the Michigan Union. Not much more to go before it disappears! Haha. 

the plaque near the entrance of the Michigan Union. 

the Law Quad. It's amazing.  

here are some more photos i've taken over the past week or two, but not of UMich... see if you can spot yourself! :)

let's talk about the Air Force...  

Loke, you look absolutely stunning here. No, actually i mean you look absolutely stunned. Haha. 

ADA boys + lihui - i miss you guys already! 

thanks y'all for sending me off... :) 

narita airport! 

this is just a sampling of the buffet spread that my dorm (south quad) provides! freshman 15 hmm hmm. 

this great Bavarian-themed restaurant in Frankenmuth, MI. It's a town with lots of German settlers and therefore a colourful heritage! quite cool.  

hahahaha Little Debbies (an inside joke for those of you who've read Bill Bryson) 

this huge pumpkin only costs $7! it's the size of a beach ball... 

sitting in a cafe called Amer's in Michigan Union now- it's kind of the equivalent of the Yusof Ishak Hall in NUS, something of that sort, at least. Pretty cool! so far it's been quite an interesting experience- seeing the college town in its entirety. The brick buildings, lovely architecture, the Michigan Blue Bus, the wonderful sports fields, the huge supermarkets- i feel really lucky to be able to see all these things, especially in a foreign land with all sorts of people from different backgrounds. My roommate from Traverse City, MI has just emailed me- she seems like a pretty nice girl so i guess i'm incredibly blessed in all these aspects. Will be opening my bank accounts later at around 11 when I meet up with some other Singaporean freshmen and their parents. By the way, I've got a new cellphone number, so please contact me at that number if anything's up, rather than my singapore one. I'll be retaining my singapore number for use back in SG, but while I'm in ann arbor I'll be using my Michigan number mostly. i'll mail you guys my number yup. Or you can ask me for it...

The weather here's rather balmy, temperatures ranging from 15 to 20 degrees. I went for a run around the neighbourhood of my inn this morning, and it was an amazing experience. somehow in this sort of weather i felt like i could run really quickly! which was great. :] okay check back to my blog for more regular updates- think I'll definitely be blogging much more now that I'm in UMich and on this lovely wireless campus. Rocks. cheers!

in transit at tokyo narita airport now.. i think it's less than an hour till i get on my connecting flight to detroit. Thanks everyone who came down to see me off.. it really means a lot to me. to the canoeists- vania, mag, leqi, sheryl and shine... it was great seeing you guys after such a long time. to my secondary school pals- qing, xy and weez- haha we've been through so much, hope this temporary separation won't be too bad! thanks guys.. to weilin and dawn, thanks so much for always being my spiritual support when i've needed someone to be around. Liwei! my best pal! haha you don't need words to tell you how i feel right? to lihui, thanks so much dear. you don't know how much everything you've done means to me. lynn- i'll be seeing you soon yup? have a safe flight and thanks for the Rich and Good Cake Shop Cake!

and you.. yes, you. thanks for coming. you don't know how i felt when i was on the plane to narita. like my insides were all wrenched up inside. not even sure when will be the next time i'll get to see you. ha oh well. email me ok... Well at least periodically. do take care of yourself... love you lots.

okay think this will be a pretty short entry.. i'll blog more once i get to ann arbor and not have to pay 500yen for wireless network anymore. ha! Okay i'm eagerly awaiting my 13 hour long flight... Poop!

Counting down the days till i leave Singapore for Michigan- exactly 10 days left. And how should I spend these 10 days? So many people to meet, so many things to do, an awful lot of things to buy, and I'm so blissfully unconcerned about packing that I haven't even started yet (I only got my visa done today, ha ha, which is really Quite late considering that I was supposed to get all these things sorted out about a month ago, at least). Anyway I'm booked on Northwest Airlines Flight 006 to Tokyo, Narita, where I'll transit to NW 012 to Detroit Metropolitan Airport. I think that's about 21 hours of flying time, not counting being in transit, which is not exactly a thought I'm particularly enamoured with right now. And my flight from Changi takes off at 0600hrs, insanely early on a Sunday morning, which means I've to be at the airport by 0400hrs grrrrr.

