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Thursday, April 29, 2004 A short "I'm alive" post today. Don't feel like tackling anything heavy after a long day's work, just wanna do something brainless. Like play Day of Defeat. =P Looking forward to the long weekend, for some much-needed rest (which I'll probably squander playing Day of Defeat again, oops). Asked some friends out today, in a sudden burst of inspiration. Relations in the platoon are improving, the atmosphere is slowly getting warmer. Sustained effort on my part and B's part keep W quiet enough. It's just his nature to complain, and he does do a lot of work. Just gotta remember not to take his gruff tone and biting comments too seriously. Some people do talk like that normally. Stay-in commencement has seemingly been postponed, till a hazy "some time in May". Still keeping fingers crossed. Reorganised and split the platoon stores today. Means W will have a lighter workload, but doubles the admin work required and increases the hassle of managing stores overall. Basically the platoon stores used to be jointly managed by the entire platoon, but now the stores are distributed amongst the teams, meaning each team takes care of his own separate set of stores. Makes borrowing/returning stores, which happens all the time in my unit, much more troublesome than before. But I have no say in the decision, sadly. Ooh now my post's longer than it's supposed to be. On an ending note, still lots of friends I've not seen for the longest time. Can't always be me doing the asking, I wish some of them will remember me and ask me out. but not this month, I've got lots of standby duties this month. Next month should hopefully be less occupied work-wise. Monday, April 26, 2004 People comment that my website was TOO EASY to find. Well then why didn't they find it before I told them about it? Humph. Then again, maybe no one trawls the web like I do sometimes, I'll pop people's names into search engines and see what I find. Or maybe no one can be bothered to trawl about me. Heh. It's final. I'm staying in permanently starting next week. Quite indifferent to that, really. Hopefully it'll mean better relations with my fellow 3SGs. My platoon 2IC is a magnet for arrows. And ballistas, harpoons, you get the idea. Just received more crap to do from him, that'll keep me occupied till June. Then comes major events that'll last until August. So I wouldn't be planning any outing till then, I suppose. Though I'll still be game to come out if anyone asks. Did my final driving theory test today. Should pass, if all goes well. Duh. But it was quite easy, really. Buying the TYS and completing it twice helped. Gotta book back in today. COS tomorrow morning. Sigh. Till next time! And maybe I'll stop writing about such mundane stuff. It's getting seriously DULL around here. Sunday, April 25, 2004 I was going to whine in this post. I decided not to. Everyone has his own problems, what makes mine worthy of a pedestal? Instead I'll just remind everyone to keep work problems in the office, and not bring them home. My dad used a car trip to comment to me about my crabby mood around the house. I've been snapping at my parents and my brother for the slightest of reasons lately. They've been nice enough to just leave me alone, instead of giving me a well-deserved rebuke. My father used to be like that, he'd scold me over the slightest mistakes when he'd had a bad day at the office. I remember telling myself I'd not be like that when I grew up. Maybe I haven't grown up yet, but I should be ashamed of myself nevertheless. On a brighter note, there was a 20% discount at Kinokuniya Liang Court over the weekend. I bought $100 dollars worth of books, and paid only $80. All these books should last me quite a while, and keep me company when I start staying in. Rumours has it that all NSF 3SGs in my unit will start staying in come May. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but there's no escaping it. Thankfully I've nothing outside to worry about, therefore staying in makes little difference to me. Gotta prepare a list of stuff to bring back into camp... I'm thinking of starting a wishlist on this page, but don't know how to stop it from becoming a shameless suggestion list for birthday presents. =P Meanwhile I've changed the quote beneath the title. Can't change them too often, or I'll run out very fast, haha. Monday, April 19, 2004 Murphy's Law gave me a demonstration of its power today. The details are too embarassing to relate, but the result -- trauma of the highest degree. I felt so drained in the evening, after an afternoon of adrenaline and anxiety and frantic damage control. The laughter's gonna be heard in KL once my platoon mates get the full picture. Can't hide it from them, since they've know too much already, sadly. I've always been absentminded, but the consequences to bear now are a lot more serious than when I was schooling. Forgetting assignments in school and forgetting things in the army is very very different. But it can't get any worse than it did today. If it did I'll be sitting in a cell by now. If this had happened to anyone but myself, I'll probably laugh and quote an infamous bumper sticker from Forrest Gump: Shit happens. And I'll add: It never rains but it pours. But the clown can't laugh at himself. I'll write down today in detail in my diary, so hopefully when I'm caught out by Murphy's Law again, I can look back and laugh and see how silly it is to feel bad. Thankfully, my neighbour's dog isn't affected by Murphy's Law. It still appreciates a hearty scratch from me. That and a trip to the barber proved therapeutic. So did spending money on a new game that I'll probably never complete, like