The end of a corporal’s service

32 more working days (including 7 days of leave uncleared) till the end of my service as a clerk. After applying for their economics proram, I was shortlisted for an interview. The recent interview experienced at SMU has been rather ironic. To my shock, the topic chosen by the professor for our discussion has been weird.  

Oh yes! I almost forgot, two brothers came to boost my confidence to 100% and prep me up with their encouragement and preparation. Giving me access to discussion rooms, taking lifts up and down and to even get a sneak peek before the interview itself. wonderful! Love you bros and deeply grateful to you guys. Jie HAO and JIE ming. The wonder brothers who are strong advocates of SMU… 🙂 Hope to join you guys there one day?! Really have to thank Jie Ming because he not only give me insights into economics and really someone who knows his stuff. He also helped me draft my script to give my intro and how to answer questions 🙂 Thank You. The experience has been a great one!

9 People were seated on a straight row of tables opposite a couple of professors eager to initiate the discussion.

After the intro, the professors asked what do you think about NS in singapore following Taiwan’s shortening of their conscript soldiers. Man I thought for a second I had walked into the wrong interview room. perhaps the one for Social Sciences I thought… LOL. Man I tried quite hard to squeeze every brain cell out, how could NS be then linked to economics. Yes I missed the chance to speak first as I gather my thoughts. Across the row of 7 guys, and 2 girls. man sure was interesting to hear out what others had to say. 

My guess was that maybe the professors know we are all poly students thus they did not shoot us any questions with regards to Economics. Now if the online forums are to be believed… I would receive my letter for appeal or offer in 12 days time.  The painful wait. 

Please join me in my wait for God’s direction as to which will be the best way I go.  The options are really open…

As I like to say, The irony is that Australia wants me, Singapore don’t, HEY give me some hope my motherland! 😛

Living the Australia Outback way :

1) University of Western Australia : well this the first University that accepted my application first 🙂 Perth, a quiet and 

2) University of New South Wales : Tucked in Melbourne. A city one could wish to see the Melbourne Open, and the Melbourne GP. 

3) University of Melbourne : The university I had waited for months to hear a reply and to my joy, I got news today that I was accepted! Yay!

SINGAPORE : 

1) SMU : The choice I thought was my only chance to study a business-related course… The pain of wait started 2 days ago… 

2) NTU : EEE, the much talked about course where a student just commited suicide for what reason I still am yet to know… Have heard about this course and man the difficulty is not to be underestimated… 

3) NUS : EE, after one year ofa failed attempt choosing all business related courses this should be my best chance already. All options are maximised. God be with me even though I walk this path of faith with Him. My prayer is that I would only move less he tells me to, beginning the new chapter of my life with Him only. For it is said in His word,  seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33).

Let’s keep God in the picture and pray in faith, believing that is is God who works in me to will and act acording to His good purpose! Amen.

Which one? To Where? When?

As of now, I am 21 years young and 1 day old…

Yes, so much to blog but so little time to say… Well, It is really a wonderful birthday dream come true! As I always like to say, it did not rain! and indeed it did not…  Just before the party started, I stared at the sky and I looked at my friends from my balcony. My heart was just asa darkened as the sky, with the roar of a thunder roll, my heart sank deeper into dispair but I believe God will provide. And Mu En shouted from below, If it rains, my name is not Huang Mu En ! Wow, that sure re-assured me abit ? After I bathed, I took a peep at the sky and indeed not much change but the clouds seems to be sailing away slowly as thou. With my guests reporting one by one, the pressure and heat turns up a notch. I knelt down before the Lord, I prayed that God will bless this day and that it would not rain, but Lord, your will be done, not mine, should i rain, I will still accept it. And I claim the promise that God can do much more exceedingly! And true enough, you might just pass this off as just another good weather. But http://www.nea.gov.sg states that 14.9 days will be raining. And Sister Wan Ping asked me where is my faith ? Rock Solid! And timely, the party kicked off, with my relatives arrriving on time and many of my friends be it poly or Army came to witness my leap age! surely time will fly from now on, and indeed I am old.

