sound of music

was in a pretty bad mood the whole day today.

maybe it was because I was getting edgy over the possibility of getting recalled today.

or maybe it was because sound of music turned out pretty bleah, cos the film was already so firmly etched in my mind, and since the musical followed darn closely to the firm, there was no fresh new scenes or songs, which made it a pretty bleah affair.

but i ain't complaining. it's nice to watch, thou if i could get rid of some pests from the theatre it would have been a better experience.

for one, the kid behind me thought the seat in front of him was a footrest. -_-

then there was this wierdish caucasian lady, who roused the people sitting next to her to sing along with the singers on stage, singing ESPECIALLY loud at "Edelweiss"... oh well, maybe she's Austrian.

then there were the multitudes of kids that kept chattering and standing up on their seats to wave and so on.

oh well. whatever. the perils of watching a family oriented programme on a saturday afternoon. i'll take the risks, didn't really mind. =)

realised also that i'm indeed drifting apart from the 6 SIR bunch. edgar said the morale was at an all-time low there. but i honestly know nuts about them anymore. oh well. it's like that i guess, time always wins.

but just realised i have lots of responsibility piled up on me these days. should i feel honoured? i guess so, but im not. i feel like shirking it all away and resting in comfort-zone, ditching responsibilities towards my cousins, my men and so on.

i feel so shi-bai when dealing with my men. think generally they are fine, but there are one or two that honestly are very unlovable and keep trying to climb over my head. realised there's a lot of rules i need to iron out with my RQ to improve on matters... which means work.

i feel certain responsibility in maintain close relationships with my respective cousins, but haven't tried yet and well, the priority issue again. do i actually have enough time? or has God sufficient spilt apart me with the 6SIR bunch such that I have time for others? I dunno. That was probably a mean accusation but oh well...

getting fat. should exercise more.
frAnk

hearing a 'pop' song

what's the point of going online at msn when everyone is either busy or away? busy playing some online game or doing something silly?

silly.

my sis told me it's because some people dun wanna talk to some people, so got reason to ignore them when they msg...

oh well. yeah, excuses to fend off thick-skinned pple like me? hehe.

aniwez, the cremation was today. so was the accompanied gush of tears from most people. I must say my grandmom is darn composed. she didn't cry... just look sorrowfully and wistfully and the casket moved along.

but i guess christians have the comfort that we'll meet each other in heaven again and so its not forever separation. in fact, ye-ye's pain was taken away, he's no longer suffering already.

and i have to tell you, this probably brought our family closer than it has been in the recent years. I got to catch up with so many people, got to experience the fun, love and joy with chatting and joking with all my aunts, cousins and so on.

like how my aunt was telling us about her students writing crappy answers in their tests.

Q. How do u test for hydrogen gas?

A. When u put a lighted splint in, you hear a 'pop' song.

-_-

which prompted my aunt to ask him which pop song it was..

(but mind you, my sis is even dumber, she said you would hear a sizzling sound. HUH?! u mean like roasting pig sizzle?)

so yeah, it was fun.

and i actually was starting to dread the whole thing ending. cos it meant no longer being able to spend galores of time chatting with my extended family. it meant facing back to the reality of crappy work and unmotivated men who try to climb over your head. it meant being pretty much alone again. =(

i realise NS made me treasure stuff like my relatives better. I mean, I really miss the times where we would just confirm meet up weekly and just chat and talk about the week and so on. But with NS, sundays became a probability and with my granddad getting admitted into hospital, things just got dull-er. sigh.

oh well. learnt alot from this whole stint. like what the contents of an urn are. or like how impactful a person's life can be. or like how wistful, quiet and high-tech the mandai crematorium is. oh well... some significant and some non-significant, i just hope that the ties between our family remain tight as ever...

and that maybe i can go out with my cousins more and so on... hehe

fraNK

getting to know you

random thoughts:

- got to know my cousins better, be it Samuel, Benjamin as well as some far-far-flung cousin who came to Singapore to study in NUS... think i must have honestly been hiding in some hole somewhere for the past 19 years of my life, not really getting to know them or something.. or maybe it's really army that has made me more matured? haha. as if.

- 300+ people is ALOT. We couldn't fit everyone in the chapel and latecomers has to stand behind as 'punishment'.

- my cantonese sucks, but i have surprisingly used it more in these few days than i ever had in the past 19 years... my malaysian aunt says my cantonese sounds like ang-moh chinese.. which made me go huh?! wah.. dat bad issit?

- you can guarantee a tearjerker when you start mentioning unaccomplished wishes and tender stuff, like when my uncle said he was intending to bring my granddad on wheelchair to tour the new premises of our church when renovation was completed... but now, there's no chance... THAT nearly got my tear glands in motion.

- some people really think wake means really coming at like 11+ something and talking through the night, but our family doesn't believe in that. In particular, my grandmother got quite pissed when some people just refused to leave and she was muttering to my aunts that the people "very long-winded and really want to talk through the nite". cute.

- despite my best efforts, i am going to sleep and will not be waiting for my sis to come home. ZzzzZ..

frAnk

I. am. wiped. out.

just fetched my parents from the airport at 2 something in the morning...

and this was after a whole day of being at the wake and entertaining guests...

sometimes i wonder what the point of things - we need to entertain guests when we are grieivng? hmm... but well, they come in goodwill... so it's just courtesy

i am tired out, becoming incoherent. alot of thoughts, including realising that having a cherished old friend till the age of 80 might be one of the greatest things in life (seeing my grandmother tottling along with her 83 yr old friend is quite a sight)

oh well. some other day i guess.

zZzZZ
FRAnk

lessons in death

someone's pain was taken away very suddenly on monday morning...

his lifeless body now rests serenely in a coffin, seperated from the rest of us by a sheen of glass...

but he rests peacefully in the arms of God, who calls him a loyal servant...

that's my grandfather.

*********************

there are many lessons to be learnt, even at a funeral, though some are so darn secular and silly i should be slapped for thinking about it... some random thoughts..

1. i wonder whether i'll ever have so many lovely, beautiful wreaths at my funeral, so many people who'd remember me... i mean, i know it ain't very useful when you're dead, but.. it's just very beautiful... (is this morbid?)

you can actually find such beauty at a funeral. the flowers fill the air with a sweet fragance akin to one walking in a nursery, with flowers bursting in colour at all sides...

2. funerals can bring a family back together... this is one time in a very long time that I have managed to talk to alot of my relatives, cousins and aunts and uncles for as long as I want, and just chit-chat about things and care about each other... i really miss those days actually, when the bond between families was so strong...

