Monday, October 30, 2006
Blogger has been giving people server problems again I see. For two days consecutively I couldn't post anything, and just now, I see that I have posted 4 of the same posts, and had to go delete the excess 3.
Sun 29 Oct
I went to service as usual, and had dinner at my gf's place. I went home earlier because I needed to mark some sample scripts for Project Work written report marking standardisation meeting tomorrow. Sigh, here it comes again. Marking using benchmarks and band descriptors are always a pain.
I started on Gundam MS Igloo, the latest installment of Gundam. It looks alright, but the whole thing is 3d animated, much like Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within. Somehow, I think this anime fails in the graphics. Not that it is not realistic, but the setting seems inappropriate. In 3d animation, I think the characters are less distinctive than the usual anime, because of the compelling need for realism, the characters can't have blue, green, purple, or any of those striking colours for hair, or strange and exotic hairstyles for instance. Hence, the characters in the anime do not seem distinctive enough. I couldn't really tell some of them apart. What makes it worse than it is set in a war setting, so the two opposing factions are military, and hence wear uniforms, and that makes the people all the more harder to distinguish. Still, it is a noble attempt at 3d animation, considering that they aren't Squaresoft.
I started on the anime version of Death Note as well. Sadly, it is still ongoing, and I only have episodes 1-4 right now, but I think the anime version is even better than the movie. Some things the movie did not bother to explain, such as details about the Shinigami, or Ryuk's motive for coming to the human world, or the fact that in the manga and anime, Ryuk deliberately dropped the Death Note (in the movie, it was not clear if it was accidental or deliberate). The movie apparently made quite a few alterations which seemed unnecessary. Light isn't some fanciful law undergraduate disatisfied with the reach of the law in the anime. Also, in the anime, right from episode 1, it is clear that he is a megalomaniac to start with, although with a somewhat just cause, rather than a crusader of justice who degenerated into a indiscriminate killer. The flow of the anime seems much cleaner than the movie, which had to jump from point to point sometimes in order to explain itself. Therefore, since I already viewed the movie as pretty good, the anime is excellent! Or at least, for the earlier episodes.
Mon 30 Oct
I overslept by half an hour, but I still made it to school on time. The standardisation meeting took a whopping 5 hours all the way till 1.15 pm before we more or less agreed on the various standards. Compared to last year, we had a lot more initial disagreement in viewpoints, especially when it comes to us versus the moderators. It was an amusing albeit tedious process to thrash things out, for a good cause of course. I spent the rest of the time preparing for Olympiad training. My turn has come for this week's training, and now I'm frantically trying to churn out quality notes for the students.
Incidentally, Long John Silver's now has this potato crisps with salsa cheese sauce that can be added to a meal for $1.50, and it tastes pretty good. I think next time I want to catch a movie, I may go get this add-on to a meal and sneak it into the cinema, since the GV nachos cost about 4 bucks. Heh.
Sun 29 Oct
I went to service as usual, and had dinner at my gf's place. I went home earlier because I needed to mark some sample scripts for Project Work written report marking standardisation meeting tomorrow. Sigh, here it comes again. Marking using benchmarks and band descriptors are always a pain.
I started on Gundam MS Igloo, the latest installment of Gundam. It looks alright, but the whole thing is 3d animated, much like Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within. Somehow, I think this anime fails in the graphics. Not that it is not realistic, but the setting seems inappropriate. In 3d animation, I think the characters are less distinctive than the usual anime, because of the compelling need for realism, the characters can't have blue, green, purple, or any of those striking colours for hair, or strange and exotic hairstyles for instance. Hence, the characters in the anime do not seem distinctive enough. I couldn't really tell some of them apart. What makes it worse than it is set in a war setting, so the two opposing factions are military, and hence wear uniforms, and that makes the people all the more harder to distinguish. Still, it is a noble attempt at 3d animation, considering that they aren't Squaresoft.
I started on the anime version of Death Note as well. Sadly, it is still ongoing, and I only have episodes 1-4 right now, but I think the anime version is even better than the movie. Some things the movie did not bother to explain, such as details about the Shinigami, or Ryuk's motive for coming to the human world, or the fact that in the manga and anime, Ryuk deliberately dropped the Death Note (in the movie, it was not clear if it was accidental or deliberate). The movie apparently made quite a few alterations which seemed unnecessary. Light isn't some fanciful law undergraduate disatisfied with the reach of the law in the anime. Also, in the anime, right from episode 1, it is clear that he is a megalomaniac to start with, although with a somewhat just cause, rather than a crusader of justice who degenerated into a indiscriminate killer. The flow of the anime seems much cleaner than the movie, which had to jump from point to point sometimes in order to explain itself. Therefore, since I already viewed the movie as pretty good, the anime is excellent! Or at least, for the earlier episodes.
Mon 30 Oct
I overslept by half an hour, but I still made it to school on time. The standardisation meeting took a whopping 5 hours all the way till 1.15 pm before we more or less agreed on the various standards. Compared to last year, we had a lot more initial disagreement in viewpoints, especially when it comes to us versus the moderators. It was an amusing albeit tedious process to thrash things out, for a good cause of course. I spent the rest of the time preparing for Olympiad training. My turn has come for this week's training, and now I'm frantically trying to churn out quality notes for the students.
Incidentally, Long John Silver's now has this potato crisps with salsa cheese sauce that can be added to a meal for $1.50, and it tastes pretty good. I think next time I want to catch a movie, I may go get this add-on to a meal and sneak it into the cinema, since the GV nachos cost about 4 bucks. Heh.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Fri 27 Oct
We had a farewell tribute lunch to our science HOD at Straits Kitchen in the Grand Hyatt hotel, and it's the partial treat of the new HOD. Even with the support of some funds for recreation, I estimate that he still forked out over $1000, since the buffet lunch is about $45 per head. Ouch. It really costs a lot to be the science HOD in TJC...currently 48 teachers, and over a dozen lab technicians. At first I was quite impressed by the food. The buffet serves popular local food like chicken rice, laksa, and other distinctive dishes, and they were mostly of good quality. However, the thing is that nothing was fantastic enough to make me truly wowed, and there was nothing of high value (such as oysters, sashimi, or other more expensive items) to justify the high price. Essentially, I would rather go to some famous stall or coffee shop to eat something that is excellent than a buffet. My first round for a buffet is always to take a little of everything to sample to find out what is good, and go a second round to get the good stuff. However, after the first round, I will surely be a little full, and that affects the appetite for the next round. I think with $45 I can go to any hawker centre and order all their most famous dishes, and still underspend grossly. Overall, an enjoyable experience still, but only because I'm not paying that $45.
After that, we went down to MJC for our tutorial. It's presentation time again, and this time, I'm teaming with my gf. The thing was that the group right before us happened to pick the same learning theorist I did, so it started not according to my plans already. Fortunately, I think I dug up way more information than the other group, so we had extra things to present on. Even after glossing over things that the other group presented, we still took 20+ minutes when we were supposed to keep it under 15 min, which is very odd. I prepared about 20 slides, and I thought it would take less than a minute for each slide. It seems like it's not possible to estimate the time unless we did a rehearsal first, which we had no time for anyway.
Sat 27 Oct
I finished twelve episodes of Black Lagoon only to realize that the series did not end there. In any case, the story is excellent, although bleak and dark. The series begin with a Japanese salaryman who was taken hostage when he was delivering a disc with incriminating content, and his company abandoned him to be killed. Upon that experience, he decided to join his captors, who form a company of pirates (kinda), who take on shady jobs for shady people. Most of the anime is centered on a city where various triads, mafia and gang vie for territory, and it is a sordid and grim look at crime and criminals, or even corrupt policemen. There's a good deal of violence and gunfire throughout the show, but the most outstanding aspect is that there is excellent character development. All the four main characters, and even the various side characters (triad and mafia heads, for instance) are so developed they feel very realistic. There's some wry humour in the show, witty dialogue, and smart references to history and pop culture. The series has reached episode 15 right now, and I highly suspect it should hit somewhere around 24 to 26 episodes.