Like what Mu En says, the next BIG event is marriage. well, that will not be too far away should we find someone someday somehow and only by God’s will shalt I take the step of faith to even think about a relationship…

Well, back to my party, everything went A ok, As my Decoration team and the BBQ peeps did a splendid job in their various areas. Soon enough, the sky went dark and it’s time to watch a show on the BIG Screen. Amazing, it sure is, with the help of Mu En’s speakers and his wonderful projector, the show is up. And the many kids and BIG kids settled down to watch the show. surely it was really a BIG SCREEN, maybe 100 inch TV ? Awesome! Next up, I had to come up with an idea to surprise the BIRTHDAY girl itself on that day which is Bei Ru… As my there was introduction and stuff by Mr Gideon and he shared how I pranked him while he was working… And after my thanksgiving Speech, I Finally cut the cake and received the blessings from a prayer.

And the time has come to surprise her, And she was really caught off handed. Well, it was a surprise yea. We sure hope she was touched and know that the cell still love her as much though she may have left us.

After that, all were Free and Easy. And trust me, I am really exhausted by 11. Totally tired and can’t really think with my brains anymore… haha, so to those who’ve come and made it my day, my Birthday a wonderful and so memorable one, Here’s a Thank You to YOU!

Mu En the Man behing most of the Media for that day.

Mr Ren, Cheif in Deco

And his Car Key Members helping, Ernest n Yu Xian

My Cg leader and My Pastoral Leaders... hehe

Guess who is this lady? Hmmmmm...

My dear relatives Auntie Angie, Wei Yi & 3rd Uncle

Stick Em, Smoke em... yumm 🙂

Where the aroma has been esceping from...

This tribal stick sets the mood for the day 🙂 A must have! Thanks to ME (Mu En) for getting it!

The BBQ Pioneers(p.s. they are cousins too)

Man, I ate the last one I think... 😛

S&Y... deadly artistic!

The engineers trying to make make bulbs which are later fitted into Balloons! Amaching!

Jie Hau and Ezekiel!

More BBQ peeps are added to the fray! Thanks so much guys

Nick and Ezekiel...

The guys... Jie Ming forever eating!... hehe...

Sly and Lu Wei, happily BBqing the food 🙂

Hey Where am I ?

Here I am, all changed and ready for the night 🙂

No medical claims for eating without caution... Do NOT TRY THIS AT HOME plz...

So sweet... Chomp chomp chomp!

Here is Ezekiel, Wei Xiong and Me...

GROUP PHOTO please...

Cheslki Vs ITALIA... and the after a tough draw, the latter came out Victors!

Esther one takes the photo with just one hand, the other with some food i think... haha PRO!

Let the Mahjong BEGIN!

Great food, Great Company!

SWP, A happy Coffee Connoisseur

Hmmm.... looks nice, I want MORE! haha

WHAT! I have become Liverpool's captain! works of REN

My FAMILY!!!

Inspired from Po!

My spoils after that day... haha

Which includes :

1 X Cross Necklace

1 X Cup

1 X Scrabble Game

2 X Ang Bao,

2 X Christian Books,

2 X Zinc Bags,

2 X Soft TOY! 🙂

3 X shirts

1 X Jersey

1 X really Good weather from God above !

5 X Watches( I will be punctual… ok.)

100 X Love from all you peeps!

21 gifts in Total. The Covenant is a special gift from every other member in the cell group! 🙂

And last but not least, all or most have also expressed their artistic talents by penning their thoughts and drawing their wishes for ME. LOVE IT LOTS! Domo Arigato!

A close up...

The Cover Page!

By Michelle

By Bei Ru!

From WAN XIN!

From Xuan Wen, the first of her works...

Mr Huatz... displaying his love for flowers!

By JACK!

By Slyvester!

By Lu Wei!

From Xuan Wen again... displaying her artistic talents...

By Henson...

By FEI fei

Mu En

Another one by Mu En!

The last of Xuanz

I think I better stop now… this tasks of uploading pictures has taken 3 hours of my day already… 😛 Astala Vista, I’ll be back with MORE!

