Yesterday (at the time of writing this post), saturday 27 september 2008, was a historic day. that was the day where, for the first time in my life, i pulled off a shi-san yao! it probably doesn't sound like much to most people, but it personally means quite a bit to me, seeing as i've missed this particular boat quite a few times (more than i care to remember, actually). of course, the added benefit is that i'm only the second person in my group to do so. bragging rights, here i come! luckily today was one of my better days. made $40, which could cover my $20 loss last week. but covered for a friend (who i gamed 3 limit hands off of, poor guy; makes me feel guilty) and ended up with a tidy $30 profit. not too bad for 5 hours' work. i just hope my luck can be sustained through the upcoming weeks.

speaking of weeks, i can now officially say that i have less than a school term left in the army! 9+ more weeks to go, and i'll be a free man again. feels good saying that. adding on to leave and public holidays, i have an estimated 40 working days to go. everything's more or less handed over already, and all that's left is the formal acknowledgement and accounting for stuff before i can kick back and relax. i hear stories of how my ORD-ing friends have already handed their jobs over, and are nua-ing every day. lucky guys. oh well. it'll be my turn soon. patience.

carrying on from last week's post, i have to talk about heatwaves and the cat high dinner. the afternoon weather for the past 2 weeks has been quite a killer. i'm faced with a wall of heat the moment i step out of the office. just walking 300 metres to the cookhouse for meals can induce perspiration. good thing that it rained a few times this past week (compared to zero 2 weeks ago). if not, i think i'd just wither up and die.

about the cat high dinner, the original plan was to give it a miss. but due to some changes in circumstances, we may have to go down after all. i just hope that my leave gets through ok. worst case is i'll have to give it a miss.

right now, i think that's all i have to say. i may update again before booking in, and then again, i may not. who knows?

-random thought of the day: Time to go into CoH.-

Have to rush a bit, because i'm on a tight schedule.

the past week passed pretty quickly (thankfully), and we're into the latter half of september. nothing interesting happened in camp, except for even more office politics and a once-in-a-blue-moon early book out on friday. i seriously think we can turn what happens in the office into a soap opera. without mentioning any names, or ruining any reputations, all i can say is i'm grateful to be going off in 11 weeks' time.

in last week's post, i mentioned that nobody can have a perpetual winning streak. that remark has come back to bite me in the ass this week, seeing as i lost my entire drawer of chips (amounting to $50) in one round of mahjong. the worst part is, i didn't get bao-ed or anything. just normal playing. luckily, my friends were nice enough to give chance, and i managed to recover $35 out of the $55 that i lost. while i would have loved to make a full recovery, it was quite impossible at that time. so give and take i guess.

this coming week looks quite uneventful, except for range on thursday. hopefully nothing screws up this time round.

there are other things i had wanted to talk about, like the malfunctioning water supply, afternoon heatwaves, cat high dinner, and other assorted stuff. but, i find myself to be running short of time, so i'll end off here and elaborate on them the next week.

-random thought of the day: Monster Hunter should be banned in camp.-

Despite me taking half a day off on friday, this weekend still felt way shorter than normal. must be the theory of relativity at work i guess. this weekend was rather crazy, since mahjong was organized for 3 consecutive days. net outcome: lost a dollar. would have been lost $26, but someone was nice enough to cover for me yesterday since i bought lunch. now more than ever, i believe there's an almost magical/mystical air about the (or any, really) mahjong table. for instance, one superstition is that your luck will change if you set up for a shi-san yao but don't game on it. sadly, that happened to me. was a tile (jiu wan) away, but didn't manage to complete it. by the end of the game, my $12 lead (before i attempted that stunt) was reduced to a $25 loss. my bad luck continued today, but to a much lesser degree. managed to set up some good hands, though i couldn't cash in on 100% of them. guess nobody has a perpetual winning streak.

that aside, quite a lot of significant events fell within this past week. in chronological order, september 11, victor's 1-year anniversary, and the mid-autumn festival. first up, september 11. 7 years on, i personally have come to think of it as a typical day again. in fact, i wouldn't have remembered it if i didn't glance at my outlook calendar. i don't know how they're commemorating it in the US, though it may not be top priority with the hurricanes and all that.