3. you don't just buy white tops for fun. like $5 stuff from baleno then throw them away the next day. HONESTLY.

white tops are a rare commodity in everyone's cupboard i guess, so that's probably why me and my sis went to buy white tops today. my sis laid down very strictg instructions that it had to be a PURE WHITE top, so my montral tee failed, unless i cut out the canada flags lah -_-

there are 2 ways to go about buying white tees. one is to go to a pasar-malan and buy 3 for $15 type of tees and wear them for the duration of the wake then treat them as rags.

the other is to think of how to accessorise them into your normal wear and then buy some slightly more expensive but then more wearable clothes. I did that... but dunno whether it'll work out or I would have just wasted more money.. but don't think so lah... one will be used whilst playing badminton, the other can be used as an overcoat for other shirts... so there..

so.. the 3rd point is a lil' ridiculous... so i better stop..

i'm glad my family members are pretty consoled liao, no extreme disconsolate scenes of people throwing themselves at the coffin and weeping.

guess we'll leave that for the last day.

frank

grappling with death.

my grandfather just passed away.

the kaleidoscope of emotions is pretty wierd, need to ingest and find out how to react.

rite now, I'm more worried about my relatives, cos my parents obviously have their vacation in Japan wrecked, and my grandmother probably needs consolation.

oh well.

what a way to start a week.

heart of dissatisfaction

grass is always greener somewhere else... or is it because I ate up the grass at my side?

-_-

sigh... sometimes I honestly wonder why life always feels like a broken, distorted mirror that never can be pieced together perfectly, with things that always fall apart... there will always be regrets, things undone, philosophies u wonder whether u should have adopted...

should i feel pathetic and sorry for myself that whilst all my frens are going steady and continuing lovely relationships with their gfs, I seem to be stuck in the pre-pubescent stage of playing LAN games, and obsessing over TV?

or should I just let things flow on their own course and just see my friends all start to become a faint memory due to their other commitments and then finally fade into obscurity due to neglect?

I tried very very hard, albeit too hard, then came to realise there's no point... it is life.. paths converge and diverge due to the circumstances of situations and well.. it's just like that...

and then it's the job thing as well... sometimes I really just think "heck liao.. just do whatever is needed and get outta there asap..." lost alot of interest liao, look at other people and their scenario and their interesting job scope whilst comparing with my own paltry schedule.. i really really wonder why do I even bother anymore...

but oh well.. i've learnt alot in NS, one which is that you are placed in a specific place by God's will for a specific purpose, and already I can see glimmers of the rationale behind why I am here in 3 sig bn as the QM.. and perhaps what I am supposed to do..

so i guess, just continuing living like this, not aimlessly but going with the flow, reacting when things come along, letting go when things drift apart, and accepting things that come my way...

fraNK
(who's sick agAin... bleah)

home cooked food

was pleasantly surprised today when my aunt popped by our house and whipped up a few dishes for me and my sis to have dinner, and was just so accomodating, nice and caring...

i really thank God for a wonderful, caring and lovely family.

i thank God for giving me so much in my life - the results, the family, the friends, the capability to exercise one's own choice in matters of life, not limited by monetary woes and other troubles...

hmmm.. it's only in army, when u start to interact with more people and get chummy with people from different backgrounds do u really see the plight some are in and would u ever realise how lucky u are...

and really, it has opened my eyes and made me tad more sensitive to such people.. hope i can help out in anyway or whatsoever...

++++++++++++++++++++++++

aniwez, as i was saying, I had quite a migraine as I slogged myself back home, took a nice shower and tucked myself into bed, really thankful that someone was preparing dinner.. and suddenly, the homeliness and niceness of home cooked food really struck me today... very wierd... felt so much family warmth and so on...

think i must really start appreciating my parents more, esp my mum's cooking.. the effort she pours in to cook the various food just in anticipation of me coming home.. I should be YEARNING to relive that experience at the end of each working day instead of demanding to eat out...

and i was quite idiotic as well when they called back.. started whimpering on the phone saying "bing bing" (ie. sick-sick) and saying how I had this very bad headache... thankfully it was my father who knew me well enough to see through these silly antics of mine.. (mind you, it's not that my mom doesn't know me well, but it's just that this innate motherly-ness surges forth everytime she hears such stuff and she unwittingly gets worried... so there..)

so pretty boring now at home, waiting for new people to come online to talk to them... get to know more people.. haha...

fraNk

bleah.

YET another retching headache...

this time due to the combo of tiring myself with badminton and then walking out into the hot sun, and then playing 5 games of doTa...

bleah. gonna rest.

the problem with blog skins

i've been thinking of a blog revamp, considering my currently blogskin is getting is a little old and worn... but well, results yielded from blogskins.com sorely disappoint.

there is seemingly like only 2 types of blogskins available..

one is the sickly sweet, ooh-so-cute types of blogs which generally include tons of hearts, stars, glitter and sweet-pie-ish pictures from all places like jap anime, forever friends and so on...

the real worst are those starting with boy + girl etc etc.. and just nauseate the reader with the saccharine-ness of the love enfusing the oh-so-cuddly relationship and so on.. where the gal posts "oh he's so sweet" entries and the guy does so vice versa and they top it off with falling snow flakes or glittery stars...

sounds like something good for royston. too bad he doesn't blog anymore.

the second type of blogskins are the absolute reverse, using dark themes and even darker words, these blogs just scare the heck out of most people with their content, as though the writer is going through the darkest days or has just checked out of rehab but is still on the verge of rehab.. words like.. "miserable life... u poisoned my life" etc are echoed all around the gloomy website and well.. is plain sad...

which honestly, leaves me with no choice to improve on my blog. ZILCH.

because the most irritating flaw of all these designs is that... they honestly care so much about the design that they completely hecked the contents of the blog - ie. the WORDS... the words MAKE UP the life of the blog, not the design! So why the hell only devote one-sixth of the page to you measly entries whils the rest of the space is left purposefully blank for the existentialistic look? it's all wrong man...

so whatever... at least my blog still ain't looking too tardy, and it ain't too gloomy so i guess it'll suffice...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
Dusty Springfield
made popular by Nadia Turner

When I said I needed you
You said you would always stay
It wasn't me who changed but you and now you've gone away
Don't you see that now you've gone
And I'm left here on my own
That I have to follow you and beg you to come home
You don't have to say you love me just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand

