Its been Wonderful after the camp.

Its the ending song for the jdrama "Change" which just ended it's run 2 weeks ago.. Its acted by Takuya Kimura who is a school teacher that takes over his late father's position as a politician in the Japanese Diet and subsequently rose to become the Prime Minister of Japan. Though at first he was just manipulated by the 'puppet master' the Senior Cabinent Minister initially to gain popularity for the main party of the government, Takuya broke away from his control and changed the administration of the country to help the needy against his wishes. The main gist of this drama was on how Takuya ran the government and was able to reach out to the citizens and solve the problems the manner they wanted him to and how he was able to touch and move bureacrats with his attitude to helping the citizens of Japan... all this given that he is just an amateur in politics.

** second note on the song... mmm.. i always wonder why songs that carry negative themes such as this song Miles away by Madonna always have catchy tunes and used in dramas such as Change which doesn't have much link to it... mmm..

Anyway.. today been a great day at church... This weekend is St Anne's Feast day and i've been goin to this church since i was young. For the celebrations this year, besides the annual Novena masses, we had a short Praise and Worship session organised by the various choirs each day. Today.. though was my first session the whole week, i was wowed.. its been a long time since i feel so uplifted by a P&W session since caterhism classes during my sec school days. Even though my parents and uncle said that today's session wasnt so good.. anyway.. kudos to the organisers this year.. think the Feast day celebrations are off for a good start.. its was also nice to see the church so crowded and ppl chatting and praying after the mass...

Prayer candles.... One lighted for Celine.. hope she gets better soon...

Anyway, some updates ...

During the 3rd week of Jul, 14- 20th i went for the annual Insinyur... thankfully i didnt turn down the offer to be Ben/Yunshen/Collin/Fang Ting's senior attached to the grp together with Shuwen and Huikai as the other seniors... cos.. it was the best year i've been to so far.. think the 4 of them did a good job. Proud of my spartan freshies, haha.

This year's theme was on the characters in the Lord of the Rings... our group was named UrukHai, after the troll warriors.. What can be said of our OG this year? Its one of the most happening grp and most united one. Our grp is like one of the smartest grp.. for most of the IQ challenges like the amazing race and puzzle questions we solved them damn quickly but for those challenges that are more physically inclined, we kinda sucked in them. End of the whole camp.. i think we should be the second best group... Losing only by 5 points to the best group Gollum. wasted sia..

anyway.. some highlights

haha.. since after the camp, i've watched Hellboy 2 with the group and gone for a beach outing. though it was raining largely during the day though. Hope everyone enjoyed the outings as much as i did.. felt a lil bad though on the beach outing day.. didnt mingle much wif the main grp tat day cos i kept playing beach volleyball..

Hopefully later in the day.. i won't get called up.. I'm so going to watch the Dark Knight man.

Besides this, i also went to celebrate Sing Phang's bdae, more updates on that later.. but one last thing before i sign off this post... Kudos for Leslie.. for hitting the "jackpot" on that same week as my foc camp.. haha. Miracles do happen.. Good for you..

Why so serious...?

I'm so going to watch this on sunday.. pls let them call me back for mob manning on saturday and not sunday....

no wait.. this..

On another note.. i just came back from Insinyur... the combined EEE, MAE, CEE engine freshmen orientation camp.. it's been a fun filled 7 day camp.. seriously man...

will put on more updates soon..

now i need to go settle all the fotos, and do up all the other work before i can go penang in peace for my dragonboat world cup crew championship..

Family...

I read about this advert in last week's edition of the 8days. It's been out for quite some time already and me and my dad never fail to laugh at the part where the daughter goes out to a dance party on her first date... Her 'pro' dancing skills totally shocked her date.. who on the other hand is totally clueless with it.. (good god.. so young know how to dance like dat le..lol).

Nice advert done by the MCYS and award winning Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad targeting youths, on the importance of the family ... The reason why a relationship between a hardworking widower and a daughter was chosen because dads are usually clueless and daughters are able to perceive small lil actions better.. as shown in the clip at the last part where the daughter was touched by her dad's love and affection for her.. by repairing her worn out shoes to its original state..

Seldom do you see such heartwarming videos these days... kudos to MCYS on their promotional efforts...

"my father was a generous man beyond his means, but the greatest gift he ever gave me, was the gift of love..."

