Annoyed. Irritated. Displeased. Exasperated. Infuriated. Crossed. Jaundiced. Offended. Troubled. Piqued.

These are probably the words to describe what i'm feeling right now. Extremely annoyed by the fact that i actually had to wait for more than an hour for the stupid bus to get back home, even though the sign wrote "off-peak waiting time approximately 20 mins".

Impatient I may be, this wait is somewhat unreasonable. This particular bus I have been waiting for appears to be a loop service, but the time it took to arrive from the opposite stop is so much longer. What's worst is the fact that the bus actually went off without stopping though I raised my hands out long before it reached the stop. Plain unlucky. Almost fell asleep waiting, like a beggar on the streets.

Killed my blogging mood for the day. Wanted so much to tell everyone how addicted to mahjong my family members are. This passion for mahjong lies in our genes. Afterall, the ones i played mahjong with are my grandma and younger cousins. The one with the most potential appears to be my younger niece, who is just 5 years old.

My cousins playing blackjack, my uncles scanning the 4D tickets, my aunts talking about soccer, my grandma playing mahjong. Ironic it is, because we often advocate "non-gambling" and here we are doing everything that goes against it.

Didn't have plans to do for the past one week and thus no new entries.

Soporific lifestyle remains the main theme for the month. Ever since the new standby schedule is up, there hasn't been much free time outside of camp for me to organise activities that may prove worthwhile. Most of the time is spent indoors, either sleeping or staring into blank space, contemplating.

These days i'm wondering whether to start something different, to embark on a new pursuit that could be interactive and intellectual. But somehow, i can't devise a hobby that could use up lots of time and effort, can be done indoors, improves a certain skills that i have. Or perhaps i already had something in mind, only fearful that i don't have the confidence to see it till the end.

Time is slowly ticking, and i better be decisive soon...

And it's the time of the year that everyone's waiting for, The World Cup (except for the occurence of the leap year which falls on the same schedule). 4 years of euphoria, disappointments, winning streaks and unexpected upsets is up for grabs once again. Will this year belong to Brazil once again? or will favourites, England, Germany, Argentina, Spain overturn the odds and triumph at the football's greatest stage?

Everyone awaits in anticipation.

Are there times when you felt a generation gap with your parents?

Well, I did.

It seems weird that there could be times like these that makes you feel as though you and your parents belong to dfifferent worlds. Usually I would be able to understand my parent's intentions in doing something, but i don't know what happened this time round. It wasn't a heated argument, merely a philosophical discussion of the alternative viewpoints to a problem. Sometimes i just don't know what's going on in their mind. It's either i'm too idealistic and immatured to know the complexities of this world, or their perspectives of ideas are too traditional and outdated. But i opt for the latter.

Looking at the arguments between my younger siblings and my parents made me wonder about this unsolved question. Most of the time, i tend to stay neutral and seek to understand the problem, and solutions came. Gradually, I began to formulate reasons why these problems occur. So much so that even my younger siblings say that i have a generation gap with them.

3 years age difference and there's a generation gap? Unlikely, but still possible.

Is it true that the generation gap occur because of differences in age? Or rather differences in ideology, culture, living environment, education etc. I want to know more, which means i need to have more "educational" interaction with my parents.

I'll see that it doesn't escalate out of control.

The consequences of overshopping has finally hit me, and quite hard this time round.

Despite exceeding the monthly budget, i was out again (with old pals, penghui and weelun) to orchard to see what it's like to shop during the GSS. Armed with only $10 in my wallet, i thought i would be safe from all the temptations all around me, but i was so wrong. The atm card was still "accidentally" left in my pocket. I should have expected this kind of situation and set up the proper defenses against this rising feeling of uncontrolled spurging, but i didn't.

No one to be blamed for this, it's all my fault. I was the very own transgressor of the boundaries i set for myself. I told myself umpteen times that i spent too much, and my "stingy" behaviour should have stopped me, but i didn't cared less.

Money gone just like that.

Little wonder my mother always say, "the money you earned in a year could be spend in just a day." How true.

I ought to curb myself from spending unneccessarily again. which means no more changi v for the next few weeks. My intuition tells me this will be yet another futile session, but nevertheless i hope it works.

And this time round, i'm leaving my atm card in my drawer, for good.

reading boon kian's entry on Love, Desire and Attachment, i ought have more control over impulsive buying, but it doesn't seem to work.

according to the entry, attachment never work for 4 reasons. (taken from boon kian's site)

1.The object of desire cannot sustain the present experience. It is ephemeral. We are actually after permanent happiness, which the object of craving cannot fulfil.
2. If we rely upon everything in accordance with our wishes, our merit declines, and soon our ability to enjoy other objects declines. E.g. becomes poorer and perhaps unable even to buy necessary items

3.The object is impermanent. It is constantly changing. When we develop desire for an object, we take a freeze frame of the object. We expect it to stay the same forever. We look for perfection in it and more often than not, it doesn't live up to the expectations we ourselves generated. We thus feel disappointed all the time.