Believe me believe me
I can't help but love you
But believe me I'll never tie you down
Left alone with just a memory
Life seems dead and quite unreal
All what's left is loneliness there's nothing left to feel
You don't have to say you love me just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand
Believe me believe me
You don't have to say you love me just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand
Believe me believe me believe me

home alone

that's it.

my parents have gone to Japan for 2 weeks to see my darlin' sis...

leaving my sis and me effectively HOME ALONE...

which is fine with me, as long as I can solve the problem of transportation to camp if I am to stay out... haiz.. it's back to having to force myself to wake up very early without a parent nagging at me at my bed.. =)

honestly, i guess it is only now in my 20 years (wow) of life that I've realised how much I've taken my parents for granted...

those little reassuring actions like ensuring you wake up and not be late for stuff like going to school and so on...

those various herbal recipes and soups they painstaking boil for you..

the free transportation to and fro everywhere...

but well... it is time for everyone to enter a new phase of life i guess... for them, it is time for them to set us free in a sense, entrusting us with their faith that we would be able to do fine and maintain the house well...

so yeah.. hopefully i'll do fine =)

and not burn down the house. or scald myself. or something stupid.

frAnk

chief clerk jokes

somehow the funniest jokes emanating from camp seem to be all about Chief Clerk... (whom in most units, happens to be a pretty (hmm) old lady, with pretty much alot of power over the clerks, and with that, tons of attitude)

my chief clerk has this uncanny knack of being able to wear down even the most resilient and determined soldier down with her neverending tales and recollections of the past (which IS, to her benefit, pretty long)

aniwez, with an old woman in camp, it is unevitable that she becomes the butt of some jokes with her actions, like :-

1. Chief Clerk NEVER wears No. 4 because the one time she wore it, even the Malay stall auntie laughed at her when she came to buy food (mind you, those two are in cahoots, cos the Malay stall auntie ONLY allows chief clerk to enter the kitchen and cook her own stuff).. So yeah, even for the recent parade where everyone wore No. 4, she donned her nicely starched No. 3 and looked pretty out of place..

2. Chief Clerk took her BMI once a few weeks ago, and (i think u can guess) went on a "indignant-remorse-filled" diet cum exercise schedule which she held out for a week, where she went swimming with the HQ CSM and so on...and the next Monday, she went to the Malay stall and whacked out most of the oily, greasy, poisoningly sweet food that the auntie had to serve... hmmm

3. One guy (a former storeman) met Chief Clerk in the cafeteria and said:

"Good Morning Babe"

which elicited an utmost shocked look from Chief Clerk as well as passerbys whom frantically scurried away to avoid the impending woman's wrath... whereby Chief Clerk started ranting about how disrespectful that was and what kind of manners he was thought, and then she promptly hauled him to the RQ and ranted about him again, resulting in the poor soul (maybe he meant it) get confinement...

i dunno... what was wrong with that guy?! oh well...

so yeah.. any more? plz do tell..

frank

p.s. i found these pretty kewl shop at Great World City called WH, which sells pretty cool clothes (those currently in fashion now), as well as the clunky big belts that guys are wearing if they have to tuck in their shirts yet still look cool... hmm.. wanna buy one like one of the sergeants but dunno where to buy... hmm.. going to ask soon..

poisoned milo alert

why can't everyone just be nice, honest and hardworking?

why must the world be filled with good and bad people, such that in the end we doubt everything that we are shown, wondering if the person is trying to pull a fast one or not?

HONESTLY... can people just stop reporting sick? I mean, this guy in my platoon has reported sick a grand total of 8 times since he came in around Feb/March? That's like getting MC once a week... wonder what doctor he goes to... which is why I wanna see his medicine and MC, and then track down the doctor to find out.. I'm sick and tired of this..

I mean c'mon? Is life here very tough or smth? NO.. it's sian and boring to the max such that people yearn for the passing of every hour and so on... but it certainly ain't tough.. so i don't see the problem of MC-ing so many times... and getting 2 days ATT C for sore eyes... wow.. must have really been seeing RED..

------------------

Aniwez, I realised my platoon has a very jia-lat eating schedule, which is that they eat brunch and dinner only... and brunch is usually at this Malay auntie's stall whom has no qualms in dumping large dollops of mayonnaise onto the salad or poisoning the ice milo with chunks of sugar (trust me, when I first drank it, I nearly spat the milo out)

which is honestly very unhealthy... (if u are wondering what they do during lunch break, they sleep... -_-)

and today the Malay auntie topped even herself by deep-frying curry puffs filled with chilli padi, green chilli, onions and what you have... one bite and most of us were gasping and choking, gulping down large chunks of the poisoned milo to save our throats...

oh my... so really, must start encouraging the pple to eat lunch @ the cookhouse liao.. problem is they get pangs of hunger at around 10.00.. then once they eat they feel too guilty to eat lunch... (which is just 2 hours away) so maybe i'll buy bread for their breakfast next time.. haha

frank

new blood enthusiasm

am i too soft sometimes?

like today during field pack inspection, I pretty much let them do it their own way and didn't really enforce much... just commenting on certain stuff like oil bottle not filled and so on... then some people just blatantly and completely forget to bring or buy the necessary items, despite me reminding them..

so what to do? i'd be checking again tommorow.. and well, I think my hard stance has to come out liao.. make them fall in at the parade square to check? make sure everything is neat and tidy? i dunno... how to balance niceness and getting work done?

talking about recall manning, sometimes I feel I get to obsessed with my own new ideas and way of doing things that I ignore the more lao-jiao people and their opinions... like on my planning of the area management and layout etc.. got really into it and was sending people around doing stuff when one of the more lao-jiao specs reminded me that it was not really the practice here...

hmm.. clash between the new blood's enthusiasm and the old blood's experience...I feel restricted and inhibited sometimes.. want to implement alot of stuff yet so at the infancy stage here, not really knowing alot about the going-ons... but yeah, as my dad says, the first 3 weeks should be on observation, next 3 then on action and following that on change... so yeah, maybe it's still too early... =)

and I thank God cos there are nice pple in the Bn lah afterall, the men and specs are all pretty decent and nice... (at least the ones i got to know, like through table tennis and so on) but wonder whether they feel wierd when i go and approach them to say hi and just like chit-chat about sutff and going out and so on?

is there an unreproachable barrier because of the rank? I dunno... hope there isn't.. wouldn't mind going out with some of them cos the officers in 3 sig are like pretty rare... but well, would it be quite awkward, especially if they are also with their platoon mates and so on?

or maybe in unit such barriers are broken?

