Sunday, 28 March 2010
I Popped The Question
A bunch of former CJC canoeist.
Dinner at bukit timah area.
Pool at bukit timah plaza.
It was over a solemn game of pool.
"Michael we should go and register HDB flats together."
Okay. WTH! That was super GAY la!
Crap.
Okay. Serious stuff.
It was over a solemn game of pool.
"Michael, wanna go try K2 together next sem?"
"I don't mind."
"Eh. I'm serious. You have the national rower friend right? Go and check it out first."
"You seriously wan to go back to canoeing? I mean i dun mind la."
"Yea. We go and check it out first la. If really cannot then at least we tried right?"
"Okay."
Okay. That settles the awkward moment. We never talked about it after that for the whole night. Continue with pool and the usual crapping language of ours.
We were considering joining some CCA next semester together. Maybe we would make more friends and put an end to my miserable life now. Its my life. I choose how i want to live it. I can always choose to hide in my comfort zone (not very comfortable actually, quite miserable in fact.) and live the days away, or i can just make the step out and make a difference.
Anyway next semester is still far away. Who knows wad could have happened by then.
If the sea is my true love then i'm sure thats where the zai cal's hiding. Floating around on a boat out there somewhere, waiting for me to find him back.
Wad's with yishun dam? Not the noisy cars. Not the flashy cars. Thats wad attracts Roy, not so much of me.
Its the smell of sea breeze. Its the sound of water, but there're no waves there. Somewhere out in behind the forests and sea there was seletar island and that was where the zai cal spent a part of his life there. That was one of the places where he commanded a few buddies on his assault boat and demonstrated the mark of elitism. High speed beach-in. Simply it means heading to shore with the engine operating in full throttle and rush up the beach leaving the boat on dry land, with the water few metres behind. It requires lightning quick thinking and the highest level of skill to do such stunt. It was the place i met some nepalese gurkhas during their forest combing mission during the days of mas selemat's escape and they asked one of my platoon mate who was lighting a cigarette then, for a smoke. How amusing.
It was also one of the places i canoe past during the canoeing expedition back in my jc days. Bring back memories. I think i never did upload these pictures. Haha.
My Boat My Baby =)
My K1 Boat (borrowed from NYJC)
We share the same coach thats why
My K1 boat with Michael looking on
The "Ace" Class turning manouvere
Jeremy and Marcus
K2 Capsize God
This is wad u would get if u capsize
Balancing on that boat is not as easy as you think it is.
The Capsize Gods
Smiling at the camera before they went for their event
(don't ask me why they're called the capsize gods alright)
Michael playing around with my boat
Prototyope of my Assault boat
Some assault boat operation
(Ripped this off the internet so i dunno wads this exercise about)
HanZe and Me
Best trainee and Runner up
Fooling around in my bunk the week before the ORD parade
Me and my buddy, Ho Shing
I'll be back on the sea earliest on a fishing trip this May. I'll be back on the sea in my assault boat in green this July. Maybe i'll be back on my canoe in the sea (or resevior) earliest this August.
Till then,
i'll just have to see how things go.
Calcal would survive.
Cal
found sought peace at 23:52.
Friday, 26 March 2010
No Time!
My friend once said that i should just pack my days full of activities and be super busy. So that i can be a happier Cal by emoing less. Too much free time and don't feel like studying equals to emo time. How true is that? Maybe i should try packing my days with lots of activities. It sort of a double edged sword, cuz if i have too much activities i won't have time to study, if i even study at all.
I should start going for some exercise. Maybe it would help to cleanse the mind of impurities. Keeping fit is something good. Maybe i should just return to the waters. Pick up my paddle and crash against the waves. I’m not sure if Michael would follow me if i made this crazy and unthinkable step. If he would, we could easily return to our K2 days before the coach split us back then for me to do K1 and him to do K2 with someone else. But if he’s not keen, i think i wouldn’t even return to the water at all. The times are different now. We are not as fit as before now. I believe the balancing skills would never be lost but physically we’re a pale shadow now. Michael went for an operation on his shoulder during army time. Maybe he would not be able to take such strain again. Army robbed us of our health. How ironic.
