Hari Raya Haji! Thank God for you I've finally got a holiday in Jan to take a break. Today was hang out day with the 'old men' of Medicine, comprising of Bingzhu, Chris Ho, Ernest, Ray, MC, Yee Wei, and a maiden, Yijun.

Went to PS for lunch before watching 'Alfie'. Lunch was great, thanks to the Indonesian stall that sold great grilled chicken drumsticks! Love it! Everyone did also, upon my recommendation. Phew, hope I did not spoil their taste buds. 'Alfie' is about this playboy named Alfie who flinged around with many women, including his best friend's 'girlfriend' and his refusal to commit to them. However, when the tide of things in life turned around him, the bad deeds he had done came knocking back at him, turning him now into an unwanted, single old man. Sad... He had unknowingly hurt many pple in the process of his life and is unrepentent about it. I DUN LIKE THIS KIND OF MEN! These scums deserve to die for all their excuses! But Judd Law was indeed a suave man and seriously, how can gals not deny him? Shall work towards him as a goal... Haha!

We loitered around for a while before heading for dinner at Din Tai Feng. Finally, thanks to the number of pple we had, we managed to get hold of the 'VIP' room which could house more pple. I felt like a king sitting there, eating great noodles and Xiao Long Bao while admiring the different paitints and writings around. We played a 'guess the number' game to wards the end of meal, which Ernest, me and Yijun chewed on vinegar'ed' ginger as forfeit for guessing the correct number. Boy! Ginger stinks the mouth! We were enjoying ourselves so much so till the waitress had to drive us out of the restaurant to make way for more customers... Oops...

Damn, have to Karate my way through training later with a totally bloated stomach. Nearly puked out some contents for relief... And I said nearly...because I DID'NT! Tmr's holiday! Shall enjoy my time sleeping while I still can!

the packed crowd hovering on the road waiting for the light up 

Cutey Scott n Siao Vic 

Thank you to the foreigner who help us take this family pic! 

*Boom Boom Boom* *Piak Piak Piak*

Is that how firecrackers sound? Haha! Anyway, I was at Chinatown over the weekend for the annual light up by PM Lee. Chinatown was super packed *wat's new* and I found it super fun to walk on the road that was sealed up for pedestrians like me to walk. *cool* It was pretty exhilarating to watch my 1st firecracking session, though I din like the red crackers' remains all over my body. It was even better after my 1 hr of dinner with my family because we managed to catch the next round of fireworks just when we were wondering whether to take MRT or bus home! Wonderful! Think my new year is now very blessed cos I've managed to catch 2 sights simultaneously in a day in my 21 years of history on Earth!

Did not do very much today. Think I'll be dead for my next CA and 1st Pros. Was at Carinhill CC to watch a karate competition. The standard, to my surprise, was much lower than my expectations and the finals was pretty boring because the favourites were knocked, thanks to some poor refereeing. Caught up with the little kids of other clubs... Scott, Xuan and Soon still look as cute as ever!

Alright! Finally Singapore soccer has something to be proud of... We are the Tiger Cup champions with a 2-1 win on home soil... I mean National Stadium soil... Suprisingly, the team played better than my long-ago impression and I truely think we deserved to win! But ah, I was also wondering whether Indonesia let us win because we helped them out big time during the Tsunami disaster? Aiyah, dun care, think our media and papers are going to gloat much about this victory this week... N me too...

Victor's Thursday

Today was a day I did so many things in a day. And here's my list of what happened:

1. Saw 2 disgusting pictures of a baby's genitalia, whom I can't recognise whether it's female or male. *Bleah* Hope I don't see it too often. It's too sad to see babies suffering this way. Even I the tough man can't bring to it. *pray gd for the entire world*

2. Ran off to Arts Fac to see again, this time with Mark, Yuzheng and Haiyuan. Ate the chicken chop there. *thumbs up* Mark ate my fav beef noodles and I managed to steal some delicious beef cubes from him. Haiyuan actually ate a plate of carrot cake as appetizer and den a bowl of apple salad as the main course. Wat a man! Have never understood him, and after lunch today, I doubt I'll ever do so *haha*

3. Ran off to Tan Boon Liat Building in Outram Road to repair my beloved digital camera. Never noticed the name of the building till today while searching on the map. Had past by it everyday by bus during my army days while travelling to CMPB. Guess I'm not alert enough, but who cares, my camera finally gets its hounourable repair for surviving the 'Mazing Singapore Race. I love u camera!

