Unlike previous years, i actually took some time (i.e. during my east coast walk) to plan out my year-end post this time round. in the process of doing that, i've found that it's better to separate the year into 2 categories: army, and the rest. but first, let's do a summary of the year.

to start off, i'd say that my theme for this year is "a year of lessons". having been in the army for the vast majority of the year (11 out of 12 months, to be exact), it's safe to say that my year has largely been very disciplined/regimental. *side note: some of the lessons i'm referring to were learnt (painfully) in the course of deviating from the regimentation.* these lessons i'm referring to include stuff like managing interpersonal relationships, taking care of yourself (in army-speak, covering your own ass), as well as the value of freedom, amongst many others. though some of these lessons weren't learnt easily (3 extras, anyone?), i'm sure that they'll be beneficial in the long run. on the "overall happiness" meter, i'd give 2008 a 3.5 to 4 upon 10 (army automatically deducts 5 points).

blast-from-the-past time! below are my new year resolutions for 2008, now updated to see how each has developed:

- ORD on time (no DB or anything to extend my stay in army) done

- ORD peacefully (partially linked to the above point) done to a large extent
- Sign a minimal number of extras (zero if possible, less than 10 as an upper limit) stayed within limits, but not zero
- Not spend my birthday in camp done
- Learn to drive i've started on theory, so half-done?
- Be more dependable/reliable ??
- Not spend money unnecessarily done, since i'm within my savings target
- Apply for (and get) a place in university done too!

well, the major, important things are in place, so i guess that's what really matters. i think i did a pretty good job, actually. but that's not really for me to decide, right?

the last part about my year in brief has to do with regrets. in this whole year, i don't really regret anything i've done, since no permanent damage has come out of it. however, there is one situation bugging me, because i think i let anger/annoyance cloud my judgement just a little. now that i'm looking back at it, i think it could definitely have been handled better. BUT...what's over is over, and like it or not, i handled it in that particular (read: not-so-good) way, and that way it shall stay. for the record, i do not intend to apologize to that person, and if (heaven forbid) i meet him again, things will be awkward for either him, or both of us. however, let's not dwell too much on that. how high would the odds have to be stacked against me for something like that to happen?

now, on to the army portion of my post. as mentioned earlier, army has taken a great chunk out of my year (and a tenth of my life, by the way). so, most of this year's major happening will be army-related. as you may know, people do get arrested for blogging about sensitive army stuff. therefore, i'm not going to venture into those waters. besides, i'm not even in the army any more! so, all i'll say is that even though army has helped me get into quite possibly the best shape of my life, i don't regret ORD-ing at all. not one bit. though i enjoyed myself (rarely) in army, and took away a great deal of knowledge, under no circumstance would i repeat it again. so, i guess that has helped me to discount "SAF regular" from my list of potential jobs.

the one thing that does bug me a little about the whole stay-in thing is that after spending only weekends (and the occasional weekday) out of camp, the distance between me and the rest of my family seems to have widened. of course, it could have worked the other way, but it didn't. this leads to a slight problem. certain people are ok when you see them once in a blue moon. but once you start living with them, they do tend to get on your nerves (in fairness, i could be on their nerves too). i guess in the end, it all boils down to adaptation (which is something i learnt was more or less forced to do in camp).

another thing is that some people have commented i've changed, and sometimes, these are not positive comments. thing is, i don't really detect these changes, because they happened gradually over a long period of time. so, it's not as obvious to me as it would be to, say, a JC schoolmate whom i've only just met again after graduation. if it could be arranged, i would perhaps want to meet with my 2006 self, partially to re-examine and rediscover him/me, and to reassure him/me that he'll/i'll make it out of army ok. wishful thinking, i know, but one can fantasize a little, right?

as for the other aspects of my life, things have been going reasonably well. i'm (or was, rather,) capable of earning enough to satisfy my wants...no. perhaps i should say i was capable of regulating/moderating my wants to suit my income. no big fall-outs with people back home (though some actions do annoy me pretty badly), and i've maintained an ok-ish friendship with most of my friends. so, i can't really complain much here, except to hope that a certain group of people i hang out with fairly regularly do realize it's less than delightful to be a walking figure 11.

to sum up my year, 2008 was, along with 2007, quite possibly one of the 2 worst years of my life. with that in mind, how can 2009 not be better?

