Belief@HazelCafe

Yeah, I am getting more and more lazy… maybe I should just stop this blogging thing? Haha… that's a joke, for now…

Did nothing much today, except for the usage of Yahoo! News on the EnchantedLove.Net main page. Sort of liked the idea of using PHP to convert the format instead of Perl CGI. So far so good, except for the cron job. Don't seem to work… have to check it out.

Tomorrow will be cleaning day. Firstly, I have to wash the exercise vehicle. Secondly, there's area cleaning after lunch till 4pm for us to do some spring cleaning for our bunks. We had a small cleaning-up 2 weeks ago, so the bunk condition should not be too bad.

Suddenly remembered this thing: Maybe I should really set up my Hate List. I do not hate anything? That's crap, ok.

One thing I hate: talk to people and the other party never seems to reply.
If you know the feeling of talking to a wall, then you will know what I mean. Actually, talking to a wall is better! At least there's a bit of echo. Talking to someone that doesn't reply, it is like throwing your voice/paragraphs into deep space, never to return. And I simply hate that feeling, the feeling of being ignored, ignored by someone whom you know, trying to know, or attempting to contact.

But I do not blame them. It's always my fault. Who knows, they might be angry with me over something, frustrated, scared, or do not want to know me at all…

OK. Stop.

Went to Chinatown with my mother on Saturday afternoon. It's really crowded! Lots of people around. The queues at the ATMs were so long! -lol-

Bought some things here and there. Nothing much actually. Too many people. Hard to walk around. So in the end, we only bought some of those little tidbits… really re4 nao4, unlike previous years, when the MRT was under construction.

I still cannot find the shirt I want. The one with long sleeves and a hood. The material should not be too thick. Comfortable. And I am thinking of getting a pair of blue shades too… hahaha…

Trying to look different? Maybe…

Alright, finally home, after 2 days of outfield. Fed quite a lot of mosquitoes at the Live Firing Area, and almost became BBQ pork at Lentor. Now, the mosquito bites still itch, and my face is a bit red due to this afternoon's sun.

Back to last Sunday. Went shopping as planned. In the end, I went back to Giordano once again, since I had that member keychain. We all at least bought 1 item each. (there were a total of 4 shoppers. The others had already bought their new year clothes, and had gone home… so bad..) Then we (tried to) accompany Melvin in his search for clothes… explain later…

Before that, we went over to Jang's food stall at Amoy Street Food Centre. Flavour By The Grill, #01-58. Nice food, especially the grilled chicken, with that yummy sauce. Price is reasonable too! And yes, he sells BBQ pork for the new year too! It's nice too, and I have ordered 1kg from him!

OK, back to shopping. I wonder what's wrong. Maybe wrong group of shoppers? Melvin did not seem to find the perfect shirt. Or was it because we gave him the wrong signal that we did not care what shirt he wears? Perhaps it was due to the time. I did not want to spend too much time over clothes. Moreover, we had to book in that same night. And I had a whole lot of photographs to sort out. Later that night, I found out that he managed to find 3 shirts when we were not with him.

Alright. New Year, new evaluations, and faults must be corrected. Fault: Unable to be a good shopping companion, I admit that. I can be real boring at times, and I can also be very enthusiastic when I want to. Most of the time, I keep comments to myself, and will say them out only when I can no longer hold on. As for shopping, I feel that not everyone will take one's advice into consideration, espacially when shopping for clothes. People will tend to think, I want this, I don't want that. It's hard to get some ideas into their minds once they set their own opinions on some things. That Sunday, I was quite fed up actually, due to the fact that I need to get home at 6 and get out of home at 9. I can't set my minds on shopping under that kind of thought. One of the reasons why I choose to stay at home or go out early in the morning on Sunday.

* fine, Melvin, our fault. Give us a chance ok? …

Bought the book that I wanted from Kinokuniya. The book's name is 'Yookoso! An Invitation To Comtemporary Japanese'. Time to start on Project Japanese? Hai, soo desu!