Why is everything so familiar? I know that i shouldn't screw up the present for the future to be bright. But that's easier said than done. I always start very badly no matter wad i do. Primary school, secondary school, jc, army... Everything. You name it. Everything now is so familiar. It’s happening again. I always end up doing something which i swore not to do again.
When will things improve for me? When will the zai cal be found? A screwed up present now, a bleak future ahead.
I dunno where the zai cal went. He's hiding somewhere. He always come out (or rather, i find him) near to the end of everything. But hello! Time is running out. This is university. The results are cumulative. Results cannot be salvaged at the end. So there's no time! i better find him soon.
Wise words from another friend of mine. “Success? I’ll go for power and money first. The rest would soon follow suit.”
Wad am i heading towards then? I have no idea. I’ll tell you when i find the zai cal alrights.
Cal
found sought peace at 21:37.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Inorganic Lab 2
2nd lab session. 2nd lab report to do. The last one was absolutely terrible. Hope this one would be better.
Experiment: Preparation and Analysis of Iron(III) and Aluminium Oxalate Complexes
Inorganic labs are about the colour colours.
Iron(III) Oxalate is green. So cool!
Aluminium Oxalate is white. Blah. So boring.
Calcal loves colour colour. =) Crystals growing again. Watch the crystals grow. Yay!
Heating of
Al(OH)3 in oxalate solution
Haha! The only picture of Aluminium oxalate. Cuz no colour. Boring.
Crystalization of Iron(III) oxalate
See, the green green colour so nice. =)
Crystalization in process
So nice right. Looks like coral reef...
Recrystallization. Watch the coral reef form.
Or seaweed... Haha!
Okay. Dreaming too much liao. Wad coral reef. Crystals la.
My boring Aluminium Oxalate compound
Drying under IR lamps
My Iron(III) Oxalate compound
Nice nice colour =)
Drying drying drying...
Packet packet the compounds
Okay. Last lab report to do for this semester. The next lab is qualitative analysis. No report. Yay!
Chiong ar!
Reports. Argh!
Cal
found sought peace at 21:02.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
1 year ORD celebration
2 speeding cars.
7 ORD-ed NSmen.
1 section strength.
1 section commander
1 section 2IC
4 men
Travelling all over Singapore
NUS Hall
NTU Hall
IMM
Jalan Kayu
Seletar Camp
Airport Terminal 3
Crazy fun.
First, it started with me picking Jack up at NUS Raffles Hall. Then we went to pick up SoonPeng at Pioneer Mrt. Then, we went to NTU Hall6, where we met the rest of the ppl and some other former boat company people who lives in hall. I still think that the whole world is at NTU damn. Chilled around in HanZe and Kenneth's hall before we went to IMM for some food. Food was great, catching up was great. My buddy Ho Shing just celebrated his 1 year ord anniversary on 15march. He had prelim exams yesterday. So we met up today instead. After IMM was speeding back to NTU hall again. Kenneth has a test the next day, so he "fall out". We went to Hall15 to visit Edmond's hall before goign back to Hall6 to drop Kenneth off. Somebody suggested Jalan Kayu roti prata and tauhuey like how we used to do it back then during nights out. Jack decided that he might as well go home after that since we had no school on wednesday. So, we went to visit NUS Raffles Hall for Jack to take some of his stuff home. So we sped off to Jalan Kayu for our super extended supper. When we reached there, we decided to Tabao everything and go to the bus stop just outside Seletar Camp and chill, looking at people book in. Haha. It was hilarious talking about the funny things that we did together last time, and the usual way of rubbishing. It was 12plus am by the time we left there and went to Changi Airport Terminal 3, just like how we used to do. The trip there was totally crazy. The expressway was so empty that we drove along side for almost all the way and the guys were playing scissors paper stone with the next car. Totally crazy. At terminal 3 we chilled at Ya Kun for quite a while, chatting about practically everything under the sun (and moon). We were like so full, if not we would have went for a third round at Popeyes or TCC just like how we used to do. We walked around the deserted airport before deciding to head home. I drove back to Jack home to serangoon before heading home to bishan while Ho Shing drove the rest of the guys back to NTU hall and home.
