Woke up at 11.30am today where mum had breakfast waiting for me. Obviously she had been waiting for me to wake up as we could check out the Australia university options there. Caught a cab from home to the center & before we know it we are already at the RELC building 1pm. Wendy was this nice counselor whom attended to us this non-profit organization known as the idp & was set up by the Australian education board providing for Singaporean students intending to study aboard. After some recommendations & brochures from universities in Melbourne, a generally good vicinity downunder. We manages to zero down to few engineering courses offered by Uni of Melbourne, Uni of New South Wales (UNSW) & Monash University. I always wanted to do a course which blends all my interests together- engineering mechanical, drawing/design & computers. Uni of Melbourne & UNSW both offer only either undergrad courses engineering OR design as seperate degrees with direct honours. Dang! Till we came about a double degree offer by Monash college- The Bachelor of Engineering/Bachelor of Design (Industrial Design). PERFECT! I would be consiering that, with a dip for 19months before starting undergrad studies. But total tuition fees cum accomdation would costs a gross $50k a month… drag.. well mroe research yet to come.

Had lunch at the building’s 2nd floor restaurant. It too small to be called a full restaurant, very much like a coffee house, offering set lunches for 6.50 very much a small family business, quite OK I say. Caught a cab to novena where I dropped mum off the MRT station due to the rain in the immediate area. Had the cab drop me off the skin center for my medical appointment. Both cab trips costs $5 each.. so saying the distance from home to RELC & RELC to novena is the same distance?

Took MRT from novena to orchard, wisma to collect my DVD player from the Sony service center. The players play fine now, but the damaged buttons are still kinda hard to press. But otherwise not much of a hinder. Window shopped around the area when it started raining. There are lots of DBS black card people offering umbrella sheltering for shoppers point to point arcoss the paragon juntion area in the rain. I won’t be amused if they ferry you to the DBS card kiosk & leave you stranded there with their promoting & branging. Got a shark wrist support & dolphin handphone holder from a sale in action city. PK is having tribes vengence with men of valour going for $49.90, thats 2-for-1 dudes.

Mum & dad brought back hongkong noodle for supper. yea!

Yesterday.. was a typical day where I could wake up get dressed in SBO & make my way to the SOC to cover safety in the morning for the platoon without consciously knowing it, just like sleepwalking or just say on “auto mode” where no brain power is needed to execute anything at all… even before my coffee at ATC. Evo is a new addition to our bunk now, a young 1 week old puppy who just learnt to walk. John found him around wing line & everyone in the platoon was a mystified & charmed by its cuteness & so they decided to keep it as a platoon pet. Les do they know that he’s such a good for nothing furball who yip yeps all the way into the night, very much allowing me to catch a glimpse of my alarm clock up to 4 times at regular intervals throughout the last night, cursing at each interval. We came to conclusion to stop him from sleeping too much in the day so that we would, at night & instead of Evo being a nocturnal yipper. Afternoon saw the night of nee soon camp, where our CPR course is held. We were taught on the steps of CPR & given situations to tackle. We were also taught how to save people from chokes using the Heimlich maneuver & chest thrusts. Practice & tests followed suit on Annie the dummy & we were all certifiled CPR trained, we even have a lifesavers card to keep. The platoon booked out from nee soon straight after the course, kinda one of the few moments where you can book out & head home in uniform. Razzy!

Heres some basic steps for anyone who wishes to learn about CPR, who knows anyone may encounter a situation when such a procedure is needed:

Shaun’s CPR 101
Upon approaching the victim, try to check his level of consciousnesses, if unconscious do the ABCs after calling for help/ambulance. Here are the 3 basic steps of ABC:

Airway must be clear!
1) Use thumb jaw lift (clear foreign objects from mouth)
2) Head tilt chin lift to clear airway (tongue may fall back)
Substeps (confirmation, shouldn’t take longer than 15 secs):
3) Look, listen, feel for breathing.
4) Give a ventilation (see breathing steps 2-4 below) to check for clear airway chest should rise, give 2nd ventilation to confirm airway clear.

If chest don’t rise, go back & start from step 2. If chest still don’t rise after 2nd try give 15 chest compressons (see circulation for steps & position below) 4-5cm deep above the sternum to force choked object out of airway proceed to step 1 to clear foreign object.

Breathing. Is there oxygen circulation?
1) Look, listen, feel for breathing.
2) Pinch victim’s nose & put a tight seal around mouth
3) Give a long deep blow (400-1000ml of air) into the mouth, chest should rise.
4) Release nose victim’s chest should deflate.
5) Do 2 sets (steps 2-3).

Circulation. Is there a pulse?
1) Check for circulation by placing your index & middle finger near the victim’s neck ridge/Adam apple at the side towards you to feel for the carotid pulse.
2) Place heel of one hand on lower part of victim’s sternum. With your other hand directly on top of first hand, interlock.
3) Compress downwards with arms straight, don’t bend, bounce
4) Compressions must go at 100bpm following, saying 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 10 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 15 to keep in the pace.

15 compressions should be done followed by 2 ventialtions thats considered 1 set, do 4 sets.