dunno.. hoping to learn more and get better at my job,
get to know more friends and pals for a lifetime =)

franK

art of handling men

handling men is honestly an art...

like... how do u handle a person who keeps taking urgent leave and off because his friend's dad died or that his grandmother is sick?

i mean, if it is really true, then I'm fine with it.. no.. not really fine cos I specifically stated that I want all applications to be at LEAST 3 days in advance... so taking urgent stuff doesn't sit well with me (well unless of course like someone close is on the brink of death or something)

so tell me what should i do?

say no and risk being seen as an unfeeling, couldn't-care-less person?

say yes and like let people continually step over me?

honestly, i don't know... I'm thinking of calling him every now and then tmr to check out on what he is doing, and then if he like playing games outside or smth then I'll slam him with tons of extras or something...

but.. I HAVE A JOB? I'm also quite busy and things are mounting up and getting quite stressful so well.. dunno liao..

so really pray to God he'll have a change of heart and stop these kinds of nonsense and yeah... leave it as that...

frank
(any suggestions?)

SOL photo

aniwez, just a nice photo for remembrance... =)

remaking singapore?

i dun get it.

do your visions of a cosmopolitan, vibrant city ever include casinos?

or like, would not having a casino make Singapore a "backwater city"?

so u want a integrated resort (wow.. WHAT a euphemism), then why not attract Disneyland?

Why not TRY to have a better market survey before launching into a "Tang City"-esque high class, symbolic theme park?

Why not TRY to further build up our shopping infrastructure to make it like a Harajuku, Shinjuku or in taiwan's terms, a Xi-Men Ting?

point is, why so many fricking excuses and justifications here and there just for a mere casino?

oh well...

i think the funniest comment made was how PM commented that Taiwan and China citizens laughed at Singapore, commenting it as a crystal clear pond without any specks or murkiness and hence not being able to sustain any fish...

huh?!?

so to stay competitive, we must introduce some mud and dirt, bring some denizens and vices into the country to make it more "interesting" and "vibrant"? so we should introduce prostitution and strip clubs just to not be a laughing stock to Taiwan?

oh whatever lah...

fraNK

mid NS fatigue syndrome

may i honestly start finding more meaning to my life...

sometimes i wonder whether we all live in the "wanting-to-go-back-to-the-past" mode, where we keep reflecting about the past and realise how good it was and how we never treasured it....

or maybe it's just me and my not-liking-change ways...

and well, maybe once I've really fitted into my job and got to know the people well enough, things WILL be better, as it has been.. but how long? How long before that get to be able to start a routine and do things well and with aim? How long (if ever) will I be able to motivate my men and be able to inspire each of them...

maybe these are too lofty ideals... right now it is more of not letting them climb over my head with their constant barrage of off-passes and so on, and trying to get into the groove and understand what is happening...

******************
beneath the verneer of happiness and self-confidence built up by stuff like wiining in dota, lies a very insecure and worried man...

1. i'm getting fat again, and I can't stop gorging on food at times... =(.. MUST really get into a routine and work it out...

2. i desperately want to succeed in my job, (ala the choleric nature of me) but it is a tough path to walk...

3. i want to get to know more people in 3 sig (as in really good fren type who will come along to go for nights-off and come to your bunk to play games or chat about interesting stuff and so on), but the choosing pool is really really SMALL... and honestly, I don't know where half of the new officers are at times... like they are honestly so busy and so preoccupied with their lives, that well, I stand by the side and watch...and rot away.., this is precisely the reason why i keep wanting to stay-out... cos at least at home i face my computer and blog and have my own comfortable personal space with stuff that can occupy my mind... but that means I hae to trouble my parents, taxing them tremendously by having them to fetch me back to camp every morning... (plus they are going overseas to see my sis in Japan from next week onwards... how?!?)

4. weekends have denigrated to the mindless playing of lan with different sets of frens and so on... what the heck am i doing with my life? and yeah, there's an irritating CO parade tomorrow that I have to go for tmr (supposedly marching but noe nuts about it cos i took off on the rehearsal day to take BTT) and yeah, I have to wake up very early to get there

I think I have the mid-NS fatigue syndrome...

ok whatever.. think I'm going to take charge of the situation of work on it... shall sleep now in prep for tommorow's waking up early (poor parents) but before that, cuddle in my bed and have a lil' bit of quiet time and reflection time...and maybe work out a good exercise schedule =)

frAnk

(btw. realise i dun really complain about friends drifting apart anymore? well, i've accepted it liao, once people seperate and go to different places, their position on your priority list will ultimately have to drop and vice versa, because its tough to meet up... and when that happens, you drift apart, replacing them with other people and other interests... this is but just a fact of life that I have learnt to accept...)

flag day overkill

i HATE those flag days collectors man.. they come in hordes and hordes and just congest the whole orchard road... just one word for it.. OVERKILL.

and i'd bet most just do it for the precious CIP points, which honestly defeats the purpose cos they just stand there chatting with their friends, holding the silly can and just block your way without even approaching you.

one or two would be fine, but having clumps of them at both sides of the mrt openings and escalator entrances make them a public nuisance and spoils many people's saturday out...

PLEASE do something more constructive like visit an old folks home and help them or like do some REAL charity work.. and not stand there and rot and waste time...

---------------------------

Aniwez, saw a bunch of people rushing out of Newton MRT, wearing a T-shirt saying MHSS Amazing Race tee... which sortta got my adrenaline pumping and made me wish I was part of it.. (think i counted 7 teams during the 30 minutes that Weide made me wati again -_-)

next time when i go uni i wanna organize something like that or be part of it.. gets my adrenaline really up! Think for them. they were supposed to had to Newton food court or Chao Yang School.. FUN..

frAnk

casino in question

STOP the fricking casino debate.. cos it is as much a debate as Hitler's regime was a democracy...

Utter crap.

STOP all these pro-casino advertisements and pointless surveys of the addictive gambler profile as well as the proposed measures to counter it...

I mean, if u wanna do something crappy and detrimental, at least JUST do it obviously and stop trying to stuff us citizens with these crappy, lame-assed, pathetic 'gimmicks' that might assuage us...

i mean, it is darn obvious you know that economy aside, everything else of the casino is detrimental - the possible crime increase, the addictiveness of gambling and so on...

and i find it completely ironic and STUPID to tell us how we intend to cure these potential "addictive" gamblers by opening rehabilitation centres and so on...

this just makes me go "HARH?!"

i thought the best method of preventing something from happening was to keep away from the temptation?