For those who enjoy Death Note the movie, it might be interesting to note that other than the manga available in stores or online, the anime series is currently being shown in Japan I think, so the episodes are coming in about one a week. It is now at episode 4. Apparently, the movie deviated a fair bit from the manga, but the anime is keeping close to it.
We had a farewell tribute lunch to our science HOD at Straits Kitchen in the Grand Hyatt hotel, and it's the partial treat of the new HOD. Even with the support of some funds for recreation, I estimate that he still forked out over $1000, since the buffet lunch is about $45 per head. Ouch. It really costs a lot to be the science HOD in TJC...currently 48 teachers, and over a dozen lab technicians. At first I was quite impressed by the food. The buffet serves popular local food like chicken rice, laksa, and other distinctive dishes, and they were mostly of good quality. However, the thing is that nothing was fantastic enough to make me truly wowed, and there was nothing of high value (such as oysters, sashimi, or other more expensive items) to justify the high price. Essentially, I would rather go to some famous stall or coffee shop to eat something that is excellent than a buffet. My first round for a buffet is always to take a little of everything to sample to find out what is good, and go a second round to get the good stuff. However, after the first round, I will surely be a little full, and that affects the appetite for the next round. I think with $45 I can go to any hawker centre and order all their most famous dishes, and still underspend grossly. Overall, an enjoyable experience still, but only because I'm not paying that $45.
After that, we went down to MJC for our tutorial. It's presentation time again, and this time, I'm teaming with my gf. The thing was that the group right before us happened to pick the same learning theorist I did, so it started not according to my plans already. Fortunately, I think I dug up way more information than the other group, so we had extra things to present on. Even after glossing over things that the other group presented, we still took 20+ minutes when we were supposed to keep it under 15 min, which is very odd. I prepared about 20 slides, and I thought it would take less than a minute for each slide. It seems like it's not possible to estimate the time unless we did a rehearsal first, which we had no time for anyway.
Sat 27 Oct
I finished twelve episodes of Black Lagoon only to realize that the series did not end there. In any case, the story is excellent, although bleak and dark. The series begin with a Japanese salaryman who was taken hostage when he was delivering a disc with incriminating content, and his company abandoned him to be killed. Upon that experience, he decided to join his captors, who form a company of pirates (kinda), who take on shady jobs for shady people. Most of the anime is centered on a city where various triads, mafia and gang vie for territory, and it is a sordid and grim look at crime and criminals, or even corrupt policemen. There's a good deal of violence and gunfire throughout the show, but the most outstanding aspect is that there is excellent character development. All the four main characters, and even the various side characters (triad and mafia heads, for instance) are so developed they feel very realistic. There's some wry humour in the show, witty dialogue, and smart references to history and pop culture. The series has reached episode 15 right now, and I highly suspect it should hit somewhere around 24 to 26 episodes.
For those who enjoy Death Note the movie, it might be interesting to note that other than the manga available in stores or online, the anime series is currently being shown in Japan I think, so the episodes are coming in about one a week. It is now at episode 4. Apparently, the movie deviated a fair bit from the manga, but the anime is keeping close to it.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Wed 25 Oct
Today was a relatively relaxing day in school. I just had to settle some administration which comes at the end of the year, and I had to attend some briefing that took up the early afternoon. After that, I went home, took a short nap and headed out to church despite the rain.
I was supposed to go to Popular and buy some vouchers, and I got to the one at Bras Basah at 7.05 pm, and it was closed! I thought the closing time was 8 pm (it's 7 pm for Mon to Thu), and assumed I was in time to pick up the vouchers along the way to my church meeting. I tried knocking on the shutters, hoping to get the attention of the people inside, and maybe get the vouchers anyway, but despite my hammering away, all the people walking around inside packing up seemed to be deaf. In the end, I gave up, and headed back to the bus stop, whereupon I waited 18 min again for 197. My guess is that it's the same driver everytime, because when I miss the 7 pm 197 at the bus stop at my place, the next bus comes after at least 18 min, and the time I was waiting at Bras Basah seemed to coincide with that one. He drives awfully slowly, even when the road ahead is absolutely clear of traffic.
The church meeting ended a bit late, but good thing Junhao gave me a ride home again. I think guys who drive who bother to fetch friends, and not just girlfriends, home are really nice and generous people, and they are a general rarity.
Thu 26 oct
Today was packed, despite the term winding down. I had a chemistry department meeting during the first period to discuss deployment. Second period I had to meet my vice principal to discuss about my civics class that didn't do well this promotional examinations, and I think I defended my class to the best of my ability. Right after that, I had to attend a briefing by the principal for the failure cases, who are pending provisional promotion, because the respective civics tutor had to be around. Following that I had a lesson with my TA class, which, since there was no teaching, I used to do some work while they screened a movie using the classroom projector. Immediately after that, I had to join my civics class as the vice principal wanted to talk to them. It ended up a scolding session by him due to a general lack of response from the kids, despite all my mitigating good words in the morning. After he was done, I shared some feelings with the class, and I felt oddly emotional. The fact that I have three students pending promotion affected me quite a fair bit. It is not that I feel personally responsible, but that I sympathize and empathize with their situation. I can only hope that my heartfelt sentiments expressed reached them somehow, somewhere, and they can spark off some kind of diligent awakening.
After the heavy session, we all went out for lunch at Siglap's Pizza Hut. I think the lunch is really quite cheap, and I suspect they are targetting students too by giving a big discount. What I am dissatisfied with though was that the soup was terrible. The cream of mushroom soup had a burnt smell, so much so that the soup tasted like some kind of herbal medicinal soup. I'm generally quite tolerant of soup quality if it is dilute, too salty, or whatever not, but this one was inedible. Of course, they did generously change the soup to Summer Veggies, but the soup base just wasn't to my taste. According to my gf, the last time she went quite recently, the soup tasted odd too. Be forewarned.
I rested a while at my gf's place inbetween, and in the evening, went back to school for our annual dinner. The food was pretty good, but more importantly, the organizers saved on venue and skipped hiring a professional DJ (the previous ones sucked) and gave out many more lucky draw prizes. Similar to the previous dinner, I was flipping through the numbers at the start, and 20 just leapt out at me, and I took it. This time round though, I didn't get as big a prize and ended up with a $50 Isetan voucher. It's not the best of the prizes, but then I'm happy to have won something again, and I felt that the choice of the number at the start, like last time, was guided by the Holy Spirit. Since my birthday is at the end of the year, perhaps this is God's birthday present to me. Heh.
Today was a relatively relaxing day in school. I just had to settle some administration which comes at the end of the year, and I had to attend some briefing that took up the early afternoon. After that, I went home, took a short nap and headed out to church despite the rain.
I was supposed to go to Popular and buy some vouchers, and I got to the one at Bras Basah at 7.05 pm, and it was closed! I thought the closing time was 8 pm (it's 7 pm for Mon to Thu), and assumed I was in time to pick up the vouchers along the way to my church meeting. I tried knocking on the shutters, hoping to get the attention of the people inside, and maybe get the vouchers anyway, but despite my hammering away, all the people walking around inside packing up seemed to be deaf. In the end, I gave up, and headed back to the bus stop, whereupon I waited 18 min again for 197. My guess is that it's the same driver everytime, because when I miss the 7 pm 197 at the bus stop at my place, the next bus comes after at least 18 min, and the time I was waiting at Bras Basah seemed to coincide with that one. He drives awfully slowly, even when the road ahead is absolutely clear of traffic.
The church meeting ended a bit late, but good thing Junhao gave me a ride home again. I think guys who drive who bother to fetch friends, and not just girlfriends, home are really nice and generous people, and they are a general rarity.
