacked an 18" subwoofer. It's the size of a piece of luggage. HUGE. And when we tested it at a low volume, that baby pretty much made the ENTIRE unit vibrate. It would probably be illegal to use it as home entertaiment. It's insane. And yet I want it at home. Hoho. When the tanks rumble by, I think it even FEELS like they are. Continued hunting and packing after lunch. ITE Talent event. The day started to feel a little long, but i told myself it's just for today. Tomorrow i'll be setting up at Marina Sq.

Was glad to end today though. Fairly tiring because we were standing for quite a bit too, but at least it's over. Came home for a shorter-then-usual run to rest and workout. Gonna go pack my bag for tomorrow.

Why so people have to be such COLOSSAL DICKS. This is EXACTLY THE KINDA SHIT I WAS TALKING ABOUT.

"Ken Ang feels that Facebook could be the greatest invention of all time and a great tool to archaeologists of the future because so many people forget it's PUBLIC. =)"

First off, I see Girl A complaining about how she's going crazy listening to people complaining to her. Girl B posts something snarky and sarcastic on the comment. Why? Because who else but Girl B was the one complaining to her! Girl A shoots back something sarcastic and ask B is she thinks it's such a good idea to post such smart comment on Facebook. It was hilarious. Where else would you get to see a virtual catfight in public. Shing! Claws come out.

And then there was this other thing involving someone I know today. Facebook is PUBLIC people. Get that into your head. Or do I have to post it on your wall for all to see?

"come on. its the bloody net tat u log in to ur FB."

AND ANOTHER REASON FOR MY STATUS IS YOU GET ALL SORTS OF BLOODY RIFF-RAFF AND RABBLE COMMENTING ON SHIT THAT IS OF NO CONCERN TO THEM. Like, screw off much? Similar thing happened much during our last crisis with the Boyfriend Brigade. Everyone whom it doesn't concern gives more of a shit than the person who ought to give a flying fuck. Fuckin' A I tell you. Fuckin' A. THIS. THIS is the best place to let out this shit. It's not password protected, I'll give you that, but the set up of this is I try to make it as hard to search for as possible and give the address to a select few.

I mean, FUCK OFF. Since when did you lot of asshats make yourself the Elected Council of Fucking Internationally Recognised Facebook Status Judges? Go fuck a duck. That sounds nice. Jeez. Piss off.
---
Right. Glad that's out of the way. I went to AIA this morning to discuss the terms of my job. I had to inform them I would be starting next week (They thought tmr.) because I'm helping out Sixu. So yeah, I'm starting next Mon. It seems ok. BUT uit's only halfway. I really have to try to work at it to make something substantial. But hey, half day.

Went home straight. Must've set a record by changing, packing my stuff, making cup noodles and leaving within 20 mins. I had my cup noodles on the go. Did you know you can do that? walk and eat. But they're dry noodles of course. Turns out I needn't have rushed. They were out somewhere still on the job and I had to wait quite a while for them to return. I still took quite some time to find the place.

Eventually went up to their office where I trained on the mixer. I'm now a sound tech! I can use the mixer. And it's pretty cool but not too hard. If only I had learned this before I enlisted. Then I could have been the sound tech for all the parades! The mixer board was very similar to the one in camp. There's a lot of buttons but you just have to know what each does, and how to connect the stuff.

I practiced for a few hours until I was really hungry. Like I said earlier, my only meal was the tiny cup noodles I had. Dry, so not very filling. I went down to the canteen to buy food. Took quite a wihle to get home. It was dark and I don't like to run when it's dark. So. Yeah. Damn. Kinda irritated I can't run, and it was a long/hungry day. Kinda explains my mood.

Yeah. I'm not that mad. Just need to vent a little. Rar. Prolly just mad at what happened to my friend. =(

Recently I keep forgetting to bring my camera whenever I go out. Boo. Din get to run today. But tomorrow, definitely. Anyway, woke at at about 12, did stuff online, then had a really long discussion online with XW and Ben. We finally decided on a plan. so they came over to my place, and Ben helped XW procure a software thus enabling her to do her homework in the course of like, 15 minutes or so. Can't believe they give you grades based on how well you input values into a particular software.

So, we dilly-dallied a bit at my place, before deciding to go PS for lunch. Wanted vivo cos XW was kinda bored of PS but she needed to look for colour paper there. So we went Cafe Cartel. Service was really bad. The staff won't walk that extra step to pass you your food, instead, the both of you reach out in mid air like some bloody Cirque Du Soleil trapeze act. Only, you're not suspended 50 feet in the air, and the thing you're transferring is a sizzling hotplate of me-I mean contractile tissue. Bravo.

Walked around a bit, then Val called I think. She spent the whole day with her personal Big Bang Buddies! I think it must be like being on the set of the Big Bang Theory, ONLY ITS YOUR LIFE. Cool huh. So apparently, they don't really need to eat and Val was starving since lunch, so we bought food and drove down to meet her. We met up and talked, I practiced vertical parking with the Jazz, so did Ben, and Val threw up probably cos she didn't eat much the whole day then suddenly had a burger. =X

And...Ben cut himself with my pocketknife. The conversation was like this.