And isn't this like inviting temptation to our doorstep?

oh well.. whatever... if u want your casino so badly (or if your pockets (along with your sanity and conscience) are being stuffed completely with wads of cash), then go on lah..

just stop this completely fake and farcical attempt at trying to say this was a democratic and deliberated, calculated move... you are just making a BIG JOKE out of yourselves when the repercussions finally hit...

oh well

frAnk (doing DO duty now..blearrgh)

pacified slightly

Good show.. go watch...for one, it brings alot of army stuff that we as NSF are so used to into a home life, and yeah, made me realise how "army-fied" i have become.. like i felt the "Down 20" given to the elder sis' bf was so natural.. oh well.. what have i become?

very very predictable and very disney-ish magic fantasy show but because of the uplifting mood and well, feel-good elements, it made for a nice movie to take my mind off alot of matters..

1. i dislike change alot... adaptation sucks

2. i dislike the general feeling i get at work.. which is the feeling of impending doom of LRI, NDP and so on all crashing down on me when i know very very little... I have also come to get fatigued at the great responsiblity thrust onto our shoulders for everything.. how we must be in charge of everything and so on... It's VERY draining.. and yeah, as my dad says, I should leave all these burdens in God's hands...

3. i'm going to have to do DO duty tommorow... and I'm completely new. As usual, I worry about everything, like how to liase with the previous DO, how to call the DFO and so on... sigh.. I dun wanna screw up..

4. i dunno what to tell mohan in attempt to salvage this friendship...

sigh... no mood to write already really...

frAnk

table tennis troubles

i'm stressed... and it is because I'm new at the job, with many challenges and arrows thrown at my face, all whilst I am trying to grasp a hold of things here at 3 Sig Bn...

being a QM is beneficial in some ways. For one, you have men to look after, and it makes thing so much more complicated, yet so much more people-oriented and interesting.. unlike a DyS4... I have to contend with a platoon of people who find life honestly boring and unmotivating, I have to try and inspire them, try and help them in their lives, and also try to sieve out those truly in need of help from those who are just eyeing for offs...

I get to mix around with regulars, in fact be their superior, which makes the situation even more wierd and difficult to handle as I have to keep asking questions. (and yeah to some people, that is very demeaning of officers)

I want to build good relationships with everyone, yet I need to stand firm and say 'NO' at times, or force people to do things they do not like... I need to be disciplinarian and yet mentor and helper...

then comes the whole other aspect of dealing with crap handled over by my upperstudy, viz, the table tennis competition... -_-

i'm honestly sitting at the edge of my seat due to this, and really praying to God every single day about this event, hoping that the event closes without much trouble.. This is especially so with the inclusion of a female player into the team. as demanded by the competition rules.. you see, our team isn't weak, but we are simply disadvantaged by the fact that we do not have a veteran, nor do we have a female. Hence, if we face teams with both, we already lose 2 rounds straight due to walkovers, and would have to win all the rest of the 3...

so I was desperately trying to contact all the feamles in 3 Sig Bn, trying to get a female to play.. but honestly, with such a limited pool of females in SAF, how possible is it to get a female player that knows how to play table tennis?

so I thought that was it, not realising the ruckus I caused back at camp by calling so many people over the matter. And yeah, finally one female sergeant called me back and said she wouldn't mind playing, even though she didn't know anything about table tennis...

which honestly.. I feel terribly bad...

It must feel terrible to her if she goes up and plays against some pretty good player, and plays hopelessly... It must be like a complete waste of time, plus a big embarassment... and I'm sure she will be pissed cos she must have gotten arrowed by her superiors.. so honestly, I don't feel too good... I don't want to unwittingly piss off her without even really knowing her...

I really hope she will either not play tommorow (due to the other side not having female players), or that she will find herself surprisingly good and agile at table tennis and yeah, finds the overall experience fun...

but that would be really lucky for me..

I really hope things will turn well, that we would do moderately well and yeah, I can answer to my superiors.. and then go back to my normal work...

life's tough... i'm counting the minutes...
hope things will get better soon...

frAnk

blogging dilemna

I feel like Harriet in Harriet the Spy when her spy book got found out... but worse.. I feel wretched... I feel vile that I am now somewhat like a person who burns bridges when he no longer views them as useful, a person who discards friends when they are no longer viable...

but i am NOT such a person!

honestly... i never realised mere words from a blog could hurt so deep... and I feel very remorseful... sigh... and honestly, most of it has been misunderstood

i never meant that my past was so horrid that I would want to change it, never meant that the friendships i made in the past were destructive... it was just a wistful thinking, a "yearning towards the greener grass @ the other side" sort of feeling"...

in fact, no one will ever know what would have happened to me had I managed to change the past...(ala Butterfly Effect) so I'm seriously sorry that have made u "devastated" over reading that.. in fact, reading that statement made me lose my appetite straight away...

and honestly, I had hoped you would take the other entry with a pinch of salt, not knowing that it had hit the core... honestly, that was my insensitivity and my honest wicked tongue... perhaps I also misunderstood you in the way you acted.. but I'm truly sorry...


I don't want to lose a friend over two blog entries.


and honestly, I dunno whether I should continue writing anymore.. I LOVE writing, love reading about my own past and reminiscing, because these memories are all so precious to me... this is the place where I can exude my creative talent (albeit little) and just yak about anything in the world...

but never realising writing too carelessly would lead to this..

or that.. people I don't really want reading my blog are reading it... yeah.. I found out my QM platoon people know about my blog despite my valiant attempts at blocking it off...

all these limits make writing either very constrained or fake... which is what I don't want it to be...

yet.. being real hurts people.

i'm honestly confused. But truly very sorry for the hurt feelings I have caused...

fraNk

nice prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change,
the courage to change things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

a reversion to chinese pop

somehow.. the flu bug hit me today.. which was pretty much a bug-geration.. cos i had to keep heading to the toilet to get more toilet paper to stuff my nose up with... and yeah, by the end of the day, I ended up looking like rudolf the red-nosed reindeer... pooh...

aniwez.. went on a semi shopping spree and bought 2 new chinese albums..