This month's spending month? Found out that my headphone's broken! One of the wires connectors was broken. Bought a new one at Harvy Norman at North Point. Bought Fish Leung's new CD too! Nice songs! These are the types I like, meaningful, attractive melodies…

As about that exercise, they said that it will start on 12 and end on 17, but in the end, it started on 15 and end on 16! This caused me to use quite a sum of money buying food. Why can't they just tell just the exact date in the first place? Why can't they confirm it before they request for our support? Why? Why? Why?

Felt like sleeping now. I do not know why. I just fell like sleeping. Just want to close my eyes, close this chapter, and start a new one tomorrow.

It's the end of the week. 1 more week gone… 3 more weeks and I will be 21…

I am now in the southern part of Singapore. My other crew had gone for dismounted role, and my V200 had turned into Platoon CP.

So wu liao… Nothing I can do. Sleep, eat, sleep, radio. Even the phone and radio reception are bad. And I am sitting at the driver's seat, sweating due to the hot sun…

All's quiet, except for some occasional vehicles passing by… I forgot to bring along blank paper! Maybe, I shall just use the back of the ram form…

With this kind of weather, I don't think I can do much too…

I have been quite busy these few days. Yesterday, a group of friends and I went for New Year shopping at Orchard, after visiting a friend's food stall at Amoy Street Food Centre. Will elaborate when I get home.

On the same day, I also collected the photos. I have developed 230 4R photos! $69 in all! I have got back most of the cost already, as I have given some of the photos out for free.

Later this week, I will be moving out of camp. To which site I do not know yet, but most probably, I will be back latest by Sunday. I will then write more.

Good night…

Went to Queensway Shopping Centre with my mum just now to buy new shoes. Bought the pair of shoes that I have wanted for a long time: Nike Shox. That design is for running. I do not think I want to walk around on basketball shoes when I am not playing the game. Quite ok-looking, I think, greyish-black with blue springs.

On the way to the shopping centre, I sent the negatives for developing. Guess the price will be quite high, as I will be developing at least 150 photos! I wonder how am I going to sort them out later…

Scanned all the viewable photos from the HQ Battery Outing. They can be found under my photos section. That was the first time in years that I have finished 1 whole roll of film on 1 occasion, with the highest number of viewable shots… see how lousy is my photo-taking skills…

In December 2003, after I cleaned up my room, my table looked like this:

Quite neat, after some touching-up… Before I took this picture, the table was in a mess, so messy that I did not know where to look for things… I have 1 of my surround speakers on the table, 2 calendars (1 DIY, 1 bought.), and some little gifts from friends.

My computer table looked like this:

I should have taken a shot from the back of the computer! Look at the amount of wires! The black one from the top-right is for the TV, the rest are either power cables or cables attached one way or another to the computer… and that’s my PhotoSmart 7150 and my ScanJet 3400C, Creative Inspire Speakers, Logitech keyboard and optical mouse, phone, the tower, the Philips 107T5 CRT monitor, the black little volume controller and my 2 remotes for TV/FM and sound functions. If you look carefully, you can see the sub-woofer on the floor…

Think that’s the best I can do regarding my room. It’s big, yet I don’t think the furniture fit…

This week in camp, I decided not to update using GPRS. I cannot write much anyway, so why bother? I will only update if I really could not stand some things or cannot ‘tahan’. The whole week, we had been doing little bits of things, from BOS to 100-hour seriving to 50-hour servicing to area cleaning. On Thursday, we decided to clean our bunk. The windows, the fans, the cupboard tops, all were so dirty and dusty! And the floor too! Luckily, Jang came back on Wednesday to clear his stuff, or else we will have a hard time cleaning up…

Yes, I guess I am getting too used to unit life. I know exactly what’s going to happen next. It’s a routine, repeatedly doing the same things everytime. It’s sort of boring, and we could not do much daring stuffs without permission, and when we asked, we will often be stopped.

And of course, I have learnt much too. I know how people work. I know what kind of people is suitable for what kind of job. I know who can work, and who can’t. I know that there will always be a few black sheeps in a herd.

All these are unpreventable, but, can I do something about it? I don’t think so. As Driver IC, I have no choice but to finish up jobs that people left behind. Myself and another IC did many other jobs as compared with the others. No, I am not complaining, nor am I saying that I am great. It is fun, actually, as we get to learn much more, more than we ask for. And learning from errors and past lessons, we are able to pin-point things that most people can’t. And, with more responsibility, I have to look from a higher perspective.

