Last duty marks the last duty (pun not intended xD) of the year. It ended rather well. Firstly, I had a tour with the CDAU (civil defence auxiliary) personnel - a major rank, who will be part of our strength when he feels like volunteering. He even bought me a drink in the middle of the tour. =p Macham blood already, or so my colleagues say. haha

My section was stand-bying at telok blangah fire post and it's a chinatown again. There were dingding, jason, ow and myself. We went for hydrant testing at sentosa (sentosa cove....again) in the afternoon. =) We even tried to ride the LF aka red rhino. =x For dinner, we had a pseudo chinese new year reunion dinner again; at the same fire post also!

Just came back from dinner at ps with the S3A people - jinjie, les, lim, low, marcus, peiwen, sokfong, yongxiang, zhencong, zhengyu + yanshan (zhencong's gf) at thai express. I tried the special fried rice and it really taste 'special'! =x It was too spicy and didn't have any special taste to the chicken. 1/10 for me.

Today was the last day of the year and most of the Singaporeans now must be at town anticipating for the start of the fireworks performance or staying at home with your loved ones counting down to the new year, whereas there are a group of people who will be sleeping early and counting down in their dreams as they'll have to wake up early the next morning to welcome another ordinary day slogging and sacrificing their public holiday to work.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I wonder if it's the immunity I've got by standing-by in station for many previous public holidays or is it the festive mood is declining year after year that I didn't have the feeling of even counting today as a festive day where everyone get together and celebrate this day. It's more like any other weekends.

Went out with jinjie, les, lim, low, xiaohui and zhencong for dinner at waraku. On the way to marina square, the NEL was delaying its training services for whatever their reason, leaving only 2 entrance gantries and annoucing to commuters to go immediately to which platform for which train that is going to which terminal.

Anyway, the restaurant we dined was more than expected. The food was superb (I ordered the ebi no cream) - QQ noodles with very fresh shrimps which had their intestines taken away neatly without a sign of any cuts. The tinge of black pepper in the cream soup enhanced the overall flavour; making the soup less creamy-tasting. All the dishes/set meals are more filling than any average restaurant. 8.5/10.

Back to duty tomorrow...blood agent scenario, move!

WooT! Little did I know that I've got more than 5 duties of leave left for my ORD leaves. Moreover, I'm claiming my time-off hours for my last duty as I'm considered to be working office hours since I'm ORD-ing the following day. To date, as what my rota's NSF I/C azari told me, I've got 7-duty of leaves and 30 time-off hours. They're music to the ears.

After doing the sums, that equates to NINE WORKING DUTIES as of today!! =)

Anyway, the school holidays are coming to an end soon, so changsheng and ken jio-ed me to go settler's yesterday. Since I'd been visiting such places for twice this month already, I suggested going for KTV at sr gardens instead.

We got there slightly earlier than 14 00 but the owner was late! lolx The person with the key was late (I think it's due to oversleeping) and was trying to rush down from yishun on a taxi. xD Long time haven't been singing in KTV and it's time to sing some new releases. Tzerong joined us 2 hours later. It's either the operator forgot the time or he gave us OT for opening late, our singing time was longer than it should be. The system didn't seem to be shutting down so we decided it was time to go home by 18 45.

Tr didn't know that we had dropped the receipt and a coaster into his back pocket while he was stand-singing "给我你的爱". He didn't know until we told him he had 'accidentally' stolen something there in cs's car. He found out what was it when I told him to go back and listen to the first phrase from "不能说的秘密". However, he still didn't know the whereabouts. YA-TA!! xD

What to do for x'mas?

These couple of days were quite packed with back to back activities. I had to rush back home to prepare stuffs after duty on yesterday morning and then rush to chinatown for dim sum with the 04S3A people to know that some of them were rather late, but still there were signs of improvment on that part. lolx

Only dingzhan, hokong, les, lim, low, marcus, peiwen, quek, sokfong, xiaohui, yongxiang, zhengyu and me were able to have 'brunch' together. Afterwhich, peiwen insisted us to go for 2 hours of settler's. However, lim and marcus had other plans at hand. John joined us later anyway.

After 15 00, I rushed back home yet again to prepare my backpack and leave for downtown east for a short 2D1N stint at the chalet. Changsheng, jon, ken, tzerong and wenshu were already there when I got there, while mengtak came shortly afterwards. We went for dinner at the foodcourt. Liankai, yanxiang, yonglin and zhongming came afterthat. Watched art of seduction before I slept. As I hadn't enough sleep the day before, I slept that whole night while the rest were wide awake through the late night playing a game which people had to drink lots of water and only to be lucky enough to get a card which allows you to have a leak. They made loads of noise and I was sub-awake but didn't have the heart to wake up and play. hahaha The last few hours was a peaceful sleep for everybody.

