Last Month as NSF

My long awaited post is here..

So it's finally end of October. I thought it'd be a tough month, and yes I was right. Seemed to pass quite slowly but I was so occupied that I didn't really feel that way.
The most significant event was of course, Pre-ORD training/MP refresher course. I have to say, our batch's one is probably the easiest compared to the past few trainings.
+1, Stay out
+2, no live firing
+3 good progression in training schedule
+4 quite un-regimental

However, we did have probably the toughest 8K route march. IMO this 8K route march is tougher than normal and comparable to 16K RM in BMT. No joke. It is mainly due to the fact that we've not done outfield and route march since Apr last year so we were very much unconditioned. Being in Istana platoon and having a eat/sleep/stand schedule doesn't help either. Also, our 8K was not just a normal 8K march, it was modified as an "FBO challenge". There were quizzes and stations every 2K and ended with casevac around 7.5K mark. Man, the casevac portion was tough as hell. I don't know how the elite soldiers do this day in, day out. Anyway the 8K march was the last event of the training and everybody felt great to finally complete PreORD training. Nothing can stop us from ORD now!

After the PreORD training though, I still had 4 duties left to complete in one week. It's my fault I didn't plan my leave beforehand. But the 4 duties were ok, not tough at all.

The main story right now is my SIM application. So the long story was, I originally wanted to study psychology in a local Uni. I needed to get BBB/C but obviously I couldn't get it so I dropped the plans. Then I went to NS, uni plans stopped until last year end I decided to try for NTU Arts Design Media. I did a portfolio and applied, but guess it wasn't good enough. I was rejected. So reality was I had no choice but to go SIM. I read through the courses and psychology was still interesting but all the voices around was saying jobs are hard to find with bachelor in psychology. So I decided to go with the norm. If I couldn't study what I want then I'd study what was realistic. Something that could stabilize my future. So I checked the courses and Business Admin was the only viable option. It required only a basic A lvl cert and was the best course for A lvl flunks like me. I can choose something like Acct&finance or banking like what most poly guys do but the thought of facing math and numbers again was too horrifying. If I can I never want to do Math or science again. That was why I wanted to get in NTU ADM. So I decided to do up a better portfolio and try for 2012 intake again. I've managed to finish a piece of work then. Then there was PreORD training after-army talk. It made me re-think about what I want to do in my future. More recently I had a talk with Istana friend Jonathan and well, he said some things that made me re-think me decision.
I went through some thinking and decided to apply for psychology in SIM. Deep down I knew that the chances of getting in ADM even next year was highly improbably because I had no background and no resources. Then I chided myself for being so stupid to even think of doing business admin. Business? I never wanted to do business, what the hell. At the very least I have an interest in psychology and spiritually I always thought the voice in my head told me I'd make a good psychologist, or at least in similar fields. I am not saying I want to be a psychologist either. At least I'll not go into the clinical side, and I don't want to do couselling either. If possible I'll take the route to become a I/O psychologist or sports psychologist. But this route is long and tough, especially in Singapore. But I've decided, I rather study something I like and do well than take the general route and suffer again.
The last week of Oct I've been scrambling like a XINJIAO asking questions and reading up on private schools that offer psychology courses. I decided to apply for Bachelor in Science (psychology) at University of Wollongong (SIM). I'm glad that at least I know why I'm choosing this Uni and what the future lies and what I must sacrifice to do well.
And because the reg deadline for Jan intake is Oct 31. That's why I'm scrambling. Now, I've finally got everything done. I even went back to JJC to take my SGC (last to take, what the hell.) and also made a trip to MOE to get my O level statement. Now that I've gotten my endorsement tomorrow I'm going down first thing in the morning to apply. Now the only thing I fear is that they reject me. Because I only just hit the admission requirements. Good luck to me...

Anyway what a long post, and I think I've revealed way more than I should. Tired, it's time to rest.

(Yea,,,....FIVE duties to go. Feeling quite emo especially inside Istana guardroom because of the emotional attachments to that place. Maybe all those lao jiaos felt it too..but they certainly didn't show it. Well, most of them didn't show it. Ha ha, xin jiaos, when you actually miss the guardroom, you know you're gonna ORD soon. I'm walking around sometimes, can't sleep, just relishing the final moments before I leave...lol.
And of course, from 1 Nov food is being indented so the culture of going out to buy food is over. I wonder how the lao jiao feel about this haha...and MPEU's becoming stay in next year onwards...SAY U LUV IT XIN JIAOS...lol. This is damn bad...
If it's me I will feel damn emo too and btw it's so ridiculous because Istana can't work on stay in system, dumbasses! Don't know what them higher ups are thinking. Good luck to the xin jiaos, hang in there man.

