IPPT!

Today is the day.

The day all our efforts were put in for.

Our IPPT! One month of training, pushing the quite impossible, running uphill and downhill and uphill again... the one we did a few days ago on Telok Blangah hill was the worst... 75% of the route was uphill!

It was all worth it, though. All of us (yes I mean all) broke our records in running the 2.4 km. Most of us passed overall and 2 of us (Chiang Wee and Max) got Gold award. Some of us might have been off-form in other stations because of nervousness. My personal best for Chin-up so far was 7 (yes during the training it shot from a miserable 2 to the current 7!), but I did 6 today due to not-so-correct breathing rhythm.

Rhythm is really important. Especially in stuff like Chin-up and Sit-up.

But the training has paid off indeed. We have all seen improvement.

I thank my God I finally passed, man! And of course MWO Foo for training us, Mdm Lee for her support, and the other buddies in training.

I was glad that all of us could be squeezed into one detail. So we could fight this final battle as one team.

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The feeling after everything was great, man! And coincidentially Ms Tay was to take Tech & NSF HQ staff for lunch today, so Chor Bin, Kelvin and I went off to Vivocity in the afternoon.

We had a Thai spicy lunch at the Thai Accent restaurant. Fried Kailan, green curry, fried tofu and the very intensely flavoured Tom Yam soup.

Drank quite a few cups of water throughout. And the rice was refillable!

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In the evening Max was doing overtime work in the office, and while waiting for him (for no particular reason), we had a "mini-concert" at my desk. Jon played the guitar, Kelvin and I gave him the chords, and we're singing songs ranging from "Right Here Waiting" to Ah Niu's "Kan Guo Lai". Sometimes we'd just go A Capella with hilarious results!

Had dinner with them at Tiong Bahru Plaza foodcourt. After that I went to check out the Comics Connection outlet and found what I wished to be available on the market... replicas of Near's finger puppets of DeathNote characters! They're so cute!!!

Until I asked about the price, which wasn't cute in any way.

Finger puppets of (Left-Right) Takada, Kira and Mikami from the comic, of which only Kira was available in the replica set. So sad... the Takada one was cute!

Finger puppets of (Right-Down) Near (N), Mello (M) and L in the comic. L!!!

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Other miscellaneous pictures of the week include:

The little Ayanami Rei

The Choro-Q S-13 I bought recently to decorate my office. It's a chibi version of the S-13, of course.

The S-13.

I finally found the earphone wire coil I saw someone use on the MRT long ago! I bought it at Sim Lim Square.

Wakaranai

ISAIAH

01

SOUND ONLY

Chotto-matte!

Give my brains a break!

As someone who doesn't exactly love using his brains, Isaiah was a bit troubled that recently he dosed himself with quite hard to understand stories like DeathNote.

Finally at the last volume of DN (and having began to figure things out), he once again suspended himself in mid air. It's Evangelion this time.

"Oh, hadn't he just watched... that episode... which he couldn't quite figure out who died when that... that person strangled... the... girl?"

And then they closed down the TJC Forums.

Which had virtually been Isaiah's second home during his JC days.

Lots of memories ga sashi-komaremashita.

Kuyashii ne. Have they really deleted the whole database? Unrecoverable? Like what happened before L died? (In the manga)

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ALL DATA DELETION_

Eh, come to think of it, in DeathNote, the Japanese Investigation HQ undergone such a change... the DELETION by Watari, followed by L's death, followed by the 2nd L, whom we all know is Kira.

Hmm at least we have a link to "SPK".

*Stirs takeaway teh using half eaten lollipop*

Friend or foe?

Hmm...

Ouch!

Sigh, the belly is really the wrong place to have a pimple, man... especially when it's at where the top of the pants will directly touch your belly... and when the pimple is directly at the root of a strand of your belly hair.

Ouch!

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Recently I've heard lots of stuff about tea.

Hmm... tea drinking has become one of my daily routines... I must at least have a cup of warm green tea during my working hours...

I heard that time that tea actually will dehydrate the body, the main cause being caffeine.

Oh.

Also, I heard on radio news that findings show that coffee and tea are best not consumed right after meals as they contain some substance that can inhibit the absorption of essential nutrients like iron.

Eh?!!

Hmm I've always been drinking tea thinking it was good...

What's so good about it in the first place?

"It has antioxidant properties."

Oh.

Hmm, besides, it's become an enjoyment for me, to just sip at the warm... the warm... ahhh....

All right, just make sure I drink tea only a few hours after the last meal!

Hmm, and my tea is now more enjoyable than before! Maybe it's because now I have to wait to drink it. You know... things that you have to wait for... it's just so nice after the wait, huh?

Can I eat frogs?

Another of my figurines talk.