-random thought of the day: My New Year post will be up sometime tomorrow.-

Christmas came and went without much incident this year. in fact, now that every day's a holiday for me, it was practically just another day. did get my christmas cards sent out in time, though i didn't send out as many as previous years. still, the tradition continues! ok, in an effort to get an early start one of my new year resolutions, i'll admit something. the reason not as many people received christmas cards from me this year is because (1) i started writing them late this year, and (2) i didn't send a card to those people whom i didn't have contact with for the year, and/or to those who do not acknowledge receipt of the card from previous years. as much as i hate to admit it (and as much as it makes me sound like a horrible friend), it's true. so oh well.

it's pretty difficult to believe that 2008's almost over. all that's left of it is another 3+ days. still have to head down to east coast to take my annual walk (which i have put off for a LONG time), and draft my year-end post. should be pretty easy to handle, provided nothing goes wrong.

paused and continued on Monday, 29 December 2008, 11:20pm

now that i'm at my cousin's place, achieving the above 2 goals should be much easier. i plan to make my east coast trip tomorrow, and use the time there to get inspiration for my writing.

i suppose one added benefit from staying here is that i'm a bit further away from home. weird as it sounds, i suppose my 2 years of only being home on weekends (and the occasional weekday) has perhaps driven some distance between me and the rest of the family. and that whole reorganization saga didn't really help much, either (i'm still rather annoyed, by the way). so, it's probably for the best that i get out of the house for a while. only immediate disadvantages i see now are that i forgot to bring my phone charger, and i can't use my nice new (well, not so new by now) computer. nothing i can't work around.

well, it's getting late, and i should go to sleep soon. don't want to waste a nice, relaxing shower, right?

-random thought of the day: I have to return my library books!-

2 years and 6 months is quite a long time. incidentally, that is also the length of time for which my blog template has not changed. that's why i'm retiring Hal Jordan and going for a lighter, more season-appropriate template. don't know how long this will be up, but it will definitely be replaced before 2 years.

doing this took me close to 3 hours. shows how out of touch i am. now that blogger allows changes to be reflected immediately, i couldn't even do this in the edit template window. had to do it in notepad (and preview countless times) then import it over in one shot. so far, it looks ok, but i'll be fixing any errors that may pop up in the near future. hopefully, people on 1024 X 768 resolution (if there are any at all) will only have to scroll vertically and not horizontally. scrolling in one dimension is already bad enough, let alone two. i'm on 1280 X 1024, so i'm actually guesstimating the width. the current design is pretty much up to my expectation, but i'm thinking of adding a script that puts text on the status bar. have to see how that goes.

in the process of redesigning a new template, i've also run through my links and deleted any blogs that haven't been updated for more than a year. however, this action has had the unfortunate consequence of reducing my links by half. guess i'll post on facebook asking for people with blogs to give me the URLs again.

i cannot believe that even now, certain people at home still do not realize that i do NOT like other people reorganizing my stuff. so what if it looks neater? at least i can find what i want in the mess. and it's not like i wasn't planning on tidying up anyway. it's just that it's low on my priority list, that's all. and besides, i was told to "take my time" doing it, and that there was "no rush". so technically, i could have done it next year, or even after graduating from university, and i'd still meet the deadline. what's worse is, it's MY room and MY workspace, so if anyone has to live with it, it's ME, and nobody else. so, i really don't see why anyone besides myself should be bothered about the mess. so far, one DVD case has been lost to the forces of kaypoh-ness, and i'm hoping nothing else goes along with it. have to do one more reorganization myself anyway, so (1) i'll find out if anything else is missing, and (2) that person wasted time trying to make everything look tidy, because i was going to do it anyway. in army terms, it's a rather kam gong matter actually, but it's succeeded in getting me more annoyed than i've ever been since ORD.

originally, i was way angrier than i am currently. i guess blogging and template designing took some of the fire away. right now, i'll probably log into CoH for a bit before going to sleep. hopefully something interesting's going on in there.

-random thought of the day: I've been smelling WD-40 all day...don't know why.-

After saturday's dinner, i'm more motivated/compelled than ever to insert some running (or exercise in general, really) regularly into my schedule. i feel less fit than 3 short weeks ago, and thats not very good. arrgh. probably should start by following my cousins to the gym or pool to work out. only slight problem is, they stay at the east side, so travelling's quite a pain. have to see how it goes i guess.

christmas is only less than 2 weeks away! the holiday spirit is finally creeping up on me. i did some of my christmas shopping earlier today, and christmas songs followed me wherever i went. there's one song i'm particularly fond of at this moment, and it's:

sadly, i can't find the version that i like the most (first heard it at a friend's place...the voice singing the song is deeper), but the one posted here is the one i've chosen after listening to about 8 different versions.

you know, after my grandfather's passing last year, i thought the soap opera that is my aunts' lives would end its run. unfortunately, i guess the genes did get passed down rather efficiently, since not only is the soap opera still running, the actresses have signed for a sequel too! the most recent story arc involves a severely vandalized/brutalized bougainvillea tree and dragon plant, and so far, it hasn't been resolved yet. it should be...interesting (for lack of a better word) to see how everything turns out.

