[Learning as I go along...]
I'm back from the FOC I talked about 2 posts ago. I actually left a day early, due to unforeseen circumstances that I'm not going to elaborate on.
I learnt something about myself during the camp, which was great. It's always good to learn something about yourself, good or bad. There's a hundred and one things I could talk/comment on regarding the camp, but I'm not going to. For the first time ever, I'm actually keeping my comments to myself. Mark this day down on your calendars.
I took several photos during the camp, and I'm going to share 2 of them with you.
Not too long ago, there was an increase in cases of people jumping off the MRT (our version of the subway) platform onto the tracks and in the path of the oncoming train as a way of committing suicide. Whoever's in charge decided it was appropriate to put up a sign to discourage suicidal people from talking a flying leap.
I had wanted to take a picture of this sign for the longest time, but I never had my digital camera with me and the camera in my mobile phone could not take a clear picture of the sign, so here it is, finally. I was told that the families of whoever successfully ended their lives by jumping in front of the oncoming train actually has to pay "clean up fees". I feel sick just saying that.
Next up, a picture of the foot of a freshman in my group. He was born with 4 toes on each foot. Picture's grainy, since it was taken at night with my mobile phone camera in night mode.
Did I get you? I managed to get everyone I showed the photo to during the camp. Look carefully. He has all 5 toes. He just has an insane gap between his big toe and his second toe. Last year one of my freshman (who's now one of my closer friends from school) could fold his ear, and this year there's someone with a weird foot. I wonder which weird body part am I going to see if I go again next year. Incidentally, I was assigned the same unit in the block of holiday flats I was in as last year.
[New greens...]
I bought some new plants for my aquarium today. Planted them on the left side of the tank. For some reason, plants on the left side aren't doing well, while plants on the right side are growing like crazy. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that my CO2 generator is on the right side of my tank.
Anyhow, even though the plants on the right side are growing well, they're not as green or "sturdy" as those in the LFS.
[Home and away...]
I'll be away for the next week, again. This time, I'm going for the freshmen orientation camp as a councillor. So there won't be any new posts for a week.
I've been in sort of a rut lately. Ever since I returned from my reservist training. I don't feel like doing anything. Hopefully I'll snap out of this mood I'm in during the FOC.
This year's attendance is pathetic, due to the World Cup Finals. The last I heard, there's 35 male and 8 female freshmen. The ratio of freshmen to councillors is nearly 1:1. I wonder how are they going to pull off the "speed dating" game.
[Where were you born?]
I saw this picture on one of the local forums. I thought it was pretty funny. It's a birth certificate which was supposed to be on display at the Singapore Custom Museum. Personally, I've never heard of such a place.
[If you don't know who he is....]
...then don't use his picture. Click to see a bigger version of the screen capture below, and you'll know what I mean.
[Goodbye, till we meet again...]
In my previous entry, I mentioned that I received some disturbing news when I was sick on Thursday. Before I let on on what happened, here's a little history lesson.
I was sent to Pulau Tekong for my basic military training. Almost everyone is sent there. Those without proper education qualifications would be sent directly to their units, since they could never be made officers. At the end of our basic military training, we were broken up and sent to different places. Some were sent for further training to become specialists and officers, some were sent to active units to serve as "men". I hated army, and I didn't want to be trained to be better at something which I hated. So I indicated that I wasn't interested in any leadership positions and behaved like a confused fuck during my basic military training (I really wasn't, I was sent for specialist conversion towards the end of my active service, but that's another story). It worked, and I was sent to an active unit.
Among those who was sent to an active unit with me was a guy named Rong Sheng. He was in my platoon during basic military training, albeit a different section. Nicest guy in the world. We were assigned to the same company in our new unit, but in different platoons this time.
I'm going to admit that we were never really all that close, but still, we did spend all of our military life together. In fact, he bailed me out once by covering my duty for several hours (he was on leave at the time) while I went for a scholarship interview.
So I owe him one. And it's a debt I can never repay.
I was told on Thursday that he was killed in a hit-and-run accident on Tuesday night. If you've read my previous post, you'd know that I was down with a fever at the time, and that all of us were supposed to be back for our in-camp training. So, what gives?
Rong Sheng was (I can't believe I'm using past tense) studying at a polytechnic, and didn't return for ICT. We guessed he managed to get a deferment, since our ICT falls on the polytechnic's study week (next week is exam week). We were told later on Friday by our S3 that he was actually away-with-out-leave, and didn't want to return to camp even when officers visited his house. Why is that, I don't know. My guess is that he was pissed that his deferment request was turned down (some polytechnic students managed to defer, some did not), but chose to stay home anyway. To think if he attended ICT with the rest of us, he'd still be alive today.