[Ben flips out knife, touches edge]
"Why your knife so sharp one?
"Because I rarely use it?"
[Rubs thumb slowly against edge of knife]
"Are you sure you want to do that?"
[Rubs thumb quickly down the edge of knife]
[Me thinking; It didn't cut him??]
"OW! OWWWWW! OW!!! OW!!!
[Waves thumb around in the air]
[Thumb bleeds]
Thumb: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Haven't blogged today. Then again, nothing much to blog about. Today was BBT day. Stay home and watched episode after episode of the Big Bang Theory. Ben dropped by Val's place and they went visiting. (One house.) XW is sick, and tak is busy doing work. I'm busy doing nothing at home. Time really flies. Strangely. Woke up at about 1, and before I knew it it was 3.

Most of the day had gone, and my most productive activity was walking maybe 300m to and fro to the nearby NTUC to buy a teensy-tiny 200ml carton of milk to cook my mac 'n' cheese. Then when I got home I found out we were all out of butter. Wow. No butter. Well, I'm not walking there again. So I cooked it without butter, used a just-right bowl then then became too-small because the liquid frothed over and made the inside of the microwave look like someone had stabbed a little man made out of cheese and he bled his cheesy insides all over the microwave plate.

After that it was all FB and BBT from there. Bummer.

Stayed home today. Country Story is having problems again. Annoying. It's either them or FB, but every time this happens, My I-QUIT-COUNTRY-STORY bar fills up. Can't harvest my trees. RoE is definitely much better. I think it really is one of the better games out there, and unfortunately not very popular. Underplayed.

But that just means less competition for me. The biggest loser who can devote 24 hours a day to playing it won't win, and neither does it reward you for mindlessly clicking it like a guinea pig that gets food every time it presses a button. It's designed to let you play it once or twice a day, and requires more of strategy and thinking. Which is more than can be said for most of the games (or people) on facebook. I like the concept.

Anyway, just stayed at home and FBed, watched BBT, and then went for a run in the evening. Rar. Weekend tomorrow. Wow. Now also like weekend. ORD LO. LOL.

Not much today. Went for job interview in the morning. Think she's taking me on. See hows AIA on mon too. Went home. Went online a bit. Wanted to sleep. Slept late last night. Ended up going to meet XW at PS to watch Valentine's Day. Shared a sub at subway and watched the 1545 show. I heard it was quite nice, and yeah I guess it was. Haha. After that followed her to Tamp where she was watching 14 Blades with others and went home from there. We played Cooking Mama on the train over. Until my iPhone hung and crashed...I couldn't restart it. Not till I was at home. =( Fell asleep a few times on the bus. I wanna driveeeee.

"Service crew don't get sambal chilli."
- -=[K]=-

Got home kinda tired so I didn't blog. Yesterday afternoon, I went to meet Val to help her prepare for her dinner. Seeing as how Ben would be working, XW was recovering from drinking (lol) and tak was indisposed, since I was doing nothing at home I figured I'd go over to help out cos I told her I'd do so. (That's a very long sentence.)Went down all the way to Carrefour at Suntec to help her buy all the stuff for steamboat. Believe it or not, she was using an advertisement for an electric steamboat, looking at the picture of the food depicted within as the guidleline on what to buy. Lol. Yummy.

Went around helping her look for stuff to buy. A lot of it is organic. Sadly organic = expensive. I discovered val likes cheese! I had no idea. In the end we got some Brie and blue cheese which I thought we might be able to try with the biscuits she bought. That was a misconception. Now I'll never find out what Brie tastes like. =( You'll find out why later. Went hunting for pasta sauce, and found it in one of the aisle. Mm-mm...Carbonara with Ikea meatballs. Another misconception.

Went to my place to pick up the steamboat, back to her place to drop off the food, down to NUS to pick up booze from her friend. Or rather, her friend then the booze. To NUS, pick up the guy, to his house to pick up the booze. Mmm...booze. Misconception number 3. Picked up another group of her friends nearby. This is starting to feel like Crazy Taxi. In fact, part of it was like Crazy Taxi!

She went onto the highway, swooped from Lane 1 all the way to 4, oops, too close to the lorry in front, swish, lane 3! Overtake +10 points! Swish back into lane 4. Her friends were all ZOMGWTFBBQ. I was, whoa! Just like Burnout! Nevertheless I can say her driving HAS improved considerably. And maybe her friends are just less used to it. =P

We dropped by Cold Storage to top up on food, and then drove to pick up XW. Dropped off at her place, she went off with her dad to pick up the chairs. XW was there, so we just helped set up the tables along with some others. There was a very small almost "kiddy-sized" set of foldable table and chairs. It almost looks like something from Ikea, ingenious design. Since our group was the smallest we took it. Weee!

