Back from my 21km historical Army Half Marathon. Did rather well and managed to complete it within 2 hours.

My only complaint (Other than that of aching bones and muscles) is that of the goodie bag collection. I'd enquired with some of the Army participants the procedure for collecting the goodie bags, and was told all I had to do was to present my number tag to collect my goodie bag. However, after queueing for more than twenty minutes, a senior official started calling out that those without goodie bag coupons could not redeem the goodie bags, and I was eighth in the queue by then! Perhaps he should honour their word and give goodie bags to those who were in the queue at that point of time, but disallow newcomers from getting the goodie bags without presenting the coupons. This was not to be, and he sharply turned away three NSFs in front of me, rather rudely, I'd say.

Firstly, there were no signs at the booth or officials informing those in the queue of the proper procedures.

Secondly, They were setting double standards by allowing some in the queue to obtain goodie bags without using the coupons while depriving those who had queued for more than twenty minutes from getting at least a fair treatment. Heck, even Tiger Balm massages were going for free! Point to note for organisers next year: Get the goodie bag issue sorted out!

The AHM provided an opportunity to meet up with long lost mates, such as Heng Wei, Wei Liang, Yong Huat, Sattiish and Wei Xiang.

Went to Yishun SAFRA in the afternoon with Zi Rong, Loren and Darryl for some bowling. The taxi driver who took us there was also from 42 SAR, but that was many years ago.

Dinner was at Europa, a simple affair of Chef's salad, Nasi Goering and Durian Cake. Yummy...

Booked in yesterday at 1900 hours to sleep at 2000 hrs. Breakfast was crossoint, bread, bananas and snow pears. With soya bean milk. At 0330 hrs. Not so much of a 'liquid, high carbo breakfast' that was promised to us. Bus left at 0415. An air conditioned coach at that. Not too bad...

Will be booking in tommorrow for Duty.

Legs are still aching from yesterday's run at East Coast Park. 16 km this time round. Surprisingly managed to clock 1:23:41 despite slowing down after merely 5km.

Our Platoon Cohesion day went on well even though there were minor glitches resulting in a no-show for several company line medics who were unable to turn up for the event at the very last moment due to other commitments. We went to Sakae Sushi at Wheelock Place after booking out at a rather late 1300 hrs. Chong Han joined us for the feast towards the end. Heard he's pretty much enjoying himself at MMI.

Need to prepare myself mentally and physically for next sunday's 21km Army Half-Marathon, so I guess I'll be staying at home for the rest of the weekend...

Will hear more from me next weekend, especially complaints of aching bones and sore muscles...

Cheers.

Okay, after two weeks of absence, I've finally found time to blog in the past fortnight's events:

Saw Loren, Zi Rong and Jian Ming at COMEX on Saturday night, as well as Kah Sin, Wei Ann, Yao Shun and Wei Zhang.

Met up with Loren, Zi Rong and Jian Ming for bowling at Safra Tampines on Sunday, but ended up LAN gaming with JM while the rest went for a game of pool. Point to note: There's a sauna and jacuzzi there.

On 010904, I was at Kranji Camp for my dental filling. It was basically a reunion of old friend, for I met up with Ming Hui, Beng Leong and Wei Xiang. Pasir Laba's Medical Centre is amazingly modern, and is comparable to most government hospitals today. Being early, we trotted off to the canteen, where I tried their signature wan ton noodles and Iced Milo.

A familiar voice called out my name, and turning around, I saw Fish... Um, Lieutenant Fish, that is... He's now at 21 SA. We were soon joined by Ulric, who's in the training and planning wing (Artillery).

030904 to 070904 Army Open House. Was more like Armour Open House though, since my brigade organised the whole event, and my unit was responsible for a third of all exhibits. Thousands of mosquitoes feasted upon us as we covered the Live Firing at Area A (The Safari Ride).

070904 Army Family Day. We were allowed to take a walk around the exhibits. Went to SAFTI MI with Sgt Melvin to view the static displays. Saw Yuan Ern there, in Civis. He said it was his day off...