16 Oct 08

On this day 1985, someone was born and just yesterday, It was her BIRTHDAY! It’s my Sister!, Ms Xin Yan. She’s like 3776 miles away from us. Man that’s far, around 6 hours of flight time would be needed to reach her. Even a call would take quite a while to reach there I believe…

I was quite sick recently having Cough and Flu getting the better of me for the past 4 days. Sure was bad even my boss told me to look for the doctor. Stubborness of man sure proved to be the fall for me… As I thought it would recover after rest. Only until Thursday did I go to the Medical Centre.

At the Medical Centre…

As I arrive at TAGMOT medical centre. Familiar faces welcomed me. There is Jun Jie(the most senior medic I remember and Alex(my BMT mate from Apache Coy…). As I do the routine checks such as temperature taking and also the pressure thingy… Alex chanced upon me and greeted me : “Hey Xin Long, Congrats, you were boarded yesterday. I can’t really remember its either 2-9 or 9-2… later I check for you… ”

And he left me thinking, was it C9L2 or C2L9… hmm, inside my heart, I thought it was surely a C, then 9 would be better yea. After a while, he came back  and sat in front of me as I was taking my blood pressure… His first words were : ” Welcome to the Downpes Centre…”, taking out a bag of documents and was flipping. “There, here’s yours, Congrats(as he stretched his hands for a handshake…), You are now C9L2. Later your treat a officer’s Mess.” Well, I was happy yet also doubtful. Whether it was really that bad to justify at C9… Man check the below table out and you’ll understand the seriousness of C9…

Army Physical Employment Status

Well you get the idea…

Good…MORNING!

It was a good morning having been waken up by my good friend and I believe this time, the sides have turned… Sheng Yuan woke me up! woots. Hehe, thanks for the timely awakening if not I can say Good bye to an eventful morning of ecitement at the Limbang soccer Arena. Oh yes, almost forgot to thank the lovely driver in shades to send us there is none other than MR MU EN HUANG with his blue ride. THANKS to all!

It was well, rather fulfilling to know that there’s much wisdom involved in marking a player(striker). And that to do that we have to sometimes learn from the mistakes. And I thank God and my teamates for the one precious GOAL that was scored by Benzema that day. Making me feel proud for a moment, coz to miss that goal would mean the absolute opposite for us. haha.

After the soccer mania, we headed down to Bukit Panjang area for our very late lunch fix. And after that, all were participating in the Amazing race : Mu En’s House edition. Well, I reached last but to much hold ups. Well, mom prepared a good fish and much delicious food for the family and to not eat it would be really disappointment to my loving mother who put in effort and sweat to prepare it for us! Love you lots yea… And she insists that I bring some muffins which she made for her kids(at Nayang High, you lucky peeps =) ) for the group of hungry and Food-welcoming peeps awaiting…

Well, FAST—FORWARD >> well, folding shirt for Mu En! haha, the usual free labour he would receive when helpful guest who would willing give a hand to see P M & D grow! hehe. Oh yes, Thanks also to Auntie Michelle, Mu En’s mum for getting us really good food from Adam’s food centre. The best is the Qing Teng. Woots, I love it to the max.

Then there’s much I would like to input and comment about LIVERPOOL’s MATCH AGAINST MAN CITEH! So sorry to pastor glen(MAN CITEH) fan. You’ve seen red today (RED card to Zabeleta), too much… hehe, A comeback after trailing a 0-2 first half. Liverpool have the resilience and perservance to see ourselves through with 3 wonderful goals to end the talk about liverpool’s poor performance in the first half.

Football aside, We can be down but mentally we got to be strong and carry on fighting, no matter how tough the situation in life. I want to choose to be learn from this game to carry on walking. As I told God, no matter how bad the end result maybe at the end of the game, I will still praise Him!, not sulk and be in a bad mood. Well, seems like things changed for the better and I choose to believe God has much to teach me through this match… My Apple Cranberry 100% Juice tastes real sweet today! Cheers to Torres, Cheers to Gerrard, Cheers to Kuyt and all those who have walked with God, You’ll never walk alone, Walk with Him 🙂

We all jumped for Joy as Torres does it with a perfect header!