Ben and Raye dropped by. First thing when he and Xw met was they fought. Lol. Okay, chop chop, get to work! (Pun intended.) We headed to the kitchen and brought out the various packets of food to distribute them amongst the tables. One group was mugging projects with their laptops, another one was in the process of setting up the third IR on her dining table. Well, no actually they were just playing cards. Chop chop! Wash and chop vegetables, chop mushrooms, open cans, disembowel...stuff, soak the tang hoon, slice tofu. And damned if we didn't do that stuff better than mama.

This wasn't swipe you finger across the screen in the direction of the arrow, this was chop! Whack! Slice! Dice (tofu)! Wash! Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served. Brought all the processed food (Read: Our Hard Work) out to the tables and distributed it. Ben said this reminded him of last time. -pause- OH. Yeah. That year. When we barbecued food for like, whatshisname, oh YEAH. Everybody. By now the third IR was up and running in full swing with coins strewn across the table.


Waited for, uh, something, someone, whatever so we could start lou hei. Xw was hungry but she refused to eat. =( Went outside and threw some of the veg into our pot to cook first. We learned one particular group started up the induction cooker upside down and induction cooked the table. LOL. Induction cooker fail. Eventually the lou hei got started and we proceeded in the finest Chinese tradition to make a mess out of things. (Pun intended.) Okay! Back to steamboat!

Collected rice, and drink and went back to eating. I was eyeing the booze other people had. But none of the 3 at my table were drinking. Well,everyone knows it's no fun to drink alone. (If you're thinking about drinking alone, there isn't that much fun to be had in the first place.) So I didn't. So much for booze. One of the group came late. They took the dining table indoors with the HUUUUGE steamboat cum Teppanyaki. Wahhhh. Really like IR le. Lol.

Some time during the dinner, someone came to our cute little foldable table. The one which might give us all 3rd degree burns(HUAT AR!) if someone so much as sneezes and makes the table collapse. Put a gas-fired pot full of boiling water on a little foldable contraption with 4 people in close proximity sitting on it, and everyone moves as though they're going to steal the Hope Diamond in a vault full of movie lasers. =)

Oh yeah, anyway someone came to our table and asked if we had the sambal chilli. Nope, we shook our heads. Sotto voce, I said to ben the line at the very top of this blog post which made us laugh uproariously. Ikea meatballs were served. My pasta sauce stayed in the bottle. Oops. =( After that it started to drizzle a bit. Ben and I grabbed the huge garden umbrella and rolled the concrete base over to our table! Hahaha! Service crew cannot get wet. If not who serve you? Quite cute to have that tiny table with the umbrella hanging over it.

After finishing, we packed up our stuff, clear the rubbish and went to watch Chuck in Val's room. And do something to Xw's iPhone. Lol. The IR had grown into something out of a channel 8 7PM drama. One table with a few seated, 1 banker, and a lot of people crowded around. Lol. After watching Chuck, we decided to leave. Wonder who helped to pack up everything after the service crew is gone. =P But yeah. Since val is our friend we don't mind helping out with everything. It's perfectly 100% A-Okay fine by us. No problemo. =) It's only once a year. I mean, she has a lot of things to do and a lot of guest to entertain.

Oh yeah. I never got to try Brie...

"Excuse me sir, are you done? May I clear this for you?"

After that, Ben sent Raye home by cab, I cabbed w/ Xw to her place where she borrowed the car. Went to Tamp to pick ben up and sent him him home. THANKS XW! Then after that she let me try driving. I drove home from Ben's place! =DDDDDDD SO FUNNNN.

Went for job interview tomorrow. Think I may have it but still got AIA on Mon see how. i dunno how's it gonna be like...should probably catch up on sleep now. Then maybe go for a run in the evening. Anyone wanna go out?

Everyone has left. Today my mum held a CNY dinner at our place. We do it quite rarely, probably like once a few years. I slept late cos of last night. Woke up, helped my mum prep some of the stuff forthe dinner then left to go play LAN w/ my cousins. Quite bad. They only provided headphones, which while provided for a quiet LAN shop (Something ironic like a non-alcoholic bar) meant that we could either hear the in-game sounds or each other. With the headphones on, communication was muffled. Turning up the volume to max, we couldn't place it on around our necks to listen either.

We only completed the finale of that campaign after several tries =.= and switching it to easy mode. Nevertheless, it was great to finally see the end scene from that stage. Tough shit. After that played a little Red Alert 3. Meh. Damn not used to the new uses of the right click. Went back home, dinner. Turned off the lights and blasted music, tuned my room into a sorta club for the kids. Lol. Then watched part of Zombieland with my cousins. Excited. Tomorrow at Val's place! Yay!

Whoa is it early. Quick blog b4 bed. Man I'm craving for a midnight snack lol. Woke up late today (yay) but not before waking up at 9+ to harvest my CS trees. I've sufficiently intimidated all takers who dare to come steal fruit from my trees by timing theirs and robbing them on the dot. As additional "don't mess with me" measures, I shak only some of the ripened trees so as to screw up their harvest timings. Yeah. I only do that when they do it to me, so I think everyone has gotten and is sufficiently clear about it. =) Comprende?