4. Read a few pages of the 'Holy Place' and 'Teenage Texbook'. The former puts me now on a fervent quest to find out more about the Da Vinci Code and the Grail. It's really mystifying to find out secrets about christianity and such being peeled off 1 by 1. The latter book reminded me of the days when I watch the play as part of my literature course in lower sec. Love the book even till now because it touches on some of the topics closer to the heart, like dealing with peers and coping with relationships.

5. Watched 'The Aviator' with Huilin later at 4.45pm at Lido. It's about this man's, Howard Hughes, life story in his quest to become the greatest aviation and movie industry pioneer. He succeeded in the end, but not without some eccentrics, like being a cleanliness freak and his weakness for women, and some upsets, when he was being suit by the govt for fraud and misuse of funds. He's cool because I share his hobby for fast planes too but he's just too much for me. I prefer to be myself in the end. Watch this if u have time! *4/5 popcorns*

6. Karate training in Tanglin CC to sum up my day. Legs breaking from the past 2 days of running and now the 1/2 squats during training. Finally saw Uncle George back in training. Nice to see the 'old' man back after a pretty long absence. Other than that, training was normal...

7. Time to sleep for tmr is a schoolday!

My little contribution to Tsunami victims

Saturday always feel so refreshing whenever you are working, esp when working for a govt body. So glad the 5-day workweek kicked in place early, unlike those days in Army when we just slept our way thru on sat. What a waste of time!

Have been working in Immgration & Customs Authority for the past week as a 'customer perception surveyor'. Basically, I had to survey pple on their views about the customer service they had gone through at the passport and IC counters. Job was pretty monotonous - targetting pple at the counter, walk over to them, give a nice smile & request to survey him/her/them. There's a sense of achievement whenever someone obliges, otherwise, time feels torturing and crappy. The environment is very cold too and it feels like Ice Age is approaching anytime. In my time there, I observed many wierd stuff around. Kids instantly turning ICA into a big playground, long shrieks accompanied by inconsolable cries from kids who momentarily get separated from their parents (esp mummies), adoption of babies by foriegners, customers kicking a big fuss because they were turned away (less a document and such). The only thing to look forward to everyday is otherwise lunch breaks and end of day. *Yawnz*

Finally I got myself into action to do something for the Tsunami victims. Had been feeling very guilty this week for not being able to take part in anything to help them thanks to my job above. Anyway, we blew up balloons for kids along Orchard Road at basement of Wheelock Place and seeked for donations under TOUCH community services. I wore a hand-made sign carrying the msg 'please help the victims by donating to the Tsunami relief fund' over myself and carried a red donation bag with about 20-30 balloons. Felt like a little clown parading on the streets, outside Lido & Wheelock to be exact. However, I thought the effort was worth it because it was for a very good cause in the 1st place. It's very fun to see kids rushing at you, staring & salivating at the sight of the balloons I'm holding. Gave out some for free along the way just to make their day and see their happy smiles! However, it was marred a bit when an American kid who donated told me his other little friend died in the incident. *ouch* Felt his sadness too... Imagine losing your friend to a natural disaster at such a young age. Donations came pretty freely I must say, and people were generous towards the fund. Yet, it was sad to see so many of the mid-20s adults who were so nonchalent about parting with their money. Must they wait until a calamity hits Singapore then realised how blessed they are to live in such a sheltered country? Sigh, young Singaporeans are too sheltered up to care enough for the world, and wondering why crap volunteers like me are wasting their time for other people of the world. *curse U!* Enough about them. I saw some fun side of the young adults too. Not only did they donate with a big heart, but also gamely took our balloons to help spread the msg ard! Well done! It was a heart-warming sight to see Orchard Road filled with colourful balloons on a rainy day! *HAPPY* 1st time I actually feel so happy flagging for a good cause! I also did donated too, just to do my part. Split up my $40 into pieces of $10 notes and happily donated to whichever donation box thrusted to me... Giving never felt this good!

To all the parents, little ones, to the bunch of gals and guys who took so many balloons and of course the rest of the volunteers, thanks for making this saturday a great day!

2S03Jians united in the race after 3 years... 

Chee Meng's terribly moist, hypothermia'ed' & blistered foot after the race 

Cool! We met Mrs Ivy Sing-Lim along the way... 

Happy New Year toast! Marking the end of the race & start of 2005 

'Mazing Singapore Race 2004 - Race report by Victor

Event : The 'Mazing Singapore Race 2004

When : 30 Dec '04 (10pm) - 31 Dec '04 (11pm)

Start/End Point: Choa Chu Kang Community Centre

My Team : Ignominatus - Guozhang (leader), Chee Meng, Hazel, Me

Number of teams : 101 - 227 (??)

