Sometimes a smile means more than a dozen roses

Sunday, April 26, 2009

♥ 2:51 AM

totally caught unaware and by surprise! wasn't prepared by this sudden event. monday 6 of us including me were called into the discussion room for a planning briefing. the moment my name was mentioned, i knew it..something i hate most!!

this whole week was pbh week and is straight after a tiring outfield! practically everyday did not have enough rest working all the way to 11 - 12 plus and getting up early to start touching up the plans here and there.

basically i just hate doing all this planning. because firstly is super boring having to sit there and dunno wad are they talking abt, 2ndly there will always be ppl breathing down your neck waiting to pounce on you when you cannot deliver the stuffs on time.

super glad that is the end of pbh and back to normal life next week unless they spring another surprise. was so tired took monday morning off so i can really rest up before heading back to camp in the afternoon to prepare for guard duty.

on thursday because finished my stuffs early decide to sacrifice some sleep time to catch this show before my friend delete it. wanted to catch it but did not. some of my bunk mates that caught this show kept on raving that is quite a good show. indeed quite a nice show did not waste my 2hrs.

spend most of time at home. spend the late afternoon and evening exercising. went cycling with ch to burn some calories. been a very long time since we went cycling.

the night smell so sweet with manchester united blitz passs tottenham with 5 2nd half goals. vintage display. the championship is going to retain in manchester united trophy cabinet!!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

♥ 8:21 PM

finally exercise over. prior before tuesday exercise i wanted to slp real early because i had a tough time sleeping on sunday. someone called me at 4.20am caused me to toss and turned on my bed.

little would i know while i was at branch trying to finish up my previous work my major gave me new work to do. in the end stayed in branch till 12 plus trying to finish up. had very little rest because the next day had to wake up early to prep my vehicle.

boy was it a hot day on tuesday and that is not the worst..when most of the bronco had made their way to the exercise ground i was out at the parade square under the hot sun changing battery because the signaller forgotten to switch off the master switch. as a result i was sweating like mad even before the exercise started.

injure my fingers while changing the battery. but the good thing is i only joined them in the afternoon and i managed to get a quick bath. upon reaching the site, had a quick lunch, rest up for a little while before heading off for navigation exercise.

seriously by the end of the first day i was super tired. moved out at 5 plus with not much instructions. drove ard trying to find out own way to the final destination which is on the other end of the map. initially is was really quite fun trying to navigate ourself to the place. but as we drove longer and "holland" in all the different place the enthusiasm slowly turned to a painful agony.

along the way saw some of the new areas. frankly is quite fun getting lost and trying to find our own way to the final destination. but driving 5-6 hours straight is no joke no fun. plus got to eat alot of sand, bronco is stuffy and you lose your focus and concentration as the hours dragged by. in the end we were saved by one of the LTA. did not managed to consumed dinner because we only reach the place at 10 plus. nice excuse when the conducting blamed it on the vehicle commander which i think is a total rubbish.

next we had to convoy back to original site which took us another 2 hour plus. on the way back i was kindda feeling a bit of car sick. crazy day by the time we get to go and rest was already nearing 1 and had to wake up at 6.30 to consume breakfast. seriously bmt is much better than this because you get to have at least 6 hours/7 hours of rest.

thank God i got a fantastic vehicle commander. a sergeant from another branch whom i know. very nice guy. made the whole exercise quite pleasant with no much trouble.

2nd day we had to move out to another place. because of the rain i guess we move out later for navigation exercise. previous night we were promised that no more navex. but because the conducting screw things up we had to do it again.

this time i am pair with a 2nd LTA. thank God even though i really fair super badly at reading maps but i made it up with trying to remember all the routes that we took the previous night. 2nd day route was different but first part of the route i was given and trusted solely to bring us there safely before he took over the middle part and leaving the final part to me. guess i impressed him as he suggested he want to partner me again for the night navex which did not happened.

practically 2nd day quite slack because upon reaching the site did nothing much because commander were having meeting. at night i was asked to do guard duty. sigh had my slp disrupted once again as i was badly lacking of sleep.

3rd day which is also the final day had to convoy out with some vehicle for a tactical exercise. cannot believe it lor. i did not know it was a tactical ex only thought that need to drive and chop chop reach the place. i was wrong! about 30 - 45 mins into the journey saw one person exiting the bronco to throw up. soon we had to do a tactical halt for 2 hours in the middle of nowhere. sigh..tiring day.

finished the exercise in time for lunch before learning how to set up tech cp. alot of things to do. that palce full of mosquitos. in the end i ended up as the champion for killing 10 mosquitos. during evening we moved out to go and washed the vehicle.

cannot believe it had to wash the vehicle overnight from 8pm to 8am. sigh i have nth much to say. jus glad that the exercise had ended and looking forward to finish another exercise next month before i can safely kiss goodbye to local exercise for the year and just prepare for year end oversea exercise.