Totally crazy night. Had lots of Fun speeding all around Singapore.
Food hunt, catching up with the ususal rubbishing around.
A perfect 1 year ORD anniversary for us.
ORD - LOH!
Cal
found sought peace at 03:00.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Lost.
i'm lost.
its like i dun care but i care, or i care but i dun care.
its like i know i'm screwing up but i can still sleep in lecture and screw up more.
its like i know i have a test but i not interested in studying, just read through and sua.
its like i'm hungry but i dun feel like eating.
wierd.
so wierd.
so damn wierd.
blank.
wad am i doing.
why i know i shouldn't be doing such stuff but i still do.
sometimes some things cannot be avoided.
it doesn't make me any happier also.
maybe at that point of time i feel happier.
but after that it will just be worse.
i just know i won't screw up.
i know chuan dao qiao tou zhi ran zhi.
i also know its not the case cuz i'm a boatman.
so it means that i will still screw up.
maybe i'll wake up soon.
its just a rough patch.
its just a recession.
this is terrible.
go to sleep cal.
wake up with a clear mind and fight again.
stop emo-ing.
believe and everything would be fine.
Cal
found sought peace at 01:27.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Inorganic Lab 1
Calcal just resumed chemistry labs after 3 weeks of break. Time flies. Lab report-ing time again. Rawr!
First experiment: Copper (I) Iodide Synthesis and Analysis by Cuprizone method.
Calcal absolutely love playing around with Copper ions in the lab. The blue colour is so damn cool la. Still remember the lovely Copper (II) Sulphate crystals during secondary school days when i was just fooling around in lab with Jeremy and scaring the hell out of Guowei. JunJie always ended up enjoying the free show and laughing all the time. Those who never did the crystallizations properly got blue powder and i got the cool blue crystals even though i was fooling around. Hey. Calcal sure know when to fool around okay. So fun!
Labs now are still fun although i dun fool around that much anymore. Its just the report writing that sucks. I wonder why some people always want to rush in labs. Relax. Rush more chances of screw up also more.
Just finished lab today and to cut things short, pictures!
Copper (II) Sulphate solution
Reaction with KI and Sodium Thiosulfate
First it looks like Milo... Then it looks like Horlicks...
Okay. End point reached.
Whitish suspension
My messy messy Fumehood =)
Lab report! Argh. *Calcal runs off to do lab report*
Cal
found sought peace at 16:29.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
| >_< |
I thought that i won't emo today. But ended up i still did.
I emo abt the things that i did wrong and how i regretted the wrong choices that i made. Regretting and emoing abt the past is not very healthy. There is no way to change the past and no point punishing myself over the past. I try very hard not to regret and emo cuz the past will never change,and emo will only make my present more miserable. But sometimes i just can't help but wonder how things could have turned out differently.
It was just a cartoon but somehow it made me feel so terrible. It was unintentional i know.
Its just me feeling lousy. I'm sorry for emo-ing. I really am.
The initial plan is that i won't ask my dad for the car. But somehow i remembered that you prefer not to drive if possible. So i asked instead. He has some birthday party to attend this friday. But i think because its Melvin's promotion and passing out parade, he made arrangement for his friend to give him a lift instead so i could use the car. If was somebody other than Melvin he could have just told me that he has to use the car instead. Wad's so special about Melvin? He's not just my childhood buddy. He's my childhood best friend. He's not just my childhood best friend, he was sort of part of my family then. We would go to marina bay to fly kites together, we would go to bishan park to play soccer together, we even went to Malaysia on a fishing trip together. When i mean together, its not just me and him. Its my whole family. That was during primary school and lower secondary days. When its not with my family, we (just Melvin and I) would spend our weekends going for day and night cycling to farfetched places, cycling to the library to borrow books (mostly comics), cycling to get to tuition, play with remote control cars, playing the computer at his house, and even fishing at punggol beach and seletar resevoir. We would talk about the things we would do when we grow up. He was an avid collector and admirer of cars then. Likewise, i became one too. My parents fully accepted him then and it was with such trust that everything that i do would be fine as long as it was with Melvin.