Weather : Totally perfect with 24 hrs non-stop rain + drizzle + squishy squashy mud!

Where we went : Many many places, but basically, we kept circling around from Choa Chu Kang to Jurong to Kranji to Clementi and back again for 24 hrs. Places we went to included Keat Hong Camp, Seng Choon Egg Farm, Jurong Frog Farm, Qian Hu Fish Farm, Kranji War Memorial, Lim Chu Kang Chinese Cemetry (in the night!), Jurong Birdpark/Garden of Fame, Asia Pacific Breweries, King Albert Park, Phoenix Garden, Tai Inn Temple, Kranji Sec Sch, Kranji Nature Trail, Sembawang Sea Sports Club, Sembawang Park, Jalan Kampong Chanteng in Bukit Timah, Musu Park and I dunno how many other parks we've visited.

Whom we met : Competitors from other teams, taxi drivers, lorry/truck drivers and bus drivers whole night/day long. It's amazing to see the different reactions of the drivers around when we asked for free rides and pretending to be super poor passengers, which we supposedly are by the way. There were these 3 taxi drivers who were all so nice to give us totally free rides to super far away destinations! I LOVE THEM! THANK YOU! The rest were idiots who tried to negotiate prices with us, esp this uncle who gave a 'discounted price' of $10 to travel from Jurong to Kranji! It was only late in the race that we learnt the 'art' of hitch-hiking from lorry drivers on new year's eve. Nonetheless, it was exhilarating travelling in the open space at the back with the rain drops hitting on your face! SHIOK! There's also this lorry driver who was so so nice to us to send us to seng choon farm. He did not know his way there, took many u-turns and wrong roads and in the end, made us so guilty for wasting his time home even though he was smiling so happily. *touched* Oh yeah, there's this bus conductor at CCK who's so funny! When we got off a bus at the CCK interchange, he immediately interoggated us to where our next checkpoint was. We got a rude shock at first before realising that he wanted to tell us the bus we wanted to hop on next was the last for the night and directed us to the bus driver! How sweet is that! Along the race, we also made friend with Mrs Ivy Singh-Lim, president of Singapore Netball Association, when we visited her Bolleywood Veggies farm in Kranji. We even ate in her restaurant before setting off to our next checkpoint. Haha! Oh yeah, Hazel got herself a new Godpa when we negotiated with an uncle at Jurong Frog Farm for him to send us to our next checkpoint. Was amazed at how Hazel turned on her charm and managed to get us a free lift on a posh Lexus LS430 and future jobs as chemist should we fail in NUS. Great job! Go, go Hazel!

What we did : Basically, we walked, ran, and begged our hearts out in this race like we've never done before. Walking has never been this shack! How in the world could I still run in the race?? In the race, we had to solve puzzles to reach the designated checkpoints. At the checkpoints, we also had to solve a puzzle/task to obtain a sticker to our Questaport, a card. The more stickers you have, the more checkpoints completed in the shortest time, the more likely you are the winner. However, my team was only out to enjoy the race and we simply chose our own checkpoints we wanted to go. Haha! We are not a group of rules followers. Rules are meant to be broken anyway. The 3 most memorable events were the jungle and forest treks - 2 in CCK/Jurong and 1 in clementi! It was really a test of our patience! In the 1st, we were like blind mice following a group of people up a jungle trek used by army people for route march. After walking for 30 mins, we realised that the trek taken was wrong only when we saw no concrete pathway in sight, unlike that mentioned in the map. Nice! And of all times, my digital camera had to drop on the harddened mud and split open like banana skin. Nice X 2! Luckily, we managed to trace our route back and continue our mission in time. In the 2nd trek, which was another jungle track from Kranji Sec Sch to Keat Hong Camp in CCK, my team literally used our wits and brains in the midst of the sleepy night from midnight till 2am to lead about 5-8 other teams out of the jungle. The trek was particularly sick because we stepped into ARMY SEWAGE towards the end of the trek and had to filter out other teams' nonsense rumours that there's no way ahead everytime we met road junctions. I'm so proud of myself and Chee Meng for being such great navigators and for being able to spot the red & white tapes which indicate correct trekking in the middle of the night when others could not. Haha!! In the 2nd trek, we had to weave ourselves in a super forested trek directly opposite Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Wow! My team din know there's a very old disused railway track that leads to Clementi Ave 2! But it was damn shit to trek in tiny confined forested space, in ankle-high mud + water, with heavy rain pouring, with policemen asking u to get off the trek 1/2way(they dun know there was a race!) and after 1 hr, the organisers said the checkpoint is closed. Well done! U can literally feel our hearts breaking! *crack* We did other cute stuff as well, such as grabbing bull frogs by their legs to transfer them into another cage, planting aloe vera plants, cut up coconut, fold balloon pigs (segmented pig in Guozhang's case...Haha!) and many other stuff...