Thu 26 oct
Today was packed, despite the term winding down. I had a chemistry department meeting during the first period to discuss deployment. Second period I had to meet my vice principal to discuss about my civics class that didn't do well this promotional examinations, and I think I defended my class to the best of my ability. Right after that, I had to attend a briefing by the principal for the failure cases, who are pending provisional promotion, because the respective civics tutor had to be around. Following that I had a lesson with my TA class, which, since there was no teaching, I used to do some work while they screened a movie using the classroom projector. Immediately after that, I had to join my civics class as the vice principal wanted to talk to them. It ended up a scolding session by him due to a general lack of response from the kids, despite all my mitigating good words in the morning. After he was done, I shared some feelings with the class, and I felt oddly emotional. The fact that I have three students pending promotion affected me quite a fair bit. It is not that I feel personally responsible, but that I sympathize and empathize with their situation. I can only hope that my heartfelt sentiments expressed reached them somehow, somewhere, and they can spark off some kind of diligent awakening.
After the heavy session, we all went out for lunch at Siglap's Pizza Hut. I think the lunch is really quite cheap, and I suspect they are targetting students too by giving a big discount. What I am dissatisfied with though was that the soup was terrible. The cream of mushroom soup had a burnt smell, so much so that the soup tasted like some kind of herbal medicinal soup. I'm generally quite tolerant of soup quality if it is dilute, too salty, or whatever not, but this one was inedible. Of course, they did generously change the soup to Summer Veggies, but the soup base just wasn't to my taste. According to my gf, the last time she went quite recently, the soup tasted odd too. Be forewarned.
I rested a while at my gf's place inbetween, and in the evening, went back to school for our annual dinner. The food was pretty good, but more importantly, the organizers saved on venue and skipped hiring a professional DJ (the previous ones sucked) and gave out many more lucky draw prizes. Similar to the previous dinner, I was flipping through the numbers at the start, and 20 just leapt out at me, and I took it. This time round though, I didn't get as big a prize and ended up with a $50 Isetan voucher. It's not the best of the prizes, but then I'm happy to have won something again, and I felt that the choice of the number at the start, like last time, was guided by the Holy Spirit. Since my birthday is at the end of the year, perhaps this is God's birthday present to me. Heh.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
I just finished watching Bakuretsu Tenshi (Burst Angel). It is a good anime, but not superb, falling short in some areas because I feel that the premise of the anime is quite good, but they should have done more with it. The anime is set in futuristic Japan, where technology has advanced, but the laws were lax, leading to great chaos and criminal activity. Then RAPT was set up, which is a vigilante police force that took upon itself the role of law and order, and then governance. RAPT seeks to control Japan with technology, and in the background there is a syndicate Zero which provides RAPT its technology, but Zero had planned to oust RAPT. The core technology in the anime is with the development of 'shiny brains', which essentially is the separation of the human brain into a separate capsule, and the brain can be planted into a organic shell, a machine or just about anything on the premise that the final stage of evolution must lie in the brain, and the physical body can be any object, living or otherwise. Zero also developed Genocide Angels, who are genetically engineered females born and bred for battle through rigourous Battle Royale-ish selection.
The conspiracy part unfolded slowly and rather well. The animation was high quality, with good character drawings. One of the lead females looks pretty 'butch' though, and no matter how I look at it, her friendship with another girl on the team reeks of lesbianism sometimes. The mecha in the anime are all rendered pretty well, but reminiscent of Patlabor in terms of design. What I didn't find good enough was that I think the evolution of the human brain thing should have been a more central premise. To me, the whole anime focused too much on the coolness of the lead females, and the battles, than the story per se. If the anime was a bit darker in feel like Ghost in the Shell, and developed the complex conspiracy more than the flashy characters, I think the anime would have turned out even better.
Now I'm starting on Black Lagoon, which is a short anime of 12 episodes, but seems to be pretty good, based on general reviews.
The conspiracy part unfolded slowly and rather well. The animation was high quality, with good character drawings. One of the lead females looks pretty 'butch' though, and no matter how I look at it, her friendship with another girl on the team reeks of lesbianism sometimes. The mecha in the anime are all rendered pretty well, but reminiscent of Patlabor in terms of design. What I didn't find good enough was that I think the evolution of the human brain thing should have been a more central premise. To me, the whole anime focused too much on the coolness of the lead females, and the battles, than the story per se. If the anime was a bit darker in feel like Ghost in the Shell, and developed the complex conspiracy more than the flashy characters, I think the anime would have turned out even better.
Now I'm starting on Black Lagoon, which is a short anime of 12 episodes, but seems to be pretty good, based on general reviews.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Hmm I did manage to find a poster of suitable resolution after all. Goodbye Click, welcome...Deathnote.
I'm very glad one of my boys who was away for quite a while for an examination break has finally returned after so long. God is good and gracious.
I'm very glad one of my boys who was away for quite a while for an examination break has finally returned after so long. God is good and gracious.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Fri 20 Oct
Today is a very interesting day of teaching, because I hardly did any. I had a double period with my TA class, and I was supposed to go through the exam answers, but almost all of them were very sure they won't be taking chemistry next year once they choose their subjects, and insisted on spending the lesson time differently, so I ended up chatting with them about, well, just about anything, academic or otherwise. My JC class wasn't that much different. I spent one period plus going through the promos paper, and subsequently, after releasing them early, some of them just hung around and we chatted. The most amazing things come up during these chitchat sessions actually. Every single time I managed to spend some time to just talk to my students, I find out so many things about them, and I understand them and their motivations that much more. These are the times I feel that this is what teaching should be about, or at least, my decided purpose to be a positive influence should revolve around this, but more often than not, there just isn't time. How sad that is, actually.
I rushed down to MJC with my level head after class was over, and we went to watch the presentations of the other pairs. My turn will come next week, and to this day, I didn't know what we are supposed to present on in the first place. In fact, there was a major deadline two weeks after that the rest of the class was negotiating to postpone which I didn't even realize. Reservist + strange virus = super out of touch.
Sat 21 Oct
I watched Death Note, and it was brilliant. I was trying to find a nice poster to work on for a spoof, but there just isn't any of high enough resolution, so I guess I'll be stuck with Click for a while more. A warning first, before I start the review: Death Note ends on a cliffhanger note, so be forewarned. Spoilers ahead as I discuss the movie, so read at own risk.
I like the movie's premise to start with. Anything revolving around humanity trying to play god is interesting premise, if done well. The movie centres around Light (or Raito, as pronounced in the movie) Yagami, a young man who by chance stumbles upon the Death Note, which is a notebook that bestows death upon anyone whose name appears on its pages, among other specific conditions. He starts off on a righteous note, taking out criminals and alleged criminals who seem to have escaped justice, and aims to start his own revolution that stretches beyond the gaps of the law. The truly interesting part of the movie, of course, is that we get to see his descent into less righteous ways. Upon provocation, he moved to kill a man who wasn't a criminal (FBI in fact), and later on, to save his own skin, he managed to kill off 12 FBI agents and their boss, who are hot on his trail. Eventually, he killed seemingly out of curious experimentation on his whimsical theories about destiny. His counterpart, sort of, is a brilliant young man nicknamed 'L', who is trying to identify Kira (the alter-ego Light adopted online as the executioner) and bring him to justice. The movie plot itself has some surprises, and is intelligent, and at the end of the movie, Light appears to be more sinister than the cg-animated Shinigami (Death God) Ryuk, who hangs around him.
I like the movie's premise because such movies always provoke the question 'If you were given the same power, what would you have done?' Seriously, if you think about it, the Death Note only had the power to kill. As most people are not murderers by nature, I assume, the book isn't of much use. If you really want to use it, then the most logical thing to do really is to assume the role of justice and eliminate evil, which itself seems to be a more noble cause that seems to justify the act itself, and that seems to be exactly what Light was doing. A purpose that seems righteous enough to justify the act of murder. Which also ironically betrays his lack of morality, because I think that any sane or normal person placed in the same situation would take the option of relinquishing the book to someone else, which Light didn't, because I doubt few people are egotistical enough to take upon themselves the role of executioner of evil and feel pleased about it, and more importantly, guiltless.
I was curious enough to go dig up information about the manga it was adapted from, and the general opinion of it seems very good, except that it seems to be 128 chapters long, and I don't think I want to devote that kind of time and energy to catch up on the story. So I'll just patiently wait for the sequel to be out, I guess.