Even my dad knows how much Melvin's promotion parade meant to me.
Every guy has to serve his time in the army. 2years for the not-so-fit ones and 1 year 10months for the fitter ones. People always said that the army is where boys grow up to become men. I beg to differ. Its not a place where boys grow up to become men. Its a place where boys go through shit everyday and see how real this dog eat dog world is in a enclosed "virtual" but real world of the army. Somehow, they will just be able to see how great the civilian life is and stop whining when they come out. As a result of that, grow up? Maybe.
The promotion of a soldier is really a big deal. Its just a rank, but who understands how much it is to the soldier? He has to go through literally shit to get that rank. Ask every single NSF soldier (forget about the regulars as they're losers), 3SG and above, about that rank he earned and everyone sure has a long story to tell. For CPL and below i can't be sure. Cuz some get it by just being there. Why is it that i hold Melvin's promotion parade with such high regard? He will be getting his 3SG rank after about 9 months of shit. He deserves moral support from an old friend who did not even get the chance to earn that rank. It may just be a 3SG promotion parade, not some officer commissioning parade, but heck, it is still his hard-earned rank after all.
My life in the army was a terrible one. It was screwed up right from the start. End up i was just salvaging whatever i could. In the end i managed to earn IPPT Gold, Marksman, Corporal Rank, Section 2IC appointment, and a Best Soldier of the Month Title for June 2008. To any other person that serves to be a successful NSF tour. But to me, it was only salvaging the leftover. Thats why i said that if you don't screw up the present, the future will still be bright. If you screw up the present, you'll only end up salvaging whatever thats left of the future. So true. No matter how well i did, i would not be a 3SG.
I wanted so much to be a 3SG cuz at that time i thought that i wasn't good enough to be an officer anyway. So wad went wrong for me then?
Right from the 1st week in Tekong for BMT, i started falling sick. I was getting mild headache all the time. Reporting sick was a taboo and it was thought that only the chao keng would report sick. I thought that since it was just mild headache everything would be fine after a while. I ended up popping painkillers to go for training. I was conisdered more physically inclined than the average people then so even when i wasn't performing well, i still managed to blend in among the rest. From headache, everything started going downhill. I suffered heat exhaustion from training not soon after. Headache worsened to flu, then cough then fever. Falling sick was quite common among recruits then so it wasn't much of a big deal to fall sick and not report sick if still feeling okay. It was a wrong concept brought up by the fear of being labeled a keng-ster. When i did report sick, i didn't recover fully when the MC ended. From there, it became a slipperly slope. Asthma resulted and not long after, fever resulted. As i have already reported sick a few times and due to MC, i missed crucial tests and various assignments, putting my command school chance in jeopardy. But even though i did not recovered fully after the MC, i decided to just swallow the pain and just persevere to the end of the course. My health deteoriated and my performance also dropped drastically as a result. Not long after i was struggling to keep up. During the last week of the course, i failed my IPPT by 3 seconds for the 2.4km run, before getting high fever during the passing out parade rehearsal. When i reported sick for the final time in Tekong that day, the Medical Officer ordered a chest X-ray scan for me and after looking at the developed X-ray, he personally walked out of the room and ordered the head medic, "Send this patient out to CGH in wheelchair and medic within 20min." His exact words. I was down with pneumonia. When i told him i failed my 2.4km by 3 seconds just the day before, he was speechless and said i really should have reported sick earlier. It was only then that it struck me, that i was joking with my life then. I never had such uncontrolled asthma ever since i was very young and it was from then on that asthma controlled my life till now.