XW came by in the afternoon and we made pineapple tarts to bring to Val's house on Wed! Haha. Goshm my newfound freedom is awesome! Got so many events and the FREE WILL to just go for all of them. Any time, any where, any place. Unrestricted. Anw we baked till the evening, made 24-2=22, after sampling. Nom. Shit I just lost the game.

Convinced her to come to my friend's place to meet up for dinner. =X Specifically YM's place. Lol. He had a family gathering over, and the twins and Yvonnewas there, Debra came later. Shawn eventually didn't turn up. We had some food, then played Rock Band! and some foosball. Lol. Quite fun. But to vocals is quite hard to get. Meh. After that we went to sing K from 10 to3 at Hougang. $28 per pax, but after all the additional charge it was close to $40 per person. Really need all that Ang Bao money to tide me over this month already. Expensive ORD month. Spent like $80 on topping up my ezlink! and $184 on new clothes. Rar. Anw I'm going to bed now.

Imagine two Japanese girls. In policewomen uniforms. Holding large shotguns. And firing them at a large 'demon' that looks like a huge eyeball with tentacles. A scene from some obscure hentai movie entitled Policewomen VS Tentacle Monster? Nope. It's some corny Japanese action hero TV show on Okto shown today afternoon. Lol.

I didn't catch the main part but I figure it starred one or more of their masked action heroes with outlandish and highly impractical armour that is largely decorative in nature. (Run with THOSE things on? Either they're made from paper-mache or he's a 170 pound rugby player. Which he's not.)

Hmm. Anyway I caught the above at my aunt's place. We left the house pretty late and when we got there only about half the family was left. Didn't get to meet my cousin. She likes Portal! Omg. I was damn surprised to see her recognise the Companion cube on my wallpaper. I want the companion cube plushie. And maybe the stuffed dice version. Can hang in my car next time. Lol! Would love it. Lol.

Stayed a while, then went down to my, um, mum's aunt place. Which equates to great aunt? I think. Sat for a while, and waited for my cousin to come. Man, I have to decline requests for me to eat food the whole day. I'm stuffed! Everywhere they just keep offering you food. =S I know it's being hospitable...but I have to keep turning them down.

Well, it could be worse. They could ask you painfully invasive questions. Such as your relationship status,[Refer to Facebook] etc. They asked what was I going to study, to which my mum happily replied she had no friggin' idea. I wanted to facepalm at that point because first she said dunno do what design, then she went design phone, design cup -facepalm-

Went down to my grandma's place. My cousins almost let me drive cos they just learnt I recently passed (Haha woo!) but it was a long journey involving highways and such from Aljunied to Yew Tee. I prefer to start small. Lol. Nevertheless I do hope I get to practice a little. =) Oh, and surprisingly, I beat my cousin. Apparently he's been learning for quite a while and he's failed a few times le. (Exact number not known.) Didn't know that after today. Gee. Finally after 21 years finally beat him at something. Lol!

Went down to play bball. I hardly ever play it so I'm not good. I take it as part of the yearly ritual every time we meet up...lol. Not a fan but just play lor. I didn't bring a change of clothes, so I played in my $80 Armani Exchange tshirt. Uh. Lol. Cabbed home, really tired. Hoping to get more sleep but I'll see how.

Back from Pre-LNY dinner at my paternal relatives' place. Anyway yest went Vivo walk, then went down to Ym's place where I went to Chomp Chomp with Ym and the twins for supper. Sixu drove us there! Haha. Not bad. So many people can drive now. I -Whoa just had deju vu for a moment there- wish I had a car too. Anyway, didn't eat much, then went back to Ym's place. I helped him do something to his iPod touch and slept over. Left early in the morning, came home and FBed till it was time to leave. Went down to Ion to meet Ym, Shawn, and Sixu.

Got hungry, and had a light breakfast at Dr. Cafe Coffee. That doctor sure cured my hunger. Ha-ha. Funny name, but nice place. The price is reasonable with decent servings for such a place. Compared to Starbucks or Coffee Bean where they'd probably sell you the same thing at 150% of the price. Oh and I found 5 bucks at Kovan. That effectively sponsored most of my caramel latte. ^^ Yum.

After that went to walk around with them quite a bit. Didn't see anything I liked! Walked around Orchard and had lunch at um, can't remember. Ngee Ann I think. Shawn and sixu left a while after. Eventually I got a t-shirt from Armani Exchange and 2 shirts from People Of Asia. Came home, rested a bit. Wanted to go for a run, but had to go for the dinner. Rah. Looks like I'm not going to be running for the next few days. =( Meh. Tired now.

---
On an aside, I conquered a new village in RoE! Cool stuff. Took over it with my guv'nor. Then sent my troops over to reforce its defences and hastily built up my Silver Mine for more $ for expansion. Need to build up ASAP. I have another target in my sights! Lol. My first village is Kyronia. Second one is New Kyronia. Not very imaginative, but I like it a lot. =P

I PASSED MY DRIVING. OMG YAY. PHEW. 2nd try. I was SO afraid. =X I was like on freaking tenterhooks before the test, it was insane. I think my tenterhooks were on tenterhooks. HAHA. I slept early last night, went for driving in the morning. Forgot to draw money to pay the instructor, so after doing the circuit, drove out and went to a POSB to draw cash. Then suddenly this van parked behind us and we were stuck so my instructor had to reverse out allllll the way down the narrow 2 lane carpark. Drove back, paid him and went to the waiting room.