Today is a very interesting day of teaching, because I hardly did any. I had a double period with my TA class, and I was supposed to go through the exam answers, but almost all of them were very sure they won't be taking chemistry next year once they choose their subjects, and insisted on spending the lesson time differently, so I ended up chatting with them about, well, just about anything, academic or otherwise. My JC class wasn't that much different. I spent one period plus going through the promos paper, and subsequently, after releasing them early, some of them just hung around and we chatted. The most amazing things come up during these chitchat sessions actually. Every single time I managed to spend some time to just talk to my students, I find out so many things about them, and I understand them and their motivations that much more. These are the times I feel that this is what teaching should be about, or at least, my decided purpose to be a positive influence should revolve around this, but more often than not, there just isn't time. How sad that is, actually.
I rushed down to MJC with my level head after class was over, and we went to watch the presentations of the other pairs. My turn will come next week, and to this day, I didn't know what we are supposed to present on in the first place. In fact, there was a major deadline two weeks after that the rest of the class was negotiating to postpone which I didn't even realize. Reservist + strange virus = super out of touch.
Sat 21 Oct
I watched Death Note, and it was brilliant. I was trying to find a nice poster to work on for a spoof, but there just isn't any of high enough resolution, so I guess I'll be stuck with Click for a while more. A warning first, before I start the review: Death Note ends on a cliffhanger note, so be forewarned. Spoilers ahead as I discuss the movie, so read at own risk.
I like the movie's premise to start with. Anything revolving around humanity trying to play god is interesting premise, if done well. The movie centres around Light (or Raito, as pronounced in the movie) Yagami, a young man who by chance stumbles upon the Death Note, which is a notebook that bestows death upon anyone whose name appears on its pages, among other specific conditions. He starts off on a righteous note, taking out criminals and alleged criminals who seem to have escaped justice, and aims to start his own revolution that stretches beyond the gaps of the law. The truly interesting part of the movie, of course, is that we get to see his descent into less righteous ways. Upon provocation, he moved to kill a man who wasn't a criminal (FBI in fact), and later on, to save his own skin, he managed to kill off 12 FBI agents and their boss, who are hot on his trail. Eventually, he killed seemingly out of curious experimentation on his whimsical theories about destiny. His counterpart, sort of, is a brilliant young man nicknamed 'L', who is trying to identify Kira (the alter-ego Light adopted online as the executioner) and bring him to justice. The movie plot itself has some surprises, and is intelligent, and at the end of the movie, Light appears to be more sinister than the cg-animated Shinigami (Death God) Ryuk, who hangs around him.
I like the movie's premise because such movies always provoke the question 'If you were given the same power, what would you have done?' Seriously, if you think about it, the Death Note only had the power to kill. As most people are not murderers by nature, I assume, the book isn't of much use. If you really want to use it, then the most logical thing to do really is to assume the role of justice and eliminate evil, which itself seems to be a more noble cause that seems to justify the act itself, and that seems to be exactly what Light was doing. A purpose that seems righteous enough to justify the act of murder. Which also ironically betrays his lack of morality, because I think that any sane or normal person placed in the same situation would take the option of relinquishing the book to someone else, which Light didn't, because I doubt few people are egotistical enough to take upon themselves the role of executioner of evil and feel pleased about it, and more importantly, guiltless.
I was curious enough to go dig up information about the manga it was adapted from, and the general opinion of it seems very good, except that it seems to be 128 chapters long, and I don't think I want to devote that kind of time and energy to catch up on the story. So I'll just patiently wait for the sequel to be out, I guess.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Wed 18 Oct
I just stayed at home and recuperated to regain the last of my strength hopefully. I did get ample rest over the last few days of MC, enabling me to finish the anime series School Rumble! It's a hilarious anime centred around two really dense and blur main characters. It is not romance exactly...more like two single-sided love stories that intertwine, with many wacky characters in the cast. Its humour is at times slapstick, but most of the time, just outright ridiculously funny, and it's one of the few anime that made me laugh out loud. It is a worthwhile watch, especially since I'm sick, so entertainment is much desired.
Now I'm starting on Bakuretsu Tenshi, or Burst Angel, which looks promising with some overarching conspiracy plot amidst bleak futuristic settings with giant mecha, and good animation.
Thu 19 Oct
I have yet again returned to work after a long period of disappearance. Half the people who knew I was away thought I was hospitalized or down with Dengue apparently. Quite a few noticed that I lost weight. Hmm. I checked just now. I lost only 2 kg actually. But I think most of it came from my face and waist, so it's good. Considering that I paid a total of $140 for the four clinical visits (inclusive of Tan Tock Seng), obtained 4 days worth of MC of good rest (despite being pathetically weak and sick), losing 2 kg seems to be a good bonus. My appetite has not regained its monstrous glory, and I find myself unable to finish a normal serving of rice outside. Maybe I should work on not regaining the weight more avidly. Heh.
I was frantically trying to settle a lot of administration. Apparently, today is the deadline for the keying in of marks, so I returned in the nick of time. Although the term is coming to a close, it still feels like there's so much left undone. Sigh.
After school, I went to keep my gf company. She has caught the virus from me for sure, because similar symptoms fully manifested themselves in her as of the last couple of days. So it's now my turn to go take care of her. But I think hers isn't as debilitating as mine was. A watered-down version passed from me perhaps? Or maybe she's just strong, as she claims? Heh.
I just stayed at home and recuperated to regain the last of my strength hopefully. I did get ample rest over the last few days of MC, enabling me to finish the anime series School Rumble! It's a hilarious anime centred around two really dense and blur main characters. It is not romance exactly...more like two single-sided love stories that intertwine, with many wacky characters in the cast. Its humour is at times slapstick, but most of the time, just outright ridiculously funny, and it's one of the few anime that made me laugh out loud. It is a worthwhile watch, especially since I'm sick, so entertainment is much desired.
Now I'm starting on Bakuretsu Tenshi, or Burst Angel, which looks promising with some overarching conspiracy plot amidst bleak futuristic settings with giant mecha, and good animation.
Thu 19 Oct
I have yet again returned to work after a long period of disappearance. Half the people who knew I was away thought I was hospitalized or down with Dengue apparently. Quite a few noticed that I lost weight. Hmm. I checked just now. I lost only 2 kg actually. But I think most of it came from my face and waist, so it's good. Considering that I paid a total of $140 for the four clinical visits (inclusive of Tan Tock Seng), obtained 4 days worth of MC of good rest (despite being pathetically weak and sick), losing 2 kg seems to be a good bonus. My appetite has not regained its monstrous glory, and I find myself unable to finish a normal serving of rice outside. Maybe I should work on not regaining the weight more avidly. Heh.
I was frantically trying to settle a lot of administration. Apparently, today is the deadline for the keying in of marks, so I returned in the nick of time. Although the term is coming to a close, it still feels like there's so much left undone. Sigh.
After school, I went to keep my gf company. She has caught the virus from me for sure, because similar symptoms fully manifested themselves in her as of the last couple of days. So it's now my turn to go take care of her. But I think hers isn't as debilitating as mine was. A watered-down version passed from me perhaps? Or maybe she's just strong, as she claims? Heh.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
My MC stretched till tomorrow, so I'd only be back in school on Thursday. That is, hmmm, one week of illness thereabouts? Actually, I would have hoped that I was down with Dengue. The weird logic is this: if I had Dengue, and I recovered from it after some rest, then that is a good sign; on the contrary, to know that I had been reduced to such a weakened state by some unknown virus is a scary thought isn't it? It wasn't flu, and it attacked my major muscle groups. Even the doctors don't know what hit me. If this is yet another mutation of some common bug, all I can say is that the viruses are getting more and more potent. So yeah, it might have been more reassuring to find out that I was down with some minor strain of Dengue.
Even till now, I still can't write properly. Somehow my fingers still can't grip something firmly, and my hands are not able to make small controlled movements just to write anything. I think even if I carried a 10 kg sack of rice the whole day, I wouldn't feel this weak in the limbs. Sigh. Like that how to mark SPA?