The simliar smile was written all over my face as I jumped for JOY, elated almost to tears...

Where to start ?

well, I’ve decided to blog due to Yu Xian’s prolonged encouragement to update it. 

FARNY things that happened :

1) An aunty’s lie…  Well, I would travel by foot for a rough distance of 2 kilometres to camp every week day. One FINE day…really fine, because it wasn’t raining. As I pass by the people I would usually pass by, as they do their routine journey to the MRT/BUS stop/Sheng siong. An auntie or rather grandma of a kid shouted to him as he was running along, not waiting for her, “boi ar, bu yao pao, deng xia kor kor jua ni chai zi dao!”. I smiled in total bewilderment, as my sense of pride donning my smart 4 to work is appreciated… wah, I can be a role model or even disciplanarian to many people out there, impact the kids through fear! Woots.

2) The new army uniform… is a total disappointment to someone who book out with it every week day… madness I must say, come on just look at it. I would really think a million times about going to town with the new uniform. But in times of tatical needs, it will definitely prove its worth for this change islandwide! So peeps serving the Army soon, wear this with pride yea ? or otherwise book out in CVs!

3) Well, my boss … sat us down one day just as we are about to book out for the day last week, and talked to us about our religion. Well he touched on christianity and was really disappointed about religion after seeing christians refusing to help a fellow colleague in his past Coy. Well, I believe there are worldly-christians as I have explanined to him later. Also he has given up on religion after people say something and do the exact opposite. He says that the current generation is indeed really different from the past. This I agree and later go on to say what our pastor has always reminded us how bad and sinful a society we are living in… I later go on to explain my testimony to him of how I came to know the Lord. And he agreed that religion is good. I hope he comes to know Christ soon. 🙂

eh… To Be Continued…. !!!

Yesterday was a Good day… so is today…

Well, I worked away yesterday as it was a public holiday for most peeps(including ORDed personnel, students, and most soldiers in my camp.) My theory for working that day was to

Work work work, but after that I met up with kenneth for dinner at Mr Prata(clementi). Well, we ordered veggie set for two. Man, its really veg and veg only… wow. how healthy can we get ? That healthy with 2 kinds of vegetables.

An idea of what we ate...

As you can see, this is what indian vegans eat, rather cool eh, so much different from what the chinese eat. I’ve learned that the yogurt(white one if u dun know…) is used to cancel the fat included in the foods. Well, this is smart. But here’s a warning, the yogurt is not sweet at all but the exact opposite.

Oh YES! I’ve WON tickets to PUCCINI’S TURANDOT :

By the Singapore Lyric Opera

A brief understanding :

Love, passion, hatred, revenge and sacrifice – these are the elements of Puccini’s final and grandest opera, Turandot. Singapore Lyric Opera’s forthcoming production of Turandot will invoke a surreal realm of existence juxtaposed by powerful human emotions. The story was taken from the Persian legend of an icy Chinese princess, Turandot, who refused to let any man have her. Princes from afar asking for her hand were put to death, having failed to answer her three impossible riddles. An exiled prince finally appeared, solving the riddles and won over the heart of the proud princess with his love.

Does this sound like a vicious woman ? haha, well, as the old sayings goes : 最 毒 妇人心. Most evil is indeed in a woman’s heart. Haha. THANK YOU Symphony 92.4 FM for the various events you’ve given me :

Inter boss Jose Mourinho reckons Liverpool could finally land the Premier League title this season – but predicts trouble for Arsenal.

‘I saw Arsenal. They have a good team but have a small group of experienced players,’ Mourinho said in The Sun.

‘The second group is full of boys. They have talent but maybe Arsenal are without the depth needed to win the title.

You'll see RED! EVERYWHERE!

BANG is good!

Till next time… X!

National D@Y yay!

COOL COOL National day! One of the best yet ever. Today morning we met at stephanie’s place for briefing before we go prayer walk at MI(milenia Institute). The schools of Anderson and Stephanie. Cool. We prayed for the school to be free from Idols, the hearts of the students to be free and etc. As the school is really quite mad, there has been people who use lots of vulgarities and the teacher who shares not only his own religion. Well, we surely have broken the strongholds at the place and free the chains of the evil one. so now, Go forth my brother and sister to reach the souls. Surely we need to pray for them.