(i'm starting to re-appreciate the lovey-dovey ballads of the chinese pop world with the influx of all these crappy nonsensical english rock-pop music such as boulevard of broken dreams, which just elicits a huh? from me...dunno lah... guess it is a reversion of music tastes to the more ballad-ish type... cos i remember vividly myself saying just a year ago that chinese music was a decade slower than english pop... guess it is time for me to swallow my own words.. cos hey! i happen to like music a decade ago maybe... -_-)

so guess what i bought? well, wang lee hom and F.I.R.'s new albums... listening to them now and well.. happy with what i bought for now =).. realised for one that music producers have given up trying to battle those music pirates but instead, are rechannelling their energy and efforts from these never-ending and quite pointless lawsuits to the packaging of the cds....

cos WOW.. the cd packaging is darn kewl.. the cds are really pretty.. esp F.I.R.'s VCD... and both albums look darn sleek and well produced... so yeah.. good work man! maybe THAT is the answer to those pirates - originality = more style and class.. hehe

*********************
and well.. went around window shopping, saw some nice esprit t-shirts, shirts and pants but the shirts made me look fat (sigh) and the shirt, though those type that i wanna buy, (ie, collar and end of sleeves of a diff colour) but had a horrid motif printed on the sleeve.. so.. nope! i'll keep searching....

then went to F-men and found the T-shirt but felt that the material was slightly flimsy and a little overpriced ($23.00), so decide to go for a better market survey first...

*********************
aniwez, went to meet Weide for lunch after that (yeah... at 3.30pm -_-) and just talk talk, walk walk a bit after that.. and hey.. we decided to go together for a Europe backpack travel after we ORD.. but well.. see what happens then.. though I'm determined to go for such a trip lah...

and it was pretty fun lah, (besides my bloody sniffing and sneezing) talk about a lot of things.. pretty intellectual stuff (haha).. had fun =)

i'm STILL sniffing as i write this and that is a great turn-off.. so i shall stop..

fraNK

6 hours of lan!? oh my...

i'm NOT addicted to doTa (unlike what Weide thinks)

it's just that there seems to be little things to occupy guys when they go out nowadays... i mean, it was supposed to be an meet-up with chris, alvin, linken, me and edwin at 11.30 to play lan (sad... i told alvin badminton but he said difficult to book)

Aniwez alvin and chris also said they couldn't come (quite expected for Chris lah), cos both got struck down by some fever (something in the air in sentosa), which basically rendered it down to a 3 person normal outing..

-_-...yawnz

so we played, and yah lah.. again the politics of gaming came to play.. lin ken kept warning that if i came too close to his base in doTa he would never play lan again... so i just contended myself with killing the forest creatures until he and edwin cleared up the mess in their base, before leading a new force in...

then at 4.30 i was supposed to meet with the the 3f guys.. (not much left liao lah with ryan and gay phua overseas)... and yeah.. they decided to play lan too.. so i just din vacate my seat and continued playing.. but yeah.. much more fun this time cos they actually attacked my hero without fear... the irrational fear that seems to have struck lin ken and edwin at times...

whadeva lah.. ended up playing the longest time in my life.. and now i have a retching headache... sheesh... not playing rome: total war liao... going to sleep...

fraNK

something about computers...

i am jinxed... there's just something about me and the computers in my camp... I just seem to spoil all of them, either by forgetting my password, pulling my card out too early, transfering my email storage location etc...

and the screwy thing is that you cannot anyhow reboot the com or you'll have to wait for like 15 minutes before you can log-in again.. which is darn frustrating...

and today, well... my email crashed on me due to overload... (and yeah.. thanks to all those peeps who used the email as some sort of msn.. glare)

so i effectively couldn't do anything for the whole day after that.. and just well.. went around learning a bit more about my job.. difficult sia.. cos without an upperstudy, i am completely blur over what to do... so.. bleah..

here's to hoping for a better day...

fraNk

ended liao... back to real life now?

so BLOC ended today with a sumptuous lunch in which most of my syndicate left early... oh well... still thought it was possible to have a last get-together, eat-together session but well... guess not..

dunno whether I'll ever meet this peeps again... (and mind you, I've become pretty cynical regarding lasting friendships especially after the whole ocs thingy).. but if there is anything I've learnt, it is to really cherish what you have now and put in all effort to maintain the relationships you have there... nothing IS ever going to last forever, except your relationship with God... so there...

and on a pleasantly surprised note, I got top S4 student.. =) wheee...

but yeah. yet another scrap of realism thrown at me... so? does that mean anything honestly, besides some pathetic bragging rites?(ha!)... I'm STILL going to have to go back, STILL going to have to be a QM and learn the ropes again, and STILL have to clear stuff like SOC and so on... =(..

i dunno why I'm heading towards this "going-back" with such dread and unhappiness... bad first impressions? having to re-adapt, restart building up all these relationships? no more soccer-playing? haha... whatever... it's up to me to work my magic again I guess... and good luck to me!

fraNK


Just had to add this pic cos it brings such warm feelings to one... Sigh...

13 going on 30

just watched 13 going on 30... and being the scared-to-watch-not-happy-parts type of person, I fast-forwarded most of the sad parts and went to the nice parts... that's the nice part about renting vcds i guess...

and well.. it set me thinking... what would i do if i could go back in time now? like.. back to tao nan? would i have tried my best to join some sports like soccer and something so that the cruel cycle would never have started and I wouldn't have grown fat?

what if i went back to RI?.. then would I have tried my best to break out of the destructive clique of 7 people and attempt to know more people? join more active stuff instead of choir? hang out less with seng tat and so on?

what if i went back to RJC? then would I have attempted to go out more with girls? (haha!) would I have tried to join something else instead of odac, such that I wouldn't have gotten kicked out of there?

choices... some can be remedied, most.. never... and watching such a show tells you alot that you already know but never acknowledged... that the truest of freindships and relationships might be right in front of your eyes, but you probably never treasured it with the flurry of 'cool' and 'happening' things you wanted to be and wanted to do...

don't get blinded by a moment's fad to realise you've lost what you really wanted but never cherished...

fraNK

puppy love

normally when my family ventures out to the nearby restaurants along Upper Thomson Road for dinner, we would adjourn to one of the nice, clean pet shops to see dogs after the meal...

and well.. it always ends up with me (and my sis at times) insisting on getting one of the cute dogs pawing at the window separating us from them, with me pleading with my dad to buy one dog to play with...

today was no exception, cos once we stepped in, an ultra cute puppy-Siberian husky came bounding towards us and trotted towards my dad (who had squat down by then), and started pawing at him and licking his hands...



something like this...

more cute pics

and then i saw this ultra cute lamb-looking white dog when was also pawing at the window, as if pleading for us to buy it immediately... and that pretty much melted my sis' heart...

no pic cos i dunno the dog name.. =(

but yeah... so much for wanting a dog lah... it always lasts all the way till we walk back home.. then well.. it's forgotten till the next time we visit the pet shop again...

and well.. there ARE many reasons why my parents dun want a dog...