Even till now, I still can't write properly. Somehow my fingers still can't grip something firmly, and my hands are not able to make small controlled movements just to write anything. I think even if I carried a 10 kg sack of rice the whole day, I wouldn't feel this weak in the limbs. Sigh. Like that how to mark SPA?
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Yesterday the body aches got worse. Even when I twitch my fingers, there is an intense pain up my forearm. The aches spreaded further to my neck, and by evening, my triceps and chest muscles were painful too. In the evening, I decided that it is better to just go to A&E and get a blood test done.
Last week, I was blogging about things being taken for granted, like how a simple thing like showering or a comfortable bed is not thought twice about, until you are denied it. Now, I learn yet another lesson, and I am humbled. For all the youth and strength that I have, a simple virus or bacteria, something that the naked eye can't even see, can bring me down till I'm almost like an invalid. It is only when I don't even have the strength to lift a cup of water do I realize how torturous it is for my mum who sometimes experience the same kinds of aches, except that hers is due to old age. The human body is such a fragile thing. Even right now, typing all these hurts my forearms.
I went down to Tan Tock Seng hospital, accompanied by my mum and gf, to the A&E department. Although the stipulated waiting time was about 2 hours, I got whisked in pretty fast after I described my symptoms at the registration. I'm guessing that they also suspect that it is Dengue, since priority is only given to the 'seriously ill'. I waited an hour for the blood test, drinking only some soya bean drink for dinner, and the results came back normal. The doctor says that either it is still the early stage of Dengue, and so the results don't show a dip in the platelet count yet, or that it is not Dengue, and the super strong antibiotics the doctor gave me is working. By faith, I take it to be the latter. The doctor says that there is nothing else she could prescribe me, so she only gave me a further 2 day MC for next Mon and Tue, and told me to get rest and keep hydrated. And there goes $70.
When I reached home, I vomitted once, had diarrhoea, and spent most of the time lying in bed. My wonderful gf had to even feed me water, because I didn't even have the strength to unscrew the bottle cap off my water bottle. She only went home at about 1 am in the morning, I think. Anyway, today I'm regaining some strength in my limbs. By faith, I believe that I will recover soon, so thank you all who have been praying for me.
Last week, I was blogging about things being taken for granted, like how a simple thing like showering or a comfortable bed is not thought twice about, until you are denied it. Now, I learn yet another lesson, and I am humbled. For all the youth and strength that I have, a simple virus or bacteria, something that the naked eye can't even see, can bring me down till I'm almost like an invalid. It is only when I don't even have the strength to lift a cup of water do I realize how torturous it is for my mum who sometimes experience the same kinds of aches, except that hers is due to old age. The human body is such a fragile thing. Even right now, typing all these hurts my forearms.
I went down to Tan Tock Seng hospital, accompanied by my mum and gf, to the A&E department. Although the stipulated waiting time was about 2 hours, I got whisked in pretty fast after I described my symptoms at the registration. I'm guessing that they also suspect that it is Dengue, since priority is only given to the 'seriously ill'. I waited an hour for the blood test, drinking only some soya bean drink for dinner, and the results came back normal. The doctor says that either it is still the early stage of Dengue, and so the results don't show a dip in the platelet count yet, or that it is not Dengue, and the super strong antibiotics the doctor gave me is working. By faith, I take it to be the latter. The doctor says that there is nothing else she could prescribe me, so she only gave me a further 2 day MC for next Mon and Tue, and told me to get rest and keep hydrated. And there goes $70.
When I reached home, I vomitted once, had diarrhoea, and spent most of the time lying in bed. My wonderful gf had to even feed me water, because I didn't even have the strength to unscrew the bottle cap off my water bottle. She only went home at about 1 am in the morning, I think. Anyway, today I'm regaining some strength in my limbs. By faith, I believe that I will recover soon, so thank you all who have been praying for me.
Friday, October 13, 2006
I spent yesterday morning marking SPA, and then a group of us went to Siglap area for lunch. By then, I wasn't feeling well. Since Monday, I've been feeling severe muscle aches in my biceps, wrists, thighs and calves, and after the department meeting yesterday, I measured my temperature and found that I was running a fever. I was checking on the symptoms, wondering if it might be Dengue, since I have never experienced body aches this serious. I went to see the doctor, who told me he couldn't tell what exactly is wrong, but that he doesn't think it is flu. Since I went to the doctor till today's evening, the fever never did subside, so I went to visit the doctor again.
The doctor gave me two choices. One was for him to write me a referral letter straightaway, and go to a hospital to get a blood test done, just in case it really is Dengue. The other option was for him to issue me a strong course of antibiotics, and hope that what I had was just bacterial infection. I opted for the latter, and hopefully, my illness is nothing complicated. Sigh. Fortunately, I had finished all the marking already, else I would feel doubly worse to have someone take over my duties.
The doctor gave me two choices. One was for him to write me a referral letter straightaway, and go to a hospital to get a blood test done, just in case it really is Dengue. The other option was for him to issue me a strong course of antibiotics, and hope that what I had was just bacterial infection. I opted for the latter, and hopefully, my illness is nothing complicated. Sigh. Fortunately, I had finished all the marking already, else I would feel doubly worse to have someone take over my duties.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
I started Monday with invigilation of the TA exams. Nothing much happened during that, except that one boy started having nosebleed halfway through the exams, looking rather worrying. After that, I started marking furiously. Because there are only 3 tutors for the TA year 2s, we need to split the marking of more questions, although fewer classes. I stayed till 6 plus, and cleared almost all the classes of two 10-mark structured questions before rushing home, and then rushing down to my former platoon-mate's wedding at Grand Hyatt. The food was not bad, but the sound system of the ballroom we were in was faulty, and the voices came on intermittently. I would have thought that a weekday wedding dinner would end early, like those I'd previously attended, but this one dragged till 11 pm somehow. I was exhausted by the time I got home.
I started Tuesday with invigilation again, but of the JC1 exams. After that, I resumed marking the structured as well as a 10 mark essay question, and I managed to clear it all by 1 pm. I had a quick lunch, and went into marking overdrive, and cleared 17 classes of a 6- mark structured questions before I went home for dinner at 6 plus. I originally wanted to meet my gf, but proved too tired for it, so I went to take a nap at 8 plus, planning to wake up at 10 plus to prepared for an upcoming lecture. The next thing I know, I heard my mum yelling for me to go to sleep (I was still on the bed), and then I realized my mum thought I was still awake and at my computer because the living room lights were still on. In fact, my mum also fell asleep, and when I checked the clock it was 4.30 am! I'd slept for 8 hours straight! Marking is exhausting, I tell you. My mum's medication knocked her out too, apparently.
I cleared the remaining 14 classes by lunchtime, and I was free of the promotional exams marking. Then I started the SPA (Schoolbased Practical Assessment) marking, which most colleagues have been marking during my 2-week absence from school. I foresee a lot of marking till the holidays arrive. There are a couple of SPA assessments to clear, and I am down for Project Work Written Report marking again. Apparently, the Project Work duties are assigned in 2-year cycles, so when I had forgone my break from duties last year to help take over a colleague getting married, I had taken on a 2-year worth of a bad deal. Sigh. Who in the world came up with the saying 'kindness begets kindness'?
I started Tuesday with invigilation again, but of the JC1 exams. After that, I resumed marking the structured as well as a 10 mark essay question, and I managed to clear it all by 1 pm. I had a quick lunch, and went into marking overdrive, and cleared 17 classes of a 6- mark structured questions before I went home for dinner at 6 plus. I originally wanted to meet my gf, but proved too tired for it, so I went to take a nap at 8 plus, planning to wake up at 10 plus to prepared for an upcoming lecture. The next thing I know, I heard my mum yelling for me to go to sleep (I was still on the bed), and then I realized my mum thought I was still awake and at my computer because the living room lights were still on. In fact, my mum also fell asleep, and when I checked the clock it was 4.30 am! I'd slept for 8 hours straight! Marking is exhausting, I tell you. My mum's medication knocked her out too, apparently.
