Busy busy busy – one whole week spent on camps!
It was an extremely tiring week for me; if you take into account that I have slept for an average of 10 hours everyday before the camps and that during the camps, for each night I sleep less than half of my usual. Then again, I have survived it! So I supposed it ain’t that bad after all.
More on camps on another free-er day!
Alrights, I’m officially a freshman now since I have gone for SMU’s freshman camp and well, the camp was really an eye-opener.
It wasn’t your usual lovey-dovey camp whereby the facilitators will care and shower loads of love just because you are a freshman or the super ‘tekan’/torture one; but as they put it, it is and was a learning and fun camp.
There was plenty of focus and attention on teamwork and respect throughout the activities and games and I must say that my facis tread a fine line between being difficult and nasty to us to test and stretch our limits as compared to being overboard; but they did fine, though at times I could sense the exasperations at us but they kept their cool with us.
At the end of the camp debrief, we were instructed to do a feedback to all the group members and we wrote our comments for them on a piece of paper. Expectedly, quite a few wrote that I was quiet at the start of the camp and that I could ’show’ more of myself and contribute and lead, as what they have seen of me during the final challenge at the last day of the camp. The rest wrote mainly about my crazy act during the campfire which I would rather forget about it.
It’s not that I don’t want to lead or feel uncomfortable leading, but rather, if someone is leading or giving off instructions, it’s better to listen first then act. Or give complementing suggestions to add on to the suggested plan. Rather than everyone throwing in ideas into one pot and then try sieving out a good one, I would much rather see if the current plan is feasible or not; not that I would necessary point out a fatal flaw if I see one but at times, having a not-so-good plan is better than no plan.
Or maybe I should play the devil advocate – criticising the plan if I spot a flaw or I guess, playing the bad guy.
But I guess I will do better if I can speak up more and “draw” attention to myself, but ohwell, I’m still figuring out myself.
Nonetheless, I would prefer sitting back and relaxing if possible and play the supporting leader role. I think I’m very much comfortable with that.
So little references, so little stories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ong_Teng_Cheong
If I were born earlier, I would have known much more.
If I could find out more.
Calling the wrong number is fine; people make mistakes and I don’t blame them. I have my share of individuals calling me and looking for someone foreign to me.
And so I just receive this phone call from this lady and it goes something like this in Hokkien:
“Eh eh wo di wa kao dian li liao”
In between trying to make sense what she is talking about, I recall some of my Hokkien vocab and I replied:
“Eh Kiam Pia ah!”
No la, I not so mean and fierce, instead I said:
” Eh lir ka chor tian wei liao”
Surprisingly, she replied this:
“Oh sorry sorry”
Nothing wrong right? But she replied in ENGLISH when I replied her in Hokkien.
Is my Hokkien that bad?
Yesterday was a event-filled and a highly rush day for me; quite an anomaly considering I’ve enjoying copious amount of time everyday and just taking things slow.
I went back to SMU for matriculation and handed in all the forms that the school required in the morning and then, it was off to library training. I’m taken to like the library after the training session because there is a total wealth of knowledge the library and it’s partnering resources are able to provide! There are free online editions of newspapers to read from as well as journals and various e-resources. Haha, hopefully I’m able to optimise my usage of the library when school starts!
Then I went for a haircut at Chapter 2. It wasn’t a hair-cut per se; I had my hair trimmed and had it ’styled’ as well. But I have to use hair clay in order for the style to be obvious. Nonetheless, the lazy me will just go out with unstyled hair.
Since I was in school, I went to gym as well. Okay, it doesn’t matter now that Bishan gym is under renovations, SMU gym is quite awesome as well – plentiful of free weights and assisted machines available. There weren’t many people using the gym when I went at 2pm, so I guess this is a good timing to work out. I dislike having too many people in gym and I have to constantly share or wait for people to finish their sets before continuing me. Haha, this is proving to be a viable alternative after enjoying six months of FOC gym privileges when I was working in the Ministry.
After gym, I went back to school again to sign up for two more camps, and this brings me to a total of 4 in july. I’m not going to be sleeping in my bed for 9 days, which is terrible because I’m clocking an average of 8 hours of daily sleep. And I don’t want to sleep in a sleeping bag, not that I can’t but I prefer not to.
I bought myself a new laptop, laser b/w printer and a 500GB external harddrive. It all sums up to a dollar less than $2,500, which is just nice for me to claim. And now I have to wait for school to reimburse me and it’s likely to take a month. Ohwell, it’s good that I have savings so there is no need for me to worry about anything.
It was terrible bringing all these equipment home by bus (162) and the bus driver nearly drove off from my stop because I had to take out my laptop from the bus first and place it on the pvaement before carrying the huge printer out. It was kind enough for this Pierce student who shouted “UNCLE!” to get the latter’s attention and I was hugely saved from any embarrassment.
It was already six when I reached home so I had to rush down to Dhoby Ghaut to get RAW dance tickets from cloudy before going to Vivocity for Sierra Plt 1 dinner. It nice to see the guys again but I will be seeing some of them in school as well. Not that close to them too so it wasn’t THAT emotional or awkward, just normal dinner I guess.