Then it was back to church after lunching at westmall, where we met Xuan’s group and Victor jumped the wagon… haha pang sei dude… next, we went over to church and there goes my day, USHER! man, surely were shorthanded and short of time. Everything was really rushed… almost madness. And the next thing we know, the people came in already. Speaker assistant, what a post, I screwed up, haha, go take the mike stand for pastor, even I was dumbfounded by my act. Well… got it right in the end.

Next thing I did was to try to find a seat in the really crowded place. Man, now a butt space is not spared… haha, so you must be lucky to get one. Everything went well and really I believe our prayer pointers for schools to have good management, and teachers to really teach with passion knowing the needs of the youths nowadays, for society to understand christianity from a different perspective, we are no “western man religion”. Ahem, we base our relationship on love with God ! That’s all, so parents out there need not worry about your kids eh… And also churches to be united, then we can really work for God, advance for God’s kingdom and not for the devils…

Shifting the chairs back…. phew, sure is tough for guys to be in Usher, those rows and rows of chairs needed to be shifted back and be sedia and kekanan lurused… madness… not an easy task for 4/5 people doing em as we said earlier, we are shorthanded. Thankfully some came to help…

Later on, I quickly go get dinner for my sis, then went down to Swissotel Stamford to meet my mum and cousins and aunts. It was really cool as they had booked a room there which was perfect for observing the fireworks from the 52nd floor, awesome view! I must say seeing the fireworks from the place was really cool. so different from a TV la. But the smoke too much, looked like clouds later and blocked the firework’s magnificent display. Later we went to Prataya… quite a cool thai restaurant.

And then later we went for bowling at the SRC. Really cool, bowled somewhere besides Warren CC. Cool man, I bowled like noob in the first game, only 50 plus eh, second one was the one I see more strikes and spares! Yay, got 137 after that. I see some potential in myself, Thank You God for making this a day a great one!

THINGS TO DO :

Go Expo to check out the BORDERS SALE and there’s a METRO sale too… woots

Go for BIBLE study!!!

Listening to Schumann’s  Soaring, Opus 12-2. Simply awesome piece of work. neat!  I must play this one day.

Works I want to play :

– Bach, J. S. – Menuett in G Major

– Sergei Rachmaninov – Humoresque in G, Op. 10, No. 5

– Sergei Rachmaninov – The Flight of the Bumble-Bee

National Day Observance Parade

Majulah Singapura

:

well, today was NDP observance parade at S.I. Cool thing is that everyone is in PT kit except for me. I had remembered to bring my PT shoes but not my PT attire. What STM I have… sigh. And ISM spotted me from afar… and said… WTF, wee, why are you here, go stand behind… So I thought he meant I am excused from the parade, but actually I have to stand behind the Officers’ platoon.

Later on, he called me and told me that I had needed to stand behind, oh well… the parade moves on to a slow beat and ended in less than 30 mins.

Booking out… See the same things… the same road, the same schools, but different people always. There was once as I booked out from camp and walked towards Teck Whye Secondary School. A boy prolly sec 1, nearly bumped into me, he stopped in the nick of time and saluted me… I thought to myself, ‘wow, I not officer leh, but you made my day’. Another time when I was about to reach camp and it had started to drizzle. From afar, I saw a lady(foreigner) walking towards me, and I had the intention to lend her my umbrella, she looked at me and said:’oh you’re so sweet, no you keep it for yourself’. Haha, well least I tried and she appreciated.

Today was a full day work day, slept for a while, read the book called ‘The Shack -by William P.Young’. Really good fiction read, it has fictional meaning to God. It is slowly unfolding to real excitement.

My Current Read

Good news is that I would have a one day off coming next week due to the national day. Oh well, it is only fair, our BMT mates booked out on thursday… Man!!! Today’s lunch was awesome as predicted to make us happy soldiers before the nation’s birthday. My boss was really pissed that we get one day off, come on, work work and work makes John a dull boy… Inject some life in the work!