I cleared the remaining 14 classes by lunchtime, and I was free of the promotional exams marking. Then I started the SPA (Schoolbased Practical Assessment) marking, which most colleagues have been marking during my 2-week absence from school. I foresee a lot of marking till the holidays arrive. There are a couple of SPA assessments to clear, and I am down for Project Work Written Report marking again. Apparently, the Project Work duties are assigned in 2-year cycles, so when I had forgone my break from duties last year to help take over a colleague getting married, I had taken on a 2-year worth of a bad deal. Sigh. Who in the world came up with the saying 'kindness begets kindness'?
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Sat 7 Oct
I went down to Vivocity with my gf and some other friends. Apparently, the marketing arm of UOB is doing a good job, because they want to go down due to some big opening discounts of some shops there with UOB. However, when we went there, we realized that the official opening of Vivocity is 1 Dec, and maybe half the shops were actually open as of today. I guess that is why there needs to be an opening sale. The other unfortunate thing we found out was that almost all the food outlets are not opened yet, including the fast food joints. As far as I can recall, only Coffee Bean, Gloria Jeans cafe, and one Japanese restaurant (some charcoal grill thing) that isn't open, but it has a to-go outlet next to it. Nothing else. Therefore, if you are planning to check the place out, either be prepared to go to Harbourfront to eat, eat elsewhere, or wait for a couple of weeks more for the restaurants to open.
Notably, I saw one restaurant that piqued my interest - Kim Gary Beyond restaurant! I think this must be the first outlet that is set up in Singapore. I blogged about the place last Dec when I went to Kuala Lumpur and found the food cheap and good, and the service excellent. I doubt the price will be the same for this outlet, but I'm willing to check it out and see if the menu is the same. I was just talking about telling the two friends who went with us to KL when we bumped into them at Vivocity. Apparently, they noticed it too. Haha...looks like the next dinner together with them should be at this outlet.
In the end, we ended up at Harbourfront Breeks restaurant. The food was passable only. I ordered the soup of the day, which is mushroom soup, and it was a tad too salty. Then my gf's dory dish came, and the spaghetti had mushroom sauce, which tasted similar to the soup. Then my baked pasta dish came, and beneath the pasta seemed to be the same sauce as my gf's dory dish. Very disappointing. That wasn't the worst part. The service was bad. We were standing at the 'entrance' of the restaurant, which actually had no proper entrance, since it was in the open, but had a 'Please wait to be seated' signboard, and for a good fifteen minutes, no one attended to us. Everyone seemed so busy. I would have thought someone at least would pop by to ask how big a table we need. Anyway, one friend didn't get her dish, and she was infuriated when we kept asking the waiters/waitresses who said they would check and didn't get back to us. By the time we finished our food, then her fish n chips came. In the meantime, we noted that three customers slipped in from the side and took a just-emptied table, and bypassed the queue formed at the signboard! None of the waiters/waitresses said anything at all. I pity the poor folks waiting outside whose queue was cut.
After dinner, we went down to Marina Square's Ai Qin Hai (爱琴海) cafe to chill out for a while. I saw a friend who was in the same school as me for practicum, but didn't know whether it was him because he looked...um...like a she. Even my gf thought so through her fleeting glance in his direction. I messaged him to verify and it turned out to be him. Interestingly though, his hair was pretty long, and he is a teacher, and I wonder how he gets away with it. I'm quite envious...haha. When we were back in practicum, some of us were speculating whether he was straight or not, because every now and then, there is this guy friend of his who comes and pick him up from school. Also, there was once a colleague overheard him talking very gently and sweetly on the phone, and she thought it was his girlfriend, and he replied that it was his good male friend (the same one that picks him up). When we were at the cafe, there was this guy with him, with his arm around my friend. Not in the buddy kind of way. Hmm. Case closed.
Sun 8 Oct
I overslept! But fortunately still made it to service in time. We had a visitor, and he was looking for a church to settle in, so maybe I will have a new spiritual brother soon. More importantly, a brother who slipped away from church for a long time finally made a reappearance. I have a good feeling about this, because this year, I noted that many of the people I know who have slipped away have returned to church, and I think it is God's hand of revival moving. I hope he will come back to cell group with us.
I finally watched Sixth Sense today. I know it's a very old show, but I missed it when it was on the silver screen. This time though, I know exactly why I missed it. Too many friends were so excited about the plot twist that they talked about it before me, even though I indicated that I haven't caught it yet. Since this was a major twist, it killed my interest then. Anyway, my gf hadn't caught it before, so I thought I would get the DVD to watch together. The plot is really good, and it wasn't scary for something marketing itself as horror. I also can see why M Night Shylaman would have problems topping his twists every movie.
I finished the anime series Fate Stay Night last weekend, but I didn't have the time to blog then. The plot is very simple, and there is a lot of cool fighting involved. Seven magicians fight for the holy grail in modern day using seven familiars, who are (usually) heroes from the past. Yep, that sentence more or less sums up the whole storyline. Despite how cynical I sound, the anime is engaging, and well-rendered. But there is nothing deep or thought-provoking here though - just pure simple action, very slight comedy, and some romance (the protagonist falls for his heroine familiar). Like most anime series, the ending was somewhat unexpected, and I reckon the Japanese really don't like the typical Walt Disney 'and they lived happily ever after' endings. Still, it is quite a good watch. Much better than the previous one I watched (Rave the Groove Adventure), and now I'm onto School Rumble, which is a hilarious teenage comedy. More on it when I complete the series.
I went down to Vivocity with my gf and some other friends. Apparently, the marketing arm of UOB is doing a good job, because they want to go down due to some big opening discounts of some shops there with UOB. However, when we went there, we realized that the official opening of Vivocity is 1 Dec, and maybe half the shops were actually open as of today. I guess that is why there needs to be an opening sale. The other unfortunate thing we found out was that almost all the food outlets are not opened yet, including the fast food joints. As far as I can recall, only Coffee Bean, Gloria Jeans cafe, and one Japanese restaurant (some charcoal grill thing) that isn't open, but it has a to-go outlet next to it. Nothing else. Therefore, if you are planning to check the place out, either be prepared to go to Harbourfront to eat, eat elsewhere, or wait for a couple of weeks more for the restaurants to open.
Notably, I saw one restaurant that piqued my interest - Kim Gary Beyond restaurant! I think this must be the first outlet that is set up in Singapore. I blogged about the place last Dec when I went to Kuala Lumpur and found the food cheap and good, and the service excellent. I doubt the price will be the same for this outlet, but I'm willing to check it out and see if the menu is the same. I was just talking about telling the two friends who went with us to KL when we bumped into them at Vivocity. Apparently, they noticed it too. Haha...looks like the next dinner together with them should be at this outlet.
In the end, we ended up at Harbourfront Breeks restaurant. The food was passable only. I ordered the soup of the day, which is mushroom soup, and it was a tad too salty. Then my gf's dory dish came, and the spaghetti had mushroom sauce, which tasted similar to the soup. Then my baked pasta dish came, and beneath the pasta seemed to be the same sauce as my gf's dory dish. Very disappointing. That wasn't the worst part. The service was bad. We were standing at the 'entrance' of the restaurant, which actually had no proper entrance, since it was in the open, but had a 'Please wait to be seated' signboard, and for a good fifteen minutes, no one attended to us. Everyone seemed so busy. I would have thought someone at least would pop by to ask how big a table we need. Anyway, one friend didn't get her dish, and she was infuriated when we kept asking the waiters/waitresses who said they would check and didn't get back to us. By the time we finished our food, then her fish n chips came. In the meantime, we noted that three customers slipped in from the side and took a just-emptied table, and bypassed the queue formed at the signboard! None of the waiters/waitresses said anything at all. I pity the poor folks waiting outside whose queue was cut.
