At work

Today marks the beginning of my 10 week attachment. Now in my new office... rotting away. *surprisingly* With me here are 2 other Project Officers posted here... well.. its 10am now, and I have been surfing the net ever since 8am heh...

Well, perhaps the work have not started piling in yet. But yawnz anyway.

The main thing that the 3 of us here are to be working on would be the ways to transform the SAF into a 3rd Generation fighting force, so I will be here to help prepare new doctrines and training programmes for the Air Force senior officers.

Why am I doing this?

Bored

Been back for a week already... and the title suggests all...

Bored...

Been reading up quite a bit on military history. This didn't interest me in the past, but after watching Band Of Brothers, somehow it sparked my interest.

For those of you interested, these books by Stephen E Ambrose are real good, as rather than relating the story from a 3rd party's point of view, he interviews the people involved in the invasion and 'in their own words' linked the entire story.

Pegasus Bridge
Band of Brothers
D-Day
Civilian Soldiers

Leeds Castle



The lot of us took the day out to Leeds Castle, but the castle is NOT in Leeds though. It is one of the 1000ish castles built during the tussle for power in 14, 15th century. I forgot the actual date, so dun bug me for the history.

Oh well, as usual, the castle was boring. The art pieces weren't exactly excellent, and the interior design was, normal, as compared to those of Versailles. The castle grounds were beautiful though. The castle seats upon a lake, and the view was fantastic.

The lot of us fooled around in a maze, which all of us managed to get lost rather effectively, until Edwin found the way to the middle of the maze and started guiding us from there. I think the scene was simply hilarious. heh~

Going to do my storage tomorrow. The stuff are real heavy, so most probably Saturday will be spent resting my aching muscles. =P

Ahem...

Exams Over! Haha.. for those of you who think that 'its only exams', its 4 weeks worth of 11 papers! And here's the survivor! *Grinz*

Packing up my room currently... going to Winchester tomorrow. Might be going to Winsor Castle with Kechew on Thursday. Esther is flying on Thursday. Storage on Friday. Kechew flying on Friday. Lonely on Saturday. Maybe do some shopping. Anyone care to come along? Euro in the evening.

Sunday is my last day here... flying off in the evening. Will be arriving at 3pm in Singapore on Monday. See you guys then~

Communications paper tomorrow

I am losing steam! Haha.. ya.. I have more or less predicted that this day would come when I first saw my 3 and a half week long examination schedule.

4 more papers to go, and all 4 are kinda killers.

Communications: Dr Ward seems to get more sadistic as the years go by. 2001 paper was a breeze. Have to struggle with 2002. Absolutely stumped by 2003. Got this feeling that 2004 might just be his gem among the 4.

ARM Computing: As yet, I have absolutely no knowledge of what's going on and what are all the addresses whatsoever. The only good news (perhaps) is that this is an open book exam. Peida and Kwan Eng might just become my saviour for this paper.

Digital: Mr Mike Brooks. Do not think that this guy, just because his name is not preceeded with 'Dr' or 'Prof' means that he's some pushover. This is a graduate from MIT, and an honourary member of some department there. Nuff said about him. Imagine what his papers would be like.

Analogue: Second year that Villagas is teaching this course. Not that the students of last year did very badly, but given the condition of her notes, and the fact that our tutorials was basically last year's paper, how in the world am I supposed to prepare myself for this?

With these 4 (which will take one week) cleared, I finally regain 2 weeks of freedom. One in UK, and another in Singapore before I report back to work at Singapore Command and Staff College. I live in Hougang, SCSC is in Boon Lay. How nice.

What's the world coming to recently anyway... =P

Return of the King

My DVD arrived on Tuesday, the day prior to my Maths III paper. Watched bits and pieces of it nonetheless, and just managed to finish all 3 hours of it.

Have already read the entire book, watched the movie at the screen twice, and watching it again on my computer, it allowed me to pause and think about some of the scenes and the lessons that were hidden beneath Tokkien's literature.

Directer Peter Jackson said on his interview during the filming of "Lord of the Rings, a Director's Vision" that the third episode of the trilogy is the climax of his precious production. The reason why Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers was filmed as so as to allow us to get to the Return of the King, hence it is the most emotional film of the three.

Theme: Honour
Venue: The Black Gate
4000 men of Rohan and Gondor faced up against 10,000 orcs and trolls spilling out from Mordor. If you were one of the men facing these foes, imagine the horror that you would feel. "I see in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of mine" How is it possible that one man could rally the courage of these men by reminding them of their honour? "A day may come when the courage of man fails when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship , but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear, I bid you, Stand! Men of the West!"

Theme: Bravery
Venue: Riddermark
6000 men of Rohan gathered at the foot of Riddermark and the men expresses their lack of hope in the battle against Mordor as too few of their riders had come. The king, acknowledges that fact, "No, we cannot. We cannot defeat the armies of Mordor. But we will meet them in battle nonetheless~" At these words of their leader, the men followed him to war.

Theme: Bonds of friendship
Venue: Harbour to the Gray Havens
The Elves are waiting at the harbour, waiting for Gandalf and the ring bearers to depart with them to eternal havens now that their work, has finished. "Here at last, at the shores of the sea comes the end of our fellowship. I will not say 'do not weep', because not all tears are evil.." Despite the tortures and the hard time the heroes are put to, not one single tear was shed throughout their entire journey. The part of grief will come at the end of all journeys , when all are over and friends lose the chance to be together, be it to suffer together. No matter if it is good or ill times, hold fast your friends.

Halfway through

Heh... actually I am writing this in preparation for the end of this week, where only then we would be halfway through our examinations. Signals today was, luckily, an okay paper. Not that it is easier than the previous years, but as compared to the rest of the papers that I have had already, its a nice change =P

Anyway, had been studying in the library with the Mech Engineers for company for these couple of days. Have to admit, its a lot less fun without them around, although it would have been a lot worse if the aero people were celebrating as well heh... Yah but anyway, its through this examination period that the lot of us actually got a lot closer. Strange, isn't it? Ha...

Zhenhao will be flying back home tomorrow -- have a safe trip!
Sinyee, Jerome and Jeftor in Ireland: Its going to be a wet week! Bad time to trek, but nevertheless, enjoy urself.

The lot of u still mugging away, good luck people!
As for me, 5 papers down, 6 more to go!