4.The object is empty. All the good qualities we perceive of it does not come from the object itself but from our minds. We're fooled by its appearance and will not know that until we realise emptiness.

despite reading this article, i still couldn't resist the temptation and bought...Zen Vision:M from the PC show at suntec city. and it proves 1 thing, what you preach may not be what you practise...

i should reflect on my actions...

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

choonpeng--

[noun]:

An alien

xia will probably be laughing her heads off when she sees this. arghhh...

i'm so totally hooked on kingdom hearts 2 & sudoku.

it's either due to changes in the duty slots that i have more free time then before, or there seems to be a new craze going around in merah. everyone's seems to be totally engrossed with the kingdom hearts game that they can actually forgo our all-time favourite PS2 game, winning eleven 9.

other than this particular game, there is something else that made my day intellectually-fulfilling,the sudoku puzzle. it is such a good way to workout my semi-conscious brain as well as a good time waster. before you know it, almost half the day is gone trying to solve this sudoku puzzle.

but that's only in-camp activity. i still need to find stuff to do outside. haiz, the da vinc movie is out already and i haven't even watch it yet (so much for planning beforehand, now penghui couldn't watch it with me). anyone wanna watch it together?

"Mr Palomar thinks, imagining himself a bird.'It is only after you have come to know the surface of things,' he concludes, 'that you venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface is inexhaustible."
-From the terrace, Mr Palomar

found this fantastic book during a random search in the library while waiting for penghui last sun. titled Mr Palomar by Italo Calvino, this collection of short stories completely captured my utmost attention for this past week. the beauty of this book lies in its ability to bring across sophisticated themes with ease and clarity.

short stories like The blackbird's whistle, The contemplation of the stars, Serpents and skulls, The world looks at the world (just to name a few), brings across many expandable themes that allows existentially-starved people (like me) to have a very different approach to understanding more about ourselves and the world.

Daily experiences can be a very important factor in trying to formulate (or rather, to come up with) your own notion of your existence. after all, such "life" questions are often subjective. probing into existentialism appears to be quite futile, but there are times when i can be enlightened, bringing my mind closer to my heart.

the relationship between the self and the world is complex, and i'm dying to know more about it, even though what i learnt is just the "inexhaustible surface".

Crazy Peng and his "zai cai fan" crew is out to terrorize the town once again with their ever-contagious laughters and exaggerated actions. This time round, the team headed to Lot 1, where it's closer to home ( loyal fan popularity remains the highest)...

our first destination at our Lot 1 tour started out at the foodcourt on the 4th floor (near to the library). there, we had to fill up our hungry tummies (or is it just me?) to get all the energy we need for the latter performance at k-pool.

played pool to a 'live' audience is indeed much different then at marina because there was a large group of people around, and so gave more publicity to our group. lin's laughter remains the centre of attraction.

i don't know whether it's just pure luck or they were secretly training at home since their last defeat at marina (their first time playing pool), because their skills were exceptional. Maybe it's just me and zhiqin off-form because we can't seem to be able to hit the ball into the hole. Missed out a lot of chances which inevitably led to my final loss in the game to xia.

seems that xia's prophecy came true today. I really lost. arghhh, though i had to admit it. Luck appears not to be on my side (or perhaps xia got some supernatural influence coming from the next table?).lol.

took our favourite neoprints after that. this time round i'm transformed into another imaginary character (again). lin rebuked that only my face suits the 'old man' image (but i feel that i almost fit the bill for all kinds of extraordinary people). pics will be up soon on my friendster account.
(includes the photos taken at the merlion park the last time).

gtg. missed out on my 8-hours sleep schedule again... fatigued but enjoyable. need to meet up again soon (sentosa or zoo?)...

"Sea Soldiers" as they called it in the April's issue of Pioneer.

at last, these Regimental Policemen (RPs) in the naval bases can shake off their "poorly portrayed" image with the creation of a new identity, the Base Defence Squadron. Somehow, there are uncanny similarities between them and us (still called RPs) in our Field Defence Squadron, both in terms of our training and our job scope.

adapted from the Pioneer magazine (specially shortened for easy understanding),

The Regimental Policeman is one of those misunderstoond vocations. Sure it's not as physically challenging as other more 'glamorous' vocations, but it is nowhere as 'cushy' as some people feel.