Reflecting on my personal account, my dad was a great man too... he does his best to take care of me and my sis all these years... My dad worked with the town council and the HDB for a long time... from just a lowly worker at the town council in Ang Mo Kio, he's worked his way up to a branch head of the HDB. Right now he's posted to Tampines.. which is by far the branch that governs the largest estate in Singapore... (Tampines, Pasir Ris, Simei). Even though he's already up on top as a head, he never fails to wake up at 630am every morning and leaves for work by 7am and by 730am he would reach his workplace and start working... kao. Being the head, he's always on standby as well.. sometimes when there's some incident such as a fire or something, he will immediately head down to check it out... All these hardwork to provide for the family, for me and my sis's studies.. our cosy home at Serangoon..

When i was young, things between me and my dad wasn't so cheery as it is today... i'm always quarrelling with him and getting scolded for little things such as spilling a cup of water.. much to my regret though... i ended up closing up and keeping everything from him and my mum because i concluded that before i even explained myself, they would assume and concluded otherwise...

Today, i'm glad that things have changed. I'm more open to my parents. I share with them about things that happen around me each day and they have become more understanding... i guess this is just part and parcel of growing up ... and loving those that are around you....

Before i end off.. here's another thought provoking video that my friend posted on his blog earlier this year...

Our parents deserve the love that they shower on us... and the time they use to nurture us.

I've got a telescope for a gun!

Its been a good day today... but i kinda burnt a hole in my wallet though... better tighten my belt until next month comes...

I bought the following items:

1 Digital Camera Magazine...
1 Advanced Photoshop Magazine
1 Sigma 70 - 300mm Lens

Its my first time buying such magazines.. i walked into times today and actually only wanted to get a plain sketch book but as i walked past the magazine shelves... these 2 caught my eye. I guess the topics that they were covering on their front page coincides with what i wanna do... designing a blog interface for this new blog of mine as well for my school's cca website... and the magazines also covers on tips to better photography...

The lens on the other hand.. they allow me to zoom ard 4 -5 times and it comes with an additional macro function which is quite useful.. in all. its like a 2 in 1 kind of lens.. quite worth it i guess.. (or so i think).

total expenditure for the day.. $270 . chui.

Only one external flash unit, a tripod and a teleconverter to go~!
dats like
$500 + $150 + $600 = $1250 more to go.. arugh.

WooOPeeEEe New Lens

One more day till i get this! Hope all things will go smoothly and that the seller dun tua me or sell me a lemon (a spoilt product)

muahhahHAhha.. i'm going to have fun at the camps and penang.

Catch up - the month of June.

Some updates for the month of June.... its going to be long so i better do them in batches...

For a large part of the month of June, we've been training intensively for the PM Cup at the end of the month. We've been having double water sessions on tues and thurs, land training in school on wednesdays and also the usual weekend sessions on sat and sun mornings. But besides all this training, other key events dotted my june calendar as well.... Zhili's wedding, EID presentation day, my first NS High Key ICT and finally PM CUP 2008.

Zhili's Wedding.. 080608

The majority of the team were invited for Zhili's wedding dinner on the 8th of June (080608... wat an auspicious date)... May they be blissfully married till the end of time...

It's nice to see the video collages specially made for him and his wife Wenli... showing how they met, childhood pictures and also what happened during the actual wedding day with the tea ceremony... The most notable part was how Zhili and his batch of brothers got 'tekan' that resulted in a bald strip on Yibei's usually hairy legs. The part where they got together to form a dragon and did a dance was also quite funny..

EID Presentation Day.. 090608

Finally, after 5 weeks of slogging, it is the annual EID presentation Day!

Well, not exactly slogging but i feel that 5 weeks to manufacture something of some quality is not an easy task. We burnt 2 weeks to learn all the necessary skills - auto cad, report writing, business finance forecasting. machining, programming..etc.. then we are left with another 2 to produce an actual product thats worth marketing.

I guess although i did most of the presentation slides as well as the business report... i was still quite shakey when it came to my turn to do the presentation. Well.. anyway, we managed to clinch a 3rd place in our "Safety and the Environment Category"... a lil disappointed cos i was expecting at least a 2nd though. A good thing on the other hand was that for EID, all the dragonboaters were in winning groups ... Enyu, Jinhan, Meiyan both won 1st in their category, Gary's group got 2nd price as well. Kudos to all.. hahha. I guess at the end of the day, this whole EID project thing is quite a meaningful learning experience for everyone since they are able to come up with something that is workable and beneficial to the society...

Reservice - My first NS ICT High Key.. 160608-270608

Army sucks, and no doubt about it. Just 2 weeks before the PM Cup race, just when the training is reaching its peak, where key strategies are discussed and rehearsed over and over again... i have to return to that lousy place called Sungei Gedong Camp. How i dread it, clearly because it has robbed me with the chance of attending the last few crucial training sessions and threaten to take away my seat in main PM CUP race boat.