I'm thinking about returning during the 2-week winter break after my exams end on 21Dec- sprinting back to my dorm after my last paper, catching the first flight out of Detroit to NY, and taking the nonstop SQ flight straight back to Singapore. Well at least that's what Lynn and I would like to do so that we can make it back to SG on the morning of 23rd Dec. She'll leave Baltimore and meet me in NY. But the sad thing is that even if I do come back in Dec, it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone'll be there then.. Hmm if you're the one, you'll know what I mean. And when I return in Summer '06 for attachment, I might still miss you by a month or two. Well but if we can get through that, we could go through anything.

Looking forward to reaching Michigan yet I know it's going to be terribly difficult to leave everyone and everything behind. Hmmm so I'm still relegating that thought to the back of my mind. I think it'll only really hit me quite hard when I board the plane. Oh this is awful. Anyway the past week has been quite strange, I don't know what to think about it, but guess I'll just bide my time and wait.

And I'm petrified by the very thought of Freshman 15! Aaaarrrgghhh. For the uninformed, it's the phenomenon where freshmen studying in the USA put on an average of 15 pounds (6 to 7 kg) in their first year of studies. Check out this website which links you to UMich's Maize Menu for this week.
http://www.housing.umich.edu/dining/maize.php
It's going to be somewhat of a challenge resisting the lure of, say, Strawberry Shortcake, or M&M Cookies, or (God forbid), a Banana Cream Pie. Oh goodness gracious, they even have Chocolate Brownie Pudding. And this fascinating sweetened edible called Snickerdoodles. Okay I'm treading on thin ice here. This is very dangerous territory indeed. Well at least UMich has provided this infinitely useful guide titled "The HEALTHY Freshman 15" with 15 EatSmart Tips for those who actually care about the imminent possibility of piling on the pounds...
http://www.housing.umich.edu/dining/eatsmart.html

***
If I fall along the way
Pick me up and dust me off
And if I get too tired to make it
Be my breath so I can walk

If I need some other love
Give me more than I can stand
And when my smile gets old and faded
Wait around I'll smile again

Shouldn't be so complicated
Just hold me and then
Just hold me again

Can you help me I'm bent
I'm so scared that I'll never
Get put back together

You're breaking me in
And this is how we will end
With you and me bent

If I couldn't sleep could you sleep
Could you paint me better off
Could you sympathize with my needs
I know you think I need a lot

I started out clean but I'm jaded
Just phoning it in
Just breaking the skin

Can you help me
I'm bent
I'm so scared that I'll never
Get put back together

You're breaking me in
And this is how we will end
With you and me bent

Start bending me
It's never enough
I feel all your pieces

Start bending me
Keep bending me until I'm completely broken in

Shouldn't be so complicated
Just touch me and then
Just touch me again

Can you help me
I'm bent
I'm so scared that I'll never
Get put back together

You're breaking me in
And this is how we will end
With you and me bent
***
matchbox twenty bent

* do you think we could last forever?

Rob Thomas
Ever The Same

We were drawn from the weeds
We were brave like soldiers
Falling down under the pale moonlight
You were holding to me
Like a someone broken
And I couldn't tell you but I'm telling you now

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you so we both fall down

Fall on me
Tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same

We would stand in the wind
We were free like water
Flowing down
Under the warmth of the sun
Now it's cold and we're scared
And we've both been shaken
Look at us
Man, this doesn't need to be the end

Just let me hold you while you're falling apart
Just let me hold you so we both fall down

Fall on me tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same
Call on me
I'll be there for you and you'll be there for me
Forever it's you
Forever in me
Ever the same

You may need me there
To carry all your weight
But you're no burden I assure
You tide me over
With a warmth I'll not forget
But I can only give you love

***

you know something? i still think you're amazing. no matter how everything seems to be collapsing around me and things weren't like how they used to be before, i really don't care... all i'm hoping for is that we can pick up and move on from here.

yeah well. let me know.

Take these roses all from me
Let me live, let me be
For a little while
Let my eyes,
See everything and nothing in their time
I do not mind

Who'd guess I'd learn
To let the walls around me burn
Light up the hillside
My words, I ate them for so long and nothing changed
It was just the same

And I don't know if you see me
But I can tell you your face is clear
I will see you...