For a start, it is a challenge to be awake, alert and all alone while the rest of the world is asleep, doing either sentry duty or 24-hour foot and mobile patrols...

It doesn't help that some people have an impression that RPs have an easy life (all they do is stand next to the scanners and metal detectors and check bags and passes, then they go home), which is not the real case.

Combat-fit RPs double as base defenders, trained to protect key installations by setting up fortifications like wire obstacles and gun emplacements, and are proficient in handling and firing various weapons and operational skills - just like any other soldier.

After all, the typical RP's 6 weeks session is nowhere comparable to our 3 mth fdc. what we learn during the course followed by the 3 weeks on-job-training (OJT) is constantly tested out in various tests and exercises, some even weekly. So it is saddening to hear from people that RPs are slack. What we do may be different from other units, but that does not neccessarily meant that our standards are comparatively lower. It is just that we adhere to different sets of rules.

Our counterparts in the navy can now correct this deeply-rooted misconception (as well as getting the additional $150 pay), when will it be our turn in the air force?

the most tumultuous period of all times...

somehow this new mathematical formula managed to prove itself to be logical...

1 day book out= 24 hours
24 hours = 10am to 10am next day.

but...
late book out at 1200hrs= -2 hours.
early book in at 0700 hrs= -3 hours.
no bus before 7am= night before book 0000 hrs= -7 hours.
time travelled to and fro from camp= -3 hours.
total time wasted= -2 + -3+ -7+ -3= -15hours.

therefore...
1 day book out= 24 hrs -15hrs= 9hours.
(so what's the difference between 1 day off and time off?)

that's not all...
too much to be taken into account that i guess this is probably the only time when a illogical idea becomes a logical one.


so much changes to the system till i've lost total confidence in the upper management... no more comments for all this kind of stupid arrangement...

mostly likely to stay in camp almost everyday (as of this moment)... let's see... missing out on so much things because of this... haiz... no mood for any post also...


fav. quote of the month
"This is the final detailing. No changes will be entertained. Pls do not come and look for me"-PC

laughing at how idiotic i look... i'm a maths genius... lol...

it's out finally....

the fishbone that is stuck in my throat for the last 72 hrs.

treatment list
10 dosage of fast-flowing drinking water.
10 dosage of hard-to-swallow cooked rice.
3 dosage of SFI fried chicken.
2 dosage of chocolate muffins, sandwich and other night snacks...
verdict: unsuccessful.

01 x dosage of chicken fantastic meal (upsized)
01 x unexpected scary bill + insulted as "money sucker" from delievery man
verdict: successful.

so the chicken fantastic meal does have it's own use...hehe...

my stomach hurts from all that laughing yesterday at the Merlion Park (is it the name of that place?) but that's not that important. what's far more important is that we attracted quite a lot of unneccessary attention from our rather "exaggerated" photo shots.

conducted a small gathering at town with the usual permanent members of the "za cai fan" (promptly set up unofficially as of yesterday night)... xia the lead singer, lin the pianist, zhiqin the drummer, and me the guitarist (though none of us had the slighest idea of the instruments we were playing). lol...

seems like the effects of the television is far-reaching and deeply etched in us. got crazy with shots depicting scenes from da chang jing, famous superstars and the more recent superband. perhaps it's the reason why we attracted so much attention (or it was lin's unstoppable laughter?).

did quite a lot of walking and eating too. indecisive in nature, we couldn't decide on where to go for lunch. apparently stuck due to the overwhelming numbers of restaurants there at MS that we ended up at a place least expected (the food court at sc). arghhh. 2 hours of deep thought and this is all we could come up with. it appears that we need to do more street surveying very soon.

lin claimed to be cheated of her money when she bought something that wasn't really that mouth-drooling (but the sizzling lamb teppanyanki was). that was the start of the makan tour that fetches us all the way to.... ....
(xia: what's the name of the place we eat the hokkien mee, carrot cake and chay kueh tiao?)

but nevertheless the food there was much better and brought up the atmosphere for the latter programmes.

oops... missed out on the hilarious pool session. just had to blog this down cause it is so funny to see newbies playing pool. can't imagine all the things they did. lol... wanted to take photos (photos again? of course) but the staff didn't allowed us to do so. even wanted xia to delete away all the photos taken. what a let-down... but we did enjoyed ourselves there. more options opened to us for our future meet-ups...

by the time we are totally done with all the photo-taking session, most of us were totally drained... that's about all (a book-out day well-spent).

Time really flies.

