*stares blankly into space* *thinks* *thinks*

Grrrr, its mid-jan and wheres my Siemens SX1?

But hey, my mum got my room a new wind chime… coolz.. *poke* *poke* *poke*

Some starhub promotor, Mr Low called on the phone to promote their maxonline 1500. Though I usally adopt the thank-you-anyway-slam-down-the-phone-technique I just decided to talk as I was quite “free” (boliao) atfer that I did find some interest in his promotion. Considering that I am paying about $57 a month for 256kpb unlimited connection a month on singnet, 1500 offers 1500kps @ $58 all the way a month. Though i may consider lags due to shared bandwidth.. etc its one offers which I could consider with any one of the free promotional gifts: A 14″ Thomspon TV and dvd player, Xbox or cable modem installation.

The xbox one was like a “wah?” when he mentioned free… I already have a DVD player and who would be dumb enough to go for the free cabe modem installation costing only 90 bucks? the xbox offer is a good deal. Mmmm could consider could consider…. than maybe I would downgrade my singnet account to a $10/mth just to keep my old e-mail address.

And so it ends… the tedious 6 day nitemare.

Didn’t really get much sleep over the past week due to missions and planning. Duh, looking back I found out so matter how tried you may get, moving around and marching will tend to keep you very much awake in the night and once its naturally day, you won’t feel like sleeping not to mention the extreme “diets” and rations which can put you from going to the toilet for 5 free days of shitting! You not only sweat out most of your water even of you drink like hell, you hardly pass out an liquid waste at all (even of you do its yellower than poster colour on water). All in hand, it was 6 days of hell with very very repetitive but manageable missions. Glad it was all over now.

*Dum de dum*

Managed to get one guitar playing and experiementation today, pushing the amplifer settings gain (distortion on) to bout 6, mid -1, reverb nil, bass maxed and treble -2 will produce a good acoustic tone on the bass strings while strumming on the other 5 strings will bring out the heavy metal riff-like-distortion. Think I am getting a rythm somewhere, hopefully I can find time to perfect the intro and chorus of the song, finish it with a direct silent recording into my pc.

*Looks at my 1/35 Patlabor series Type-J9 Griffon Labor mecha model kit*

Met up with another platoonmate Chonggen later who got his driver to ferry him to meet us around plaza singapura then finally Sunshine plaza at selegi for the anime and manga- a shopping place he always reco.

The place is not only filled with anime DVDs and manga, but my fav model kits as well. Being a Patlabor fan, I got the Mobile police New OVA DVD series ($45) and a Patlabor 1/35 type-J9 Griffon master grade mecha kit (72 bucks), had been looking all around Singapore for that kit sometime and I am glad I finally come across a store which actually sells it.

When we all done and spent with the day of shopping, (so hey and payday IS TODAY anyway) dropped by parklane shopping center for 2 matches of team based C&C Generals matches (Match 1. 3xNormal comp and match 2. 2xNomral + 1XHard comp) at one of the many lan shops there. When all done around 6.30pm its time to call it a day while everybody go off for their individual dinner appointments. I have a dinner appointment with my family at great world city, but they are coming down to fetch me over at Selegi, so I pretty much wandered and explored parklane while waiting for them to arrive. Its quite interesting to know that such an old shopping center can actually be so popular with youngsters in the area. Locked onto 2 music stores there where I got a Proel, Italy guitar stand at $30 bucks there. My next item o get would be a tuner, but thats a job for some other day…

I ended up having dinner at some Rex restaurant around there vicinity. Even if we order al-carte, the bill didn’t cost much a bomb as I expected it to be- $40. Continued with my family to visit my grandmother’s place for the night before heading home for some much needed rest.

And Darryl is bugging me to drop by BB driving center for my basic theory test (BTT) evaluation tomorrow.. dang, partly because he wants to take the BTT with me on the 30th this month, but I am just too lazy to study my highwaycode for it…

Admin-wise, the course is coming to an end. And the usual feeling of returning stores is very much of a deja-vu for me. The happy part comes when we all as a platoon can it tops and an accomplishment, another step in NS life (which also marks an end of “a suffering phrase too”) but sadly too the departure as we course mates break back to our individual units, usually from experience, its usually quite difficult to get back together again being in separate units, with the exception of few lucky ones…

On all tests passed on first attempt all so far so good, which surfaced more headaches for me. Why? heres the story:

There had been a lot of talk going on lately on whos getting the best trainee award. Personally, my OC and even my CO came personally to give us trainees a good and motivation prep talk before the commence of last week’s exercises. One thing I noted (within the platoon) is them highlighting telling us on pushing for the best and getting what ever opportunities we have- if you work towards it. Don’t do so and you will most probably regret next time. I had been a selected as a potential best candidate in this category. Though I personally feel that (and I had not gotten such an award before) its an honor to actually get hold of that award, they glory, fame recognition and stuffs.. *duh* but all these are superficial and I feel that there is more which meets the eye…

why?

This could mean a possible big decision for me and change in my period of active serving in NS. Why? though I always long to be an officer in BMT, my perspective changed largely when I went though specialist training in Sispec and entered my unit and I am happy as what I am in now (so why am I grumbling bout this?). Well, the best trainee in my course currently have the ability to be transferred to the officer cadet school for specialised training. And opportunity I wanted to grab few months back but shunned presently now. If I accept the offer, that could mean a whole new start for me, a whole new path and area to explore in the army. But too, at the possible expense of leaving my unit and old platoon mates behind…

How can I ever forget them? I must really commend on my platoonmates support, they had been rather up lately, pushing for me to fight against other units within the course for the best trainee position. I feel that that without their support I wouldn’t have came this far. I must do something to repay them someday, even if I didn’t come out tops.

Though I can choose to reject the offer and return back to my unit and platoon as a whole and continue life from there, I guess that would be one of the dumbest thing I could do as not everybody will ever get such a a chance in life, not to mention putting everybody in disappointment and their efforts into the drain. Its just one of the choices one will face in life, not to mention the increased load and responsibly one may get as a commissioned officer.

Oh well *sighs*

Looking back, sometimes I think I think too much, counting the chickens before they are hatched. the best trainee had not been finalised yet and theres still one more week left in course when the decision would be actually made. But its good to come prepared and not make rash decisions later on. Oh well, I am looking forward to the graduation next week, hope all goes well for the final last week.

~