Happy Birthday to Singapore, Happy Birthday to Singapore, Happy Birthday to Singapore.

God is Blessing her now… God is Blessing her now… God is Blessing her now… God is Blessing her now!!! Prayer meeting at 1930hrs was good, I believe God has heard our prayers and will help turn us into a country that seeks his face and heartbeat! Praise be to God. Thank you for allowing singapore to be as prosperous as now and above all, we thank you for your constant love and anointing over us. Bless us this day as we celebrate the nation’s bdae, Give it all back to you, all we have is yours!

A day well spent ?

well, today was rather good. I had needed to go for my physiotherapy at SGH and I made it a point to be earlier because I would be late usually. And Speaking about this, now that I have been zipping about in public transpot, I understand the pain of waiting for that forever coming bus.

Oh yes, did I mention that I have waited for one single bus(970) for so long that 5 buses passed which I could actually take but had to make a short detour if taken. Well, and when I boarded 985, as I glanced back, a 970 eased into the stop. Man, made me think if the bus had stuck in a jam or one had broken down. Well, there is always a chance of that. Maybe God is teaching me a lesson to adjust myself with regards to my comfort, having traveled alot on wheels. But that day I thought to myself, I am going to own a car in the many years to come. Though, the world would not be a better place with this, but I have come to realise the convenience of a private transport. And the time taken with public transport is indeed much longer, say I go to Outram(SGH), I need least an hour to get there. With car, I will reach there in less than 20 mins with no jam. Yea. 40 mins! Oh well, I ought to content myself and thank God with the comfort I live in, anything more will be luxury and not a need but just a want… Met Lu Wei as I make my way down

Today was rather interesting, partly because my physio has been ok. And after that, I went to meet up with Jie Ming and Mu En at Vivocity… Mu En had needed to service his Mark II camera. Oh well, he got a free cleaning in the end. And we chose to watch a show called Under the same Moon(although the whole movie is in spanish…). I did give this movie 8.8 pts given its well designed plot and storyline, the transition and the superb cast. Adrian Alonso is certainly a kid who can act. Applause to Him, see you in the blockbusters next time. I believe many cried as the show comes to the end…

Watch this! You must...

We all think there are no kind souls out there somehow right ? No free lunch under the moon or sun…
An incident changed my conception totally. As I followed Jie Ming down to the snack bar to get his popcorn, Jie Ming exclaimed :”Why he has the coupon and I do not have ?”

Well, apparently the man had heard his cries, turns to his wife and quickly takes a few coupons and passed it to Jie Ming. I had expected he would do that when he shuffled his hands with the coupons in his wife hands. Being the not so greedy Jie Ming, he said, no… it’s ok, he was just curious. But the man insisted Jie Ming to take it. And after a while, Jie Ming gave in. Well, we thought it did be some dollars off our popcorn but as we stared and scrutinized in disbelief, Free popcorn… Man did we just receive free popcorn ? we looked a few times but found no gimmicks on it. FREE POPCORN AND DRINKS! Man… even Mu En could not believe… there goes to show, there are still kind people out there, so we Christians must be likewise too.

A great song, a pity I do not have the player to play this in my blog… Man :X

Aaron Shust – I Will Wait

When I am tired You bring me comfort
(I will wait; I will wait for You)
When I am weak You give me strength
(I will wait; I will wait for You)
When I can’t walk You give me wings like an eagle
(I will wait; I will wait for You)
When I’m alone You bring me peace
(I will wait)
I will wait for Your mercy
I will wait for Your plan to unfold
I will wait for Your mercies are new every morning
When I am wounded You heal my broken bones
(I will wait; I will wait for You)
And when I sing You fill my heart with joy
(I will wait; I will wait for You)
And when I fear the unknown You give me peace
(I will wait; I will wait for You)
And when I call, You always answer me
(I will wait)
We wait for You like watchmen wait for morning
We wait for You like creation waits for spring
We wait for You knowing sometimes without warning
You reveal Your plan in ways that maybe we don’t understand

As National Day draws near, I hope to receive my offs! haha

Events left chipped in my brain

0600AM : Woke up first time seeing the sun was still not up yet. Being earlier than my sister at least and I hurried to escape the irritating alarm clock of hers which is in snooze mode for like 10 mins. But I nearly forgot to bring along my Ezlink Card. So I have no choice but to return little back to retrieve it. Knowing that this is actually the earliest time and must be the earliest book in time the guards would ever realize.