After dinner, we went down to Marina Square's Ai Qin Hai (爱琴海) cafe to chill out for a while. I saw a friend who was in the same school as me for practicum, but didn't know whether it was him because he looked...um...like a she. Even my gf thought so through her fleeting glance in his direction. I messaged him to verify and it turned out to be him. Interestingly though, his hair was pretty long, and he is a teacher, and I wonder how he gets away with it. I'm quite envious...haha. When we were back in practicum, some of us were speculating whether he was straight or not, because every now and then, there is this guy friend of his who comes and pick him up from school. Also, there was once a colleague overheard him talking very gently and sweetly on the phone, and she thought it was his girlfriend, and he replied that it was his good male friend (the same one that picks him up). When we were at the cafe, there was this guy with him, with his arm around my friend. Not in the buddy kind of way. Hmm. Case closed.
Sun 8 Oct
I overslept! But fortunately still made it to service in time. We had a visitor, and he was looking for a church to settle in, so maybe I will have a new spiritual brother soon. More importantly, a brother who slipped away from church for a long time finally made a reappearance. I have a good feeling about this, because this year, I noted that many of the people I know who have slipped away have returned to church, and I think it is God's hand of revival moving. I hope he will come back to cell group with us.
I finally watched Sixth Sense today. I know it's a very old show, but I missed it when it was on the silver screen. This time though, I know exactly why I missed it. Too many friends were so excited about the plot twist that they talked about it before me, even though I indicated that I haven't caught it yet. Since this was a major twist, it killed my interest then. Anyway, my gf hadn't caught it before, so I thought I would get the DVD to watch together. The plot is really good, and it wasn't scary for something marketing itself as horror. I also can see why M Night Shylaman would have problems topping his twists every movie.
I finished the anime series Fate Stay Night last weekend, but I didn't have the time to blog then. The plot is very simple, and there is a lot of cool fighting involved. Seven magicians fight for the holy grail in modern day using seven familiars, who are (usually) heroes from the past. Yep, that sentence more or less sums up the whole storyline. Despite how cynical I sound, the anime is engaging, and well-rendered. But there is nothing deep or thought-provoking here though - just pure simple action, very slight comedy, and some romance (the protagonist falls for his heroine familiar). Like most anime series, the ending was somewhat unexpected, and I reckon the Japanese really don't like the typical Walt Disney 'and they lived happily ever after' endings. Still, it is quite a good watch. Much better than the previous one I watched (Rave the Groove Adventure), and now I'm onto School Rumble, which is a hilarious teenage comedy. More on it when I complete the series.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Sun 1 Oct
Today the church was packed because of the family carnival. After service, I went home for dinner, and then headed back to camp. The short reprieve was over.
Mon 2 Oct
We moved out in the late morning. This exercise is a 3 day 2 night affair, and I think the last time I spent the night out in the field was in 1999. The first day's training was a tactical team exercise, comprising of a platoon teamed with two tanks. Originally we were told that we would have a simple dry run walkabout, but in the end, the dry run seemed pretty serious to me. In any case, there were two areas we had to do an assault, and the difficulty lies in the fact that the vegetation was ridiculously thick, the 'enemy' was situated atop a hill of 45 degrees incline for one objective, and we were all pretty much out of shape. We did the actual run shortly before dinner, and then my platoon was pretty pissed to find out that because of the lack of time, the other platoons needn't do the second run. Argh.
After the second run, I almost puked. Not because of being out of shape, but that my section ended up with a driver who was only converted to the Bionix vehicle during his first in-camp training. His lack of experience caused him to drive jerkily, and those of us within the vehicle felt like we were on a roller-coaster ride. Eventually, two of us were nauseous, and the section commander fractured his finger, the vehicle commander and the machine gunner were both bruised.
The first night we did a lagger (not sure about the spelling), which is to station the vehicles in a safe location, and set up a vehicle camouflage. The challenge lies in the fact that we are doing it at night, and since we had to be tactical, it was done in almost complete darkness, save for some moonlight. It is hard to describe what had to be done, but suffice it to say that it was very tiring to set up. Good thing I still had my inflatable pillow from my army days, and it let me have some decent sleep, not taking into account mosquitoes and other disturbances.
Tue 3 Oct
This is the day we were all dreading, because we were to start the morning with a dismounted attack. Basically in Armour, we ride on vehicles and attack. So when we have to dismount and walk with all our heavy equipment, it is not something we look forward to, even though we already have it better than the infantry. It started to pour for a while though, and after taking shelter for an hour, we were told to resume the exercise, even though there was still rain. It was no joke bashing through the dense foilage, especially after a downpour where the air was very humid, and the ground is slippery. Even though we walked for maybe 1 to 2 km, the load we were carrying made it exhausting, as well as the difficult terrain and general upslope climb. The funny thing was that the trainers gave feedback saying that my company was very garang (brave), because we were shouting and giving it our all when we were rushing the enemy at the objective. Actually, when we were at the form-up point waiting to charge, we all agreed that we would shout louder, run faster and all so that we don't have to samulah (repeat). Do it good, one time.
By then, most of us were half dead. Not keeping in shape makes it bad, but I wonder if exercise in general can prepare us for physical exertion while carrying heavy load. Unless we train running with weights on the body. The next Commanding Officer (CO) of my unit came by to be involved in a debrief, and it was almost 2 plus by then, and our vehicles were nowhere in sight. Our combat rations were all on the vehicle, and so we had nothing to eat. The CO-to-be was still demanding us to raise points or problems about the exercise, and after a while I couldn't stand the dragging, and I spoke up saying that it was 2.40 pm and we still had not eaten lunch. The joker apparently missed the point and went on to dismiss me with something along the line that food is our own responsibility and that I shouldn't expect him to feed us. Something like that. Good thing the other officers got my hint and told him to stop his debrief so that we can go get food. A fortunate thing that happened was that they were sufficiently satisfied with our performance that they gave us a two-hour break to let us return to our bunks to shower, and eat from the canteen. Honestly, a person would surely take a simple thing like showering for granted, but when you are out there sweating away outfield, a proposition like that sounds absolutely heavenly.
At night, we prepared to do a delay mission for next morning, so we spent the earlier part of the night scouting the terrain, and digging shellscrapes (which essentially are rectangular pits for soldiers to be in the prone position with the back flush with the ground around them...it looks like a shallow hole for a coffin actually). That night, I couldn't sleep well. I slept on the seats in the vehicle which is a long metal bench with hard cushioning. The problem was that it was narrow, so I woke up every hour due to a painful shoulder, since half my right shoulder was not resting on anything. By 3 am though, I got up to make war. With frogs. Maybe it's the rain earlier that drove them out, but the noise that the frogs were making was ridiculously loud. It was way louder than the snoring of my section mate sleeping nearby at least. I went to throw some rocks in the general direction of the noises, and it kept them quiet for maybe twenty seconds each time, so after a while, I gave up, and went back to sleep, sitting up.
Wed 4 Oct
The final battle has arrived. I was supposed to have taken over as section commander after the original one fractured his finger. Somehow I got deployed to lead the section that is manning the shellscrapes when originally I was part of the scouting crew. Sitting there waiting for a couple of hours was boring enough, but the demoralizing part was that it started to pour. And we had to stay our ground for a while, so we were totally drenched. It was much later that we were finally given clearance to evacuate to shelter. We were originally told that we would go back to camp for lunch, but for some reason, the entire exercise dragged till almost 3 pm, and lunch was delivered to us in the field. Again, a late lunch. Fortunately for them, none of us bothered to call up eMindef and lodge a complaint. The last time something like that happened when I was still in the army, we did lodge a complaint and the CO had to apologize to the whole unit publicly.
We spent the evening cleaning the weapons and vehicles, so that we can hand over all the equipment fast, and get out smoothly on Friday.
Thu 5 Oct
Each platoon was assigned a job to do. The other platoon was assigned to help out in the armskote for weapons inspection. And my platoon? We had to clean the road. Ridiculous as it might sound, that was the 'arrow' we received. The best part was that it was at the back of the camp where there was no shelter, and no water supply! In the end, we marched there with brooms and shovel, and a dozen jerrycans of water, and began scrubbing the thick layers of mud off the road. The whole stretch of road was maybe 8 m wide by 50 m, and we sweated our way through to get the (stupid) job done. The army likes to make soldiers do things like this because there seems to be three things they think they have in abundance - soldiers, time, and tons of water.