Intended to try out the Light Strike Vehicle Joyride, but due to time constraints, did not manage to go for it.

Also met a certain Eric from the same Junior College as me. S08. What a small world we reside in. Speaking of which, I also saw one of the guards fellas the following night at CCK's Lot 1. With his girldfriend. I supposed they were on off the following two days.

5 Day work week has been implemented! However, this just means that for the regulars, they no longer need to cook up an excuse for not being present on a Saturday morning. For us NSFs, it means shorter work hours. Where I was once working till 9pm, I can now look forward to 6pm work days, since the directives dictate that we should work from 8 to 6 on all days except Friday (Till 5.30pm).

AHM updates:
Run @ Gedong (Towards Scouts Camp) 080904
10km - 51:15min

Run @ East Coast 110904
14km - 1:19:35

Tried the dinner buffet @ Hotel Negara on 100904 and Hotel Phoenix on 110904. The former was more restricted in variety, but proved itself well with its smooth Laksa and sushi. The latter performed well in the Prawns (which my dad claimed were 'very fresh') and Tempura (Including Soft Shelled Crabs) departments, though the signature prata dish was not as good as I'd anticipated. Oh, and the durian cake was rich and creamy, full of fleshy durains! Yumm....

On off today.

We were supposed to pack goodie bags for the Army Open House during the weekend, but the shipment of goodies was delayed such that on Saturday, all we did was to go to SAFTI MI for a nice western lunch.

On Thursday night though, we transported a thousand cartons of drinks for the Officials to the squash courts. I believe many a back was sprained on that very night.

Was at Nee Soon Camp on Friday for the PACES2 briefing. The new system looks promising, but I hope it delivers as well as Head MedLog's briefing was interesting. All appointments will be made via the new system, records can be tabulated for individual units and we're going almost paperless. Now all the MOs will have to do their own keying in of cases.

COMEX was not as fantastic as last year, especially the creative booth. Thumbdrives, MP3 portables and M/XDAs are the rage this year. Got a 4MP digital camera from Fujifilm, but the software's not installing properly on the system... Need to call technical assistance on this.

World Stamp Championships was more interesting, partly because of the lucky draw... They were offering more electronic freebies than COMEX, in fact... However, even the lucky draw drew much criticism from the public, with supposed 'matchmaking' and 'cheating' involved in the drawing of forms from the box. The problem arose from the fact that all the entries drawn from the box were not 'cut along the dotted line', resulting in the later, larger and bulkier entries being drawn over those who had followed the rules and cut along the dotted line. Some contestants even triumphantly claimed to have spent half an hour filling up over 50 entries! Singaporeans are pretty opportunistic, I'd say, but not where it would be most helpful: Entrepreneurship.

Now at SUNTEC's SINGTEL booth using their free internet access...

Went for PACES 2 seminar yesterday; No more IQA, no more hassles. Hopefully.

NO more NTM duties! WOOHOO!

The 14km run originally scheduled for yesterday at East Coast Park was cancelled, meaning we had to organise our own coy run on Saturday morning.

AoH cover at Area A: We're covering some Safari thing, so if you happen to pop by our place, please do not hesitate to drop by our medical post for a friendly wave. :)

Our platoon cohesion day was cancelled on Friday afternoon. Looks like we need to organise another one to make up for the loss in bonding. Hmm...

Now playing ROTK 6,a rather old game, but it's still pretty addictive!

Reminder to buy rations before booking in... and collect funds for it.

Zi Rong's unit is taking over our NTM. How coincidental!

COMEX this coming weekend at SUNTEC. Hope to be able to attend it.

My computer can't meet the minimum specifications for ROTK 10! Need to get a new one soon...

Will be packing goodie bags for AoH this coming weekend.

The battalion went for a 12km run at Marina South this morning.

The route seemed much further than 12 km though...