Inside I went half-insane from freaking out. It was my second try but that did not make it any easier. Staked on the next half an hour were nearly 2 thousand dollars worth of lessons and tests and probably well over 48 hours worth of driving, and practice and mugging. My mind was going into overdrive. Also, to -ahem- the second try would be a bit...well, I don't have anything against it, one of my friend passed his third time, but most guys manage it on the second.

My name was second to be called. I said good morning to the TP, something I didn't get the chance to do the first time. I was also dressed in a shirt and jeans. Something my friend said was if you dress nicely, they'll have a good impression because it shows respect for them. My first test was in t-shirt and berms. Basically the only thing that'll get me into a shirt is a) job interviews b) work c) grand/formal occasions d) TP. LOL.

Went through circuit. At the beginning I freaked out a bit cos I was still suffering the anxiety earlier. I kept noting him tap his tablet PC. Jeez I tell you, every time I heard him tap it, my balls shrank a bit. And there was a lot of tapping involved. I nearly went crazy from worry. However this TP seemed to be much nicer than the first one, he spoke to me nicely.

Went on the road. I left a junction and noted a hiss and a tap. -Cringe- Went through a little road, and back to the centre. USING THE CORRECT LANE. Now I know where to enter. (Expensive lesson I won't ever forget.) Parked the car and followed him to the office. I was a little expecting the worst. Went in, sat down and waited for him to print out the results.

"What's that little piece of paper, I've never seen it before. Does it mean this time is different?" "Oh, that looks like the result. OMG why does it seem to have so many lines on it? OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG-"

He motioned for me to come over so I did. I was almost afraid to find out-"Your second time is it?"

"Er. Ya."

"Ok, good, take this paper, get your queue number and apply for a license on the counter."

-Looks-OMG PASS. 10 points! 3 mistakes!"Ok, thank you very much."

I left the office and went to get my queue number. Sat down and waited. Took a photo with my iPhone to MMS but my hands were shaking with relief/joy/happiness/released stress/whatever. =D FINALLY. Got called, submitted my documents, then went to wait outside and msg people before watching the safety video before collecting back my stuff. The safety video was both cool and gruesome. Cool because you get to see those grainy surveillance videos of cars in horrific accidents. In Singapore! Gruesome because well, it's horrific accidents. In Singapore!

So, went back home, and yeah. That's it. Going shopping at vivo later. ^^

UPDATE
---
I. Am a horrible person. Sigh.

In other news, I just realised how close V-day is. I don't know what to feel. I'll just go with disgusted anyway, since the chances aren't high that I'll be feeling any other way soon. So screw this, I'm outta here. Need to sleep.
---

Mambo was woo! despite the fact that a lot of people never showed up at the mast minute for some reason or other =.=, at least we still managed to have fun. They missed out on all the good songs. Bummer. I haven't been there in a while, and walked in the wrong direction trying to get there. Thank goodness for Maps on my iPhone. Lol. Else I'd just be wondering where to go!

Went to the prata shop to meet Dylan and Eddy and Alvin and Steph! Didn't expect to to see her, but since Alvin's coming, it's not unexpected I guess. Lol. I really need to go back more. I can't rmb which side to enter. In the end I went for the one which gave me access to Phuture and Mambo lol. Yay mambo! Went to and fro a bit. Nice songs were playing. =D And OMG ben told me Wed was free entry for NSFs and Students. SINCE WHEN?!?!?! Omg otherwise i'd have gone le...

Anyway, they left 1 by 1 and I left at 350. Probably the last song. Please Don't Stop the Music. Lol. Got home, went online a while and then went to bed. Tried to grab as much sleep as pobbile (Till 12) before I went for my driving lesson. Errr. Not great but maybe it's cos of last night. Test is tomorrow. =X Came home...stayed online.

Oh I forgot to mention yest when ben was fixing my iPhone, I forgot to bring the USB cable. Everything except that damn cable. =.= So I had to go buy it. And Lucky I had my pocket knife handy to cut open the hard plastic packaging! It was so sharp! Having a knife everywhere you go is handy.

On to the main topic, Today I ORD! OMG. Finally, that day I've waited 1 year and 10 months for has come. I remember the night when I enlisted, I wrote my ORD date down on the paper. 100210. Sounds nice. Pity the last 2 digits were 2 years away. But time flies, as it does. Even as I'm typing this. And it has finally come.