0730AM : As I walked towards the Signal Institute building, I could see that the day was just breaking into the sky. Man I am really proud of my achievement of making it there so early. Almost the same timing as my boss, so I went and drew the key and offload my bag and prepare for the big day.

Soon, the parade forms up. Ian was playing with the microphone I had needed to use. And soon the roar of my boss’s voice came in : “Alright, Emcee… Cpl WEE, where are you!”. I grabbed the microphone from Ian and quickly ran towards him. And the dry run kicked off. I had to admit he was really harsh with the OCT(Officer Cadet Trainees) as they try their best to rehearse the flag-raising ceremony.

Everything went on smoothly as commander inspected everyone on the parade except for me, thanks to my Emcee post… can stand at a corner and observe the whole parade. Overall all went well except for my friends who were bunking upstairs saying I had used my English slang too much. Well… good thing my boss praised me and all I could say is thanks boss… just doing my job. Can I get an off plezzzz… Dream on! haha.

Gotta think of more things to do in camp besides reading, watching shows, surfing net, lunching, walking around, looking at the koi pond, roaming around the trainees block, slacking at CSTH’s brand new carpeted floor, Checking out E-mart for new stuff( PT shoes and NEW UNIforms… woo), going for prayer meeting sessions(missed quite a few these few weeks, man…), checking my boss’s email and the neverending Forcast of Events I have update, Listening to Symphony 92.4fm, lock ourselves in our office, saying Hi to the many acquaintances I know. Thats about all I do in camp, boring eh, least it’s non-physical at all, xcept for the mini route march I do walking into camp… Haha.

Food for Thought : DURIANS(Durio zibethinus)

HISTORY OF DURIANS:

Man This durian(background) can last a year

In the species name, zibethinus refers to the Indian civet, Viverra zibetha. There is disagreement regarding whether this name, bestowed by Linnaeus, refers to civets being so fond of the durian that the fruit was used as bait to entrap them, or to the durian smelling like the civet.

Here’s how a Civet cat looks like : wonders how it actually cracks open the durian, maybe I should rear one just to open my durians. As pungent as a civet.(used by Ang Mohs our famed delicacy… Oh ya did I mention, Tigers like durian too, there’s a tiger in most singaporean’s heart. Roar! Cats o Cats… we are indeed the lion city.

This cat eating a durian... Hmmm Durian aint meat dude...

Since its the durian Season. Man and I confess I had eaten a load of durian this time, from various parties. And I have to admit that in the morning, my urine smells of something weird. Is it sulphur? Puzzling eh, Here’s Durian Urine Debunked :

Well, as my research goes to show :

• “Durians are a strong blood cleanser, and consuming them can alter the urine’s odor.” quoted from healthy.net
  

• It has lots of Vitamin C(80%)!!! wah… it never smell or least taste like a citrus fruit that I know.

• Another Truth from nutriondata.com is that it has loads of carbs, which means people who work out in the gym. This must be the best fruit. Erm, leave it outside the gym yes ? Thanks.
  

Well yet another shocking myth :

• “when the durians come down from the trees, the sarongs come off” — refers to the fruit’s legendary powers as an aphrodisiac.

For the benefits of those who do not know what does the word ‘aphrodisiac’ mean, go check it yourself… something to do with your drive and desire. Hahaha. Man I really doubt this is scientifically true. Shall research more…

• Toxicity

The seeds are believed to possess a toxic property that causes shortness of breath.

http://www.healthy.net/scr/mmedica.asp?MTId=8&Id=100

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/2088/2

For more info, we did talk more over a durian retreat eh… Hahaha

Thank God for creating durian that are smart fruits, you know that the fruit only falls at night. Cool eh. Wise God indeed, protecting our most important part of the body.