aaron
ada
carmen
evelyn
jc
kentkent
lala
matt
pam
qingyi
sam
tessa
tim c
tim w
wacky
weian
weixin
tag me to be linked =p

it seems just like yesterday that we ushered in 2007 and bade farewell to 2006, and now, we do the same to '07...

i guess it was quite an exciting and eventful year...

to begin with, i was posted into the transport formation as a driver, after being posted out from 1sir, went through endless visits with physio, the mo and dr chew and to cut a long story short, ended up as an admin support assistant at 1st transport battalion. my short stint there was quite interesting, having had endless mobilisations that never happened and all the cohesion activities there, made more fun by the likes of ray, ling, weiting, kent, alex, koh, ming(w)ho(re), bojun, wei'an, simon etcetc, all fellow slaves of s1 branch, and also paikah sim, thomas, gareth, nicholas, joshua, norman and pari at hq transport... its been great knowing and working with you guys, going through all the endless sk and projects and arrows (and our futile attempts to tai-chi them away..) :)

other events in '07 included chruch camp, my first without my parents, forcing me somewhat to use the independance learnt during my days at 1sir. nonetheless, my fellow roomies were always ready to help out (and taupok joshua)... great times spent playing endless games of poker and bridge with sweets as chips as well as taboo... :)

then came mission trip... i'd always wanted to go on one following all the positive comments i'd heard from other mission trippers from years past, and i must say, it was an eye opening experience for all of us who went to chiangmai this year! thanks to all members of the team, matt, josh, jon, daniel, matt, qingyi aka joella, mary, gloria, pi chai, aunties dot, mimi, LL, and uncle seekiat, as well as dr chaiyun, aunt margaret, pi am and pi tom and sarah over there (sarah we miss you!!!). the devotions were ever so challenging as well as inspiring, while the homestay enabled us to be door openers as well as to have us experience what life was like in the village, whose hospitality and warmth was unparalleled. the cement mixing, however, made me remember the not so nostalgic memories of all the sk i had to do in 1sir.. haha..

lastly was youth camp, occuring straight after mission trip. i was slightly worn out already but still pressing on (with God's help) and lasted the whole trip. doc john's sermons were extremely challenging, calling us to transform, be embodied and to shine. i have to admit though that i was extremely stressed prior to the camp with all the preparations and planning but at camp i left it all to God and i'm so grateful that He did the rest, allowing no hiccups with the amazing race and the food, and especially the bbq, where the light shower gave a nice cool evening for food and campfire!

last but not least my still as yet unnamed cg for all the fun times and serious studies that we've done.. geri, matt, joanne, wx, lijian, shing, chris... and sarah who's in chiangmai... thanks for all the memories and laughter and sharing!

thanks to God for making it such a memorable year and hopefully, next year will be better!!! =p

today i had so many close encounters with retarded drivers that it's peeving me off... is it because of that beautiful ba-chang (ie dumpling for those potato-ly inclined) i have on both my wind shield and rear window? are they taking advantage of me because of that? probationists...

first case today was this truck travelling at 40kph along commonwealth ave west. nothing wrong with that cept he was in the middle lane. road hogger. i had to like brake behind him just to keep a safe distance.. its thanks to people like him who give alot of free 6 points to the poor driving students taking their dreaded tests.. however, at an amber traffic light, he suddenly decides that his vechicle can actually breach the 50kph mark and he just plows through, leaving me to jam brake at the light.

next case was on the aye going towards alexandra exit. you know there's this small road leading out into the slip road, and this bugger simply turns out without looking and practically stops! yes.. he was more or less stationary on the slip road off the expressway and there i was hurtling towards him at 90kph! i almost kissed that bugger's arse, and guess what, it'd be my fault if i did. the dude just promptly road hogs at around 10kph to the next slip road...

then comes the taxis. i had 4 *beep* taxi encounters today. three of them made sudden stops. first one at a carpark, and the next two on the roadsides. what was more worse was that the buggers stopped in such a way that there was no way you could go past! so i had to just happily wait for the passengers to pay up and get off. taxis.. you don't know where they'd learn how to drive, and my last example proves it. there was this dude in a sonata taxi actually driving in the middle of two lanes and then weaving between the two on jln bukit merah! he was like drunk or sth man.. crazy!

is it just singaporean drivers or is it just me... i don't know. maybe we should try to inculcate the canadian road culture which josh so proudly proclaims, where the people of maple and moose land actually argue on who should be given the privillage to give way!

today they had a garage sale thingamajig at the poolside.. just that you can't really call that a garage sale because there're aren't any garages in the vicinity! so erm.. for posterity's sake we'll call it a poolside sale.. :)

my mum was so looking forward to the thing that she kept ransacking the place for the past week for things to sell, cz you know, one man's trash may be another man's treasure! haha.. to that effect it was somewhat true, as one nice couple came down from who know's where to get a pair of deck chairs at what they think was a steal at SGD70. little did they know that we got them in indo at IDR 200,000. do the maths. who's earning? i guess it's a win-win situation lah...

lolz... i've decided to do a blog again, seeing how i've got just so much time to waste and nothing to do.. on the other hand, i'm kinda like a man of few words, so i just don't know what to say.. how ironic can i get? that led to the downfall of my previous blog.. that and simple plain lazyness..

aniwaes, spent the majority of the day searching for jobs. applied for one at DSTA. its a 6 month temp contract thingie alongs the lines of what i did during my army days, hopefully with lots more pay and a lot less stress..

also called up schools regarding relief teaching also. some are nice, like QSS, whereas the staff at others can be just plain arses, practically slamming the phone in your face.. sample conversation goes something like this..

me - hi, i'm anthony and i'm calling to enquire whether you have vacancies for relief teaching next year?

school staff - no we're really busy now so stop bugging us *and slams the phone down*

granted that they're prolly really busy prepping for the next academic year and orientation and stuff, but if they're going to treat potential temp staff this way, i think they're going to have a hard time finding help should teachers get pregnant or convieniently fall sick or sth (though i don't think this is as rampant as what you see in army...)...