almost every game I've played before it. But no time to play today, I've gotta be back in camp for there's a sweep in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. The world doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet, when there's work to be done it's gotta be done properly, even though the echoes of laughter from KL will be coming back around then. Professionalism is especially important in my vocation, where any negligence could directly affect the lives of many. Thursday, April 15, 2004 P226 range was very tiring, but shooting the pistol was a great experience. The recoil was quite heavy, but the pistol is damn accurate. Then again, at 25m, it's not easy to miss, but not that hard to either. Did better than I expected, I suppose I have the hours of FPS games to thank for that. TIred day today, tired day tomorrow. On the schedule is a drill lesson in preparation for the formation anniversary parade, then a major bunk reorganization, then a pistol to clean, live firing stores to sort out, return, put back, clean, etc, and next week's sweeps to prepare for. I'm overwhelmed once again by everything that's happening and going to happen, too dazed and too tired to complain. As always I'll be swept along by the flow, doing what needs to be done, reacting instead of acting, switch off my brain and follow my instinct. Either I've gone soft or life in 36 is really tough, because I wasn't like this before. Or was I? Now that I think about it, I've been going with the flow all the time while in school. I never gave much thought to the future, never tried to anticipate much, just took each day as it came, react by instinct to whatever happens. It is a sign of growth in me that I'm now more concerned with the future, that I can see how I'm moving with the flow. One must always see his own mistakes before he can correct them. Anyway I might be posting less come next week (not that I've been posting that often anyway). Rumours are rife that, after the bunk reorganization, us 3SGs' stay-out privileges will be revoked, beacuse they've apparently found enough beds for the lot of us. It means I'll be home less often, and since there's no easily available internet access in camp, I can't blog as often. I'll see what I can do to compensate for that... The list of blogs I'm reading grows.. It's surprising to find out just how many people I know keep blogs. And reading them reminds me of how long it's been since I last met them and how little I actually know about them. Reminds me of a song I picked up from some DDR game a long time ago. The lyrics mean something else altogether in the song but it oddly applies here as well, in a different context. The chorus went: "So many men/ So little time/ What can I do (repeat endlessly)". I hope you get what I mean. =P Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Some time for a new post today. Gotta go back later, cause got live firing early tomorrow morning. Finally, the P226. Nice to handle, easy to strip, and tomorrow I'll get to find out how well it shoots. I'm feeling excited already. However, preparing for the live firing sure is stressful. Tragic that my platoon is conducting it. Maybe because us 3SGs have never conducted a live firing before, and don't know what to do. The officers seem rather inexperienced as well. I was so frustrated in the afternoon I almost snapped at everyone I saw, warrant or lieutenant or 3-star general. Thankfully I kept my temper in firm control. Arrows and blame were flying around the office almost indiscriminately, and of course I collected my fair share. Another 3SG got so stressed he took to hiding in the platoon storeroom. I was tempted to hide somewhere as well. The anime I bought last month finally arrived 2 days ago. Watched half of it that night, and it was decent. RahXephon possesses a potent aura of mystery that keeps me on my toes and guessing frequently. To understand many of the events in the story one must pay attention and pick up the clues. One of the characters likes to eat plain rice with mayo.. ugh. Can't wait for the weekend to come, when I can finish the rest of it. Nothing else for now, till next time! Saturday, April 10, 2004 Everything's up again, and oddly there seems to be no problem at all. Weird. I'll change my password just in case. Followed a hunch and removed my chatterbox and commenting services. The problem seems to be solved by that. No need to design a new template after all. I quite like this one, really. Now I'll try to identify the source of the problem.. On second thoughts, I'm tired. I'll do everything tomorrow. And I might try my hand at my own template after all =P Phew! After some struggle, the bug shut up after I ran AdAware. It was creating randomly named .exe files in system32, all 64KB in size, and attempting to access the internet using those files. ZoneAlarm blocked them all, though. I'll have to search for another template to use, being too hopelessly clumsy with HTML to contemplate designing one myself. Meanwhile I'll try to restore Comments and Chatterbox to the blog. I wrote a new entry, tried to view it on my blog homepage, and got infected by a virus in the process. To protect everyone who reads my blog, I've just taken down my old template and replaced it with a generic one provided by blogspot. I'll try to fix the problem, first on my computer, then on this blog. Meanwhile bear with this garish layout. FYI, virus name is 'werule', and I've appeared to control it, thanks to ZoneAlarm Pro, which is blocking it from the internet for the time being. Should have installed an antivirus, might have prevented this ugly affair, but I was lazy and complacent. Hopefully this does not involve a reformat.. =( Friday, April 