Situations, notes:
If theres pulse but no breathing, perform Rescue Breathing similar Breathing step 2-4. But the procedures should not take longer than 5secs each. Perform 12 sets, lasting 1min in total, check pulse thereafter.
If theres no pulse, start CPR again with the 4x(15 compressions: 2 ventilation) cycles, check breathing & pulse thereafter & remedy accordingly.
If need arises continue until recuse personnel arises.
If both circulation & breathing is present, put victim in supine/recovery position. Monitor breathing & circulation until help arrives.
Perform CPR on a hard flat surface, move victim if necessary otherwise compression won’t be effective.
One life saved!

Its time again where Mum couldn’t just start planning for the next family big feast, this time she’ve managed to redeem free Phoenix hotel high tea buffet entry coupons from the singtel reward points dad’s accumulated. So… what more than a free buffet feast at 3.30pm in the day? All in hand we all woke up late after staying up late on saturday, around 2am to be excat so we kinda had a late breakfast at around 11am so we can skip lunch at the usual 1pm timing & head straight for the buffet high tea at round 3pm- just as smartly planned.

The garden cafe is located at the basement of the hotel, quite isolated I say, but otherwise the place is quite well themed & decorated. The crowd would be just right if it weren’t for the valueair function held concurrently on, bringing in sudden & unexpected masses of people, leading to magical disappearance of food just like how you would encouter with taiwan tourists around. But the kitchen always kept up with the demand. Overall the food variety span over the many cusines- chinese, western, indian & local favorites but otherwise quite limited, not much as we can expect, as its a high tea anyway, not a full fedegd buffet lunch. Heh bet they didn’t see us coming around & treating it as lunch.. & even dinner!

Crossed over to orchard plaza to checkout some hobby store at the 3rd floor in response to a 20% discount off all items opportunity from the chevrons club members discount booklet. Orchard plaza is damn creepy, not to mention very empty with many stores closed down. Didn’t know of such a shopping center along orchard, very shocking indeed. Found the store after a short search, only to find out that it turned into a TAILOR SHOP! which too, was closed down… rats…. guess that discount booklet I was holding was kinda hem.. pretty old? Continued along orchard to the Sony service center at Wisma to collect my DVD player which to my dismay, was not ready yet. The service personnel said that they would call me when the player’s repaired, but wasn’t it told to me last week that it would be ready in 1 week’s time? & man wasn’t I told about the call informing thingie! Dropped by the orchard hello shop to check out the nokia 6260 which I was quite interested in, in terms of features from their site, but its tad quite big for a flip phone a great drawback. Guess I would be saving my cash for my Dell x50v next year then. Zipped down heeren with sis where she went bonkers over some cute badges at Burlington greetings & yes I had to pay for em cos she forgot her wallet, otherwise quite a good trip thereafter to PK computers, annex & action city. After all that shopping, we were all still full from the buffet! & its already 8pm!

So thats about it played some NFS Underground 2 before getting ready to book into camp for another week of erm… work? otherwise its should be quite a slack week too. With our CPR course on on thurs & a medical appointment on fri, heh.. it should be a fast week too!

Ah, its the time of the ahemm year again? when I get to do camp guard duty as part of wing regiment duties. & so how was duty as guard 3 I/C yesterday? well Shoik! thats the first time I can ever say this short 2 hour gate shifts from 6-8pm. Then rest then 11.30pm to 1.30am then SLEEP till 5am to collect breakfast. The luxury of the duty was largely attributed to the immediate personel involved such as the guard commander who was an avid “ok if everything is ok why turn out?” kind of person otherwise a nice chap to chat to on his experience as a regular 2nd SGT in 46. The guard 2I/C was a complete idiot in guard duty, which puts me second on the I/C hierarchy based on duties & experience. He not a very lucky guy either, as a thunderstorm started immediately after I swapped gate duty with him.. poor guy, even with the rain jacket hes drenched head to toes with “puddles” in his boots, & yes did I mention his socks as “wingable dry” The last person to determine the mood of the guards would be lastly the DO, who was fortunately a big blurry LTA from HQ. Due to the storm he even told us to bring all the relavant books for him to sign all the way from guard room to HQ, which is good as this mean the lack of an overwatching person in the guardhouse when he drops by, IOW there would also be no turn out either no one to “find fault” or be questioned by like what most DOs would do if they drop by. This one was relaxingly exceptional.

The last attributing factor would go solely to the force of mothernature herself who called upon the storm to bring across everlasting CAT 1 status over our sectors. Something definitely the prowlers would like (btw the troopers are from the same 46 “S” coy sct troopers who I’ve worked with my last GD itself, coincidence! I bet I could occasionally hear their prayers in the guard room to prolong the rain). Therefore no guard turnout, staff parade either! Not to mention no guard mounting! I love this GD, esp the feeling of drinking a nice ice nescafe coffee in the drizzle at the gate, soft rain pattering down the shelter in the shrill quietness of the night while listening to Bon Jovi on my music player. Unreal!