This ICT or reservice as most people call it happens to be my first in camp. Thankfully, i'm in the same battalion/unit as my friends in my NSF days so i have the comfort and the company of my friends during the dreadful 12 days in-camp. I guess i'm quite lucky as initially i was placed until 'C' Company in my battalion, but through Dexiang and Welson.. my officers' help, i was transferred back to my 'home land' the S2 branch. Heng ah... Lesser chiong shua...

However, i was too happy too soon. On the second day itself, me, Jianhao and Lineng, one of my friends, were transferred to 'B' Coy to become vehicle commanders for the M113s under CO's orders. For this ICT, there were alot of people who had deferred (mmm.. i wonder why couldn't i defer this ict too.. i submitted an appeal twice and both were rejected...) and hence, the Coy lines were short of VCs, so the 3 of us have to help up a lil... also CO also thought that it was good for us to experience some front line fighting.... sianz.

Besides helping up the company for the company missions, we also have to participate in vehicle weapon live firing. For a person like me who has never participated in ATEC and also the company battle group missions.. this experience was actually quite fun. Armour Ops can actually be quite deadly if the commanding officer can coordinate all his dismounted troops along with the vehicles to attack key objectives at the same time. However, half the time this can't be achieved though due to the half - assed radio/ signal system we have... On one occassion, my officer friend Darius, who was in charge of leading the vehicles for the exercise kept replying the 'B' Coy OC "24 send" but his OC just couldn't hear his response and went on to call him over 15 mins...zzz

Putting the boring army ops and exercise part aside, i quite enjoyed myself catching up with my friends from the GS branches back in those NSF days- Daniel, Dezhi, Jinglun, Jianhao, Lineng, Tian En, Kelvin, Jie Lun, Jian Wei, Dexiang, Welson and Chong Hian. Took some pictures with Jinglun as well.. who happen to be one of the remaining 5 and last male contestant in the Taiwanese 'Avenue of Stars' singing competition. Hope he stay a little longer in the competition and be one step closer to his dream of cutting an album and be a big star.. he's halfway to his dream already... I also hope he stops being so cock. lol.. Had a fun time with him together with Jianhao and Lineng during the vehicle weapon range. We played 'guessing numbers', a popular drinking game at pubs. Jinglun ended up losing to me and Jianhao... drinking 2 whole waterbottles of water. haha..

I guess, with good company, tough times will always be easier to get by with... I'm looking forward to my next ICT so i can spend time with them again.

PM CUP 2008.. 280608-290608

The final and most important dragonboat event in the whole entire dragonboat work year for us is finally here. Booking out on just the day before, i didn't feel as confident as i ought to be since i haven't been rowing actively or working out like my teammates for the past 2 weeks... my fitness would more or less dipped a little.. i hope it wouldn't be much though. I was also ready to give up my seat to someone else more suitable...anytime Ah Hee orders it... considering my condition. WE just gotta win no matter what... team before self.

The first day was good, we qualified with good timings for all the heats, giving us a chance to give it a shot at winning a medal on the second day. Came second day, we went on to win the IVP Mixed, IVP Men's and the Pm Cup! I guess even though all the teams out there trained very hard for this race and all of them deserved to win, it was our desire and what happened throughout the past year that spur us on to be the eventual winners.

Its been an eventful year... Losing the cup last year by a 0.1 sec difference, it was enough to send the team reeling and hungry to make a comeback and produce better and more consistent sets. Something we failed to achieved the previous year. At the start of the 07/08 work year, we continued to crash out of our competitions... either by not being able to perform that one elusive set or by sheer unluckiness like in River Regatta where we got knocked out of the competition just because another boat in another lane collided into our boat...

then came the dreadful news in Nov 2008.. of Boon San and Stephen being caught in that sad incident in Cambodia... it affected all of us greatly...till this day, we still miss the 2 of them dearly and couldn't believe that they are gone... many of us swore that we would win the coming PM Cup in their name b'cos they weren't able to in their last year with us, the previous PM Cup race.
Things only started to look better for us in MR500 where we won our first golden 'bottle cap' (as what my dad and grandma called a medal in teochew).. i guess all the hard work and Ah Hee's coaching has started to pay off..

With this year's trophy, i guess it ends the medal drought that started when i was year one. It has given our team greater confidence that we can do it... but this coming year will be a new challenge for us. Those that remain in the team have big shoes to filled.. those left by the graduating batch -the super seniors Zhili, Vincent, Colin, Yibei, Soon Cai and Edward... all 'Kings' in one physical aspect or another. We have to work harder to fill in these gaps and improve further. I also believe that our respected rival, NUS will rise up to the occassion and contend with us for the coveted Cup once again next year way way stronger. They are a good team.