The endless unstoppable march of time brings with it changes. Changes in the intervening 1 year 10 months. No doubt I am fitter than before. The girls have been in uni for over a year. I am finally going in this year. (CURSE YOU NS.) And everyone is attached, except of course, me. Normal. I think maybe there's a huge purple and pink striped elephant following me that everyone can see. Which is why no one has ever dared gotten close to me. Ha-ha. Oh well, there are advantages of being alone. Like um...being alone? And uh....did I mention being alone? Rofl.

Oh well, what to do? Such is life. I've suffered some major blows in the time since then. Strangely concerning the same person, (This is not a dig at you, don't worry.) but well, life moves on and so do we. "The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on; nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line." Omar Khayyam. In the end, time heals all wounds, regardless, and often only scars may remain. But then again, I need not remind you that scars are the physical reminders of what came before, and what came before was hurt.

In the time between, we've all gotten older, some have felt emo because of it, and even I also fell prey to this thought, despite my reasoning. Well, at least I don't feel it so much now. So many new faces, so many new people, all for nothing. Faces passing by in the crowd. When the crowd goes, you look around at those still left behind. And wonder.

When it comes down to it, a lot of the relationships made with the people inside were transient, much as with those in my previous years in the education system. An occasional 'hi' or wave when you bump into them on the street, on your mundane routine or their humdrum existence.

I still look forward to uni. Because it allows opportunity for social growth. There, maybe I can pick up a few more travellers to traverse this massive RPG dungeon called Life. Perhaps not all will survive, (Eaten by a Balrog?) and maybe some will join other quests, but it's the journey that makes the difference. And I guess it's going to be a really new experience for me. Let's see what it has to offer.
---

Ok. I really talk a lot. Maybe that's why I've never gotten attached. Ha-ha. Moving on. Went back, waited for the rest, went down to S1 office whr he was in a meeting. Damn. Waited like half an hour and then some. During that half an hour BH and I bid farewell to the other specs and pioneers in our platoon. Haha. Might kinda miss seeing them. Cocksters.

Next, after signing, we walked to CAC to get back all our necessary documentation and that was it. Omg. After 1 year and 10 months, seeing that pink piece of plastic in my hands again was. Wow. I haven't touched it for so long. After my long journey it's finally back with me. I still haven't gotten used to seeing that flash of pink every time I open my wallet.

BTW a lot of people not showing up for tonight's mambO-R-D. Screw this man. See what I mean? Transient. There is no next time, okay? It's not going to be that easy.
1. None of us are THAT keen to take time out to see each other when we've been doing so for the past 1 year 5 months.
2. No one is SO hardworking. Trust me.
3. Not everyone is the clubbing type. ORD occasion over, that's it.
4. PLEASE. ORD already still wan organise NSmen outing? Siao ah?

"They play the same music as they did five years ago,"
-Andrew

Met up with Eric, Andrew, Ben and Eddy last night. ETI bunkmates! Haha. Too bad not all of us could make it. Went to Sakae at Wheelock to have dinner, where I heard one of the best (true) Why-did-you-sign-on stories ever. True story. Tell y'all next time. Then went to this seedy looking place called Ming Arcade, next to Hard Rock. (So that's where it is...) There was a really tiny bar inside and once you were inside, well it wasn't too bad. Haha. We sat and drank and talked.

First was 2 jugs (Ben, JUGS!) of beer, and then 1 jug of Get F*cked. And then a jug of Get F*cked X 3. Lol. By the end I was kinda high so it was a pretty fun experience catching one of the last trains home. Lol! But no cab! Yay! All that funny alcohol had a peculiar effect. I went straight to bed ASAP (thump!) but woke up 2 or 3 times for no reason in the middle of my sleep. Rah. Woke up tired for my interview this morning, but since I left the house at 930, I was fortunate enough to snag a seat and sleep on the train. Place was bloody hard to find. And somehow I didn't recce enough and made a small mistake which resulted in me having to walk a fair bit in the hot weather to the place.

Seems ok, they might be offering me something, but I'm waiting to go down to AIA on the 22 to see what they're offering me. Went home, messed about online (See my new Hitler video on FB lol) and then went down to tamp1 to meet ben and raye. After much fiddling and downloading and one misplaced iPhone which caused my laptop to go into standby mode, he managed to restore it! and back to 3.1.2 too! Without him I'd probably have to restore and use 3.1.3 which is a very scary and buggy firmware. =.= AND. Let's not forget 3.2.1 is JBable. Heh heh. I am NOT going to update my firmware for as long as possible.

Oh, one last thing. tomorrow I ORD! YES. Hahahaha. Gosh. One of my thoughts was, when the day you've been waiting for for the past 1 year and 10 months finally comes, what do you do? ORD LOH. ^^ Gosh. Finally. This is really the end. Going to pick up my IC in the morning, go for an interview in the afternoon, party like a rock star at night. Awesome. But mainly I need to stay alert still and take care of my iPhone. Main priority!

Well. Last last night just before i was about to go to bed, I was finishing up on my com when I noticed, (or rather, iTunes noticed) a new firmware update for my iPhone. I thought oh hey, why not, and clicked yes without thinking. So I spent the next probably half an hour awake and with a fucked over iPhone when I could have been sleeping (with a functional iPhone). Sigh.