Oh well thats all for the duty today… Oh yea talking bout guard, congrats to Lester for passing out from MP school.

The day started with mad dash to finish up the Adoc scout platoon doctrine research for CG, finishing 12noon with an information overload. The problem with the internet is not being able to find information & you do not skills to do so, what you need are skills to know whats relavant. Intended to drop by wisma to repiar my Sony DVM-1 portable DVD player which is still under warranty, then meet up with geoff & gang for lunch. But it was put to a disappointing change in plans due to a 30mins delay for bus no 14 at my nearby busstop anyway. Stupid SBS, even when nichol highway opens today, I bet it won’t disrupt bus schdules so much. During my wait at least 4 buses from every service no passed through the busstop, but no sign my my bus! Things was starting to get out of hand & I knew I had to get there straight…

So.. I called dad who willingly drove me to Orchard, Taka within 10mins record time, given the christmas traffic. Alighted at the taxi stand behind taka, reaching the 4th floor coco steamboat resturant at 1.30pm (ahha I was late!) to meet up with geoff, shup (aka the ball), yingxian & zongjie. It was a buffet style all you can eat steamboat. Flat rate of $25 (but I paid $25 more for the jug of beer as I was late) we didn’t managed to get really full as we took our time, chatting, eating & yes ordering for almost 3hours+ so its eat digest, eat some more. The food spread for lunch is rather limited & we kinda grew tried of the same buffet orders by our 5th spread. Dinner offers a larger range at an addition expense of $12. Generally the service is great, very friendly staff but yes they could work on the spread. & yes did I mention geoff ate 2kg worth of prawns?

Went christmas deco shooting around the area before eventually stopping by wisma to get my DVD player repaired. The guy who attended to me at the service counter was rather gay. Maybe in terms of his behavior: very feminine way definitely reminded me about geoffery’s bitching about the ever large gay presence in his own BMT, esp his BUDDY. Had to put with him of talking all kinds of stuffs upon seeing my driver’s license (which I used for identification for product registration & warranty & stuffs) like how many times I took the driving test, private school?….

When its all over, sent Zongjie off at the orchard MRT before window shopping around cine where geoff got 2 dry-fit nike shirts after purchasing tiks to a 7.35pm Polar express movie. Bounced our way to heeren where we went neoprint crazy as usual at the annex. Took the interesting one being the 20 shot machine which we went thru the 2nd rds, quite interesting… Caught polar express at 7.50pm, missed the starting by abit as we had to queue for popcorn, headed home after the movie.

Polar express is one movie you should catch if you curious about santa’s modern headquarters, trains, christmas of just plain charmed by the notalotic feel of christmas at the south pole. The animation is rather ok, considering it is based on real acting scenes. Otherwise a very family/kid friendly show overrall. A show which I would recommend to instill any christmas cheer into anyone this christmas if are willingly, if not there are of course much better shows like the incredibles out there.

All in hand, the outing with the usual 4 foursome is very much great with the excpetion of julia’s & yuying’s absence was ever fun, not to mention full of bounce (ahha) it was great especially catching up on old times & so. Geoffrey will be flying off back to Melbourne next friday, wish him all the best in his studies.

Merry Christmas everyone!

poke poke poke, thats the theme of today, as it was the last day of our five day medic course held in-camp for this whole week of end nov-start dec. During the week we were taught hot to arrest a hamorrhage, treat fractures & wounds, tie bandages & tourniquets. The highlight of the course was of the the intravenous infusion practice where everyone in the platoon will get to poke each other in buddy level inserting a roughly 16cm long needle into a vein which we identify by tying a tourniquet. Then inserting the neddle, sliding the cathera into place & finally “drinking” the pateint with the IV “hattmen” solution. I got to buddy up with chonggen where I voluteered to go through th odeal first, it went well & I didn’t lose much blood. I did a clean one on my turn, scoring 100% on my scoring recon 1, while CG scored reasonably high as he forgot a few steps here & there, like forgetting to remove my tourniquet… ouch numb.

The funny thing was that CG was considered an underdog in doing dangerous jobs, usually “messing up” & all the specs in the platoon kept mocking/tauting him & telling me that I am very very “lucky”, to get him as a partner & maybe I should buy more insurance. I thrusted CG to get the job done though my life was in his hands as he is administering the needle & fluid, mistakes like accidentally injecting air bubbles into the blood stream can definitely prove fatal. We showed them & both as us cleared it one’shot-one-kill (meaning one successful infusion at 1st try as coined by our supervising senior medic). While others are laughing funny with 3-4 tries, esp Brandon who just kept poking john on both arms, Neo, CG (yes he volunteered again) & eventual on James before he can actually get a pass! Now whats left ton my arm is just a small little hole, patched up with palettes to form a protective very much like a small mole on the arm, hope there would be no scarring.

Dad received a Suzuki Liana catalog from uncle tony, who was my dad’s old friend working in Champion motors. First thing he did was dump the book to me & say, what you think of it? haha a 1.6L MPV? definitely I would want a new car, but given our family budget I think that the most we could go. Though I was dreaming for a M3 convertile… maybe, maybe next time.