1. my second sis goes into major hissy fits whenever we mention wanting to buy dogs, cos she doesn't like the notion of dogs rumaging in her blankets in the morning... but since she's now in japan, it's not much of a consideration liao..

2. my parents KNOW how it'll end up.. with them taking care of the dog and me and my sis just playing with it when we have time... so the shampoos, the clearing of dog-poo and urine will be left to them, whilst we cuddle the dog and mutter sweet nothings to it...

so yeah.. my dad made a very clever comment... he said he would buy a dog if i start washing the clothes, washing the dishes, mopping the floor, cooking the meals and so on... which of course made me promptly shut my mouth up...

pity... so no dog for now i guess...

frANk

looking thru the world in grey-tinted glasses

sigh... read Jack's blog and well.. it's profuse with sadness and regret... and honestly i sometimes wonder why... it almost feels like self-torture to me, like the extreme sarcastic pessimist or something...

why choose to live life through such grey-tinted glasses when you can easily take them off? I too know what kind of shit I'll probably be going through when i return to my camp, and the responsibilities and arrows that will start flying.. but just gamely take them on? I dunno.. I'm also largely comforted by my cellgroup mates praying for me about my imminent return to jurong camp, facing people whom i have a terrible first impression of...

and well, this verse always comforts me..

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you cannot bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it"

1 Corinthians 10:13

fraNK

ice skating

went back to Fuji Ice Palace today to ice-skate with Weide...

din noe whether i would have forgotten everything by then and like be a clumsy collosal fool and fall flat on my face but was surprisingly delighted to be able to skate almost 100% the same as where I left it at a few years ago.. just a bit rusty at the edges (ha!)

was supposed to teach Weide how to ice-skate, but guess he din need much teaching... (considering what a great athlete HE is.. roll eyes~.. some peeps are just luckier)and well, he picked up real fast and was moving pretty fast, and well, even tried to learn cross-overs.. hee

feels REAL cool to go back on the ice, to feel the wind brush past your face and to move so darn fast whilst avoiding the various other figure skaters attempting their spins and jumps, as well as those irritating caucasian kids with their metal holders (something to allow them to hold on and skate)...

guess that was my passion for ice-skating last time... the wind, the iciness.. yet honestly, in my heart i was wondering how awful i would look like on ice trying those stunts, like some fat oaf trying to be a ballerina or someting...

it's just wierd... cos figure skating's so feminine and so expressive, with the leg raises, the diva-like hand gestures and so on... so for a guy to learn? it's pretty confusing at times... but well, that's in the past i guess... but hey.. today i saw three relative young guys trying to learn freestyle 1-ish stuff... which honestly makes me pretty pleasantly surprised

so well... my legs WERE tired but it was fun.. and well.. there was good company also lah.. i also saw Saki.. a japanese young girl that used to skate in Kallang and was at Freestyle 2 whilst i was in Freestyle 1... now she's like darn good, going for triple axles and stuff... but still looks very young-ish... but she doesn't recognize me liao... quite duh lah i guess...

frAnk

roadtrip!

failed to mention another exercise that transpired last week which was really pretty fun and refreshing...

it was an exercise where we were supposed to move around Seletar and then recce a good path for the movement of supply-trucks (which were mammoth-ish things that demanded flat hard ground or they would get stuck in the mud or so on... -_-)

so after much planning, (more on the apart for Weide, who was saddled with the task of EX IC - haha!) we set off the next day in rovers to do a tour de seletar...

and well.. it was a refreshing "roadtrip" after being cooped up in the plain colonial walls of SOL... (which was honestly getting progressively dirtier and dirtier)it was quite kewl, sitting on the airy rover and stopping by to measure the road and diameter of turns..

but hehe... i quite slack, being the Log WO,(ie. beverages and cakes guy) so sit at the second rover with other similarly slack-ish elements and basically went out to smell the flowers, see the nice scenery of staid houses (ala Stepford) and well, just relax for awhile...

i was acting like a small kid lah.. prancing around and cheering for the small airplanes when they flew past us, and basically walking around enjoying time... rare liao such occasions... the kid in me =)

so yeah... sorry if i ended up not doing much stuff.. but yeah... my bad

fraNK

movie prices

in protest to the price hike... I promptly went to Video-Ezy after I booked out, and rented 3 movies, each at the price of like $4.16... wah liao.. so much cheaper lor...

borrowed 13 going on 30 (cos some1 said it was nice), Stepford Wives (cos of Nicole) and some Cheena-show that my parents wanted to watch (with Andy Lau - bleaargh)

aniwez, with movie prices at 9 bucks, who HONESTLY is going to watch anymore? As my fren put it, it's just making piracy even more attractive, and turning off casual movie-goers...

still, i'll prob fork out the money to watch the occasional good show like Bewitched
...

fraNK

the ego has landed, part 2

so the execution starts in a few hours after my dressing-down session... and boy was i discouraged and a little frightened by the enormity of the situation...

now if you had read Guang Yi's blog, you'd have gotten a glimpse of how this war-gaming system works... but well.. he was just a small controller of the game (sorry to him if he feels offended by that =)) akin to like the DyS4, who moves several elements of the battalion (like DyS4 land rover) to different places on the computer-map...

and really, as a controller, it IS pretty easy... u sit there, u wait for orders from your S4 or C0, you move the troops accordingly, and you wait for other effects or instructions... and if any problem, you feign ignorance and blame your S4..

-_-

but as an S4 in the war-gaming, it is TERRIFYING... the first hour when the game started, I was nervously prancing around, not knowing what would happen and even though the game was running in real time mode, it just felt so FAST, so rushed, like swiftly spiralling down into disaster...

and when I heard my troops getting ambushed whilst on movement, I just stun for a moment, and didn't know how to react, my verneer of confidence completely falling apart... it was then i realised how ill-suited I was in reacting to scenarios and commanding troops...

it is one thing to KNOW stuff and like have book-smarts, but it is really another to make critical decisions within a short time and to really practice what you learnt...

in the first hour I was sweating it out, not knowing what decisions to make as the attrition rate of my forces grew and just panicking... and then I was completely blur on how to go about writing a real chart and so on... (the irony being that I presented those topics)

so yeah, the ego has landed... HARD

thankfully.., I was only S4 and whilst i stunned, the CO took command, albeit quite unsure of what to do as well, as went about trying to grasp the situations...

but wow.. what a mess of mistakes and mishaps that occured...