At night we got a night's off, and four of us headed down to play Timesplitters for the last time. As a reward we were each entitled to a can of beer, but I left the beer alone. I can't stand gassy drinks, and I guess that includes beer too.
Fri 6 Oct
I was finally out of here! I'm a free man once again. Getting out of Sungei Gedong camp was a challenge in itself though. I tried booking a cab with Comfort, Citicab and SMART, but no driver wanted to take the booking. It is just too far. I was so disheartened I walked out to the main road, which had little traffic, and definitely no cabs. Along the way I was greeted by a monkey on the pavement before it leapt back into the undergrowth. There was only one bus that goes to Bukit Panjang, and so I decided to try Silver cab. To my surprise, there was a cab which took the call, even though it would take quite a while to reach. Oddly enough, there were a couple of empty cabs that passed by, but since the cab driver was nice enough to come to this ulu place for me, I figured it wasn't fair to just abandon the booking just to save $2.50. Another proof of how ulu the camp is was that going back to my place, which is centrally located took about $22, excluding the booking fee. Ouch.
Today the church was packed because of the family carnival. After service, I went home for dinner, and then headed back to camp. The short reprieve was over.
Mon 2 Oct
We moved out in the late morning. This exercise is a 3 day 2 night affair, and I think the last time I spent the night out in the field was in 1999. The first day's training was a tactical team exercise, comprising of a platoon teamed with two tanks. Originally we were told that we would have a simple dry run walkabout, but in the end, the dry run seemed pretty serious to me. In any case, there were two areas we had to do an assault, and the difficulty lies in the fact that the vegetation was ridiculously thick, the 'enemy' was situated atop a hill of 45 degrees incline for one objective, and we were all pretty much out of shape. We did the actual run shortly before dinner, and then my platoon was pretty pissed to find out that because of the lack of time, the other platoons needn't do the second run. Argh.
After the second run, I almost puked. Not because of being out of shape, but that my section ended up with a driver who was only converted to the Bionix vehicle during his first in-camp training. His lack of experience caused him to drive jerkily, and those of us within the vehicle felt like we were on a roller-coaster ride. Eventually, two of us were nauseous, and the section commander fractured his finger, the vehicle commander and the machine gunner were both bruised.
The first night we did a lagger (not sure about the spelling), which is to station the vehicles in a safe location, and set up a vehicle camouflage. The challenge lies in the fact that we are doing it at night, and since we had to be tactical, it was done in almost complete darkness, save for some moonlight. It is hard to describe what had to be done, but suffice it to say that it was very tiring to set up. Good thing I still had my inflatable pillow from my army days, and it let me have some decent sleep, not taking into account mosquitoes and other disturbances.
Tue 3 Oct
This is the day we were all dreading, because we were to start the morning with a dismounted attack. Basically in Armour, we ride on vehicles and attack. So when we have to dismount and walk with all our heavy equipment, it is not something we look forward to, even though we already have it better than the infantry. It started to pour for a while though, and after taking shelter for an hour, we were told to resume the exercise, even though there was still rain. It was no joke bashing through the dense foilage, especially after a downpour where the air was very humid, and the ground is slippery. Even though we walked for maybe 1 to 2 km, the load we were carrying made it exhausting, as well as the difficult terrain and general upslope climb. The funny thing was that the trainers gave feedback saying that my company was very garang (brave), because we were shouting and giving it our all when we were rushing the enemy at the objective. Actually, when we were at the form-up point waiting to charge, we all agreed that we would shout louder, run faster and all so that we don't have to samulah (repeat). Do it good, one time.
By then, most of us were half dead. Not keeping in shape makes it bad, but I wonder if exercise in general can prepare us for physical exertion while carrying heavy load. Unless we train running with weights on the body. The next Commanding Officer (CO) of my unit came by to be involved in a debrief, and it was almost 2 plus by then, and our vehicles were nowhere in sight. Our combat rations were all on the vehicle, and so we had nothing to eat. The CO-to-be was still demanding us to raise points or problems about the exercise, and after a while I couldn't stand the dragging, and I spoke up saying that it was 2.40 pm and we still had not eaten lunch. The joker apparently missed the point and went on to dismiss me with something along the line that food is our own responsibility and that I shouldn't expect him to feed us. Something like that. Good thing the other officers got my hint and told him to stop his debrief so that we can go get food. A fortunate thing that happened was that they were sufficiently satisfied with our performance that they gave us a two-hour break to let us return to our bunks to shower, and eat from the canteen. Honestly, a person would surely take a simple thing like showering for granted, but when you are out there sweating away outfield, a proposition like that sounds absolutely heavenly.
At night, we prepared to do a delay mission for next morning, so we spent the earlier part of the night scouting the terrain, and digging shellscrapes (which essentially are rectangular pits for soldiers to be in the prone position with the back flush with the ground around them...it looks like a shallow hole for a coffin actually). That night, I couldn't sleep well. I slept on the seats in the vehicle which is a long metal bench with hard cushioning. The problem was that it was narrow, so I woke up every hour due to a painful shoulder, since half my right shoulder was not resting on anything. By 3 am though, I got up to make war. With frogs. Maybe it's the rain earlier that drove them out, but the noise that the frogs were making was ridiculously loud. It was way louder than the snoring of my section mate sleeping nearby at least. I went to throw some rocks in the general direction of the noises, and it kept them quiet for maybe twenty seconds each time, so after a while, I gave up, and went back to sleep, sitting up.
Wed 4 Oct
The final battle has arrived. I was supposed to have taken over as section commander after the original one fractured his finger. Somehow I got deployed to lead the section that is manning the shellscrapes when originally I was part of the scouting crew. Sitting there waiting for a couple of hours was boring enough, but the demoralizing part was that it started to pour. And we had to stay our ground for a while, so we were totally drenched. It was much later that we were finally given clearance to evacuate to shelter. We were originally told that we would go back to camp for lunch, but for some reason, the entire exercise dragged till almost 3 pm, and lunch was delivered to us in the field. Again, a late lunch. Fortunately for them, none of us bothered to call up eMindef and lodge a complaint. The last time something like that happened when I was still in the army, we did lodge a complaint and the CO had to apologize to the whole unit publicly.
We spent the evening cleaning the weapons and vehicles, so that we can hand over all the equipment fast, and get out smoothly on Friday.
Thu 5 Oct
Each platoon was assigned a job to do. The other platoon was assigned to help out in the armskote for weapons inspection. And my platoon? We had to clean the road. Ridiculous as it might sound, that was the 'arrow' we received. The best part was that it was at the back of the camp where there was no shelter, and no water supply! In the end, we marched there with brooms and shovel, and a dozen jerrycans of water, and began scrubbing the thick layers of mud off the road. The whole stretch of road was maybe 8 m wide by 50 m, and we sweated our way through to get the (stupid) job done. The army likes to make soldiers do things like this because there seems to be three things they think they have in abundance - soldiers, time, and tons of water.
At night we got a night's off, and four of us headed down to play Timesplitters for the last time. As a reward we were each entitled to a can of beer, but I left the beer alone. I can't stand gassy drinks, and I guess that includes beer too.
Fri 6 Oct
I was finally out of here! I'm a free man once again. Getting out of Sungei Gedong camp was a challenge in itself though. I tried booking a cab with Comfort, Citicab and SMART, but no driver wanted to take the booking. It is just too far. I was so disheartened I walked out to the main road, which had little traffic, and definitely no cabs. Along the way I was greeted by a monkey on the pavement before it leapt back into the undergrowth. There was only one bus that goes to Bukit Panjang, and so I decided to try Silver cab. To my surprise, there was a cab which took the call, even though it would take quite a while to reach. Oddly enough, there were a couple of empty cabs that passed by, but since the cab driver was nice enough to come to this ulu place for me, I figured it wasn't fair to just abandon the booking just to save $2.50. Another proof of how ulu the camp is was that going back to my place, which is centrally located took about $22, excluding the booking fee. Ouch.