next, it's been around a full year since victor's closed down. in fact, i believe today's the anniversary. not having victor's in my life for the past one year...honestly doesn't make that much of a difference, because i'm in the army and don't really have time for bowling. but i still feel sad that it's not there any more. well, at least i know where to find some of the old staff and the pro-shop owner (who incidentally, is cat high's bowling coach). so, it's not that bad i guess.

lastly, mid-autumn festival. i nearly let myself get away with typing "mooncake festival", but i've learnt that it's not just about the mooncakes. we had an informative history lesson on the festival's origins and stuff on saturday at turf city, so i'm able to appreciate it a little better. don't ask me to repeat it though; almost 3/4 of it has slipped out of my mind. luckily it's all recorded in an email for easy reference when the need arises. tonight's moon is supposed to be the roundest in the year, but clouds are obscuring my view. how to appreciate the moon like that!? i guess i can do it during the walk into my unit later tonight. sian.

ok, i'll leave it here. there are 5 more minutes until i have to go shower up, so might as well get an early start, right?

-random thought of the day:

Someone up in the sky appears to be having mood swings, because the weather's been fluctuating even worse than the stock market. just imagine - it can go from sunny to rainy, back to sunny, turn rainy again, and end off as sunny, all in the space of a day. it's probably wreaking havoc on everyone's immune systems, because there are quite a number of people falling sick these days. thanks to the environmental changes, global warming and whatever, it's become increasingly difficult to predict trends and weather patterns. hopefully people find a way to clear it up before it becomes too late...if it hasn't already, that is.

this past week in camp was not that tough, but not that slack either. had range, which i thankfully did not have to go for. apparently, this range surpassed last december's combat shoot to become the worst range in AETC history, seeing as a few people didn't even get to shoot. then again, many of the lanes were faulty, so i guess it's just good (or bad?) timing. for once, i understand what it's like to remain back in camp while the rest go for outfield combat training and whatnot. definitely not as easy or relaxed as i had imagined.

also, this week, we were made to do a very bo-liao, thousand-word essay which nobody had wanted to do in the first place. rather autocratic, extra, unnecessary, and generally time-wasting, but oh well. when the big ones give instructions, the tiny fish at the bottom obey.

going back to the usual saturday routine after missing out for one week felt good. mahjong is now more challenging, with the limit going up to 6 doubles, amongst other rule modifications. still managed to win $5 though.

ok...guess i'd better be going, there's tuition and a beach road trip tomorrow, so i definitely need to recharge.

-random thought of the day: I made a lot of typos while writng this...guess I'm too tired.-

With effect from this past weekend, i'm finally able to say that i have less than 100 absolute days left in army! it's definitely a great motivating factor, and it's doing wonders for my heart and spirit. all i want is for these 13+ weeks (or 90+ remaining days) to go smoothly.

sadly, that may not be the case. a call from camp today told me that some things which i was assigned to do were not done properly. they really know how to dampen the mood. problem is, i believe i did everything according to instructions. so...have to iron it out tomorrow. somehow, i get the feeling it'll be my fault anyway. it's not that i don't have confidence in whatever i've done, but past experience shows that when stuff like this happens, blame usually attaches itself to me. oh well.

this weekend has been pretty relaxing. no tuition and a slightly longer-than-normal time out of camp makes me a happy man. to tell the truth, i'm quite reluctant to book in tomorrow morning, especially since the left arm of my glasses is broken. up till now, i still have no idea how it happened. i was just sitting quietly at my computer when i heard/felt a small pop at the left side of my face. apparently, the spring gave way. have to get it fixed on friday, since they can't do it in time for my book-in tomorrow. meanwhile, superglue is the temporary fix. yay superglue.

guess i'll end off here then. maybe i should go read some books which i just borrowed today, or get on CoH for a while. or perhaps i should just call it an early night for once?

...nah.

-random thought of the day: My glasses are misaligned. Not good for my vision.-