Extracts from a war diary: Ex. Ninja Delta Pegasus 2007

Mission: CAPTURE the precious moments of our very first NDP on the floating stage (blah blah...)

Location: The biggest floating stage in SE Asia (blah blah...) at Marina Bay. Area within 50km from the floating stage was flooded with a sea of REDshirts. Bet anyone trying to navigate through the crowded wanted to be called Moses for just that day (go figure).

Bi~g baloons could be seen floating around the, erm, floating stage, just to create that atmosphere of a carnival, perhaps?

There's been reported sightings of this HUGE ferris wheel they're building... and you can see it from the stadium too!

And finally the stage itself, with our towering skyscrapers as a backdrop. What better way to celebrate our nation's prosperity?

Logistics: Everyone enlisted for this exercise had been given a Fun Pack, which contained mainly dried food supplies that can last you for quite some time, and perhaps to also add to the possibility of a sore throat, with all the screaming involved.

*Searches bag further*

...Ah, menthol candies and 2 bottles of NEWater to the rescue!

NDP 07 Fun Packs come in many colours! And the bags could be taken apart (they're joined together using zippers), which enables you to do a mix-&-match. Meaning you can not only make a bag of many colours, but also choose to use it as a shoebag one day and a shopping bag on the next.

I myself got an orange one...

...but by the end of the day my bag became an orange-white-green bag. Reminds me of some other country's flag... oops!

We were also given our own trash bags to bag our waste so as to keep the place litter-free. I've played my part, have you?

Nominal Roll: Our platoon is made up of

CPL Wang Weiquan, CPL Wei Yichuan, LCP Jonathan Soon, Ms Amanda (Jon's gf), Mr Keith (her brother)...

and LCP Kelvin Chong.

Despite being daunted by the immensity of the mission, we were quickly reassured upon seeing our comrades who were there for that same purpose.

Whoa that's a LOT of them!

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Dear Diary,

Our mission began with a setback.

None of us brought umbrellas for that day (Awww... MAN!), and while the sky was Thank-God-it's-clear, the Sun was beating down harshly upon us in the initial wait-to-rush-rush-to-wait hours typical in any exercise.

The stunt bikers from Australia simply added to the heat, man! Not that we're complaining though.

In the early evening our reinforcements came.

Hope was clearly written on our faces as we watched our very own Red Lions do that Airborne thing. Down they came on parachutes trailing red smoke...

"Here they come here they come!!!"

Here come our troopers! The contingent was made up of people from all walks of life, ranging from grassroot organisations to Commandos! Look at Jon's face light up as he watched the Signallers march past! (Part of Jon's job scope in our unit was dealing with Signallers)

Forming up!

The rest of our re-inforcements arrived in the Dynamic Defence Display segment...

The Airforce!

The... guys jumping down the bridge on ropes?

"Tactical!"

Rescue at sea!

The naval crafts that could do donuts!

The Bionix!

Finally it's time for the show! This year the theme revolves around possibilities, but what impressed me the most was the display of marine life... the Jellyfish, in particular.

Oh don't they just look cute?

Another attention grabber was the Lambo (what the heck?) which was driven onto the stage during the segment on our city's growth in the digital age... I think.

A Lambo, and a white one at that!

Oh yes, the remote-controlled kites item was also one of the highlights! They're so fast, I couldn't even take a proper shot!

The core of our mission, or at least on my part, however, was to capture FIREWORKS SHOTS!!! And it just had to happen... Kelvin, Yichuan and I were apparently too busy taking photos of previous segments... our cameras were LOW BATT as we approached the end of the show. Worse still, The fireworks just didn't come! There were, like, 3 times throughout the whole performance when we thought the fireworks were going to be up (mainly because it's the end of a song), so I had to turn my camera on and off and on and off and on...

Before the sky went supernova.

Not added effects, just Yichuan waving his star-shaped clapper into sight haha.

Mmm.

Down came the DJs and it's time to party-

"What's party without booze, man?" --LCP Kelvin Chong

Alright let's go.

Heat

I was there for Exotherma's (the band Kelvin's playing with) gig during Tapestry 2007, at the Somerset area... they did draw quite a crowd!

(From left) Dhalif on Guitar, Evan on bass, Jesper on drums

Kelvin on the Keyboard

Zul, the lead singer

Want to see how they fared? Watch these VIDEOS then!

Side shots...

Girl caught doing the splits in front of stage

Yichuan, Jon & I went to support!