went for make up cg on friday. was late for half an hour because had to stay back in office to finish up my work for my major. thought i need to OT for hours. really thank God that my senior actually accompany me and helped me with my work. very touched by his gesture because that day we did not have lunch, lack of slp and usually he will booked out fast because he need to meet his gf. but he actually sacrificed everything accompany me.

finally my parents decided and paid for the new car. changing the harrier for nissan murano a 3.3litre car. don really see why we need another huge car for wad. but well i have no say as long as my parents happy ok already since i also don't fork out a single cent. but quite glad that my parents got me to participate in the decision making. i was quite reluctant to go for test drive that day because my wrist was hurting badly and my feet after outfield was bleeding. but my dad want me to go do the test drive and give my 1 cent worth of comment so i had not much choice but go with them.

at least i can say this car is definately much better than the harrier. nt that i got alot of chances to drive it. after which go see the necessary docs. let down ch alot because planned some stuffs with him but because i nv get back to him he was frustrated. got to change in this area.

don feel like going back camp because tmrw is another busy day. got alot of unfinish work that need to be finish asap. guess i gonna try to apply off on friday.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

♥ 10:40 PM

cannot believe it lor..got a call from my bro at australia. ever since i checked out that apple product in australia is so much cheaper than singapore i have been asking him to help me get a 32gb itouch which cost aussie 548 dollar. so when he told me that he was at this particular departmental store and apple is offering a 10% discount i pounced on the chance and got him to get it for me immediately.

got it for slightly less than aussie 500 dollar. abt 100 plus cheaper compared to singapore. it was an astute purchase. although i still got to wait till june before he comes back but is definately a great buy.

spend the late afternoon going out with my mom at orchard area.

caught shinjuku incident. wanted to catch this show for some time but my family could not find any time to watch until today. spend some quality mother son time together.

as usual we got to talk to one another intimately with no barrier over dinner at sushi tei. usually we would not talk much or go into details with regards to our future and life. so i really love spending time like this.

probably tmrw gonna go to tamp shop with my mom before heading down to the new mall at tamp.

Friday, April 10, 2009

♥ 11:34 PM

originally i was supposed to have guard duty on monday but decided to change with someone else because i was simply too tired. did guard duty on tuesday instead. during all the guard rest about 80% of the time i was actually watching these shows.

just saw the papers that this movie is out on sneak preview. quite a nice movie at least better than killshot. liam neeson sounded so cool when he made the above statement. a movie worthy to watch.

well street kings i can't say it is a very nice movie but it does have an unexpected ending.

final movie for the day was kung fu panda. quite a so so movie. well initially wanted to catch wall.e but the whole movie is like watching silent movie. i have no idea whether is there dialogue but anyway after 11 mins i was totally turned off.

naturally i was super tired on wed. but i dunno wad kept me going the whole day because i was so busy and i did not really complain much.

caught this movie yesterday evening at the new mall in bugis with ch. this movie is not very fantastic but both of us went to catch it purely for the cars. at least is worth $6 and not the norm $10. filmgarde cinema actually quite not so bad and in my opinion much better than gv. spend the rest of the night out with him and catching up.

because i rebooted my com, spend yesterday night doing up my com. finally is abt 90% completed. woke up early to cont doing it and also because i did not wanted to go for lunch at my aunt house i had to go and help out with opening the shop. no complains here.

served today. i think by far today is one of the most challenging service. first service i had prob dealing with the new config on director board and trying to register it in my mind. i think first svc kindda screw it up but thank God that 2nd svc went by smoothly.

can't wait for ftx to be over next week and book out.

thank God that as of today i have cleared my building fund. now i can focused on paying off my dad and at the same time save up and invest on something else.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

♥ 10:08 PM

this morning woke up very early. don have much idea why nowaday during the weekend will wake up so early. probably gotten use to army lifestyle. well do my usual stuffs by reading the papers the first thing in the morning before having lunch.

got a surprise from my mom that my dad wanted to go and look at some suv. practically spend the half a day at various show rooms.

went to volkswagon first to take a look at their tiguan (if i nv remember wrongly). the 2.4litre car look spacious but the price don't seem to fit in the budget cause it cost a whooping i think close to $200,000. spend quite some time there without even test driving the vehicle because my parents did not fancy it.

move over to kah motors to take a look at honda crv which cost $102,000. my dad had initially wanted to get this suv. first time go for a test drive. is just normal driving to me. but i must admit one thing though my first visit to all these show room really enlighten me as well as give me more knowledge abt cars. i thought my dad wanted to buy this car already but than decide to view more cars before making his final decision.

went over to borneo motor next.

above is the new lexus rx350 which was launched in singapore mid feb this year. looked at the interior!! this delightful piece of art cost $156,ooo.

this is the old lexus rx400 hybrid which cost at a cut price of $146,000. because the new lexus rx450 hybrid will be launching this may the old model is going at a cheap price which seem to lure alot of potential buyer. however the interior is 95% similar to my current toyota harrier.

have yet to take a look at the new hybrid but i think my dad will be going down for the launch next month and it cost $178,000. the new hybrid is 95% like the 2009 rx350 but performance wise much better.