On the day I went to Cini to check out board games, I was also on the lookout for figurines, of course. I saw this figurine of Gluttony, a Homoculus from Fullmetal Alchemist, and got it, since it was rare. Also, probably because I'm a glutton myself.

The Gluttony figurine which, thankfully, won't even bite.

Gluttony: "Can I eat this?"

2 other figurines I got during the week were Rei and Asuka in their trademark Evangelion body suits.

Rei

Asuka

I got them consequetively from the same capsule machine, so it was extremely lucky. Thank God I didn't get extras.

And now for my pride and joy: The Keroro Chain!

Bandai Candy Toys has been coming up with "Keroro Platoon Fall In" series, in which the 5 members of the platoon appear in different desings, based on the Anime. One characteristic of this series is that there are clips and hoops on the figurines, so you can chain them together, head to toe. Now for the individual character figurines I obtained throughout these few months...

Keroro (Left to Right)

• Shogun outfit
• Design from the upcoming prequel
• Doing housework in the Hinata residence
• Dog suit wore during Natsumi's birthday party
• Young Keroro (Chibi-Kero)

Giroro (Right-Down)

• Sitting on a slab
• Array of combat equipment
• Baby look.
• Prequel design

Tamama (Left to Right)

• Prequel design (but seriously, there's no difference between then & now)
• Cat suit, worn on Natsumi's birthday

Dororo (Right-Down)

• Bear suit worn on Natsumi's birthday
• Obviously in combat
• Young Dororo, who was called Zeroro then, and was a weak boy before he trained himself in ninja arts
• Prequel design. He was wearing a gas mask then

Kururu (Right-Down)

• Crane suit worn on Natsumi's birthday
• Prequel design with glare on spectacles
• Prequel design

I've got them long enough to make a necklace!

The Other Settler

This week I 've been going to town quite frequently.

First was to shop for Mark's birthday gift and Bernard's ORD gift. At Borders where I bought the pre-paid gift card for Mark, I also bought a copy of the Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince, all because it was sold at $9.95! Goodness, there's still the price tag on the back stating it's original price, which was over $40! Great deal, man. We shall see if Half Blood Prince will replace Goblet as my favourite volume in the HP series.

After Borders I went to Kinokuniya (I foresee myself going there more often in the future) to get some comics and to check out the Ima Ai Ni Yukimasu novel, which insipred the movie (which I will watch someday) and the drama (which I will still watch again someday).

Found the novel, I did. Found out the price as well: over $30. Sigh. I will still buy it someday, with a certain amount of regret because of the price, of course.

As for manga, I got the comic version of Evangelion (not the side stories, but the adaptation of the Anime itself) which was in Japanese. With Furigana, haha. From a brief browse of the book, it's more graphics than text (which means, relief from fatigue from reading stuff like Deathnote).

Another manga piece I got was entitled "Welcome to NHK". Not the Nihon Housou Kyoukai (as in, Japanese Broadcast Association) but the Nihon Hizai Kyoukai (as in, the Japanese Association of Useless Bums). I first saw an advertisement of this comic series from one of the volumes of Keroro. Kwok Onn said it's good, so I thought I might give it a try.

Eva and NHK.

After my Kino trip I rushed to Cineleisure (it was quite late) to check out the possible choices of board games for Bernard. Comics Mart was still open, so I found out the price for a few board games we may get for him.

The next day Chiang Wee brought me to Serene Centre to get the board game. We pondered over a few choices, and finally settled on Seafarers of Catan, an expansion of Settlers of Catan which Bernard already had.

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This Friday was Bernard's ORD, and so we sent off the last of the Old Guards on NSF Br.

Will miss the day of sharing return transport with him, on which we talked about... mostly stuff related to Japanese, haha. And oh yes, all the "ear-dropping" legends that he made while working here.

Chiang Wee who knew VBA as well could succeed him as the VBA guy of our branch. Thank God, otherwise... otherwise I might as well paste a dart board on my chest all the way until my ORD. Or not really, because I think Mdm has already given up on trying to persuade me to learn some programming rather than Foxpro (which I still have much to learn).

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On the same Friday I went for dinner with some colleagues in town, and after that we followed Kelvin to the Esplanade Library, where you can borrow media items under a paid membership. Most of the stuff there couldn't interest me, though. The music related stuff I saw there are classical music, or generally Western music which I hadn't really touched before.

The next day Bernard organised an outing to Settlers' Cafe, Clarke Quay branch. This time there was quite a large group, and we began with games like Swap (a card game which I played with my cell group before) and Jungle Speed (a game of spotting patterns and snatching totems).

After that we switched to this card game called Citadels, in which we play different characters every turn and build different districts until a certain level of achievement is reached. The game would have been quite balanced if not forthe fact that there was one character which we regarded as most "useless", and the gameplay sort of made it easy to predict who will get that character for every turn. Nonetheless I found the game quite easy to pick up, and it didn't render me thinking on my feet like Munchkin did.