sometimes, i wonder whether i'm being too nice. it's perfectly fine to be the butt of an occasional joke, but to suffer that fate every single time you meet up with your friends is bordering on "too much". i suppose i wouldn't mind so much if i was junior to them in age, but i'm not. oh well. i just hope it won't get to the point where i have to hurt relations.

in the course of my youtube browsing, i've chanced upon several videos of the animaniacs. it's quite the blast from the past, since i believe the cartoon stopped showing in singapore close to 10 years ago. it's mostly nonsensical, but there are a few clips with educational value, such as this one:

if you haven't guessed it yet, Wakko's my favourite (especially his accent!). too bad they don't have something which singaporean students would find relevant.

well, that'll do for now. trying to sleep early since there's bowling (and a special surprise!) planned for tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Surprisingly, I'm still within budget!-

Quite a lot of interesting stuff has happened over the past few days. topping the list would have to be the set-up and functioning of my new computer (which i'm posting from, incidentally). i'm still working out some little issues, but they're mostly cosmetic/aesthetic and comfort-related. luckily, the major things, like connecting to the internet, copying CoH and other files over, as well as some other stuff, worked without any complications. it's a marked improvement over the older computer, only thing is that it's a little more exposed/open than the computer in my room, so it's easier for people to look over my shoulder as i'm typing/playing. oh well. plus side is that the TV is to my right, so i can turn over for a quick break whenever necessary. all in all, i'm quite satisfied/happy with it.

now that i'm out of the army, i guess it's time to change my phone. so far, i don't have the recommendations (or the money) to do it yet, but i'm keeping an eye and ear open. having a camera would be a nice bonus, so i can take photos of certain things of interest (like my computer!).

anyways, the nice show on TV's distracting me, so i'll stop here and update again after tomorrow's events have come to pass.

-random thought of the day: I need to clear up my army stuff!-

Strangely, the sense of relaxation and freedom i experienced after leaving camp for the last time didn't last as long as i'd thought it would. i guess that it's either due to one of the incidents that happened last friday (which i still have a bit of trouble putting behind me), or that the anticipation of getting my IC back was screwing around with my brain. but still, it's good to know that people from camp won't be calling you over little issues like computer matters or trivial stuff like that.

had a secondary school class gathering/reunion this past saturday. it was about time too, since the last time we met up was in november 2006, before enlistment. sadly, similar to last time, only about 10+ people out of the 20+ that we managed to contact showed up. nevertheless, we still had fun reminiscing about the old days, and catching up on everyone's current place in life. got to wave my IC around a little bit too as an added bonus. it's really amazing how much some of us have changed since 4 years ago, but it's good to know that everyone's still as friendly and nice as before, if not even more so. managed to get a few people interested in the saturday morning thing at turf city. with any luck, i'll be bringing some of them down this coming saturday.

one of the friends whom i met at the gathering (as well as earlier in the year when we were doing ops,) is a PTI in the army. i happened to mention to him that once i'm not in camp, i seem to lose the motivation/urge to go for runs, swims, or any sort of exercise in general. he told me not to see it as a chore, but rather to do it because i want to. i'm going to follow his advice on this one, since this is his area of expertise, but i think starting today may not be advisable since it's been rainy.

as one of my friends so aptly put it on facebook, today is such a good day to sleep. despite only waking up at 10:30am, i've been feeling lethargic and drowsy ever since then. must be the rain, and by extension, the monsoon season. it's been going at a light drizzle ever since...well, ever since i woke up, and i think that's why there's this sleepiness hanging in the air. i think i might just go for a run later after all. it's not too often you get drizzles light enough to enjoy running in. have to see how it goes.

one of the posts i made last week mentioned that i would be getting a new computer. turns out my original budget for it was $1800, which means that i've saved about $500 to $600 in the process of getting it. not too bad, considering that i'll need everything that i can save over the next few months since i'm no longer receiving money from the SAF. sadly, my tuition idea isn't really taking off either. will probably have to give it a bit more time, like until school reopens. guess nobody wants to think of studying when the holiday season's beginning.

the smell of smoke is strong in the air. not that surprising, since a chinese opera troupe (i think...otherwise it may be religious in nature; i don't know.) has come to perform underneath my block. they're burning offerings and other stuff, as is the norm in chinese custom. i'm not unfamiliar with the smell, only problem is that i associate it with temples. so, it's a little too close for comfort right now, considering i'm at home. gives me more incentive to get out and about i guess.

but, before anything else, i think i'm going to take advantage of the weather and take a short nap. haven't had the chance to enjoy sleepy weather for a while.