09, 2004 First of all, updated my links with a number of new entries. It's what happens when you meet people you haven't met for a very, very long time. One of the questions I ask nowadays is - does he/she have a blog? I find blogs very useful as a way of keeping in touch with people. I'm lazy to call and talk so passive means such as this are a welcome alternative. Went out with 4M today. Haven't seen them for more than a year. Such long separation makes me feel awkward to ask them out. Maybe they've forgotten me. And I have been busy lately, and making such an effort day-to-day to make sure my work is up to par. I have little energy left to organise, or sometimes even attend, outings. Strayed from the topic again, me. After such a long period of separation, I'm elated to discover that I'm not forgotten. In fact, little warming up was needed, we started acting like the old friends that we are. Seoul Garden, which I usually consider needlessly expensive, was money well spent today. As was the satisfying LAN session later. Though poor KH probably didn't enjoy it as much as the rest of us did, for Warcraft 3 wasn't familiar to him. Thanks KH, for gamely joining in the fun and never complaining. Next time we'll all play soccer or Smackdown instead. =) On another thread, my efforts at work seem to be paying off, according to my 2IC who kindly fed me what he's heard around the office. Not really kudos to my efforts, but because the party concerned has found a new scapegoat in B. He's still blissfully ignorant, because the muttering ain't loud enough yet, but I see how it's being done now. All the party concerned has to do is fail to inform B whenever we have work to do, and suddenly it seems like he's slacking. Admittedly B is partly at fault, he does not pay attention to what's happening in the office, being engrossed in his new Gameboy Advance. Just like I was engrossed in my books last time. The party concerned is not totally at fault, either. He merely expects people to be just like him. And he does automatically help others, even when help is not asked for. All I can do to stop the imminent explosion is to inform B whenever something's up. Hopefully I can defuse this time bomb before it blows up. On yet another thread, I've realised what a nice person my 2IC (not my platoon 2IC, who's still the slave driver, both of himself and of others, but my section 2IC) really is. He goes out of his way to take care of me, to teach me how to survive in the working world. Sometimes I do not listen to him, sometimes I let him down. But he does not blame me, is not angry at me for that. I am touched by his care. And, as with other close friends of mine, I'm saddened that I cannot do as much for him as he does for me. It is frustrating whenever I think of it, that I'm so weak and useless, that I need people to help me all the time. When will I grow up, when will I stand on my own two feet, when will I be a true friend to others, and not merely a parasite? For now, I resolve to show my 2IC more concern, and help him where I can. It's all my limited powers allow me to do. For now. Sunday, April 04, 2004 Yes, JQ, I'm still writing. A bit lazy these few days, that's all. Not that I've nothing to write, just that I can't find the effort to log on and type it out. I'm lazy by nature. =P Just built a new computer from scratch today. A little proud of my work, since it's the first computer I assembled myself. With some help from my dad and brother, of course. Also the first computer that I bought with my own money, bar some small components. My spending balance reads -$440 now.. I'm going to try to be thrifty for the next few months. Hard task, considering I still owe a few people treats, a few people presents, a few people a meeting, and there's a platoon dinner coming up as well. The more money I get, the more I spend. Well I could spend a few paragraphs arguing how it's better to spend what money I have than let it earn a measly 0.125% interest in the stupid bank. I'm looking for some investment plans somewhat half-heartedly. After laying aside some money for university's extra expenses, I can only spare about $3000, which ain't much seed money. That's a topic for another time, however. A very eventful week, so eventful that I don't know where to start. Slept a lot more this week than I had for the past few months. My platoon 2IC had planned for an ultra-long Good Friday weekend, taking advantage of it to apply for 2.5 days' leave, to make it 5 days total away from work. Had to cancel it, sadly, since my platoon's conducting a live firing during that week. P226 live firing, and it's rumoured that, in a break from custom, the NSFs will get to fire it as well. It's something I look forward to eagerly, because it's something very few NSFs will get to experience. Even my senior NSFs didn't get this chance. The next week promises to be hectic, with major sweeps incoming, plus preparations for this live firing to make. Cycled to Seletar Camp yesterday, courtesy of a sergeant who lives near me. He graciously lent me a spare bicycle, and we cycled there together to conduct IPPT for the engineer regulars. The seat was awful, and I ended up with bruised buttocks. However the feeling of breezing down the deserted roads in the wee hours was good. So was riding a bicycle again, after such a long time. Didn't want to get on the bicycle for the return trip, but I had to bring it back. The bruises made the trip quite torturous. Still a good experience, though next time I'll bring a cushion along. A long entry, to make up slightly for the 1 week plus of silence. I'll try to write more frequently, I promise. For now, good night. |
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