What an eventful day.
I went back to camp today, and yes, it’s my army camp somewhere and I dropped off at Yew Tee MRT station.
Actually, I’ve always wanted to return to camp. Primary it’s because I want to visit my RQ and Signal Store IC and some of the individuals who I have befriend and they have become more than just superiors or subordinates – they are friends.
So we arranged and the 5 of us trooped down the usual pavements and HBD blocks that lead from the MRT station to the camp gate. It was a totally different feeling – going back as civilians and without the “feeling” of booking in. And for me, a relief that my handphone will never ring as much as it did when I was the QM.
Called it fate, but I decided that we should return to 41 first before going to brigade to find our RQ and how coincident is that we met our RQ at the road junction in front of HQ block. It was really nice and comforting to see her again after half a year. Even though we conversed over the phone a couple of times, seeing someone in person is always better.
We met SSG Evon as well and we proceeded to this newly set-up room which is meant for the men of QM platoon. Okay, half the room was sofa and the other half, some tables and chairs. And we had a good time catching up and chatting to one another.
In between, I went to find HQCSM and I’m glad that I found him in his office. He is still his same old self, just that he has a car now and a proud owner of the triangular probation plates. I met ‘Bravo’ OC and CSM as well. It is a good thing that they still recall me. Definitely, I have made some impact.
In retrospect, I never hated National Service. Yes, it took away two years of my life and maybe, precious time in securing my tertiary education and maybe, restricted my chances in chasing someone I like. But it thought me many intangible lifeskills and allowed me to make friends with people I would never have met elsewhere. Also, it taught me the authority and influence that one has when in power and how to discharge my duties accordingly.
And in this eleven months in this second-year active unit, the bonds that I have forged with certain individuals are deeply imbued in me and these emotional bonds, will forever be priceless because they were built with a commodity that is always in demand and it is time.
I nearly cannot believe this after I read this in the Life section of today’s papers:
“It urged Mr Obama to be more humane towards flies and sent him a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a housefly and release it outside.”
I can’t comprehend with the fact that there are individuals out there who empathise with houseflies. They are a nuisance and they spread diseases! I would gladly buy a device that kills them, rather than a device that releases them safely outside my house and risk having them fly back into house and land on my food.
Would those individuals that invent this gadget eat the food which have been sprinkled with the golden dust that the housefly scratches and releases onto the food?
And clearly, they have NEVER tried to eat an outdoor meal in India.
There are two general types of students – hardworking and self-motivated ones, and the lazy ones.
It’s apparent to me which type my tutees belong to. Laziness and unconcerned attitudes from my students do rub onto me, and it makes me irritated and impatient because I can’t see myself wasting time tutoring students who cannot be less bothered about their studies and rely only on tuition time to revise their work or to attempt questions in order to empower themselves with the knowledge that they need to ace their subjects.
It just sickens me.
I won’t say I’m an excellent teacher; and I’m sure there are much better tutors out there who can probably impart better knowledge than me. But I think what I can do is to coach them and point them the right way, to give them the proper guidance to light their path and whether they take my advice or not, it will be independent of me.
Maybe it’s the way I was brought up – independent and self-sufficient.
If I’m unable to solve questions or have any pointy questions, at least I will seek help from friends and teachers. Definitely, I won’t sit on it and wait until tuition time to get it solved, or worst, brush it off and pray that it won’t come back.
Well, I do feel that this current generation of schoolchildren in secondary schools (and maybe primary school) is being taught the wrong way – being too reliant on tuition. Tuition cannot be a silver bullet.
An opportunity arised and an impulse sent me, Rong En, and his brother Ming En, all the way from civilisation to Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve yesterday.
I have never gone to Sungei Buloh and well, Tuesday was my first.
From a photograhy point of view, it was disappointing. It rained before I reached and well, it was cloudy and misty and my lens isn’t good enough to be able to capture anything good. I really should buy a prime lens with a better aperture, although it will set me by back a few hundred but well, improving photos do come at a price – and I’m paying for it, already.
Nonetheless, it was an interesting walk. It could have been more exciting if it was the migratory season ( September to March), but I highly doubt that there will be that many birds too, considering that Singapore is so built-up and the area for the birds to rest for a sojourn isn’t that big at all.
The only exciting part is that we found a bird’s nest in front of this viewing station and there were two or three young chicks who were probably just a few days old. Usually you would see these fresh chicks, hairless and blind on television, but I saw them with my own eyes! It was exciting and well, in a way, fresh. However, I think the bird definitely made a wrong choice of making her nest along the ground because there were monitor lizards in the area and we saw at least 3 of them.
I highly doubt that the chicks will still be there if I return tomorrow.
And well, one less place for me to visit in Singapore. I can safely say that I have visited most places in Singapore, except for some offshore islands like Kusu Island or Jurong Island.
Despite all its reclamation works, Singapore may just be getting too small for me.