Rest in peace, Rong Sheng. See you in heaven if I make the list. Sorry I couldn't accompany you on your final journey.
I had 3 places to be at today. I was supposed to attend the FOC pre-camp in school, Rong Sheng's funeral, and also visit my grandmother who had a very nasty fall and became bed-ridden. I was well enough today to move about, and I chose to visit my grandmother (the pre-camp was obviously out of the question, in light of the other 2 more serious events). She took care of me when I was young (and probably a brat), and I owe her that much. She doesn't remember me anymore, which is pretty sad. She broke 2 bones in her hip, and one of them actually "slipped", which means there's very little chance it'd heal on it's own. Doctors didn't want to operate on her because she was 92, anemic and had a low platelet count. She has to be helped every time she needs to use the bathroom, and couldn't take a shower. My aunts are staying with her, and they're taking care of her full-time, but it breaks my heart to see her like that. Folks of that generation generally had a hard life, they should be allowed to age gracefully and enjoy their golden years and not lie in a bed till the day they leave us.
I was actually debating with myself whether or not to post the next bit...Since this was a pretty serious post. I think I'm going to stick to the original spirit of this blog and poke fun at things whenever I see fit. I'm going to quote my sister, for starters. On our way down to visit our grandmother today, she said this:
"You know what kids are like? They're like giant hamsters that outlive you."
She's nuts.
On our way home, I saw this. It's not entirely clear, but that's a sports bra (I think) hanging on a lamp post. It's a curved lamp post, so it'd take an insanely accurate gust of wind to make this happen.
[5 days and 4 nights...]
I'm back from my in-camp training. And a lot has happened in 5 days. I was actually already back yesterday, but was unable to blog. You'll know why by the end of this entry.
I'm not going to say much about what we did during the 5 days, except that whatever we did, judged from the perspective of someone in active service, would be a rather light schedule. However, because we were no longer in active service and were not in the best shape of our lives (a grand total of 15% soldiers in our unit passed IPPT, the lowest passing rate in the entire Army), it was pretty exhausting.
Things started going bad for me on Wednesday afternoon, when I got the sniffles. I suspect it was due to the dust in my bunk. By the next morning, the sniffles has turned into full-fledged runny nose. I reported sick, and at the medical centre found out that I was running a 37.5 degree Celsius fever. I was given medicine (which everyone who's been in the Army can testify to: they don't make you better), and 2 days worth of light duty status.
As anyone who's ever been in the Singapore Army can attest to, if you're really sick, the only types of medical status you really need is either for you to go home to recuperate or to be sent to the sick bay to have a good rest (read: sleep). Light duties doesn't mean shit. You don't have to participate in the "heavy" stuff, but you still had to help out with the odds and ends. Imagine burning up with a fever inside you, and having taken medicine which makes you drowsy, but not allowed to sleep. It's the absolute worst feeling in the world, I kid you not.
By Friday, I was feeling way worse. The medicine isn't working. What we get for fever in the Army is Rapidol, which is probably a cheap knock-off of Panadol, and is really a general painkiller. I was running a fever (I didn't know how bad it was at this time), coupled with the lack of sleep (I didn't sleep well during the night, my body felt as if it was on fire and I also received some very disturbing news...More on that in my next entry), made me extremely weak and lifeless on Friday.
Don't get me wrong, I did sound out that I wasn't feeling well. Did anybody care? Nope. I was still tasked to remove the sand from the road we used when the company returned from outfield training on Thursday, and it took us from 10+ in the morning till noon. Isn't that nice...Sending someone who's running a fever to clear sand from a road under the sun. In the first place, clearing sand from the road? Seriously, what the fuck? It's an armour camp, and we're located in the middle of the jungle, surely you can expect some sand in the camp?
I was so tired I had to lie down afterwards, which was a no-no at the time because we had a ton of things to do in order to be cleared for out-processing (aka. being done with the whole thing and going home). The "polite" ones didn't say anything (maybe they just didn't care), some guys passed by my bed actually made some very disparaging remarks about how I was malingering. One of them was actually from someone I thought was my friend. I don't anymore. To each and everyone who made those remarks, I have 2 words for you.
