late post

I returned from genting on Friday and returned to work the very next day, feeling like a dried corpse. This feeling lasted the whole day unfortunately and is probably due to a mixed feeling of being actually physically in Singapore and not being on a cool hill I had become accustomed to for the 3 days.

For me, somehow, it is easy to get accustomed to another society out of my nationality, and I almost always feel reluctant to return from a trip, be it overseas training or vacation. Here comes the golden question - Why?

Of course, one can argue that vacations are afterall vacations and to live in a totally different country may not be like, well, a vacation. But for me, this trip in particular, if I were to do away with the casino trips and theme park nonsense, I am quite sure, I would still prefer to stay there. Whatever our millionaire ministers suggest about the quitters not willing to return can only be explained by the society that Singaporeans live in today.

Enough of theories and arguements, pictures coming up once ready.

Good gracious

I wrote this with my E63 onboard a train bound for Jurong East from CCK.

Even the most pretty lady can resemble an orc when she wears the mask of fear, guilty of something.

On the 18th Jul 2009 (now and today), a chinese national carry a child in hand is standing in the uncrowded MRT carriage. The shakey train cause her imbalance, short of falling.

Yet, dearest Singaporean - young and old, man and women (to be fair) - cannot seem to move their golden posterior off the seats for her. One lady even attempts to look away when I look in her direction, and that look of guilt is pricelessly ugly.

Ask me, why do I not help her get a seat. I always support the idea of 'want something, ask for it'. What totally blew me off is when a pregnant lady ranting her sorry state off online when she did not even open her miserably mouth for a seat. In today's encounter, that woman is perfectly fine with not getting a seat donated to her.

Gracious Singaporean? Good gracious, Singaporean.

Fake red hat

I saw an excited pre-enlistee on hardwarezone forum today. He is so excited about receiving a vocational assessment letter from Hendon, the home of the Commandos, he almost think he is wearing the red hat. He tried to hide his excitement by asking people how to "not get selected", but in fact, I could see that he is just be haughty that he got that letter. So much so that when people gave him suggestion on how not to get selected, he questioned the effectiveness and workability, like he wanted to be a commando there and then. Well, my friend, you can get into hendon, but not before spending a year at Pasir Ris and clearing all the obstacles before that.

Throughout the years, I've seen people who aspired to be commandos, but failed, people who are commando, but failed, people who are not commandos, but failed. An example from the first group came from one of my comrade, who succumb to a slip disc during para-training. In my mind, he is a true commando. Never giving up despite the injury, swimming every night, trying to recover, but he wasn't to be one eventually. The people from the second group are many. Full fledge commandos who are only interested in flaunting their red berets and silver wings on red velvet backing, yet find all reasons to 'geng' their way out of scheduled jumps and bitching throughout battle procedures. And the third group, a medic who went out of course, but insisted on sewing all sorts of badges on his bag. And a clerk from CTC who book in in number 3, putting an unearned red beret on his shoulder, but forgot to put in his epaulettes and wings, and the worst thing, got spotted by all the cubs who went for the morning run. What a shame.


Ah Fluff was discharged from hospital yesterday afternoon, and he was returned to his habitat at the farm. On the way back, we spotted a huge monitor lizard that could have been 5-6 feet. The monitor went into the house and was eventually caught by the workers at the farm. But that did not happen before a huge struggle and verbal confronting from Ah Fluff and his sisters and mother. I actually felt very sorry and sad for the death of that monitor. It did nothing wrong, merely being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and died as a result. May your soul rest in peace, Mr Monitor Lizard. Namo Amitabha.

That day in pictures

For some reasons unknown, I am unable to upload pictures.

Team, I'm back!

I woke up at 550am that day, washed up and took father's car to Pasir Ris Camp(PRC) for my first ICT, after having missed last year's.

This round was a low key one, and the highlight for me had to be the IPPT which I was supposed, yet uncertain on passing. Well, I did eventually. Why did I use the word 'eventually'? On the 1st July, we were booked in the IPPT session at Bedok FCC, and we were ferried there on private buses. Low and behold, the PTI's went on leave, and there was no one who could conduct it for us. And we were set free for that afternoon. This morning, the PTI back at PRC conducted the session for us. And it costed me a whole body of aching.