Today marks the end of the road for the shift 3 merah guys. They will soon be off for their Guard-of-Honor drill training from the next mount onwards, leaving only the (quite pathetic) crew of mr. pang and me. New ppl from east will soon be joining us but i (seriously) doubt we will have the kind of "telepathy" as before. Just hope that the rest of the days will be smooth sailing. I'm sick and tired of working the 2-10 slot again. As of next week, everything gonna change significantly...

Had our final steamboat at our second home on fri. i could still remember vividly the first steamboat we had. that time we were still new to the crew. could still imagine cpl. waikeong forcing us to fall in together with our bowls filled with food and eating it though our stomachs were extremely bloated. those were the fun times then...

Today also marks the day of promotion to corporal too. finally get the highest pay we can get throughout our ns lives ($510). Though it wasn't much compared to sgts and officers, but that's the best we can go. 10 mths more to ord. can't wait....

Was out at cwp with penguin and wl... all of us were bored at hm, but we didn't do anything much cause they had to book in soon. went library as usual but i can't seem to find any more enthusiam in reading (someone complained that i studied too much , but i wish to re-emphaize that reading does not equate to studying, though it is usually misinterpretated)...

Saw jingmin on the way back. probably the first time i see her in real person. though we were both from pjc, i only know her through wholivesnearyou.com. sounds a bit pathetic, but i realise that's one of the ways i get to make friends...see whether can meet up again soon (since she just live a street away, if not then she wouldn't be found in wholivesnearyou )...

Came to realise that i have quite a lot of offs and leaves which i cannot clear until the GOH came back. was planning to make full use of it to do something different (like going overseas), but can't seem to find ppl to go with. maybe i have a strict criteria for making friends, which is probably the reason why i have that few "good" friends. sort of envious of ppl who can keep going overseas with friends... haiz...will anyone take pity on me and ask me out?

Going crazy at the 3-1 army life...arghhh....

busy learning magic tricks...

whew... luckily zhiyang finally won the css com... our whole merah was apparently going crazy by the fact that renfred is leading in terms of calls when we were watching it...

looking forward now to superband... the star search continues...
(troubled over which show to follow-up on... "so u think u can dance" or "superband" ? )

fdc nightmare is back...

can't believe that i've slacken so much that i can't even tahan the "choo" ippt training like old times... maybe really too long never exercise le (after all it is quite difficult to resist the temptation from "merah shopping centre" and changi v) but somehow still cannot grow fat despite the consistent effort...

*muscles aching all over my body*

so probably skipping the swim later... off with dotA-ing (once again, as usual).

feels kinda weird that i haven't been writing for so long... makes me realli wonder whether my life is indeed that meaningless. but did something different today so just wanna type it here...

our PC going to go off to shift 2 le... a bit sad though cos he is realli one of the best PCs left around (veri easy to get offs from him). his replacement seems to be one of the new PCs that just passed out from ocs, probably from our batch one ba. dunno wat they are like but i can guess there cannot be compared with our current one...

as such, today is also our last standby together as a shift (though most of the GOHs were not present) but nevertheless we quite enjoyed our time at sentosa. playing soccer and seeing at things we all enjoy seeing. but in the end most ppl all smoke out halfway, so can feel that our PC was a bit disappointed. dunno how come these ppl like that also. our PC did so much for us but they can't even like sense it lor... haiz...

went play pool after that cos there wasn't many ppl left and nuthin much to do also. school day ba. left siloso beach in the mid afternoon and went slack around, eating minced meat noodles for a stall in a shopping centre in doby ghaut (can't remember the shop name but the noodles quite good sia)... most of the ppl playing pool all pro. must have been gaining quite a lot of experience point from playing billards. so in the end kenna thrashed like nobody business. too noob le ba...

that's about all for now... going swimming soon... it's back to camp day tmr... hurray (in a veri dispirited mood)...

is it true that people will change?

been feeling that the people around me have started to change... or is it just me? that my view of ppl have become much more critical and realistic? i dunno...

it is becoming quite a hassle to think of things to write for the blog le. can't pinpoint the apparent reason for this change of attitude too... maybe becos i'm quite sick and tired to repeating the same old monotonous and endless cycle of watching vcds in camp to sleeping during standbys to slacking and rotting at home when i dismount.

need some fun and thrill in my life... after all i finally understood that my youth is being drained away slowly, bit by bit from the army lifestyle... gonna find more things to do before i rot to death from both physical slacking and also mental degrading...

as such, i doubt there will be less recent posts here. probably write when i have an inspiration to write or when i do something that is less "routine". however will still be visiting this blog often to check on the "almost dead" tagboard. which is another reason why i find this blogging more and more of a "cycle" too. arghhh...

somehow i have this bad feeling that my english is de-proving at a accelerating rate... need to read up more books again... classical greek mythology here i come...