I did join them for Munchkin later on, though. I guess what appealed to me the most about this game was the element of humour.

Some of the photos I've taken on that day...

The very cute bird statue near the Clarke Quay area.

A quite impressive building, called the Central, I think.

One of the boats you can find on the Singapore River.

Just a random decorative pillar we saw at a traffic junction.

Tall buildings never failed to impress me.

The official 10/04 class dinner

Hmm 2 weeks ago we had a "class dinner".

But actually that was just me and my clique in 10/04.

This time round it's almost all of us!

It was arranged at Suntec Pizza Hut and the original plan was that Ms Fong would turn out also, but due to urgent matters she couldn't come.

Nevertheless we had a good time there. Even though all the guys could talk about was life in the SAF, well... it's through telling others our experiences that we realise life is actually not that boring like we always say, is it not?

Yong Chuan, Esmond, Joel and I shared one family feast consisting a seafood pizza and a hawaiian pizza. Thank God it was quite filling, but I forgot to take pictures until we finished eating, so...

We took a group shot but I haven't recieved the photo yet. But then again I took some random shots whenever I could, so...

Yong Chuan & Esmond('s hand)

Jeremy & Alex

Maoxin & Kaicheng

Maoxin

Joel & I

Jianyuan & I (I'm an inexperienced self-photographer, so pardon me for that weird expression)

Kaicheng & I

Got to thank Hafiz and guys for organising this gathering... it's been really long since 10/04 got together as a whole... and only half of the class went for the one last year, so this gathering could be considered successful lah.

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The Prequel

Before meeting at Pizza Hut, I went window shopping around Suntec and made a few stops at the usual places.

I was planning to explore for new Manga/Anime (it's essentially Keroro or Eva) figurines I might be interested in, so my destination would naturally be those figurine shops and the Capsule Machine Parade (I coined this term myself) at the Family Link (which links (duh) the mentioned wing and the Arcade/Cinema wing).

I arrived at the wing with lots of restaurants and kids' shops, expecting to see the Family Link, but it was nowhere in sight. Puzzled, I followed the only way I could find...

I have a bad feeling about this

I kept walking until I emerged from the walkway into the Arcade wing.

My worst fears were confirmed.

The mini playground with foam flooring... and the Capsule Machine Parade... Gone!

Thank God the figurine shop merely moved, so I could still do my figurine search. I found this series called KeroKoma (Keroro Commando) where the characters have gadgets fitted to them for combat. A bit expensive, but that's because the figures are poseable!

Girotank: Desert Hunter Version

Genoci-Mois, which I suppose is another version of Angol Mois

Keroro platoon... FIGHT!

Happy New Week

A week of new beginnings!

Firstly, we started on our IPPT training again! Still the push-your-limit style... the uphill sprints and so forth. Due to the cold and humid weather (which will end with this week, I think), we could actually see the condensed water vapour being emitted from our bodies. "Smokin'!"

Got a haircut and a pair of new spectacles as well! This time I chose a plastic frame, not too thick, transparent. I think it would somehow give a smart look.

And my colleagues brought me for my first bowling game!

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Watched Death Note 2, and Erika Toda was all over the place, and she was... Uuaaarrgh... Kawaiiiii~!

OK, Toda aside, there were quite a lot of deviations from the original Manga story, but I think they all sort of made sense. L made a surprisingly brilliant move in the movie. Light in the movie was quite close to the one in the Manga but his leaving the piece of the Note with Takada's name written on it was, to me, way below Light's expected level of caution and intelligence.

The story of Death Note also got me thinking about some issues. Like capital punishment, the definition of justice, and most importantly forgiveness. Even though I would never call Light "good" (I wonder if he ever loved anyone), the fact is there were the victims of crime (e.g. Misa), with their broken lives, placing their hope in Kira (Light's alter ego), a killer of criminals who go scot-free.

I guess most readers who feel uncomfortable about Kira's killings (like me) feel so because deep down in their hearts, grace, i.e. favour for the undeserving, is at work. Somehow we just wish that those criminals still be given the right to live on.

Of course, even though I'm Christian, I still struggle with forgiveness. After all I've not experienced something that ruined my life so much as having your loved ones killed, so I cannot say things like "It is not right for victimised parties to wish for the culprit's death." Sometimes when I look at reports on murder and rape, I will also feel that the culprits were better off dead.

Forgiveness. It's the answer to the classic question "What would Jesus do?". Yes he had the right to tell us to forgive. He himself forgave millions for humans for their sins before and after he came to Earth. Even on the Cross he prayed "Forgive them".

I don't know what else to say.

The issue of forgiving major criminals or not would always trouble me I think.