-random thought of the day: I have to submit my NUS form!-

LIBERATION!!!

it's been a long time coming, but i've finally reclaimed my IC. after looking at it for a while, i've made up my mind to change the photo there. i don't recall myself looking so round in sec 3. then again, we often have distorted perceptions of the things we can't see clearly, so oh well. who am i to say exactly how round i looked?

anyways, today has been great, except for 2 little dampeners. first is the nice S1 guys forgetting about/misplacing my testimonial. not too major a problem, since i've made arrangements for it to end up in my hands within the next week or so. the second matter is slightly more tua kee, but for confidentiality reasons, i'm not allowed to reveal anything about it, except that it's been settled too, and i caught a lucky break. most of it is my fault i guess, but there were motivating factors too. ah well. no use talking about it now that it's over. just have to accept the fact that it's already happened, and i've not suffered any permanent damage from it. get used to it, and move on.

it's been a pretty draining day, so i think i'll cut it here and go sleep. i'm going to need all my energy for the 2 major gatherings scheduled for tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: It's difficult to type on a MacBook!-

Turns out i didn't go for my dinner appointment after all, since i wasn't prepared to travel all the way down to kallang at 7:30pm (despite the temptation of long beach). it's tentatively pushed to wednesday, so i'll have to wait before i can find out what happened in india.

to continue on some of my unfinished threads of thought from earlier today, i received my university information package in the mail. basically, it's exactly what it says it is...information, and quite detailed stuff at that. i've done the online part, so what's left is for me to get my parents to read through and sign the form, and (horror of horrors) take a photo for my student card. now, if the above sentence didn't give it away already, i *HATE* taking photos of myself. will have to make it as painless as possible i suppose. oh...nearly forgot. at this point of time, i chose to start school in august, which is the regular term. chances of me enrolling in the special terms are quite low, but who knows? something may change my mind between now and 15 december, which is the final submission deadline.

since CoH servers went down for maintenance, i'm taking advantage of the free time to re-read my fanfiction and get a feeling for it, so i can pick up where i left off. after skimming through a few chapters, i'm quite tempted to delete the whole thing off the face of the planet. every three lines or so, i'm actually wondering 'did i really write that!?'. horrible. worst thing is, i left a plot element (a letter) unresolved when i left off, and now i can't remember what that letter's supposed to say! one thing's for sure though; it's nothing good. will probably have to try and remember my thought patterns/processes from 4 years ago and see what i can come up with.

*saved as a draft, and continued on thursday, 04 december at 9:53pm*

in another 10 hours or so, i'll step into camp for the very last time. 3+ hours after that, i'll reclaim something which i haven't seen for close to 2 years: my pink IC. after all the counting of months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds, agonizing over how slowly time passed, and generally not being the happoest person on earth, i'm finally so close to freedom! i wonder if i'll have any trouble sleeping tonight.

earlier on in march last year, i mentioned that if my POP present (a computer chair) cost $195, the price of my ORD present to myself would number in the thousands range. that prediction has sadly come to pass, seeing as i bought myself a new computer (!!). i've budgeted $1200 (or $1500, i forgot which) for it, and so far, i think i'm keeping within limits. i'll know for sure once i examine all the receipts. i just paid the bulk of it today, which is $950 for the CPU, and additional costs for other accessories. to date, that is my biggest NETS transaction to date, amounting to $1000 on the dot. felt a stab in my heart when i pressed 'OK'. but comforting thing is, this is all out of my own pocket, so score one for increased financial freedom.

at this point, my mind is clouded by the fact that tomorrow's my ORD, and also by the magnitude of my spending. i don't think i'll get another coherent thought in until the first is over, and the second has sunk in. so, i'll end off here, and continue when both have come to pass.

-random thought of the day: I need to spend all my emart credits tomorrow!-

It took me about 8 hours of reading (including staying up until 6+am and only sleeping when the words no longer made sense), but i finally finished Eragon book 3! it was quite an interesting read, with a few more unexpected revelations. i'm generally satisfied with it, except that for some odd reason, it is pretty difficult to remember the names/titles of people and locations, especially if they were carried over from previous books. for instance, "dragon rider" expressed in one of the languages is "shur'tugal". now, how often do you see this sort of punctuation mark in the middle of a word? another example..."dragon" is known as "skulblaka". quite an odd combination of letters for the english language, but i suppose it makes sense in other languages. after some thought, i decided not to discuss spoilers here, just in case someone reads this before reading the book and curses me to a watery grave. so oh well.

along with the book, i bought a couple of notebooks and some pens. figured i'd better be equipped for coaching and university life. thing is, i can't decide which notebook to assign to each task! arrgh. minor annoyance, actually. i figure it'll sort itself out.

in other more interesting news, my cousin's back from india! he said he was close to the hotel where the terrorist thing took place. in fact, the hotel was supposed to be one of his R&R destinations. lucky they heard about the news fast and detoured. anyways, i'll be meeting up with him for dinner later, so i'll probably get to hear more of what happened.

this post was supposed to be much longer, but i guess the mood just evaporated. so, i'll end off here and go settle some other stuff.

-random thought of the day: Time to open my NUS orientation package.-