1. one controller sent some support troops first straightaway into the river crossing point, in front of all the fighting troops, and kena bombardment .. 8 medics, 2 MO died and both ambulances are wiped out.. -_-

2. I went according to my time charts and sent the resupply trains out waaay too early, resulting in them waiting at the staging area... (and this earnt me a second scolding, this time by a seemingly-friendly indian old fart whom just completly changed his tune when the exercise started... he ranted on and on about how I didn't have control over my elements and that the monitoring and command over the troops was terrible)

3. the boats that were supposed to come didn't come, and my troops were stranded at one side of the river until the rafts came...

4. because of the delay of the boats and the delay of the projection of my troops across, my other forces, which were across the river in enemy territory, was being hammered HARD from 4 fronts...by the time we reached them, a company had been decimated to a section... oops!

so as you can see, I was in pretty deep shit within a few hours, and was like a lunatic run around, getting pelted by scoldings and the various calls from my various controllers, and struggling to exert command and shout instructions to them... jia-lat man...

finally, i decided really, ENOUGH was ENOUGH, and when we were given a succesive dressing down by the indian fella, I went about a massive upgrading at the monitoring, placing charts after charts monitoring the various locations of the CSS elements, and just listing the critical tasks TO BE DONE and doing them...

i also realised I could no longer rely on my pwetty time chart (well, it became pretty ugly especially after the my bloody instructor pointed at it and said it was useless and was covering more important information -_-), and instead had to really MONITOR the situation of my own Bn as well as other Bns and then tigger the next sequence of actions correspondingly...

so well.. things became much better lah, and also becomes the instructors realised we were getting ripped pretty hard and were really quite frustrated, with Danny tearing his hair out trying to figure out the movement schedules, Michael shouting through the phone some instructions to his seemingly perpetually inept OC, and me sitting there ashen faced trying to work out my equipment status as well as answering the many phones calls...

wow...

but yeah, it was a good fight and it was fulfilling and at times really pretty realistic and fun...and in my heart i knew it was ending soon liao cos they would be changing the appointments and the 2nd night...

so guess AGAIN what appointment I got...

CO

0_0 (x 200000)

how nice man... just when i wanted a break from 2 hectics days...

but well, thankfully, my Bn was the reserve the next day.. and I had like zero problems except the mysterious "civillian stragglers" which that dratted person misinterpreted and made his own decision to send a truck to pick those civilians up and put them under military arrest... and when the DS came flying to ask what the hell I was doing, he argued with our DS for about one hour...

it was at that point I felt like dragging him to one side and using my CO power to give him a good dressing down and warn him NEVER EVER to make decisions without telling me... but well, being the hypocritical mr. nice-guy, and not wanting to burn any bridges, I just told him nicely to tell me before he decided to do things next time...

so well.. it was smooth sailing and at one point I even made a command decision (haha!), and by doing proper considerations, realised that there was no point waiting for 2 more hours for the correct timing to start the attack of another objective, and hence asked higher HQ for permission to launch the attack earlier, since other objectives were already captured...

hmm... i'm pretty proud of doing that =)

oh well.. so all well ends well.. I'm pretty surprised I survived and well.. thank god!

frANk

the ego has landed, part 1

this has been the most busy week for me in BLOC... but hey.. it HAS been fulfilling, somewhat like those weeks in OCS where I came home weary yet prideful with the knowledge that i fought a hard battle and learnt much from it... =)

I'm talking about the finale exercise for my BLOC course...

guess my appointment?

S4.

-_-

which was honestly pretty turn-offing at first because I was already pretty tired of all the planning involved with the many exercises that were thrown at us the previous week, and was yearning for some long deserved break... but yeah, I was thrown this shitty burden whilst others were given stuff like Provost PC (yeah you know who) and DyS4 (which just REEKS slack)...

but aniwez, I accepted it with a game face (haha!) and well, soon realised one thing...

It is a DARN TOUGH JOB being an S4.

Honestly, the various elements you had to consider, the amount of connections you had to liase with and the people you had to deal with all made for one hell of a tough 3 days...

First was the planning, where we basically had to regurgitate what we learnt in Log AOS exam... (which i scored pretty well, just not as disgustingly high as Mike Rod, who scored a inhuman score of 92.5... HOW CAN ONE SCORE SO FREAKING HIGH for a written paper!? )

But as me and the rest of the S4s were to realise as the night dragged on, things WEREN'T SO SIMPLE... for one, each of us had to handle two attacks, whilst I was saddled with an additional armour elements, had to detach one company for frontal assault, and had to plan for river crossing...

and well, planning is one thing... cos it is darn simple to say "A Coy will be trooplifted from Position X to Position Y", just like previous exercises...

but well, this time ops what, so everything becomes REAL.. and so the convoy movement has to be planned, the trooplift timing has to be calculated, the liaise with the transport side at the Bde had to be done, and the return of the transport elements had to be considered as well...

all for a simple movement from one point to another...

and mind you, this does not include the surprise enemy ambushes, civillian problems, and all the injects those seemingly-friendly instructors threw at us... but that's during the real execution, so i innocently did not factor them in...

so i went about carefully finshing my charts and calculation plans and was pretty proud of myself for finishing first at 0130 odd and was even flaunting around to the other S4s... hee hee... then proceeded to sleep, with my verneer of confidence still intact...

but WELL.. the next day was a completely different issue... for the first time since becoming an officer, I was blasted at by my instructor (coupled with a few other misnomers who butted in and gave their irritating comments as well) for like half an hour over ONE STUPID MISTAKE THAT MY SURBORDINATE made..

-_-... just because I placed the certain not-very-important elements to cross first in the river crossing schedule, the bloody instructor caught on to that and blasted on about priority of crossing, and how there is no point in placing them, and why I didn't place armour first to project in, and why this and that...

and all the while i tried to stop the onslaught by trying as discreetly as possible to cover the crossing schedule chart and say I would change it.. by the idiot sais "No wait.. I haven't turned you all blue and black yet"... and proceeded on and on about the same mistake

gee whiz... how nice... so I stood there and faced the machine guns, with my verneer of confidence slowly being ripped apart...

when he FINALLY finished, I was pretty white faced and proceeded to change my chart with a pretty stunned face...

that was when Mike came to tell my how badly he was blasted for drawing his overlay quite hap-hazardly and how he was screamed at with a "Even my 3 year old son can do a better overlay than that!"

....

i never knew these old fogeys here at SOL had so much anger in them -_-

but well.. this was just the start of all problems... tell ya abt it later..

frANk