Another of my photographer-wannabe efforts

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Exothermic (yeah that means heat-releasing) reaction #2: Shana Toricolle!

Goodness... Toricolle is quite a common figurine series (they cover Evangelion, Fate Stay night, Gundam, etc)... yet Shana Toricolle series is so rare... so far Suntec is the only place I could find it.

Never mind... I got both Figurines of Shana herself!

Shana in her Flame-Haze form

Shana having her Melon-Bread, wearing the very blissful expression

Melancholy

Back to novels.

During my previous bout of manga frenzy (before going into music and buying keyboards and all) I encountered something they call "Haruhii'sm".

Apparently this Haruhi is some manga female lead...?

It turned out to be one of the most famous Japanese mini novels (if not the most famous... actually I don't think so) of late, and had attracted quite a following.

What was the hype about?

I therefore bought the first novel of the series, "The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi" to find the answer to my question.

Well... the answers I found out from first impression weren't very positive... while people might actually find such a manipulative and self-centred girl attractive, I certainly don't.

OK... maybe there're other characters who might fare better, like Mikuru. With her bust size, baby face and "brains", she's definitely every guy's dream girl. Ha-ha-ha. I mean, if you're going to keep following a leader who doesn't give a **** about your modesty, fine. The only thing I find really nice about Mikuru is probably the rumour that Erika Toda will be playing that role in live action movie.

But then again, putting Toda into this role sounds a bit...

Still, wanting to give this series a chance, I bought the manga adaptation. Because manga is easier to read and less time consuming. I mean, you don't want to spend so much time on something that might eventually be a waste of time anyway. But no, I didn't finish reading the novel and I probably never will.

"Shana the Flame-Eyed" (another one of the better known Jap mini-novels here) seemed a better alternative. It's apparently the story of a high school student with the ability to morph into a fighter with fire powers.

I decided to start from the manga adaptation this time instead of the original novel (I really hate reading in Chinese, and I can't locate any English-translated version... and I don't want to repeat the same mistake), and it turned out to be rather interesting. Based on first impression, at least it isn't... shallow.

I'll start on the novel soon, after finding no complaints about the first 2 volumes of manga adaptation.

Ah... and the figurines too...

Shana in the FlameHaze fighter mode. I got the special variation with the wings of fire instead of the normal cloak.

Sidenote: I heard from Nick that he finished reading Deathly Hallows after getting it on its first day of release. Wow!

Just in case

Just in case anyone thought I've closed down my blog...

I haven't.

Very tired these days... late nights and all, but life is becoming more meaningful and purposeful for me.

And one day of leave ought to give me the rest I need.

As life gets more colourful, I realise it also gets harder to keep track of what's happened to me throughout the day. Where was I last... Wednesday?

I'm amazed now that I actually had time to blog everyday in my JC days. Or maybe it's because I was a no-life then, haha.

Yes I got my CPL rank!

Yichuan was recently talking about this personality analysis model called the Enneagram, which divides different people into 9 basic categories. Apparently I'm the 9th type who gives in a lot to the demands and needs of others, haha. Books on the Enneagram will tend to advice Nines to assert themselves more, to tell themselves that their presence and opinion do matter.

I've been trying to do that... and managed to see the results occasionally!

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Went for a cycling trip to Ubin with the HO seniors some time ago. The rented bikes were actually quite good, so the hill climb was (close to) a breeze.

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Kelly's going into drumming! And performing on stage!

Goodness... performing in a concert (albeit a charity concert) with only a few month's experience in one's instrument takes quite some courage! Originaly I planned to go for the concert, but due to unforseen circumstances...

I volunteered to play the bass for them.

Phew... simple as the song was (Desperado by Eagles), it was quite an experience man!

Seniors from HO and, surprisingly, Jingjing, came to support us!

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After watching Order of the Phoenix, I guess I was quite satisfied with the film.

The reason why I couldn't get over the previous Goblet movie's brevity was probably because, having been reading the book cover to cover about 5 times over, the more memorable parts were already imprinted in my mind in quite detailed fashion. Hence, good as the movie itself was, I couldn't bear to see those parts cut off.

In contrast, Phoenix (talking about the books here) was a more mature and dark story, without the glamour of the Triwizard tournament, and there's less humour in Phoenix than Goblet (or was it just me?). Also, cover to cover, I've only read Phoenix once. Hence as a fan, I was able to enjoy the movie without thinking too much of the book while watching it.