Managed to clock a respectable 1:18:12 for the run. CSM was way ahead, and chugged on relentlessly - I was never able to get within a hundred metres of him after the run started. I guess this is my first time running so fast. Heck, I used to run 17s for my 2.4...

Our department went for a late breakfast at Burger King (Raffles Place).

COMEX will be held at SUNTEC City come end month. Whoopie.

Cheers.

Took my first leave in my NSF life yesterday, simply because I have to clear twelve days by the end of the year or risk forfeiting it.

Went for a dental check up in the morning... The dentist said that I'll require up to five fillings. Hmm... I think I'll have to cut down on my daily dose of flavoured tea.

Check this out: SPAM Luncheon Meat goes for S$4.43 at NTUC Fairprice. And you're wondering who PAYS for spam...

Inventions to do list:

Collapsable trolley - For the average supermarket goer, so no more creaky trolleys in future. On top of that, it can go anywhere with you, as long as you are driving...

Make car doors that open upwards or sideways instead of outwards mainstream - Ever wondered how irritating it can get when someone scratches your car while opening his door? No longer. Also, there's no much more room to maneuver when you're getting out of the car; As much as 100% more space, since the car's door now no longer blocks your way.

Well, another 2NTM later, I'm back home again.

Zi Rong's recovering from a bout of fever; Just paid him a visit yesterday.

Happy 39th Birthday, Singapore!

Heard rumours of an allowance increase. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Just ran through the skeletal plan for the RPG.

Found a better MMORPG generator with cooler graphics. Must recommend to Zi Rong and Jian Ming.

Think the report sick rate is going to be atrocious tommorrow.

Need to return my library books.

Stress is becoming prevalent in my sister unit. This is so not good for Jun Hui...

Just had 'abalone noodles' for dinner. Didn't taste special though... so it's a little disappointing; it's just like 'abalone mushrooms', I suppose.

Singapore Idol contestants are not 'William Hung'y enough.

Hmm... I hope I'll get to visit COMEX at the end of the month. Keeping my fingers crossed that it's not another 2NTM weekend; I've already missed the PC show earlier on in the year.

Need to read more...

Just found several cool MMORPG sites... Too bad the download files are not accessible.

The spyware is beginning to affect my e-mail; Heck, it's even modifying my Yahoo! Toolbar, which is suppose to have 'anti-spam' features.

Signing off,

NSS

As promised, I'm now back at home.

Tommorrow is our 4th 2NTM in 7 weeks. It's become so frequent nowadays that we're no longer affected by the pre-confinement blues of 2NTM personnel.

Just completed my IPPT this morning. Surprisingly, after an intensive static training session on Saturday, I was able to complete my stations with a performance that even took me by surprise. Bar the 2.4 km run, which we were not informed of the timing, I'm just one chin-up short of a gold.

Work has been piling up again for the past few weeks, as we are being forced to clear our 'excess' off, which we have mainly accumulated for the last few 2NTMs. So the scenario is such that we are clearing off on work days while staying behind to be on standby during the weekends. Tsk.

Runescape (www.runescape.com) has seen a complete makeover since my last visit more than half a year ago. The graphics are now rather acceptable and pleasing. Minor tweaks to the game has made stats training not so tedious now. What's more, it's free to play!

I wonder how's Helbreath, another MMORPG from Korea, is faring after going P2P.

Some malicious spyware was downloaded into my system recently, and it's been affecting the performance of my already pathetic four year old heap. I guess it's a wake-up call by computer manufacturers to remind us to get a new system every 3 years or so.

Pay rise scheduled for August 10th, just after National Day but before the transfer of leadership post to Lee Jr. 5-day work week is in the talks. Looks like the new batch of NSFs have it all: Shorter service (Up to six months), More pay (Up to 100 bucks), no BMT recourse and a great condominium-chalet on an island across the sea. With this and more, who needs to sign on?

We have a new Disruptee spec in my platoon: Alvin, and he ORDs in January next year. Oh well... we could do with some additional help, I guess.

Cheers, and Happy National Day!

NSS