Forever
Forever
I will see you
Forever
Forever

Call me close once again
Call me teacher, call me friend
Just like the first time
Call my name, it echoes around me in this room
It's all you

I don't know if you hear me there
But it's dark so no one cares
I will hear you...

Forever
Forever
I will hear you
Forever
Forever

I wanted you to be everything to me
Now I've got to learn to carry on
I know I cannot hide this emptiness inside
But nothing is the same since you've gone

Send me letters from above
Send me strength, send me love
Such sweet love
Sing me songs that echo in my head and in my heart
That's where you are

And I don't know if you feel me here
I can tell you one thing that's clear
I will feel you...

Forever
Forever
I will feel you
Forever
Forever
I will hear you
Forever
Forever
I will see you
Forever
Forever

Take these roses all from me
Let me live, let me be

forever vertical horizon

***
check out yi lu xiang bei by jay chou, off the initial D soundtrack. after leaving this blog dormant for so long, i thought i ought to post a little more regularly. it's only slightly more than a month before i leave for michigan, besides the heaps of paperwork that i've been puzzling over, i've also been posted to gombak HQ for a month-long attachment. let's just say i am strongly of the opinion that i COULD spend my time in a more edifying way elsewhere. thankfully it's only till the 29th of this month. canoeing nationals are coming up soon again- first time they're being held at macritchie. sucks! the waters are too calm and unexciting! whatever happened to the ominous horn signalling the unexpected arrival of menacing police coast guard vessels creeping up from behind and causing an overall flurry of panic? i mean, of course it sucks if you get a faceful of salty sea spray that causes your craft to lurch from side to side, but now there's no exhilaration of wave-riding and the smug satisfaction of watching your wave-hit opponents struggling to regain their composure and balance. ah. macritchie's just too still, and uninteresting.

yesterday, the bus routes were changed temporarily to facilitate road closure for NDP rehearsals. i was on 36 enroute to church, and while the bus was making its way around the marina/esplanade area where the holding areas for the contingents were, i managed to catch a glimpse of many, many khaki berets. ah. well.

funny how this year has gone by in a flash. six months spent learning to be a soldier (the process is still ongoing even as i type this) and soon it'll be time to head off to an entirely foreign place for the next four years of my life. they say four years is a short time. is it, really? when i can't even bear to be away from certain people for four days, maybe hours? i wouldn't know. well it's strange- on one hand i'm looking forward to the new experience; while on the other it is hard to tear yourself away from what you've already got here.

haha i guess we'll leave that up to time. it's been great so far, i've got no complaints whatsoever and i guess i've made quite a few right choices this year, which is pretty good.

on another note, the panther tattoo on sam's blog is damn cool- leaves a lot of room for consideration, doesn't it? well then again maybe it looks nice because it's on ljungberg (then again, what (or who) wouldn't look nice on him)? but yeah i was thinking about it since a long time ago... hmmm let's see how it goes haha.

went down to bishan gym yesterday, supposed to meet lyd and vania there. but as it happened, vania had to visit relatives and lyd overslept so i ended up going alone. bought the gym ticket, left my bag inside and went out for a run. lately i've been in the habit of going for runs to nowhere. i like the very idea of doing that- it takes my mind off the distance and time and there're always new things to see. so i decided to try the canal route directly adjacent to the gym. it opened up to braddell road after about 2km and i turned back into the bishan estate because i was too lazy to cross the overhead bridge which i'd need to do if i wanted to continue with the canal route haha. ran through bishan, taking all the meandering small routes and finally emerged opposite RI. remembered that the juniors were having land training so i continued towards RJC and true enough, i heard them before i saw them. jiao lian, ever ingenious, made them use the bicycle stand as a makeshift i-pull bar and had the girls cranking out inclined chin-ups there. it was good being able to talk to yong hui and jiao lian. apparently RJ girls' team this year have a greater chance than we've ever had and i'm really glad of that fact. jiao lian told me some things that left a pretty great impression on me. i'd love to go back to paddle but right now i'm just not good enough and i doubt i'd ever be again. what wouldn't i give to return to the way i felt during SDBA 2004. invincible. like the k2 and paddle were just natural extensions of myself. leaving everyone in our wake during races. not having to eat someone else's wash. the satisfaction of winning. it all seemed so natural then, i'd love to have that feeling again.

