REFLECTION (2012)

So yeap, I'm back here for another long post. *turns to look through the window for the weather* It seems it's raining already... no wonder the sky seems exceptionally dark for 1144hours.

Anyway, plans for end of year "celebration" are at the moment unconfirmed, pitiful me. Still, this tradition of doing a reflection and then a resolution will continue. So let's begin!

JANUARY 2012
January 2012 herald in the coming of age to be enlisted into the army for National Service, which didn't take too long -- 2nd February 2012. Knowing that my time as civilian is short, I took a leap of faith and decided to take a few vocal lessons from Shaun Lee (AJChoir old, old, senior who is currently in NUS Law School, also singer of New Opera Singapore) to get myself involved in opera. I must say that although we only had 3 or 4 lessons, it had been a great experience personally. I learnt much from him in theory, but of course, there is much to work on in practice. I think I enjoyed the short adventure- not sure if it's the appropriate word here, but anyway- and this experience should prolly engage me to have vocal lessons in the near future. I'm actually rather keen on going into singing opera as a part-time hobby right now, the idea of it all really pulls me in due to the challenges that I'm likely going to face, and I do enjoy opera itself. On the other hand, watching Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies recently only served to hype up my eagerness to learn how to sing better in this genre.

Besides that, the highlight of the month, and perhaps the year too, will be my birthday chalet at Downtown East?! I enjoyed myself as I immersed in the company of friends I dearly miss, although some I miss greatly then, and maybe even now, were absent. It was a exhausting experience on the whole with all the management and planning that I had to do in advance, sending out invitations verbally by calling people up and stuffs like that. Not to forget how my Blackberry failed me the morning before the event while I'm already at the chalet to make preparations. All in all, it left me with little regrets as I enlisted shortly after that.

February - April 2012 (BMT in Tekong)
So instead of running them through in terms of months, I'm gonna cluster them all under BMT in Tekong. The whole BMT experience was filled with much disgust and sadness, I can't really recall any particularly happy moments. Sadness on one hand is the absence of the company of my parents, away from home, especially during the 3 weeks confinement period. During that period of time, I really began to appreciate the company of my parents, and learnt to love them more than I ever knew I could. I think I cried the most when I received the letter from my father over from my Platoon Commander on the 3rd day of field camp. And I swear, I'm going to keep that letter in my wallet for as long as I can.

BMT was a disgusting and somewhat torturous period not because of the course itself. Thinking back, the course itself wasn't that bad, especially because I come from a fairly relaxed company. It was the section mates that made it difficult for me. I don't recall a day I'm not eager to book out so as to not see some of their faces, nor a night I do not curse at them for their horrible character. Until now, I still find it difficult to believe how so many of them are officers-to-be or specialists/sergeants already, with man under them. I'm really fairly disgusted. But I will not brood over this right now. It's over, and I'm glad I don't have to see their faces any time soon. While I suppose I made some friends during that 9 weeks, only a number are from that section.

April - June 2012 (Signal Institute training)
Somewhat surprisingly, the course mates I had are generally much better people than those I find myself in my section. It only the whole actually proved that something must be wrong with those people. In any case, like I said I will not brood over my experience in Tekong, times at SI was pretty fun. Despite the fact we still had route march, which we only clocked up to 12km for our graduation due to the rain, the company I had made the difference. Generally, it was a breeze even though there was stuffs to study, but they were simple Physics/logic so it barely concerned me. Best of all I guess was that SI was only a short 15minutes walk away from home, which meant that I would book out for nights out to go back home and... use my computer for Doto!

During this period of time, I managed to pick up my fitness level too, achieve under 11minutes for 2.4km which is a great personal achievement. And I could also do 9 chin-ups by then. Just that, I hope that the 9 chin-ups would have arrived earlier, like back in Tekong, perhaps things would hvave been different. ANYWAY, on the other hand, Leonard, Aloisius, Derrick, Qinli, Junyan and JiaZhe also enlisted soon after, or shortly before this. So everyone in the group is now a NSF! Good gracious we've all found ourselves in this pit hole.

July - December 2012 (Mandai Hill Camp, 2SIB/SIG)
And after passing out from SI, despite hopes of being sent to perhaps the air-force thinking that I did much better than this, I was sent to the above location. It isn't bad though. So far, every thing has been quite acceptable; occasional outfields may get on my nerves because I simply do not enjoy going into the jungle or see that as part of my nature, but they can actually be quite fun. Also, the venue is actually a 15 minutes bus journey from home, just that the bus frequency is about 18-22minutes usually. Still, its good.

Company wise, I think its generally still acceptable, just that sometimes I really feel like strangling some people, but I'm going to take on another approach after this year as I plan to talk to my Platoon IC about this.
(***)
All in all, because I'm feeling sleepy around, despite having only just woke up less than 2 hours ago, I think if I were to really whine about something that I really feel the most in the past year, it would probably be how little instances have I met up with SOMEONE. But its been a fairly good year. I'm keeping fit, and I'm going to set higher goals for myself in terms of physical fitness for the new year. OH! Lastly, I must thank Teck Chuan for introducing me to my current tutee, which provided me with extra income starting the month of December. On top of that, I also am taking up another tutee, a junior from BBSS Choir starting next week/month/year. Thinking about that, I think I might actually wanna go out and do some last minute shopping later on... See how things goes, if not I shall reserve it for my birthday or maybe Chinese New Year- whatever. So that's it for my reflection 2012!

To be a better man!

Follow me on BLOGGER.