Pre-enlistee scales CMPB walls and escapes from national service

The quiet of lunch hour was shattered on Monday afternoon when a pre-enlistee who was reporting for national service changed his mind and gave military personnel the slip. While talking furiously on his handphone, he inched further and further away from the soldiers who were preparing his paperwork and suddenly made a dash out of the building, ran towards the main gate, and scaled the wall and disappeared out of sight onto the main road.

As he is still a pre-enlistee, he is not under military law and has instead violated civilian law for failing to report for enlistment.

"He's all fit and ready for NS," somebody on the scene commented. "Rather weird to come all the way here and then decide to scoot off," observed another. "Perhaps he thought he was just reporting for paperwork and not actual enlistment," suggested a clerk.

Civilian police are handling this case of draft-dodging.

Next time, just be a world-class pianist *cynical laugh*

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Talking about nation-hood, it seems that the Aceh issue is not that clear-cut. While the Indonesian parliament begins to debate laws regarding the province's special autonomy status promised in earlier peacetalks, there are 2 groups within that want further splits and are demanding their own independent status instead. These groups of minority Bataks and others seem not to want to be under "Acehnese" domination which may occur as the province gains more control over its internal affairs.

Are these groups transmigrants? Planted in by some people? The murky world of politics, ethnicity, and nationalism.

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The uproar over the nude-squat videos of a supposed Chinese national in detention, with all the damaging of bilateral relations, other Chinese nationals speaking up and bringing lawsuits, racism charges, has taken a bizzare twist as a Malay woman admitted being the one in the video. Call it the media circus. WE ARE THE TRUTH! HAahHaAHa

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I sat in my boss' new 7-series today. GPS. An aircon that feels like a fridge. OOdles of acceleration. WOOHOO~ But the boss' driver is very safe and slow. PS: my boss has a red Carrera 4 convertible too.

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From the editor of this crap-news column: Been quite busy at work. Zillions of paperwork and things running about in and out. Had a few traffic close-shaves including a Need for Speed stunt on Nicoll Highway. The rest were due to horrible driving by women. Tell more later. And bridge is a fun game.

Need... to stay calm...

I wanna run to you

Woke up with this song running in my head:

I wanna run to you
I wanna run to you
Won't you hold me in your arms
And keep me safe from harm
I wanna run to you
But if I come to you
Tell me, will you stay or will you run away
- Run to you (Whitney Houston)

must be leftovers from my once-in-a-blue-moon ktv session mentioned below. (In which we didn't sing the above song but somehow I remembered it... SH's favourite) Btw, I also forgot to mention, EC has a great voice that suited most of the songs that were sung that day...

Church Camp
Just came back from my brother's church camp finale... can you imagine he actually did some form of physical activity during the games like, RUNNING?? Yes, this is the man who believes exercise shortens your lifespan (and has managed to convince at least half of his office at CMPB so) betraying his conscience.

2 of the skits by the teams were actually really good... especially the rhyme one... cool... some of them can really act too...

But I still dislike camps very much :)

Work's been really busy we're still clearing last month's stuff and the vouchers just keep piling in as I clear them...
I'm sorry CHY I still havent updated my links page at the side hee~

I'm looking forward to my break after mid-month before I intern!

I think blogger is scheduled for a shutdown about now. May the Lord keep you~

Dream job: tending the plants in the Garden of Eden

No, I did not take my car license plate off for some glamourous photoshoot. I was sending my brothers off to church camp that morning (as usual, the smallest one woke up late, middle one kept nagging, and all that last minute packing) and at the point of disembarkment somehow the smallest one managed to slam the boot so hard the number plate fell off. Apparently noone managed to tell me and I drove all the way home to prepare for work before my other brother messaged me about it.

This is the first time such a thing has happened - hope its not a precursor of more things falling off my car.

But happier stuff - I managed to go swimming today after the 2 pre-internship seminars! The sun was great but the pool rather crowded. Also, work's been super busy but after driving the van quite a lot I finally drove the 14-foot lorry yesterday on a midnight run! Surprisingly its actually easier to park because its empty and exposed behind unlike the vans although I still have to get used to revving diesel engines harder unlike how I normally drive the petrol car...

Class 4 here I come! :)

Also had a nice time at Mich's birthday function at ComCentre... nice lounge facilities with KTV too. CXY was like raving around like, drunk. Ok I'm exaggerating but still, she was kinda high.

Pondering working life

I wonder, how many people rush headlong into their careers and working life without ever stopping to think - what am I doing and why?

Through the pre-internship seminars we were drilled in stuff about networking, impressions, working hard, commitment, sincerity and so on. During the break I had the chance to lean at the side and just stare around at NTU's beautiful scenery while finishing my sugarcane juice. Today was indeed a fantastic break from full-fledged worklife, and with the internship nearing and eventual rest-of-my-life work approaching, I thought to myself - I'm really going to miss the university lifestyle.