but damn i don't even have any time to train now so everything's just wishful thinking. sometimes i think maybe i've lost the passion for paddling but it's amazing how the fire can be stoked so easily that i think maybe, just maybe, there's a flame left. and i hope i'll be able to carry on where i left off.


you were everything
everything that i wanted
we were meant to be
supposed to be
but we lost it
all of the memories so close to me
just faded away
all this time you were pretending
so much for my happy ending

some photos from my melbourne trip in april! sorry la i know i take awfully long to do such things ugh.

me, weiqi and vania at st kilda's beach. the setting sun lends a nice effect! 

where our hotel was- the junction of spencer and collins 

with crown as our backdrop! 

now this is a beaut.  

oohhh, devonshire tea and jammy scones! 

this is a pretty cool looking gizmo! 

gayness along commercial road. hahaha  

the stuff dreams are made of. 

a truly decadent (albeit diabetic) display through a cake shop window (they have tons of these in melbourne) 

weiqi and our seven flavor ice cream. scary, man.  

i'm only doing my ADA pro term when i return from studies, which will be in 4-5 years' time. right now i'm loboing in Air Force School (AFS) together with the rest of the ADA guys. it's my 3rd day of being a Lobo and so far so good. It's not as slack as I originally thought it'd be, since rightfully we're just here doing nothing and drawing regular pay (can't really complain about the pay bit hahaha). But apparently we're all supposed to run the Sheares Bridge Run/Army Half Marathon so we've got a brilliant physical training programme which involves ET runs of up to 16km! i just can't wait.

and pull-up regime now is damned, well, interesting. 3sets of max pullups to failure, followed by 20x normal pushups, 20x diamond pushups, 20x spider pushups. after that you can pretty much keel over and die, especially since the chinup regime takes place immediately after a timed run (either 3km or 5km, depending on which day of the week it is). but i've got newfound motivation to be healthy and not slack! so im making full use of the lovely gym at AFS (compared to the shitty one at SAFTI), and the pool, and running loads.

anyway if anyone wants to ask me more about anything, pls mail me at oldskoolflavor@gmail.com. thanks haha! im too lazy to type everything now, shall retire to my limewire now heh heh.

end of service term, now all that's left is to lobo in air force school for a good two months before studies/ pro term for the ADA people. all hail the sai gang warriors! we'll probably be unceremoniously dumped somewhere and left to slack our days away, with the exception of the training for army half marathon. i hope the AHM training's good! if not it'll really be an utter waste of time.

end-of-course dinner at NUS guild house was pretty good, wasn't as raucous as i expected but with the budding alcoholics at my table things started getting a little noisy as usual. will post the pictures sometime when i get around to uploading them. fri was spent at NY and RJ and SPH, visiting teachers and colleagues. NY's changed quite a bit, a number of teachers have left for other schools and all. sat down with mr evans (heh heh!) and ms lui at RJ, was good catching up with them. and of course mr lee just had to re-enact how i used to fall asleep during his geog lessons, albeit with a great deal of exaggeration. SPH was cool too, kind of miss working there sometimes- even though a journalist's life is crap but i like that sorta crap haha, the deadlines and the mad rush and the thick-skinned questions and the phone calls and the cage with the cakes and of course the Melvin Singh.

and yeah we threw trace a surprise bday party outside the esplanade on fri evening, i think she liked it so that's all that matters really. man we need another NY gathering soon, that night was splendid. gymmed on saturday at kallang (it felt like home! i can hear vania twittering "WEIRDO"! haha but SO THERE, VANIA). sunday with zhiwei and liwei! haha gosh both excellent people, pity there wasn't much time. but i really gotta catch up with my nj friends from the first three months. we had a rollicking good time in the matter of 90 days, which is much more than i can say for a lot of other things. oh well!

this is it now
everybody getting down
this is all i can take
this is how my heart breaks

for the record, i strongly recommend rob thomas '[something to be]! i'll go get it when i'm a little richer. haha!