One of the criteria for command school (Officer Cadet School or School of Infantry Specialist) was to have an IPPT result mininum pass. By failing the test, i disqualified myself from command school. When in hospital, i called my sergant, asking him if it was possible to submit my pre-test IPPT result, which was a Silver, instead. He couldn't help me then. I had no Platoon Sergeant (on leave) and no Platoon Commander (just ORD) hence i called the company's highest in command, Officer Commanding asking for him to give me a chance at selection by allowing me to submit my Silver test result. He refused, giving me a reason that they had to submit the latest result for the units to have an accurate information. (Which till now i still think that was just completely rubbish.) [Later in my NSF tour (abt a year later) i did meet him (OC) again during one of the attachment. He was on course and boarded my boat. I wanted to ask him if he remembered me then, but i did not, as i felt that it would not change anything even if i did.]
As a result of my screwed up BMT, i wasn't given a chance to be selected for command school and became men instead of commander. I also managed to get Golds for my 2 years of IPPT, which would have almost 100% gotten me a command school spot then if i achieved gold during BMT. But it meant nothing to me then already as it was already too late.
After being posted to 35SCE, i did not have a turn of fortune either. At Delta Coy, i was selected for guard duty intead of being part of NDP and ended up as a 'reject'. Then due to some inflexible thinking by the regulars i was almost charged for a military offence that was completely absurd. I was resting in the cookhouse after completing a prowl duty and was 'caught' by the duty orderly sergant. Considering the fact that i was doing alternate guard duties then, i was completely exhausted and as i have already completed my prowl, i wasn't really slacking. Platoon Commander ended up fighting my case and silently posted me out to Boat Coy and the charge was also silently dropped. The Platoon Commander then was a female regular officer which i believe did help me again during the best soldier selection interview as she was promoted to higher appointment after that post and she was one of the panel judges for the best soldier nominees.
At Boat Coy i tried to salvage whatever there's left to salvage. I came in 2nd for performance in the Boatman Course, got my IPPT gold, Marksman, Best Soldier award, given Section 2IC appointment (an appointment usually given to 3SG, but sometimes given to CPL when not enough 3SG around). I got all the achievements that i could. Most people could just dream of getting then and come nothing close to them. The only thing was that i did not get the Corporal First Class (CFC) rank as things went sour towards the final months over duties and there was no PC around (ORD-ed) to protect us. In fact, it was such a new rank that there was no CFCs around in my company yet then.
The first few months were so crucial for me and i just screwed up. Ended up salvaging whatever there was left to salvage. To most people NS is just 2 years to serve and get it over and done with, why bother with the rank? Its nothing actually. Its just a target, or maybe pride or experience, or whatever. Really happy that some of my friends and buddies managed to achieve wad i failed to do. I'm happy for them.
Congrats to Melvin for completing SISPEC ASLC. You'll get your rank on Friday and i'll be there to witness and to give you moral support.
Do treat your future men well. Who knows one of them could have suffered the same fate as i did. Soon, in your new unit posting, everybody would have to call you sergeant.
YES SERGEANT!
Cal
found sought peace at 00:53.
My K1 Boat (borrowed from NYJC)
My K1 boat with Michael looking on
The "Ace" Class turning manouvere
Jeremy and Marcus
This is wad u would get if u capsize
The Capsize Gods
Michael playing around with my boat
Prototyope of my Assault boat
Some assault boat operation
HanZe and Me
Fooling around in my bunk the week before the ORD parade
Me and my buddy, Ho Shing
Heating of Al(OH)3
Crystalization of Iron(III) oxalate
Crystalization in process
So nice right. Looks like coral reef...
Recrystallization. Watch the coral reef form.
Okay. Dreaming too much liao. Wad coral reef. Crystals la.
My boring Aluminium Oxalate compound
Drying under IR lamps
My Iron(III) Oxalate compound
Drying drying drying...
Packet packet the compounds
Copper (II) Sulphate solution
Reaction with KI and Sodium Thiosulfate
Okay. End point reached.
Standard Solutions for UV absorbance
My messy messy Fumehood =)
Looks ugly. But thats the CuI solid.