Fuck you. ("Fuck" is the first word, "you" is the second word; I know some of you guys can't count)
We have a total of 10 ICTs, one down, nine more to go. You WILL fall sick sometime, and I'll return every bit of your bullshit with interest, at above-market interest rates. Motherfuckers. I didn't get the best soldier award at our ORD function if I was a malingerer. Yes, you read right. I'm rubbing the award in your fucking faces. They engraved my name wrongly on the award, the very least I could do with it is to rub it in your pie-eating (and I don't mean Apple) faces.
I guess this was the time to see who your real friends were. As it turns out, I didn't have any among my Army mates. At least not those who turned up for our ICT.
Now that I've got that off my chest, we finally out-processed at 4pm+, the last company to do so. By that time, not only was I running a fever, having the sniffles (I didn't take my medicine for this because it made me extremely drowsy), but I was also feeling giddy. I nearly fell down several times while walking out of the camp. Good thing I managed to get a cab, and I had to call my father to come down to help me with my bags because I was simply too weak, exhausted and giddy to do it by myself.
I paid a visit to my own doctor in the evening. By that time, my temperature was 37.9 degrees Celsius. That's rather high, considering that a normal person's temperature is 36.9 degrees Celsius. I was given 6 different types of medicine, and after 1 dose of all 6 medicines and 11 hours of sleep, I'm 95% recovered. Yes, that's right. My doctor's medicine cured me in 11 hours. The medicine given by the SAF couldn't cure me for 31 hours.
I'm just glad to be home. I haven't seen my aquarium for 5 days, and when I did, I couldn't believe the amount of snails in there. I've since removed about 30+ of them. I want some snails in my tank for general house-keeping purposes, but they spawn like crazy. And as it turns out, my mobile phone operator now supports cell info display (I wasn't using my usual phone when I was in camp). I've only experienced this when I was in Thailand and Australia, until now. Basically, if you enable this feature on your mobile phone, you can see which cell you're connected to. Doesn't change anything really, but it's a pretty cool function nevertheless.
[No new posts...]
There won't be any new posts for a while. Most likely a week. I'll be away from June 12th to the 16th, in-camp training.
Personally, I'm not really looking forward to it. We've been having rainy weather the last couple of days, and I'd really hate for it to rain during outfield. Other than that, I'm also not really looking forward to lugging all my equipment back to camp, especially since the camp I'm reporting to is in such an inaccessible place. I hope I can get a cab that's willing to take me there on Monday morning.
[Clumsy oaf...]
2 divas (is this word over-used or what?) were injured on this week's RAW. Beth Phoenix broke her jaw, which was tough because she had just made her debut. Lilian Garcia was also injured, but more on that later. It's time for the when-I-feel-like-it funny signs segment.
Not sure if this guy knows what he's asking for. Are you sure you want to marry Melina? I mean, yeah, she's flexible as hell but her screams could pierce your eardrums.
I don't know what the hell Haas was thinking. He got in the ring and started running to and fro like the Ultimate Warrior, and in the process knocked Lilian clean off the ring apron. The cameras were careful not to show too much of the incident, so this was the best screenshot I could get. Haas is behind Melina, and that white blur is Lilian sent flying. It was an accident, but seriously, what the hell was Haas doing? After Lilian fell, we could actually hear her wailing (she fell right in front of JR and Lawler's commentary position). It was pretty blood-curdling if you ask me. JR wasn't rattled much...If he was, it didn't show in his commentary, but Lawler was totally thrown off. JR tried to bring him back into character and it took a long pause before Lawler could answer a question asked by JR.
This sign has been a long time coming. "Vince Walks Funny". When I was in the Army, that's how we walked when we had abrasions on our inner thighs.
[Enough is enough...]
I'm pissed, cranky, and agitated. I'm a guy, so no, it's not PMS. My mind is racing at 100 kilometres per hour right now, hyped up with not enough sleep and too much caffeine. I hope the rest of my post makes sense.
Before I talk about what happened that resulted in my foul mood today, a little background information is in order.
My mother has been suffering from arthritis for a while now. She has it in the fingers on her left hand (if I remember correctly). She didn't want to seek treatment from a doctor/hospital, because it was "too expensive" and it might require an operation. I don't know much about the treatment for arthritis, so I have no idea if she had the right information. She sought treatment from traditional chinese medicine practitioners, acupuncture, etc. None of them worked, and I always chided her by saying that she'd have spent less if she just went to see a real doctor in the first place.
