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.. 080608The 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...
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.
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