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Back from hiatus, again

So two months has passed again..

And a lot of things happened.

But luckily non of them are bad. Istana life has generally been good so far. I'm glad I don't have to post about punishments, screw ups...etc. Finally, I can look forward to ORD.

How long has it been man? I feel like a prisoner, finally getting out after one year 10 months. A hell of a journey it has been. Right now, 5/10/11. Only 58 days left. Less than two months.

This one year 10 months has sucked my soul right out of me and spit it out so many times. Torturous. I will ORD a broken man, but I will do just that. ORD. Then it's time to start anew. Time for me. MY time.

Anyway, just wanna update my ITB injury.

Basically,

Left leg healed

Right leg ITB flared up

Not seeing physio for right leg

Stretching by myself

Can do 10k before pain kicks in.

What is my feeling of doing the marathon this year?

Dreadful. Optimistic, but prepared for the worst. The races I've had the past few months says alot. I did the no frills run, 15K around july. Worst race ever, worst performance. Due to the pain, I got last out of male runners, 3rd last overall. How sad. Then, AHM. Been looking forward to it since LAST year. Always aimed for a strong timing. But again, ITB killed any hopes I had. Did 21k, finished, but took me 3h30mins. How sad. I could only endure until 17k before I had to walk all the way to the end. Yes, it's that sad. I'm a shell of myself. Pandan reservoir run, did not participate as I forbid myself to join anymore races til' Stan Chart. Last year I got 2nd runner up for it, this year no participation. Sighs.

Somewhat resumed proper training again, but don't think I can clock enough mileage. only 2 months left. I know my chances of completing this year alone, is slim. DNF? I'm prepared for it. But obviously I've signed up already so will just run and see how far I can go.

New equipment? LB support for my right leg. It works way better than an ITB brace. Also, after months and months of considering and hesitating, I'm getting the Newtons on Oct payday. It's gonna be $200+ gone, but I'm getting quality...I hope.

So yea, In a running journey filled with obstacles, I am trying to be as optimistic as possible. But it will be painful.

I have less than 12 duties left, (can't believe I'm saying this) it's all gonna be over soon. I have GRINDED through 130+ duties and earned this right. This month will be hectic, with duties, parades AND pre-ORD training but it's gonna be the last hectic month in my SAF life. Nov I will just be spamming off and abusing my 10 days leave. I love it man.

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Rage Eating

Today is just one of the days I have to rage eat.

I can't stand the ridiculous news just unveiled.

Next farking month and I hate to swear on my blog but NEXT FARKING MONTH I get abused.

What farking lao jiao, when I get abused like a dog and kena OPEN HOUSE??! Then I get 2 weekends when my batch only get 1?? Then somemore last minute bomb put me in THUR PARADE when I have eprep and screw my plans for Wed?? Even my batch is pissed off at this ridiculous management. And put me as SENTRY somemore WHAT THE FARK??! I NEVER do sentry, the xin jiao job! And worst of all the EHR password system is so cock up I think I lost my password AGAIN. There goes my MONEY AGAIN FARK! Utter fail la, utter fail.

Then I couldn't handle these crap all of a sudden dropping on me like bird shit, so I went to RAGE EAT. Now I feel slightly better but still, I think this unfairness against us is TOO DAMN MUCH.

I have to cancel tml's run and trip to novena cos' of a travesty. Which shouldn't even happen.

E-PREP for god's sake, OVERWRITTEN by a mere parade. JOKE, la JOKE!!

Then put me duty on 1 August somemore! When I already have duty on 31 July. So when the week was already quite hectic (wed off, thur eprep, fri duty sat off sun duty) becomes HELL just like that (wed REHEARSAL, thur PARADE, fri DUTY, sat off, sun duty, mon DUTY)...TELL ME HOW NOT TO BE VERY VERY PISSED OFFi?!

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Shiny Snivy Hunt Update.