managed to get a test drive on both vehicle. for the first time i get to know more abt hybrid car and non-hybrid. no doubt hybrid cars have more punch and power plus the added bonus is it is more pro fuel saving consumption. after test driving both vehicle i have totally condemn parallel import cars. although it is much cheaper compare to the original model but it definately lose out in terms of stability.

both lexus rx have better stability and definately the comfort level is up there to high end cars. a whole different dimension. like what my parents said yi fen qian yi fen huo. a total different class. if a original model is place with a parallel import the parallel import fail with comparison.

next we went to audi show room. my current favourite brand.

this is the new audi Q5. this exquisite piece of beauty cost $167,000. although we did not physically seen this car yet as it has yet to reach singapore and its launching date is in 20 days. the things they give for this car is definately better than lexus.

we initially head down to audi show room because i wanted to test drive audi r8. ok i am kidding. i think those sales executive would not even allow my finger print to stain the car. i wanted to do a test drive on the audi tt thats the reason why we headed to audi show room.

upon reaching there we decided to inquire more abt the new audi Q5. Q5 is quite similar to lexus rx. but is definately cheaper. 2 litres suv road tax each year cost 1.1k and is pro fuel saving.

at the end did not get to test drive audi tt but my dad say we will go do a test drive when Q5 is launch in singapore. don't think i will ever lay my hand on a audi tt yet but there is not much of a harm test driving one.

although we did not get any of the above mentioned suv because my dad is still pondering which to get. but i have learnt alot from today field trip. learning abt omv, parf, so many abt cars a knowledge that will last me for very long. i am quite positive that now honda crv is definately out of the equation because another $40k - $70k would get a much better suv which not only guarantee better performance but also top class comfort.

most likely is just a battle btw lexus and audi for my dad right now.

the pic above i think is something call lance guard. i've been selected as one of the 5 to represent armour unit to be a lance guard for the national day parade. there is a final round of selection to go next week but i think i will just fail the selection.

being a lance guard probably is quite an honor but the amount of time one burn on a sat is not a laughing matter even though they will give you off but i think is still not very worth it. now i must try harder to failed the final selection since my first attempt did not work.

hopefully i don't change my mind or anything about this matter.

Friday, April 03, 2009

♥ 9:18 PM

caught killshot during guard rest which will be hitting the cinema in mid june if i nv remember wrongly. spend another quality time with my camp mates doing our favourite pass time. the movie is just so so not a very fantastic movie and definately not worth wasting money catching in the cinema.

real glad that guard duty for this month is just 2 points!!! i cannot believe it! 2 weekday guard duty only for this month. hopefully this will continue throughout my army life. this is the ONLY good thing that my brigade csm has done so far.

i think is really a dumb thing to revoke guard rest because as usual i was super tired after a night of guard duty. did not really had much strength to last the whole day at the workshop to do my vehicles. thanksfully the ic was in a gd mood we had the afternoon to rest and relax.

evening during nights out went to catch this chick flick with my branch sgt. he is a really very nice guy. always out of the blue buy me honey red bubble tea. this time round he even treated me to this movie which i promised him last week to catch it but got to go home to get some stuffs for the turnout drill.

this movie is by far one of the better movie. even though is a chick flick but it is packed with laughter. a recommanded movie.

wed caught this movie because my friend wanted to catch this horror movie decide to go and watched together with them since i promised him earlier. this movie not so bad but nt very scary although there are some scene where my hairs would be standing. was actually very tired wanted to slp early to really recurperate and to cure the tiredness that linger since monday. in the end, after finishing a game of scrabble a game that we are very hook on at the moment went to catch this movie. think i did fairly well this time.

thursday i was pulled into discussion room. before the meeting, i was officially announced as the new guy that will take over and handling the brigade fund in future. so right now i am juggling dual role in camp. being a combat driver and also a finance guy. when this decision was announced to my direct superior he was stunned.

i believed that i was pulled into the discussion room because he have more or less already target me to be the next ic. he was obviously not being consulted and therefore he was stunned. not that i have a choice to make. but if possible i wouldn't mind playing 3 roles being a combat driver cum driver IC cum finance side. but look like i won't be able to be the vehicle/driver oic.

after discussion, my branch major whom we call S4 surprised us with desserts. something that is very very uncommon. what i feel is that because we have a couple of exercises coming up and the next 2 months will be very very busy for us thats why he want to treat us and in a way prep us for these 2 months. well again is jus my assumption. feel so bless in brigade.

probably today when my parents come home maybe tempt them to go catch the new jackie chan's show.

found out that apple stuffs in australia is slightly cheaper as compared to singapore. gonna get my itouch soon instead of my propose plan since the economy is slowly showing signs of recovery. must strike while the market is still in a limbo and the exchange rate is still low.

was out with my dad to collect the bicycle last sat when he mention abt going for a test drive. i can't remember the honda model. if is possible probably tmrw gonna go test drive if he has yet to go. gonna do some morning exercises as well. hopefully no recall back to camp. jus wanna take a gd rest before going back to camp on monday to start my first guard duty of the month.