This morning, we woke up around 08 00 and talked about the past 6 years of things happened (while liankai left for afew hours for his sheng lesson) before going for breakfast at the foodcourt again. (Didn't have the chance to patron all the stalls though - as a wager was made by jon and me) Visited the arcade for awhile where zhongming was playing with the ball-shooting game and wenshu, together with changsheng, tried DDR and parapara. Some of us played the rythmn insync game. =p (liankai came back to join us in the arcade)

Went back to 'nua' at the chalet after games. Tzerong was still asleep!! Watched who slept with her?. Some of the 'still hungry' ones went out with tzerong for lunch. (had a 15-minute superfast lesson on violin while the rest were having lunch =) ) Yanxiang and yonglin left shortly afterthat. Tzerong and zhongming went back as well when we were just about to leave for bicycling by the beach. 2 hours of bicycling was fun. Tried some nice routes and did some laps. xD

We headed back to our chalet and ate CQYD bowlnoodles. They wanted to go for dinner afterthat, but since the portion of the noodles were large enough to get full, that idea was scraped. Jon and I went back home as we had duty the next day; the rest just stayed behind. =p (we met reginald on the way at the interchange =x)

The thought of going back for duty tomorrow toned down the fun and enjoyable feeling alittle. But not to worry too much as I had about a month left in station after I clear my leave. =)

Finally done with the H5N1 virus vaccination yesterday. Now we're immune to CJ! lolx Thanks sharif for the lunch and sending me back to my home. =)

Today went to mind's cafe with chang sheng, ken and lian kai. Had full 4 hours of fun and laughter. Long time didn't laugh so much already; perhaps station life is too mundane. Had pizza for dinner, but didn't get the chance to try the x'mas special.

It has been raining everyday (except today) and people has been lamenting that we're having a good life this season as there'll be no fire calls. They are utterly wrong. There were more calls in fact. Burning of discarded items near lifts, lighting fire, road traffic accident and even a biopolis basement fire!

Now who says there isn't any fire call on rainy season?

It has been raining intermittently since mid of last month. It just starts to rain when we were about to go out and stops when we don't have to mood already.

Yesterday, jin jie, lim, low and I went to town, more specifically - tanglin mall, as lim wanted to take photos of the x'mas decorations there. Afterwhich we walked all the way back to orchard and walk around in search of a dinning place.

The sky looked unpromising but we still sticked with the usual chicken rice restaurant. It was lucky that the rain started to fall again when we were on our way back to PS.

This evening we were suppose to go out as jj and lim need to buy some stuffs but it seems like the weather wasn't on our side.

Will the outings this coming weekend be spoilt by the weather again?

Today woke up earlier than usual 'cause I was meeting chang sheng and wen shu at esplanade to watch the violin competition at 09 30. We only stayed for the senior and artist category.

Juxtaposing chinese and western instrumental competitions, it is no doubt that the judging for western competitions were more predictable and justified.

For chinese side, there are people, who didn't meet the standard, was awarded otherwise. Sometimes, even the lower categories are far better than the seniors with the same work they played.

The western side definitely has better musicians than chinese as there are clear 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions for all categories.

One interesting discovery today was that the judges didn't choose any of the compositions made by chinese composers. Seems like they didn't like chinese element for western music. However, that may be due to the fact that the first chinese guy, who played a 'made in china' piece as his first work, totally flopped it; so the subsequent competitors didn't have any luck to play theirs. xD

We went to Macs for lunch, and boy did I forget how does Macs work! lolx Forgot to take straws, napkins are self-service and they even have extra chilli and tomato sauces (not packaged ones) to refill. But their price is not bad as well. =x

It was probably my first sighting on a shooting star last duty early morning. Wonder why did it disappear in a second?

Anyway, just came back from ORD function at HTNS @ Bukit Batok. I thought it would be an event where all our friends, who are going to ORD, get together and have a nice chit-chat session or some fun. However, it turn out otherwise. Indeed we got 'together', but we were listening to the shortest opening speech I'd ever heard by the guest-of-honour, followed by 2 other corporations giving career talks before we get to have our reception,which included curry puffs, samosas, sandwiches and drinks.

All of us thought that we would at least bring home 2 free movie tickets as a gift since the last batch received them. A thin paper-thick windbreaker from HTNS is all we had. lolx

Fabulous.