one more kiss could be the best thing
one more lie could be the worst
and all these thoughts are never resting
and you're not something i deserve

in my head there's only you now
this world falls on me
in this world, there's real and make believe
this seems real to me

you love me, but you don't know who i am
i'm torn between this life i lead
and where i stand
you love me, but you don't know who i am
so let me go

let me go

i dream we head to what i hope for
and i turn my back on loving you
how could this love be a good thing
when i know what i'm going through

in my head there's only you now
this world falls on me
in this world, there's real and make believe
this seems real to me

you love me, but you don't know who i am
i'm torn between this life i lead
and where i stand
you love me, but you dont know who i am
so let me go,

just let me go

no matter how hard i try
i cant escape these things inside
i know, i know
but all the pieces fall apart
you will be the only one who knows
who knows

you love me, but you don't
you love me, but you don't
you love me, but you don't know who i am

you love me, but you don't
you love me, but you don't
you love me, but you don't know me...

three doors down [let me go]

until i met this girl
who turned the tables around
she caught me by surprise
i never thought i'd be the one breaking down
i can't figure it out

sometimes i feel perhaps i might just do uni in sg instead of going abroad. even though the experience beckons but there's always going to be a little bit of inertia and all the "what ifs" in your mind. and of course the fact that studying locally'll mean that i wouldn't have to serve any scholarship bond (being tied down for 6 years doesn't seem like much initially, but it will probably seem like a lot once you're a fresh grad and staring the bond in its face). i've got the opportunity to do a double degree in social science and economics (dang i shoulda have put business management; i really can't foresee myself doing any more of that awful macroeconomic bullshit which i bumbled my way through in jc) in SMU. spanking new city campus and all, and i kind of like the vibe of the place. and SMU scholarships even have some kind of allowance, i've heard.

army market with ec yesterday, who was up in arms over the apparent disappearance of her ambush set. sierra's off for field camp from tomorrow, so she was understandably distraught when she realised that their section seemed to have misplaced the small gadget. "Aiyah I'll be confined till the end of service term la! How?" "Don't worry la! Ambush sets don't just disappear like that. You'll find it tomorrow when you book in!" "What happens if I find it after field camp?" "You'll find it TOMORROW la!" and so it went on and on and on and i bet you anything she'll find it later haha. pillioned on her bike to orchard after meeting up with yeeling and her boyfriend for all of ten minutes.

dinner yesterday was great- lots of laughter, tons of food, heaps of funny memories. not forgetting gs' unabashed showcase of her assets, which she never fails to do (i inadvertently remarked that they'd somehow increased in size, to which she was particularly elated). she kind of thrusts them in your face so you really have no choice, you see.

GS: (looking at her top) Hey I never realised that this top was low-cut!
Yours Truly: Well perhaps it wasn't low-cut before but maybe now it is because... because, uh, you know...
GS: (looking truly delighted) Oh really? (erupting into gleeful giggles)

so there you have it.

but a round table'd have been better because i could scarcely hear the people at the other end, and them us, so we ended up having two separate conversations going on at the same time. after dinner we adjourned to (where else?) lydia's favorite coffee place (which i fondly remember as the-place-with-twelve-dollar-flambe-coffee-and-who-the-hell-would-ever-pay-twelve-dollars-for-a-cup-of-ground-beans-and-water-with-a-stupid-blue-flame-on-top- well, perhaps lydia would, HAHA), TCC. so gs and i resorted to downing bacardi breezers from 7-11 (such cheapos, we are) and making monkey faces at the rest from the outside till we finished drinking. the TCC staff kept shooting us the oddest looks imaginable but they still gave us ice water with mint leaves when we returned which i thought was pretty nice of them.

i'm so
caught up
got me feelin' it
caught up
i'm losin' control
this girl's got a hold on me

cpl bernard was so nice as to give us our photos collated from the entire length of our BMT. so i posted below some for your viewing pleasure. and hey if you left a comment on my tagboard i've replied below too.

when i look at the pics now it's damn shiok- like you've been there, done that. and it doesn't seem so awful like how it did at that time. but gosh some of it was fucking hell bad then.

try digging a trench for twelve hours straight with your PC breathing down your neck, your head spinning from the turn-out the night before. the stench of day-old sweat mingled with freshly-dug soil permeating the air around you but you don't give a shit because everyone smells like you too, going for a crap in the woods when you can't take it any longer. at that time you wonder how you could've done such an inanely stupid thing like actually volunteering to subject yourself to such duress. but when you think about it now it's one hell of an experience that i'm grateful i had the chance to go through. it just makes you that little bit more resilient.