What we ate/survived on : We did not really eat much along the way. Let's see we only had 9 small packs of crackers, 12 or so energy bars, 1 bottle of vanilla Coke, 2 cans of tuna, and 4 500ml bottles of water for the entire 24 hrs. Oh yeah, but with the money we had smuggled, we actually had time and money to pig out from 7-11 and Bolleywood Veggies, though most money was spent on taxis, something which I regret the most. It's not worth it to let them take away your prescious money. Along the race, during the tasks, I managed to gulp down (drink!) 6-7 raw eggs at 1 shot in Seng Choon Farm, thanks to the other teammates who din dare to try and a few fried beetles near the end-point. Additional fulfilment brought on by the race. Through the race, I was glad we pushed on each other to continue with the race, especially Guozhang. I was impressed by his abilities to think decisively where and what we wanted to do when most of us were only thinking of the bed and comfort of home. It was pretty good that we had set out a purpose of the race, that is to enjoy ourselves, so it was a nice excuse whenever things got a little tougher. Through the 24 hrs, the stupid lame jokes that we encountered also pulled us through the tough boring times. So laughter does work on people's mental and works well to combat sleepiness afterall! So does companionship for each other when times are down!

Complains : Oh man! There's full of it in this section but I won't detail everything here. I am still wondering how come people can blatantly drive from 1 checkpoint to the other and the 'guardians' do not catch them in the race? That's super unfair to teams who race on legally by using persuasive skills to hitch rides! Darn them! It's 'mazing singapore race that we are racing in the competition, but how come it's only the areas of Choa Chu Kang, Kranji, Clementi and Jurong that we have been brought to?! I was so hoping to go to Bishan(home ground), Bedok, Changi, Buona Vista, Geylang and other nonsense areas. So bloody disappointing. Y dun they call it the 'Mazing West Side Race? We were postulating that this happened because it's Choa Chu Kang Community Centre who is part of the organisers and it's a scam by them to promote CCK to the participants. How scheming! *Evil* Some of the trails were reused from last year. As there were participants from last year too, some of them went straight to the end of checkpoint without going through the trails. That's so bloody unfair to people like us, who went thru rain and mud and tonnes of mental pain, to see competitors so dry at the checkpoints! *grr* There is this group whom we super detest and am still trying to find out who they are. It was in the dawn period and we, along with about 5 groups, were walking along Sungei Gedong Road heading towards the cemetry for the next checkpoint. We were so happy to see a trans-island bus 175 and were happily flagging to stop. However, this group of ass, think it's team 111, told the bus driver not to stop for us and zoomed the bus past us at the bus-stop to our horror! *Basket* Swear words immediately flew out from everyone's mouths, cursing and swearing as hard as we could to that team of pple! *How evil they are* The competition was also not organised. The checkpoint timings were insane and was only planned for sunny days. I bet the organisers did not expect 24 hr rain and all the plans were screwed right to the core. Yeah, one thing, did they also know that there was a fresh fallen tree in the forest trek? We had to climb trees and such just to get round the huge fallen tree. Got our bloody butts muddy, which puts us into super disadvantage because no taxis wanted to pick dirty passengers up. Also, the checkpoint was closed strangely after the 1 hr forest trek and we had no choice but to skip it!!! Wat a bloody waste of time!! Tell us if u r closing checkpoints soon so we can aviod that place lah!! So dejected when that incident took place! Ok, enuf of complains here. No one like complains, it's better to hear happiness ard, and I'm out of ideas to write. Haha!

Injuries : Mental jam to all our heads right now! Can't really think of things now except in clues and puzzles. Haha! *lame* I can bet my teammates are all now lamenting about full body aches expecially in the leg and feet area! Chee Meng, u better take care! This is one 'garang' guy who persevered on with the race, despite his feet being all red & blistered. My hats off to you! It's also a pretty nice sight to see Guozhang using his medical skills to bandage up Chee Meng's feet. So funny! There's also some minor cuts and abrasions suffered during the forest trek, but otherwise, everything's fine. My feet is still pretty numb and sore, having gone through slight hypothermia. Hopefully I can feel my feet soon!

Pictures : Not that many - http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeoMmbJs1bvbA&notag=1