By the way, Luna's hawter than Hermione haha.

Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood

All Your Bass

"How Are You Gentlemen."

It's been a LONG time since I've touched this place... lots have happened in the midst of my blog-bernation (it's mainly Pokemon)... I've watched movies, played games, worked like a madman (actually all of us in the office are, in this period).

Goodness... the busy period is far from over.

Anyway, these days I've been taking up hobbies after hobbies... from figurine collection to badminton to music... and now I've even got myself a electric bass guitar! I got it second-hand from Kelvin's band mate, whose skills on the bass are considerably good.

Haha OK this shot is a bit "poser"... I haven't even learnt the positions of the notes yet!

Hahahahaha.....

At least, with my music background it will be less difficult to get the positioning and stuff.

I decided to pick up the bass mainly because I see a lot of significance the bass line can have in a piece of music-- a bass line properly done can give life to the song.

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Snapshots of my life again...

Spotted this mistake in some handphone shop in Chinatown...

China Square... the figurine collector's heaven!

And my puny efforts at "photography"...

Taking a photo of a certain spot at my flat in skyward view... haha looks like some "corridor" (pardon me for my amateurish way of describing it), with flash

Without flash

And lastly, one of the views in Sinnoh (region for Pokemon Diamond/Pearl) that I really love...

Note the difference in clarity of the view under the downslope bridge. Cool!

424242

Now less than 250 days to ORD!

At one point I was looking at my own countdown and then at Kelvin's countdown... mine is 242 days while his is 424!

But that means I have less days in the office to prove myself and to contribute significantly.

Been talking to YY about office work, and he was telling me that there's so much more I can do with my job scope.

But I just seem unable to go beyond my work and make a difference.

I know I won't be touching office work again after ORD. But what I'm doing in this office now really matters.

In the end, however, it just comes down to upping my credibility first by making less mistakes and being more certain of myself.

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Last weekend was an eventful one... on Saturday I went for a concert by the VJC Harmonica Orchestra, and saw Wenjun in action! He, along with a few more members, played solo pieces for a number of songs.

As expected of Conductor Tang (he took the place of conductor of AHS Harmonica Orchestra the year after I graduated), there was a fair share of modern pop songs, and some of them were arranged pretty well.

Sometimes there were, of course, what we call "cock-ups", especially in the solo parts. But the showmanship was there... many of the pieces were performed with some kind of role-playing which managed to help spice up the performance.

Watching them play reminded me of my days in AHS HO. Again. And it also reminded me that I should go get my new harmonica soon.

On Sunday I met up with the upperstudies for board gaming at Bernard's house, and did some catching up. They're all talking about Uni life and got me all curious. I'm still torn between wanting to stay in some residence and study more, or to choose the Hall life. Most probably I'll go for the former.

After all, I think I'll be very satisfied if I can just get a place in the NUS Harmonica Orchestra... or maybe the choir, as I feel a need to improve on my singing.

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Got a Nintendo DS recently and of course my first game was Pokemon Diamond! The touch screen added only a slight enhancement to the gaming experience, but this time round not only the "Night & Day" feature is back... the perspectives of view in the game are also very nicely done... so now when your character walks up a flight of stairs or stands on elevated ground it really looks like that!

I almost bought DS Burnout (just to prove Kelvin wrong about my not getting the PSP) but thank God I didn't... went online to take a look at the review and what I saw certainly wasn't very promising. Bought MarioKart DS for my racing game instead, and I didn't regret it! The drifting is awesome!

The Amazing Spi- ah no I mean, grace.

I was very fortunate to have been able to catch Spidey 3 on its first day of screening. At quite an early time in the day too! Thanks Kelvin!

Anyway... what can I say? You all know that this episode will be about Spidey having a battle within himself (not to mention 3 (3!!!) villains (Venom, the new Green Goblin & Sandman), all packed in one film.

In my opinion this film is really worth a watch.

The thing about Spidey films is that... well, it does justice to the so-called "villains", by giving us their background quite clearly. In the end of the films I could always feel that the villain who died, was yet another person -- he had dreams, he had loved ones, his dreams were shattered, his loved ones gone... etc. Not to justify their deeds, but perhaps just an effort to bring out in us the compassion that they too deserved.

I tell you what... at the end of Spiderman 3 I don't know which lines you'll remember and which lines you'll forget, but there's definitely one line all of us wil take away from the film.

"I forgive you."