after walking around in a dilemma for the past few weeks, i've bid farewell to the Army and crossed over to the Republic of Singapore Air Force as a Weapons Systems Officer(Air Defence Artillery). not pilot la huh sorry haha. but i do get to shoot them down, which is a mighty big thing in itself. moved from sierra to air wing on friday after a complex transfer procedure which i don't want to get started on. giving up Guards was a tough choice, not sure if i made the right decision. but i thought i ought to go for something i felt thoroughly passionate about, rather than just be motivated by prestige and the prospect of being the first female scholar in Guards. well perhaps there aren't any right or wrong decisions in life, it's just what you make of them.

anyway ADA is like army in the air force culture which is exactly what i've been looking for. damn siong from what i've heard- the pro term male cadets average 20-30 chinups by the time they commission. SOCs complete with sandbags in SBOs, chinup regimes and endurance runs! not forgetting trench digging and troop deployment 24/7! and of course field rations, E.C.'s Thai Noodle special which tastes exactly like what it looks, which is quite disconcerting especially since it's a squelchy mess. and my favorite dry dog butter-flavoured biscuits. oh and actually i've developed quite a fondness for those biscuits. i think i could eat them and be quite happy for the rest of my life. well basically WSO (ADA)s chiong suah, crap in the woods (my favourite) and do everything a typical Army soldier'd do. One thing, however, which I'm eternally grateful for: no Section Battle Drills. hahaha! we're not called the commandoes of the RSAF for nothing. the Green in the Blue! this is gonna be bloody fun man.

***
passerby>> i applied for the saf merit scholarship for women after my As. BMT and OCS are prerequisites for the scholarship board to evaluate you, besides your Alvl results and the usual criteria. but if you're signing on as a regular then go to the SAF career centre at CMPB in depot rd and check out the vocations and services open to you. there're 2 intakes of women officer cadet course (WOCC) BMT a year- once in jan, and the other in aug. i think you can make it for the aug one if you wanna apply now or something. BMT is 10weeks of hel... errr no, heaven. haha! i'm not sure about the women specialists BMT though. it's in tekong unlike WOCC BMT where you go straight to OCS.

jon>> haha nope as i mentioned above i'm not going to Guards. i say this with a tinge of regret because i know i would've pushed myself and made it through. but after thinking a whole lot i decided to pursue my passion in air defence and so i joined RSAF. no looking back now! haha. anyway ADA is just like army so i guess that's what i really like heh. btw how are you? you take care too man.

ncc girl>> *read my reply to passerby above first, it might help a little too.* during BMT i had both male and female instructors. let's see. my platoon comdr (PC) was male, assistant PC female. section instructor-wise we had both males and females. all officers. so there was a pretty good mix la. and we got tekan-ed by both, so don't worry about not having the opportunity to Knock it Down Twenty! their attitudes towards female cadets are pretty much the same. but one thing i must say is that they were brilliant instructors. not the sort who tell you to go and eat shit and die and make all sorts of unreasonable requests. they're strict and all but they were inspirational and caring at the same time and i think those are the hallmarks of a truly good officer.

number of pushups huh. wow i like this question. haha apparently there's a SAF directive that says that recruits/cadets cannot be made to do more than 20 pushups within a 10min timeframe or something like that. well anyway that's a non-existent rule in OCS. the most i've personally done at one go is 65 for dragging my shoes on the ground and somehow not hearing my APC telling me to drop 20, so she got damn pissed and started counting 21-22-23-24...-65 until i finally got her idea and dropped into pumping position. hahahaha but ya la that was quite funny. i guess it depends la. on how many mistakes you make. like during field pack inspection- 1mistake=10pushups. so if you have 10 mistakes (which is highly probable given the rigid inspection standards), you can go "permission to carry on, ma'am" and proceed to knock it down hundred. now you know why it makes you stronger. actually i've got a lot more stories just not much time now cos i've to start mugging for my air force exams haha. oh wow this reply could be a blog entry all by itself haha.

after first aid lessons, which explains the odd bandages  

leopard crawling towards my grenade.  

the Grinch and the Streaky Grinch.