I stayed up for it to install, and it seems that at the last part it says there was a problem in installing the software. My iPhone was stuck at a picture of the iTunes logo and a usb cable. Plug in and out, nothing. I shut it off and on. Same picture. Oh yay fuck. I connected it to iTunes and WHEEEEE iPhone is in recovery mode. From what? OFFICIAL APPLE FIRMWARE UPDATE. Fuckin' A.

So I gotta wait till Ben takes a look at it on Tues, and maybe he can fix it without me having to restore my iPhone thanks to some dumb mistake by Apple. BTW it's a MINOR update involving some bug fixes and the battery meter readout. AND IT TURNED MY IPHONE INTO A $700 PAPERWEIGHT. Granted it looks pretty and lights up with the iTunes logo, but apart for that it does jack shit. I think I might be able to use it as a door stop.

Also, because I switched phones, I woke up late cos I forgot to set the alarm. I decided to cab down to Seletar. As I stuck out my hand for the cab, a girl walked to the stretch of road in front of me and stuck out hers too. =.= WTH. Thank goodness he stopped for me instead cos I flagged him first. Lucky for this. I talked to him throughout the whole journey, and I think he was grateful for that too, cos he gave me $4 change for my $10 note. It was a $7 ride. Very nice guy. It was a SHC6789[something] Silver Cab.

So, will Apple reimburse me in $6 worth of apps from the app store? =.= Went for my FFI, had breakfast (finally) and came home. Because I was woken up so abruptly today, i think I might go sleep now, wake up at 530 for a run and then go down to orchard sans iPhone =.= to meet some of my army friends. ROAR. DAMMIT.

UPDATE2
---
Back from Mel's birthday! Went down to Tamp MRT and over to her place with her friends. We watched Spirited Away. It was quite cool! But we din get to finish it...=( But I liked it! I wanna finish it. B4 going for dinner, played with her dog. He barks. A lot. And very loudly. Maybe that's what drove her 'crazy neighbour' crazy. Lol.

Went for dinner at Ajisen Ramen before leaving. Oh and I made cupcakes for everyone. =)
---

I wanna run but it's so friggin' hot out there. I wait a few mins and see how. anyway spent yest evening at home, went Hg Mall to have dinner and buy some stuff before heading back. Quite a boring night cos no one was online, so I watched Youtube a little. Its a TV series called Special Ops Mission on the Military Channel.

They put a guy with over 15 years of SpecOps experience on a mission up against 4 or more guys, each with Spec Ops experience too. The 4 'bad' guys have different goals, such as protecting hostages and key installations, and the first guy has to infiltrate the area and accomplish his mission. Very cool. The whole thing is filmed with gun-mounted cameras and surveillance camera and camera crew. (In the the bad guys camp.) Considering these people all have real life combat experience, it's quite amazing to watch.

UPDATE
---
Run was quite shitty. My MP3 wouldn't play the songs in order and I spent a goodly amount of time running and trying to flick it back and forth. Answer: It was still on shuffle. =.= Then midway through my second round my watch strap broke. =.= Granted, it was an old watch and the exposure to sunlight from the windows must have degraded the plastic somehow. So I had to pick up the watch and run.

I aborted my run (2120m) and headed home because I was going to bake at 1230. Originally was going to run another 500m down to the fitness corner and do some stuff, but time didn't allow. Came back to shower, have breakfast, and...sit here. Maybe I'll try again in the evening when the sun is less hot. Ah. I'm going Mel's birthday. Nvm then. Try again tomorrow evening. Actually I'm not inclined to wake up before the sun (If it's not up yet, then why should I?) so the only alternative is in the evenings.

"Time's the thief of memory."

-The Gunslinger, Stephen King

Went to meet XW today at PS. Getting tired of eating at the food court every time le...haha. So we decided to take a look at this new...Society Cafe. Which happens to be deserted on a Saturday afternoon. Why? Because in addition to the usual astronomical restaurant prices, all they served was really light food like snacks, sandwiches, dessert, and salads. Not viable. So we went to Secret Recipe instead. And talked. About stuff. Really important stuff. Like people and money, and jobs, and stuff.

And man, I feel old. I didn't use to feel this way before. When tak and val complained about it, I, well, could reason it away. We're not that old yet. We've got our lives ahead of us, and there's still a lot of things out there waiting for us. It's HOW you make use of it that matters. I know all that stuff. But sometimes, you just can't control the way you feel, know what I mean? I don't see any really major issue right now, but I still feel out of sorts, and kinda strange like there's something bugging me. And I can't identify it.

And thanks to me, I made XW emo too, after we left. And it's all my fault. Damn, I am such a jerk. That'll teach me to keep my mouth shut about my shit next time. I didn't mean for this to happen. Sigh. And now it's all my fault. Need to fix this. I'm sorry!

"The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we're still alive, after all..."

-Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King

Bad news. AIA haven't called me. The interviewer, said he would, whether or not they'd hire me. Still nada. Prudential...I was supposed to call Gracie this morning. I did, at 930. No answer. I left 2 missed calls. Shortly after, I left my number at her office phone. That was 10am. Phone still not ringing.