But work is God-ordained and we need to work to support ourselves.

But do we 'become' our jobs? What if our jobs consume our lives and we become something we ourselves don't recognize? I would fail 100% in the networking game because I can't befriend people on false pretexts with ulterior motives. I find polite small talk really meaningless. I don't like to PR people and to be PRed. I just can't see myself doing all that for networking's sake because I'm not an open person.

Or is a job just a job that ends when you leave the workplace? Can there really be a separation between your worklife and 'the rest of your life' ? Should it always be our priority? What of the other more important things in this world?

Some people live to eat. Others live to work.

I pray to live for God, in all that I do. And He will surely see me through.

Amen~

Being careful

Came back from work today at 1am, left for work at 6am...

NTUC Income insurance unhappiness

Happily, the van thing should be resolved (at some cost to myself, which is what I deserve), although sad to say the motorcyclist who accused and claimed against me for "causing" him to lose control and fall down and claimed INJURY and MEDICAL CLAIMS despite being an NSF has bitten me with a 1k insurance hike in premium for one time, and a reduction in NCD.

In the year during his case my premium went up by 1k and it was refundable after the case was concluded. But, apparently 2 years onwards after making me visit the lawyer several times, without consulting me or even informing me, NTUC Income had decided to unilaterally settle the case on my behalf (up till now I still don't know how the thing ended, none of the service staff are actually able to tell me) and hence without a fight and without any knowledge even I am saddled by a 1k penalty because of that ridiculous claim.

I am very unhappy that NTUC failed to consult or even inform me about their actions and just made the decision to forfeit the money for me. I suspect most of the money actually ended up paying the lawyers rather than the "injured" NSF.

Mishap

There was a chap in the office who after a drinking session rode his scooter and got hit by a taxi. Thankfully he just fell on the floor and the scooter fell on his arm he's now in hospital. The taxi-driver knew that he was drunk so struck a bargain with him not to claim injuries and in return he wouldn't actually report he was drunk. The chap was left on the bus-stop until some other office people came to send him to hospital.

So, be careful now chaps, especially my friends who ride.

Ok ppl are streaming into the office now.

Take care folks and the Lord be with you in your thoughts, actions and daily life.

Exams are over

Not that it makes a huge difference... been working for almost 2 weeks by now.... its like everyday after a get home i'm so tired i just sleep after lying on the bed for a while...

But today was special, had my last exam - CSI! went swimming after that too - shiok. Got filmed by ChannelNewsAsia with Jeremy before that too. That's this tuesday 8.30pm on CNA. Something about Marine Engineering degree...

Got my brother from tekong (he has POC! Now ORD left...) Had lunch. Ran some errands. But quite tired now cause only slept 4 hours last night...

Got home, wanted a nice drink but... the ring tab broke. Nevermind. Use can-opener. Somehow all I do is crush the can. Nevermind. punch 2 holes and pour in cup. Then all the juice squirts all over the kitchen.

Seem to be driving faster nowadays. Maybe its because I'm rushing the errands as its for work. Or because I feel richer. My car's aircon actually feels really cold when you step on the accelerator real hard. Floored it through a red light camera junction when it was amber. Acceleration with aircon on: super fan-ying-chi-dun. The transmission kickdown itself already takes so long. Then still must wait wait wait. Sian. No Honda Integra. Ha.

Be back later... I've got lots of stuff to settle! By the way, if any are interested for a driving holiday to Malaysia lets do discuss!

May the Lord have mercy on all our souls! Amen!

Sentimental

Wow its been a long while since I've actually downed a real blog entry. Work's been quite interesting and time really really flies when you're doing OT and all that...

Went out for a nice beer session with simon and some cs girls 2 nights ago... thanks for the treat! Haven't driven about at night for quite some time already... although I got really disoriented and took unneeded detours and reroutes...

Dropped EC and JK off after that... JK stays in Tampines just opposite where I used to live along the MRT tracks... all that nostalga came back and we lamented genuine tyre swings, playgrounds with real sand et al.

My brother booked out early this weekend on friday night... we had pizza in TM and lamented more of childhood days too... he catching stuff in the longkang

Dad called from Cambodia and I gave him an update of what's been going on...

Just finished watching "I am Sam" ... very long movie... but very touching... wanted to cry... go see it yourself if you want to know why... (saw the Alfred Hitchcock effect too)

btw, Huiyi's blog is coming online soon will link it when she's done.

Goodnight~and God bless

Sighz

1st day of work : got fined $30
2nd day of work: scratched a van and have to repair it