That’s NS life: the higher you are, the more things you have to do, the more responsibility you have to bare. It’s the same outside.

This is just training phase…

OK, latest additions to my photos collection! I have no time to scan all, so here are a few… See them in my photos section.

It rained just now… cooling…

Ahh… finally, another new layout to replace ChaosLabs. Somehow, I did not really like the ChaosLabs colours, and so, I decided to come up with this 'water-droplet' version.

I am going to make snapshots of my previous versions so that I can remove them from the server. I do not want people to look at old designs when I have a new one.

The main page has an ORD counter! See, I have around 150 days left!

The other pages are not really ready yet. I have some other changes to be done at a later date. Basically, I am pleased with this layout and colours!

I had a driving lesson at Eunos/Ubi this morning. At the PIE Eunos Link exit, the vehicles are just like the attitudes that Singaporeans are famous for: Kiasu. They just move out from PIE and cut into any space in between 2 vehicles! That was 1 havoc junction… 3 more months to my test. I believe I can do it!

Most of the time, when I am having any test, I just treat the testers/invigilators as my friends. This way, I am able to remove the stress that someone is watching every move that I make. That's one of my ways. I did that during those English and Chinese Oral Tests too. I just talk (with improved vocabulary, of course) like I was talking to some old friend…

Yes, I can talk if I want to. I can talk when I feel the need to. Otherwise, I don't talk much to strangers.

Strangers can, one day, become good friends, and friends can also become strangers… It's just the way we communicate and keep in touch. In my case, some of my friends have already become strangers to me… hopefully, this will change, soon…

If I have my way, I will do whatever I want. Just like my web page and my blog. I just write whatever I want to, whatever pictures I want to put.

But most of the times, things are not the ways we want them to be. There are rules to follow, restrictions to carry out, and advice to heed.

Of course, one may choose to go against them, like a rebellious peasant fighting for their own rights.

Yes, everyone wants the fair share of the chickens, but they do not want the fair share of the workload to take turns and feed the chickens before they are ready to be eaten…

Often, we have to give and take. We have to give way so that others can rush by. And of course, those courteous and considerate ones will stop and help those in need, but those reckless ones will just push aside anyone in their ways, ignoring them.

I myself, wanted to do things my own way too, but sometimes, circumstances do not allow. In the end, I lose out, because I never got the chance to speak up, or I never wanted to say anything at all.

Sometimes, they say it's fair, but if you look carefully, the weighing scale has been tilted slightly, if not more, to one side, which is, most of the time, your unfavourable side. You can try to put more weight to counter-balance, but the other party also has its own collection of weights.

Enough of crap…

Decided to do a new (and better-looking) layout for ChaosBlue. It should be ready by tomorrow, hopefully.

I have sent the film for developing. It will be ready by tomorrow evening. Hope the photos will be great.

I have to sleep early tonight. I still have a driving lesson to attend tomorrow morning, at Eunos.

Woke up at 7am in camp this morning. Had breakfast at the canteen.

It was our battery outing. Before we went over to Marina South for our bowling and pool and makan session, we had games in camp. We won the soccer match! No fight. Too bad we lost basketball to QM. They were just too tall, too fast and too strong…

Over at Marina South, we won the bowling and pool competitions! That was so nice. If only we had won the basketball match too… sigh… nevermind… It was a nice game…

While they were having their matches, the few of us continued our bowling marathon, and we managed to play 10 rounds of bowling! It's cheap! Each of us paid only $15.

Again, we had BBQ steamboat. This time, it was the other BBQ steamboat, the one on the other side of SuperBowl. Not bad, the food, but some are just too big a piece to be cooked easily on the hot plate.

This time, I managed to finished the whole roll of film! Miracle! I just took picture after picture, and suddenly, the LCD window showed 0. I am expecting some of the photos to be out or blurred, but I guess most of them will be alright. I will know, latest by Monday.

Think I will sleep early tonight. I still have to wake up early tomorrow. I have to be back in camp by 10. Guard duty… Not bad actually, as our boss has given us Monday off as a compensation.

Well, a whole day of events. I am very tired now, but I can still hold on for a while… just a while longer… hoping…

Let me hope…