Geez. Sigh. I hate to think that anything has gone wrong but... Well. At least I still have another interview at Dover next week. =\ Man. I thought I actually made some inroads into these two jobs! I'll give it till this evening. Maybe email Gracie, see if I get a response.

Another quiet afternoon. Morning went for my second interview at AIA. It went okay. I put myself in a spot by answering one question, but the rest was ok. Until he asked about the pay. I said 1.4 Then when he ask what it per hour, I said 8. Which works out too...$1280. =.= Sigh. I couldn't think of it then. Anyway he said he'll call me tomorrow so we'll see how. Calling Gracie tomorrow morning though.

After that, went home. In front of the com, nothing to do. Might go for a run later. Don't want to grow fat. Especially when I can't go out these days. Lol. Better get a job, if being unemployed is this boring. I shall go read Cyanide and Happiness.

Went PS today for ORD lunch with the rest of the guys at Manhattan fish Market. Tiong was super late. =.= We opened the time capsule we made on Feb of last year. So fast almost a year has gone. Well, not really that fast. We had fun looking at all the funny doodles I made and the funny stuff we wrote. Hahahaha. Some of them went to buy a gift for CSM, while the rest of us went back to camp.

I packed up everything I had in camp and brought it home. Vacating the place!!! =D We went to look for the last person to sign our clearance and that's it! All that's left is FFI and then the final clearance. So near to the end now. Finally it's our turn! Now I know how they felt! I looks just like when the batch before us left, only now it's OUR turn. =)

I scored a second interview with AIA! Tomorrow morning. Also, XW's friend's boss called me for an interview too. Next week. Shall see what AIA has to offer me. I hope it's good. But what about Gracie? =( That depends on what I take away from AIA's 2nd interview. Cos now is not a good time to ask about the salary (Prudential) but then that's what I'm unsure about. As for AIA, tomorrow is the opportunity to ask le.

Nevertheless though, hope to find a job ASAP. Wish I could have one with a 'scenic' environment though. =X lol. I feel like buying new clothes. Like a shirt for the interview tomorrow. But it's so late now. =( I kinda feel like buying one or 2 more items for CNY. Bored at home. =\

UPDATE
---
S has been a great help and source of advice in the job hunt so far. But c'mon. Are you back with HER? Again? I give up. After one breakup that went nuclear, and one that went quietly, and your repeated sayings that this one is final, I'll just leave you to your own devices. You'll have to sort this one out yourself. For your sake I hope it lasts. Or not, depending on how she's treating you. And your wallet. Jeez.

MAN, am I tired. Slept quite last last night, plus I woke up early to go for driving. I called back the person(Gracie) who emailed me and arranged an interview for this afternoon. Went driving from 11-1230. Okay, but a bit lacking in safety. I assume may be lack of sleep. I felt a little out of sorts.

Took direct bus down to AIA Alexandra for my first interview at 3. I arrived at 1:40...so I waited at the coffeeshop nearby. I ordered an ice milo to find out I only had $1.10! Through divine providence or something, the ice milo there cost $1.10 too. Gosh. I wasn't willing to try and find an ATM in the heartlands. Went in for my interview early, at about 2:35. Was alright, but I didn't get any figures on the renumeration yet. See how. They'll contact me in about a week or so.

Took bus then train down to Tanjong Pagar for another interview at Prudential. Both job are similar, recruitment officers I believe. I arrived early again. 3:45, for my 4:30 interview. =X Gracie is cute! =X Haha. The interview seemed ok. I hope. The pay seems to be around 750-1k depending on performance plus commission, but I'll have to confirm that. She gave me till Friday to decide and call her to confirm I'm going for it. I think I'll call her but I also will be waiting for something from AIA. Ahhh. Maybe something better. I want to see exactly what the renumeration is like, but I sure wouldn't mind working with her. =X Seeing as she seems to be doing recruiting too. Lol.

Yay I'm back home. 9 days to ORD. Less, actually. Booked in last night. Not many people around. Went for 2k in the morning, showered, and then promptly went back to sleep till lunch. Haha feels good. Oh but dammit, I am quite irritated. =.= I was sleeping till about 12, then when we woke up for lunch ,I went to pee and came back to...a missed call. GREAT. I sleep by my phone for 3 hours, and a call when I just woke up and went to pee. How unlucky is that? =.= Bloody hell.

(I got an email from the person though, so we'll see how it goes.) During lunch we were advised to cut out hair. =\ However, seeing as how I'm not going to be seen much the rest of this week...it should be fine. Anyway I'm on off tomorrow, so I left this afternoon. Been thinking of buying more CNY clothes. So far only got one. =\

ORD dinner tomorrow evening too. Interesting. Haha. Gotta get ready for tomorrow, driving, then job interview. Wish me luck! And...XW found me a tuition job. Supposedly is a problem kid but I'll give it a go. THANKEW! I'll treat you to a meal when my first pay comes in. ^^