Ok, right now I've done 400 eggs exactly. That's quite a fair bit of improvement considering I just started 2 days ago. Avg on 130 eggs per day which is not bad but could be better...But I'm just too lazy. It's really boring man. But at least hatching Snivy eggs are much faster than Deino eggs. Will start to cheong more eggs after this. I think I'll give myself until Sunday to end this hunt (?). My feeling is that I'll hatch a shiny one by this sunday but well given than I'm so dai sai it wouldn't happen. PLEASE...SHINE FOR ME SNIVY.

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Pokemon White: Hatching Shiny Snivy

This is BORING.

I have to record down my hunt for shiny Pokemon.

So for the past week or so I've been hunting for shiny pokemon and I'm very impatient. I can't understand how those lucky guys get their shinies only after like 20 eggs (using MM). Is it my luck? Am I that unlucky. No. I'm not unlucky, basically I have NO LUCK. ZERO. What with me being so dark and negative and having so much issue of course I'd expect me to have no luck. Those lucky idiots are people like teenage girls who have an easy life or those dumb idiots who lead normal happy lifes etc etc.

But if I have no luck imma have to force it out. The hard way. I'm using Masuda Method hatching and the MM says 1/1377 chance of hatching a shiny so I am going to force out 1377 dumb critters and if I don't get a shiny then I WILL RAGE.

Knowing which, I probably wouldn't and would have probably wasted a ton of time. Nevertheless I'm going to try WHY because I love the shiny colour sprite. It's just..amazing.

Progress so far? Zero shiny. I've done Axew (110 eggs) and Deino (603 freaking eggs). That's 603 eggs for deino, damn it! Hatching 5 deino eggs already takes 10 minutes so you can imagine how much time I wasted hatching 603. I decided to put on hold this hunt (or should I say quit?) and aim for shiny SNIVY instead. Yea, all the MRT travelling/walking, my sleeping time, etc wasted on holding the dumb DS on my hands ALL for nothing.

But hatching SNIVY is SO much easier. Simply cos' snivy only takes 2.2k steps to hatch which is HALF the no. required for denio/axew so I predict I will get snivy easily. I can feel it!

I've done 100 eggs in now. Nothing shined yet. But as I've said, I'm going try to be patient and hatch until 1377. From youtube vids I've seen shiny snivys appeared only after hundreds of eggs. The longest hunt took 1.6k i think so I'm gonna bank on this one and not quit cos' I'm doing the method right and I have great parents (for good IV & nature). Don't give up!

Hatch for me...

normal Snivy

Shiny Snivy

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Running the Singapore River

Horrible news.

My RIGHT leg has struck ITBS. Yea. I should have guessed huh? Just when you thought life was gonna be good, you hit a wall and things go back to square one. What to do?

But thankfully I've learnt by past experience how to treat ITB so I'm pretty confident my right leg will heal in time. Just keep stretching, rest, and ...I think the root of the problem is my SHOE.

See, I'm still using the same shoe (Adi Supernova) now. Which is the exact same shoe I've been using since I started running. Obviously, cushion shoes DO NOT fit me at all. It's definitely the shoes man. These heavy ass supernovas, though comfortable as hell, is just pulling me downhill so it's time to throw them to the rack and get some new shoes.

Two options -- Vibram Fivefingers or Newton. Yes, I said I would be getting Newtons but I'm on budget now. A pair of Newtons would be a lot of damage to my bank balance. Meanwhile, I could go get myself a pair of VFF @ discounted price of $130 which can provide the same function if not perform even better. Looking at my pathetic running gait and time issues I seriously think getting VFF is a better choice as of now. Although ultimately I would get both of them. Newtons, I will definitely get them.

Today's run was one of the better ones. Of course I'm talking about scenery wise, not how I physically feel. Physically throughout I felt quite crappy. The dumb ITB started to annoy me after I passed by SP, and was in full force around commonwealth. HOWEVER, this ITB is bearable. Very much bearable, compared to the one on my left. Now, my left leg is perfectly alright (which is wonderful news;; recovery success!) but now it's the right one that's being an ass. As I said, it was bearable and as a matter of fact I managed to run through the pain and at one point it even dissipated so that was somewhat positive. But obviously the pain came back with a vengeance @ the last 1k or so, when I was reaching city hall mrt. Afterwards it became genuinely painful and I did struggle to walk. Right now as I walk I feel the pain, not extreme, but this bugger would require at least a week of recovery.

