Finally have the time,,,

I finally have the time to update the blog after 2 weeks. I actually booked out last Saturday afternoon, but I had to settle so much logistics that I was too tired and didn't bother to update the blog.

I booked out at 12noon today, everyone suddenly went into a high mood today after 1 week of non-stop PT and marching. Many of the trainees were asking themselves 'Why am I posted here?!', this is how tough NDU BMT is. It is during BMT when the selection of divers starts. We sleep for at most 4 hours every day, and it is continual activities day in day out - running in Smart 4, swimming with coveralls and doing pushups everyday. We probably clock about 200 pushups daily. The instructors say by the end of BMT, you'll be immune to pushups and can do 100 of them continuously with ease.
Trainees in Tekong say certain companies are trained by ex-Commandos, but here in NDU, we're trained by naval divers, people who have gone through the scary Hell week. I've been able to handle the first two weeks thus far, the third week awaits me...

Enlistment...

I'll be enlisted to NDU tomorrow at 8am. I'll probably have the first bookout on 27th April evening, hopefully. :D See everyone then!

Class gathering & trip to M'sia

Doreen and I co-organized a class gathering last Friday, and it was a great success. For the first time, so many people turned up for a S6a gathering - about half the class. It was still a pity the others didn't turn up - some couldn't make it, some didn't want to come. We had dinner at Marina's 'Changing Appetites'. One thing about western restaurants is that they don't have large round tables, thus we ended up sitting in a long row, everyone getting to chat with at most 5-6 people only, the others are 'out of range'. We probably should've went to Crystal Jade instead, next time maybe. Later on, we went to the arcade. It was really great meeting them again, I've not met some of them since the release of A level results. I think among those who came, Eeling changed the most. Her appearance has become much more pleasant and appealing, she'll definitely look much better after removing her braces. The girls put on more makeup than before, and dress alot better. I guess they have more time for shopping already. Lester's still as crappy, maybe crappier.


My family and I went to Kuala Lumpur during the Easter weekend for the Qingming festival. My relatives on my Dad's side all live in Malaysia. It's the first time I've been to a cemetery, it was *huge*. The experience was really an eye-opener for me, I got to learn the procedures for praying and saw the different graves. There were a few which had 3 graves joined together, at first I thought it was probably the parents with the child, but it was actually a man with 2 wives.

It also happened to be the Malaysian leg of the F1 Grand Prix that weekend. There was a huge buzz in Kuala Lumpur, the hotel I stayed in was very crowded, mostly F1 fans. The Sepang race track is just an hour's drive from KL. I guess it'll be the same scenario when Singapore hosts the F1 race in the future.

Really last day of work...

It was my *real* last day at work yesterday. Everything went extremely well yesterday, my sales was twice the usual amount and a VVIP visited the hotel. A Mexican couple was interested in the feather bed and pillows. The sales from this alone was about one grand. But as they wanted to ship the items back to Mexico, courier charges alone amounted to about $900. My shift was over before the sales was closed, so I wasn't sure if they bought it. But it was fun talking and helping this couple as they were really friendly.
The VIP who came was an board executive of the entire hotel group. The GM and Directors of the hotel all appeared together for the first time in my 4 months of work, to entertain the VIP guest.
The scene was refreshing and fun, seeing managers running around to get things going. The hotel even did a major cleanup and repaint a few days leading up to his arrival. Nothing of such happened even when the Prince of Arab visited last year, it really showed how important this VIP was.
After my shift, I bid farewell to all my friends, from the supervisor to the employees of cake kiosk, and even the cleaner auntie. The supervisor even invited me for dinner at the hotel restaurant when during my time-off from NS. I'll definitely grab the opportunity! :D


For the past few weeks, I've been weighing my options for varsity education. I've applied to NUS and NTU, and will probably get a reply in May. The option that I've the least knowledge about is overseas education. None of my friends are considering going overseas, and there aren't any talks by overseas universities going on at the moment. By the time I enlist, I'll have no time to attend talks. I've browsed through the various UK, US and Australian universities' websites, and looked for information from online forums. The cost of studying in UK or US adds up to almost S$250,000, and about S$150,000 for Australia. I've narrowed down my scope to U of Toronto, U of Sydney and U of South California, both of which have Aerospace engineering courses and do not require SAT for entry. I'd have many more options open to me had I taken SAT, really regret now. I'll definitely try find time off from NS to attempt this test, but it's very difficult to schedule anything right now without prior knowledge of the time schedules. Thus I cannot do anything but to let time pass...

Clubbing and movies

I went clubbing at Zouk last Friday. It was my first time and it was a great experience. The music was too loud to have any conversation though, so we just drank and danced. Everywhere you looked, there'd be pretty girls in sight, haha. Even my friends who don't usually dress nicely, dressed to look great that day. There were also other groups of NYJCians there, I think from S5B and some other classes. This girl from S5B came over to join our group for a while, and I think she was really pretty. But didn't get the chance to talk much, we could barely hear each other... Argh. We left at around 3am, Kelvin and I shared a cab home.

During the past week, I've watched two really great movies, both of which are based on real-life stories - Pursuit of Happyness and Freedom Writers. Freedom Writers made many people in the audience cry, it was the second movie that made me sob after I Not Stupid Too. I'd probably watch it again if I get the chance.