Mixed Feelings ...

Well, just wanna blog my last entry before I leave for SAFTI Military Institute in an hour's time. I felt happy for many of my friends who made it for SISPEC. And well, I'm having some kind of mixed feelings right now. Nervous? Excited? Sad?

Well well... Hmmm... After a long week's rest, guess it's time for my muscles and brains to work again. Gonna prepare myself well for the 3 weeks confinement. New environment, new poeple that I'm gonna meet. Loved ones that I'm gonna miss very much.. Sigh..

See you guys in 3 wks time. Take care yea? And yup, pls do keep me in prayer. Thanks =)

The revolutionized Bao

Was looking through forums on food earlier on and came across this new kind of Baoz out in the market. Sort of similiar to dunkin' donuts style, pretty interesting. Check it out:
http://eatandtrain.blogspot.com/2007/09/mr-baoz-e-revolutionized-bao.html

Short trip to Muay/ Sept 16, an auspicious day?

Went for a short trip to Muay, Malaysia ytd with my family for a short trip to spend time with them and to relax myself after 3 months of "suffering" in Tekong... haha. No shopping involved this trip, compared to the usual trip that I went before with the same agent. But boy, sure I had an interesting experience throughout the trip.

Spend some solitude time with the Lord on the bus while the rest went down to the temple on our first destination. After which we had lunch and some funny incident happened due to a wedding lunch taking place in the restuarant.

After lunch, they went deep into a village for some poker card reading. Not wanting to join them, I equipped myself with my camera and decided to explore around for the 3 hours waiting time. This probably is the most fruitful takeaway from my trip over there. After reading up with what I can do with my camera, I finally understand what my camera is capable of doing and really appreciate it very much.

Ever seen such round mangoes?

Hmmm not sure if its a woodpecker or a humming bird on top of a TV cable pole - artistic shot?

Kids trying to "fish" Jambu fruits from nearby tree

Kids having fun along the village

Another artistic shot?

Testing the capability of my camera - Close-up of a red dragonfly

What about this yellow dragonfly? Any close to National Geographic or Animal Planet standard's?

Miss some old kampung village?

Went for dinner after that and I realized that many couples were getting married ytd. Besides the wedding lunch, saw a bridal car passing by at the village and at the restuarant where we had our dinner, there held 4 wedding dinners simultaneously at different function rooms. We even shared and used 1/4 of the last function room that held a wedding function. Interestingly, we helped to clap our hands to welcome the bride and groom when they suddenly walked into the room. Compared to their wedding dinner, what we have here in SG is so luxurous, bride and groom walking in with fanfare entries in big hotels with many tables of guests. Over there, they just simply play a mandrain love duet song over the KTV system and the bride and groom just walk into the room to their VIP table and everyone just sit down and carry on doing their own stuffs. According to my mum, for them in Muay, to be able to hold their wedding dinner in a restuarant is a luxury for them already. Interesting isn't it? Is 16 of Sept an auspicious day?

Another interesting factor during the trip was that I managed to finish reading a book entitled, Tuesdays with Morrie - An old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson. Tuesdays with Morrie is a very interesting colleage final thesis of a US journalist, Mitch Albom with his Professor, Morrie Schwartz in a storybook form, about how to live life and life's greatest lesson when both of them rekindled their relationship in the last month's of Morrie's life. Mitch visits Morrie in his apartment every Tuesday and talked about different topics in life, thus naming this book - Tuesdays with Morrie, which is US No. 1 bestseller.

The content is so good that I've learnt so much lesson about life from it. As the book is coming to an end with Prof Morrie's death. I suddenly felt a surge of sadness growing in me and left me pondering much about the things I had read in the book. I felt there are so many things to be done in life, everything that is written in the book, is so in-line with what we learned in church today. Culture, money, love and etc ...

Here are some snippets from the book to share with you guys:

Morrie's Aphorisms:
- "Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do"
- "Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it"

- "Learn to forgive yourself and forgive others"

- "Don't assume that its too late to get involved"

"Dying ... is only one thing to be sad over ... Living unhappily is something else ... the culture that we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own"

About the world ~

"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. ... Let it come in. We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in, we'll become too soft. But a wise man name Levine said it right. He said, 'Love is the only rational act.'"

About feeling sorry for yourself ~
"I ask Morrie if he felt sorry for himself. 'Sometimes in the mornings', he said. 'That's when I mourn. I feel around my body, I move my fingers and hands - whatever I can still move - and I mourn what I've lost. I mourn the slow, insidious way in which I'm dying. But then I stop mourning. 'Just like that?' 'I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things in my life.' '"

"Mitch, I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears and that's all. "

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Adams

"Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning when I wake up, I am reborn." - Mahatma Gandhi

Tonardo thru Mac

Went for fei-lou-ship (fellowship) after church last Sat at Taka Mac. Dinner didn't went well while we are in the midst of it when the security guard of the departmental store came over to tell us that we have to finish up our dinner in 5 mins time and leave the place cos he need to lock up the place.

The thing is that we just bought our food from the Mac counter and settled down for our meals. We were pretty irritated by what happened because the guard told us that he need to chase us off cos he need to lock up the place by 9.30pm but it was already 9.50pm. If this is the case, then I think the staffs at Mac should stop taking dining-in orders by 9.15pm and not allowing us to order our food at 9.30pm and caused the ugly scenario to happen.

Nevertheless, we had a great time catching up with one another.

Curry sauces that we had, able to make a pot of curry

Food is here! Snatch it up everybody!!

Enjoying our food ...

The tonardo (caused by us) that had went past our table

POP LOH! ...

3 months ago I was still wondering how will my NS life be like.. Many tots filled my mind and soon in a blink of an eye, everything was over and I had successfully pass out from my BMT!

Vigorous exercises, field camp, sitest, Live rifle range, Live hand-grenade throw, shell-scrape digging, 24km route march, IPPT, SOC run-down, drill competition and etc ... Its all ended. Had our last lunch at Tekong with Nasi Lemak set. This reminded me of my first meal that I had when I first came over to Tekong, just that now my hair was shaved and I'm eating in my smartest 4 than to my civilian clothes, a combat-fitted soldier with all the necessary basic military knowledge than to one who's mind was filled with all the what's in-store for me.

Had many rehearsals to prepare ourselves for the passing out parade. When the actual parade come, things happened very fast and everyone seems to be in a rush to get out of the island. Didn't have much opportunity to go around taking photos with the others in the platoon as I was accompanying my mum cos she attended my parade alone. But still, managed to take a few of these ...

Putting on "Jockey Cap Ceremony" by my mum

Picture with my mum after she had put on my jockey cap for me

From left to right: Desmond, Sam, Shawn & Cyrus

Me and my buddy: Dean

3 months in Tekong had certainly passed by very fast, now I'm awaiting to know my posting and hoping for the best for the next phase of my life in NS.