It was a good feeling to once again see the folks again. Yimian was still a fan of all things military, Scott still love Kameng's massage, Tiko is still the joker, and many others are still steadily groing fatter, especially, to my horror, my fellow RTO Frankie. Fallen out of our company are LT Gary, Luke my good buddy, Stanley my Taiwan buddy and some others. Fate is more or less sealed for LT Gary and Luke, but I really hope Stanley will be back next time round.

What I have taken away from this ICT:
- 'Esprit de corp' of Team 8
- Lessons
- More lessons
- Lousy food at the cookhouse(contrary to previous trips to PRC)
- Chat sessions every night
- NSF on the ball, NSMen on the floor
- New mate in the team, Jason
- $200 from IPPT
- Body ache
- Sleep depriviation

Till the next time comrades.

Murdered Justice

I see our government, I meant to say our judicial system has turned blind. I know Lady Justice is blindfolded, holding a balance, but that does not mean that the judges sitting high up in the courts should wear a blindfold as well. From the various state-controlled news source here, I only see the demonising of David's family, or the dead himself. However, from the Jakarta Post, I read with shock and disgust the covered-up portion of the story that never came up in the 154th media.

From Jakarta Post
The case of David Hartanto Wijaya, an Indonesian student who died at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in March, is entering a crucial stage, but the family continues to suspect an unfair process.

David’s family filed a request in April to the Singaporean coroner court to consider the case as a murder, challenging conclusions made by the NTU and Singaporean police that David had committed suicide. Only if the coroner court finds it was not suicide will the case be forwarded to the criminal court. However, David’s family has felt that they still received unequal treatment throughout the process. The case has just entered the third phase of the court process, with more new witnesses to be presented by the NTU and the family.

Hartono Wijaya, David’s father, said the NTU had already presented 22 witnesses, with four more to be presented soon.
“But so far we were only given opportunities to present four witnesses, out of nine names we have submitted,” Hartono said on the telephone from Singapore.

“Our request that David’s laptop and digital hard disk be returned to the family was also denied. And we just found out that the judge never received the family’s request until today,” he said Wednesday after one of the court’s sessions.
Wednesday saw the coroner court receive testimonies from four witnesses brought forward by David’s family.
“One of them is his brother, the other three are his friends. But they are not eyewitnesses. They were all witnesses to David’s life as a brother, as a friend,” Hartono said.

The family had tried to find eyewitnesses from the university but everyone had remained tight-lipped, he said.
Hartono said the President of NTU Su Guan Ning had told the family that the university had a witness who saw David attempt to slit his wrist before he jumped from a building in the university.
“But when we asked to meet the person? The NTU rejected us.”

The NTU alleged David had attempted to kill Chan Kap Luk, David’s professor, just before David committed suicide.
Indonesian lawyer O. C. Kaligis, an advisor to the family, said the Singapore’s coroner court process turned out to analyze the possibility whether there had been a murder attempt on Professor Chan Kap Luk.

“What we see is that the court only focused on how David Hartanto Wijaya tried to murder the professor,” Kaligis said.

“From the start there has never been an analysis on the cause of David’s death.”

The pictures that show his deep wounds were never exhibited, said the lawyer who advocated the family pro bono.
Horrendously graphic pictures of David’s corpse showed he did not commit suicide. The pictures had been analyzed by Indonesian forensic experts Djaja Surya Atmadja and Evi Untoro, and they said any forensic doctor around the world would see from the forensic report that David’s body had defense wounds.

“It was absolutely not a suicide.”

Iwan Piliang, a blogger who has been accompanying the family since the beginning, said that they would bring forward two forensic experts from Indonesia who had analyzed David’s body from the Singaporean doctors’ forensic report and pictures of his body, “including a digital forensic expert who is the one and only expert in Indonesia.”

Judge for yourself.

The babies in pictures

After the gong teck, many relatives who attended the ritual struck some lottery. The unit number of the paper house came out in the starter. I, too, rubbed off $250 from the pool. My heartfelt thank you to all my ancestors. They've contributed to my savings to the Panasonic LX-3 which I am happily playing with now.

Not forgetting the babies, here are some pictures. Look how big baby blackberries are now.

From top: Lion Bear; Lion Bear; Polar Bear; Baby Blackberry