One day, someone told her about this physiotherapy and rehabilitation center, where you pay $2 an hour to sit on this chair with a mat that's "charged" with static electricity. My mother's easily influenced, and when told of the wonderful (and a tad out-of-the-world) effects of using the machine, she decided to try it out. Some of the "success stories" she brought back include a man whose hair started re-growing after using the machine (for a long time, not instantly). Yeah, according to her, static electricity can turn the clock back and fix hair loss.
That was just one of the dozens of amazing stories she was told by the folks at the center and she believed them all. I can't remember too many of the stories, except that it's supposed to cure diabetes as well. I guess after a while, I blocked them out because I simply do not believe in it. As far as I know, there's no scientific backing for the claims made by the people at the center.
To her credit, her fingers did get better. She could wiggle and extend them fully at last. Was it due to the effects of the machine? Or was it mind over matter? I don't know. Eventually, she bought one of those machines so that she didn't have to spend an hour after work everyday at the center. It cost a whopping $5,000+ I think.
That's where the fun began. For ages, she's been pestering all of us (especially my Dad, after his health scare during the CNY) to go to the center to try out the machine. Now we don't have any excuses not to try it, since we own one of the machines. My sister was open to it, but she was also a tad turned off by the claims. My Dad and I were both skeptics, but both my Dad and my sister tried it.
I was the only one who didn't give it to her nagging. One of the reasons was that with the amount of school work I have to cope with, I simply haven't the time to sit in a chair for one hour a day doing nothing. You're not supposed to handle electronic equipment when you're on the mat, and I do all my work in front of my computer. She kept nagging and nagging, and she even said that I'd probably die early because I didn't try the machine. That made me really pissed, and it took a lot of effort on my part not to get into a fight with her.
Eventually, my sister also acknowledged that it was insane to sit in that chair for one hour a day. Even she found it boring. So a new arrangement was made where my sister would sleep on the mat (the mat can be place on a bed as well) every night. My Dad suggested we alternate, and I finally gave it and tried it out.
I hated it.
It made my leg hair "dance" under the covers, and woke me up everything my arm or leg touched the vanity or my table (which was very close to my bed). I never got a good night's sleep with the machine. And last night was the last straw. For some reason, my foot couldn't stop hitting the vanity at the end of my bed, and I was kept awake all night by the vibrations. When I don't get my beauty sleep, I ALWAYS wake up in a very foul mood, and I'll be cranky for the rest of the day. I'm a very light sleeper, and the vibrations along my leg the whole night doesn't help matters any. My mother was insane enough to suggest that it was my fault for not wearing long pants when sleeping. I think the fault lies with the machine and physics, not me. To top it off, when I finally had enough and tried turning the machine off this morning at about 6am, I got a nasty shock cause I was fumbling about in the dark and my finger must have touched something grounded on my table (my table's made of wood, so touching it while on the machine is mostly okay).
[Kids write the darnest things...]
My sister works at a childcare centre, and part of her job is to mark the kids' homework. She brought home a stack of them today, the kids had to write down the rules they have at home. Here are some of the funnier ones, written by 7-year old kids:
[Brats on the loose...]
I don't know about you, but if there's one thing I can't stand (well...actually lots of things piss me off), it's kids behaving badly. I don't care how cute they look or how old (or young) they are.
Take this kid for example. I was at the supermarket today, and I saw him breaking/cracking every packet of noodles/mee boon he could get his hands on. He wasn't just pressing them or anything, he was actually using his strength to destroy as much of the foodstuff as he could. And that's his Mum right next to him. People who couldn't control their kids shouldn't be allow to have any.
Why can't they all be like this girl? This one actually was cute.
Broken for now. :( If anyone knows of a good way to display tweets without using Twitter's awful looking widgets, please let me know. Preferably something that allows me to retrieve my tweets in plain-text format.
What's this about?
Anything and everything under the sun. I write about my day, my thoughts, things I see in public, things to get off my chest, or sometimes just some senseless rants that make sense only to me.
About Me
30 year old male. Always with too many ideas in his head and too little time. For my 15 minutes of fame, I want to be a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Interests
Movies, TV, cycling, computers, planted tanks, cherry shrimps, P2P legal issues, Manchester United, WWE, TNA, UFC, etc...
Disclaimer
Best viewed @ 1280*1024 or above. Views are expressed are mine and mine only, and are not meant to offend or influence anyone. Designed for readers with a sense of humour. If you can't laugh at yourself, you probably won't like my style of humour.