I started out very slowly, with a goal of pushing only when I reached Singapore River. That 3K, I had to look good and not like a n00b. Because of all the runners there and there WERE RUNNERS. Not as much as I expected but there were still a handful. And I have to say, the runners @ Sg River definitely look better than anywhere else. Many were wearing fancy gears or sporting marathon shirts. Most ran quite speedily (I was even overtaken by a tall blonde woman) -- I can say most are definitely NOT casual runners...

Funny thing happened when I ran pass a riverside bar; two waitress I think started to run with me while I bypassed the bar, how cheeky. Well I was embarrassed to say the least but looking back I should have been "angmoh" and give them a wave back... social skills FAIL haha. But it's good, RANDOM things like these should happen more often so that runners get distracted from the monotony of running.

The view is quite nice and surely motivates any runner to carry on. I tried the SG river 3K because of recommendation by a website, and I have no regrets.

In total, I did 12.6k which is just short of the 13K I routed (400m is nothing to nitpick about). We are still following the 10% rule and I think I'll probably stick to it until race day (2 DAYS AFTER O-R-D YEAAA). Wow, so excited. What a way to celebrate ORD! (call me mad, I don't care.)

Recommend everyone to run the Singapore River route (3K/6K for loop) at least once in your life! Now I will slowly go pamper my right leg...I'm sad.

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A Sick and Twisted Mind

Oh my god.

I suddenly remembered, i have to blog this down. I had a freakish nightmare yesterday night. First and foremost, I've had tons of sick and impossible nightmares before. But I think this really tops the rest. Even thinking of it now makes me sick to the stomach.

The Heart.

Suddenly, I woke up in a pitch black room. I knew something was wrong with me but not quite sure what. Then I started walking...and walking...and walking... All of a sudden, I felt something move inside me! It was my heart! It seemed...weird, like it was not stable, like it was detached! Then for some reason, I bent down and HOLY CRAP my heart fell out from a HOLE in my chest! There was a HOLE in my chest, and my heart fell out! But wait, I wasn't shocked or even remotely disturbed...in fact it was normal! Looking around me, I casually picked up my heart and carefully shove it back to my chest. (WTF?) Then I realised I put it upside down, but somehow it rotated by itself back to original position LOL! Then moments later, I felt something move up my throat! Then it went up to my mouth! It was my heart! I was literally holding my heart inside my mouth OH SICK. What could I do??! I can't spit it out it was my heart. I might die! (right now my heart is sort of flat-shaped, that's why it could fit in my mouth). Then I foolishly feared that if I kept it in my mouth like that too long, my heart would melt! But what do I do, SWALLOW it back??! It was so sick, so sick!! Then I put my hands on my chest, and i felt something -- A beat. I think it was my heartbeat! So what, now I had TWO hearts?! WHAT IS THE MINDF***?!!!!!!! The dream ended abruptly.

Why are these sicks images coming back? I had already deterred away from the dark side..

Is this a sign? A message??

Haix. Inside a sick and twisted mind with no love, I guess it's normal.

Yes, you got me.

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Lab IS Running!

OK, just finished a 12K filled with obstacles. I've done it, I've finally broken the 10K barrier after my injury. I am more than pleased to say that there is ZERO pain from my ITB, which is just incredible. My legs felt better than expected after the 12K, however I did struggle for the last 1K because I decided to endure dehydration until I reached the end. It's a stupid move, but it was a calculated move to save money. I can endure through, anyway. Wow, just 2 months ago I was still battling the ITB but right now my form is coming back. I've learnt to control my gait and keep the ITB from flaring up. Right now...I just wish for a pair of Newtons so that I can complete the transition to "Natural Running".

On the run itself; hmm not so good. Me being a "Road Idiot" (in Chinese) managed to miss one of the easiest turning points and ended up a good 1K away from the planned route. Wow this is a really irritating problem that almost always happens when I run an unfamiliar route. I don't have that sense of direction, like others. Anyway, I had the troublesome task to take a bus back to the turning point to get back on track. LOL.

Gombak-CCK-Yew Tee is actually quite boring. The runnable route is surrounded mostly by factories and housing estates. I don't think I'll be doing this one in the near future.

So now, we just have to keep on the 10% rule (increasing distance by 10% every week) and play safe. (Though I did 12K instead of 11K). It's ok, just too excited to be able to do >10K FINALLY. With no struggles. Yea..

When I ORD...Stan Chart 2011, Dec 4, I will see YOU...!

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