I parted ways with my parents, handed over my pink ic and went up the steps on 9th Jan 2008. 368 days later (calculated by kiat), I drive into camp, shake hands, and collect my pink ic. In between, there was trainee life, and life as a permstaff at Stagmont camp. I must say I feel blessed to have been posted there, as EP branch is a truly awesome place with awesome people. The things you can do with a switch, LAN cables, and multiple computer terminals… haha. Besides the incredible amount of time ‘load-testing’ in between exercises, every exercise was a memorable experience.

Stingray- Crimped and cloned alot. Ben E. King’s Stand By Me was horribly butchered at the back of an ASD, causing Harmeet to wake up and me to cry from laughter.

Tsunami- Discovered Tracks mess and chicken cutlet at Gedong canteen. OC gave us daily pep talks on succeeding in life. Ralph is one up against everyone else in the branch.

Switchblade- Activated at 4pm on a Sat afternoon with Wee Qiang while playing football in Telok. The only thing we did that night was check an e-mail. First signs of Ethan’s imba aura where nothing bad happens during my shift.

High Noon- Ah Sa Mu nai cha. Pokemon Platinum. Minesweeper. Wilson. Electric Flyswatter. Chicken cutlet. Crap living conditions. Wilson. Mosquitoes. Epic rover rides. Hor Lan. Wilson. Yep, I saw alot of Wilson in Taiwan. Haha.

Diamond Achilles- Ethan’s aura works again. Luke Vijay the SA of doom. Whenever he visits you, you know there’s a problem (but it’s always on his side). Whenever he emails you, that means the link is up and you have to do connectivity checks every hour (argh!). Warrant Soh takes Jason’s camp pass, and hides it. I hide it in a different place. When Jason finds it, we both deny hiding it. Warrant Soh blames me and calls me ‘black-hearted’. The nickname ‘blackheart’ is born. Some NZ folks took a wrong turn and saw us ‘in action’ during tear down. Legendary.

Homerun- Poor Chun Hin had to listen to Ryan talk to me every night. During exercise my rover was fortunate enough to go back every day. Thai liaisons rock- they can kill, skin, and roast chickens! Yes two hammocks can fit in a rover. And finally, all spare time was spent reading, completing FF, and in the well-equipped Sai Yok canteen. OCS ‘C’ wing ftw.

Our fourth local university has just been named the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

‘Design and Technology’ sounds better la.

American Idiot has been playing on the car stereo the over the past few days, and this lyric from Wake Me Up When September Ends really jars to my ears, ’Seven years has gone so fast’.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it should be, ‘Seven years have gone so fast’. It just sounds better!

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Lol… If I had to take a stab at explaining myself, I’d reckon it’s because ‘years’ is a plural word, so should be followed up by ‘have’… duh!

I guess I should have paid more attention to grammar lessons in primary school then.

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This does not change the fact that I am REALLY SURE that I am right over the Green Day lyric. Hey, my primary school English owned with me using the technique of going into exams and reading questions under my breath to decide which answer sounded best!

Liverpool have lost 4 games in a row. I don’t think they’d dare lost a fifth.

Man Utd better be careful at Anfield this weekend!

lol.

I just realized that Stalin was Georgian and that Hitler was Austrian. I mean, I’ve known these two facts for a while now, but wow. That’s like Obama except a long time ago!

However… I do think Hitler kept his country of birth secret unlike Obama. I mean that would’ve hurt his popularity among the  blonde hair, blue eyes, 100% pure-blood folks right?

Just watched the ‘best driving roads’ episode from Top Gear. I’d be awfully stoked if I could go on a driving holiday. 2 requirements though:

1. Minimum age of 21 (unless you’re in NYC where it’s 18).

2. Minimum 2 years driving experience.

WHY?!

This means the summer of 2011 is the best possible date for a road trip in the near future. It’s before the Olympics and I’d have just met these two pesky requirements. That’s in roughly 600 days time?

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When sufficiently bored, I will come up with a list of the places/things I need to do before I get old and have a bad back. Somewhere in between I’ll probably be mugging/whining in uni, and trying to earn pocket money to fund my epic excursions. I honestly don’t think anyone has quite any idea how expensive exciting my holiday plans are, or how unconventional they are as well.

I should work for Nat Geo or Discovery Travel & Adventure. Really.

I’ve left these shores for the past two weeks, and I’d like to think these past two weeks have been both a ‘detox’ trip from life in Singapore, as well as a crash course in adulthood. Now that I’m back, a sense of emptiness is bugging me, as I wrestle with thoughts like, “I shouldn’t be here” and “There’s not much to look forward to back here”.

I know I’ve been whining about how I would like the 10 months, but having gone abroad for 2 weeks, I’ve tasted and decided that I like life in London. Now that I am back here, I just don’t really know what to do- although I know that work is in order to earn money to fund the trips which I dreamt I’d go on during my gap. This uncertainty is so unsettling that  I’m being kept up at night by this (look it’s 3am now). Sian.

Also, if I were to get a job, I’d like one which I find meaningful/challenging/exciting. How do I go about finding one? Do I e-mail NatGeo and ask for a temporary job? Can I volunteer at an NGO and ask them for a monthly allowance?

There’d be no worries if I just went back to London to study in November, but as usual, I’m sure God has a plan in store for me these upcoming months. I certainly hope so.

People get busted for illegal items and I get busted for my hair. My boss in office has already decided it’s fine, just a little on the thick side. I should really listen to my boss and not cut it.

That means I’ve decided that I will cut it. Don’t want unnecessary trouble with a 40-odd year old farmer. Not even a commissioned farmer some more. Grrr.

to ORD LOH!

I’m one BMT away from ORD. In a way, it’s like the end of IB. Every day drags more than my army boots, but when you look back, it’s ‘whoa. a week passed! time’s flying!’

I’ve got to find new distractions until I’m out of here. Maybe I’ll pick up gardening, then I can actually wear the farmer hats which are lying around my room. hmm.

methinks the classic-looking lx3 wins.