Monday, December 31, 2007

2008 Resolutions

It’s that time of the year again and, being a list freak like I am, one of my greatest joys at this time of the year has always been to do up resolutions lists. While I might not actually end up fulfilling most of the lists, at least they’re a guideline right? In any case, it’s pretty fun to come up with them so here’s my 2008 NSF Resolutions, catered specifically for my army side.

1. Pass my IPPT – right now I just have to work on my pull-ups and maybe my SBJ and that should be settled.
2. Subsequently, be promoted to CPL – only if I can pass my IPPT, though. Right now, I’m just looking forward to my promotion to LCP rank, if only for the bit of extra salary each month.
3. Get a silver for IPPT – this seems a pretty distant dream as of yet (the gold award is, realistically speaking, pretty much out of my reach forever) but I’m hoping to clear it by the end of my first year in June because a. there’s a monetary incentive and b. it really sucks to be unfit in the army.
4. Pass my SOC – this seems to be wishful thinking for now but hey, one can dream right?
5. To be able to comprehensively understand my vehicle, including all the major (and most of the minor) components, how it operates and how to troubleshoot any potential problems – Didn’t really pay that much attention during my training period so I just managed to chalk a pass but if I’m going to be using that vehicle from now on I need to make sure I know everything about it.
6. To complete my ACCT – ICCT was fun but I screwed up during the final test, barely passing. Hope that won’t happen again.
7. Get a marksman for shoots – Again, being the bobo soldier I am, I barely passed my ATP but hey, anything can happen right?

That’s about it for now. I think I’ll be pretty happy if I can complete some of these resolutions in the coming year, the first being the most important. What are some of your resolutions?

2007 In Retrospect

2007 has been a pretty eventful (and wonderful) year for me. I went from a polytechnic student struggling to finish his final year assignments in time, to becoming an official diploma graduate, to being a bum for a few months slacking at home to being a full-time national serviceman.

And, within that period of becoming a full-time national serviceman, I have gone from a (almost) hairless recruit adapting to army life in Orion company in BMTC (“cause we are the best, in the SAF”) to a trainee at Keat Hong Camp learning to drive a vehicle and maintain it to become an official AFV operator and admin assistant in my camp’s battalion HQ.

If anything, the year has been a pretty exciting one full of change.

As you might have read from my very first few posts here several months back, I was filled with trepidation at the thought of entering national service, unaware of what to expect and not being sure I really wanted to know.

Fast forward six months (as it only been six months? Feels like forever) and life has more or less settled, or so I hope. I’ve finally gotten used to the regimented life that being an NSF represents and have even gotten to partially enjoy my PT, being mindful of all the benefits that constant and consistent exercise brings with it.

While I have gone through a few rough patches here and there in NS (seriously, who hasn’t? It’s what I’d think the whole experience would be, and should be, about.), I have to say that my experience so far has been pretty pleasant. A fantastic company (and great friends) in my BMT phase, an exciting trainee phase in my new camp and now a pretty decent vocation and job scope in my new company. Plus, I even get nights out (once I can finally pass my IPPT. Darn those pull ups!)

2007 has been a pretty good year for me as an NSF. Here’s hoping 2008 will be even better!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

Christmas, other than being a time of blessed thanksgiving and remembrance for some and a commercialized gift-exchanging festival for others, has almost always been synonymous with a musical period.

As anyone who has ever stepped into a mall near the Christmas period would know, Christmas carols and hymns constitute a big part of the festive spirit (although one would wonder if playing the music ad nauseum a la any Singaporean mall actually helps). As a Christian, these hymns and carols hold an even bigger, religious, significance for me and I’ve loved to sing along to the songs since I was young.

So, in keeping with the Christmas mood and its spirit of sharing, I would like to share my three favourite Christmas songs, along with some online videos of renditions I love.

#3 – Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=v3XAlDj3e3g&feature=related

John Lennon of the Beatles fame wrote this with his wife, Yoko Ono, in 1971 as an anti war anthem. Nonetheless, it has become quite a Christmas standard thanks to its festive, uplifting melody, optimistic lyrics and inspirational vocals, garnering cover versions by a large number of singers including the Corrs, Delta Goodrem, Maroon 5 as well as the contestants from the second season of Britain’s Pop Idol (which was where I first heard the song).

#2 – What Child Is This
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hcGQqzvRqhI

Written in the late 1800s, I’ve always been mystified by the haunting melody and poignant lyrics of this song. The song has a slightly Scottish (Irish?) lilt to it and conjures up imageries of Biblical times. This version by Third Day, one of my favourite bands, is one of the best-arranged, most contemporary sounding versions that I’ve heard.

#1 – O Holy Night
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cZ-8jYpa1-o
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UHE4X7HFmTM

A beautiful and very popular hymn during this time of the year, O Holy Night is another 19th century hymn that, like the song above, speaks about the birth of Jesus Christ and has enchanted the world with a simple yet incredibly beautiful melody and a spirit-lifting, climatic chorus that is much harder to sing than it sounds. This song, one of the most famous of the Christmas carols, has been covered more times than anybody can keep track of and I’ve included two versions here. The first is from a group of angel-voiced songstresses and the second is from a similarly (and disconcertingly) angel-voiced dude.

So, those are my three favourite Christmas songs. What are yours?

Monday, December 24, 2007

Singnet vs. Starhub

I have always been one of those poor techno-idiots who have been plagued with internet connection problems for most of their internet-surfing lives.

Be it ridiculously low speeds (way below the advertised technical speed) or dropping connections, I’ve had terrible internet woes since lower sec, a problem which I thought would be solved, but did not, when I moved to a new place with, presumably, a new cable connection.

In fact, in recent years (and most especially in recent weeks), my connection was so terrible that simple, basic webpages took ages to load and I had to reset the connection every few minutes or so because it would just suddenly drop, leaving me unable to download any large file stably or even carry on coherent instant messaging conversations since half the messages I sent are either not transmitted or I’ll be logged out halfway through talking.

So, exasperated (and lured by the prospect of a free Nintendo Wii), I decided that enough was enough and, starting from two weeks ago, I officially cancelled my internet subscription (Starhub’s 6mbps cable connection) of more than eight years to switch to Singnet’s 6mbps broadband connection. Despite the much higher monthly rate (the loss of my Hub Club discount, the addition of a landline which I did not have prior to this as well as an almost S$10 higher subscription rate) and some occasional glitches in connection here and there, my internet surfing has now taken a much much much better turn.

Perhaps thanks to the fact that the Singnet connection runs through a dedicated line and I don’t have to share a cable connection with what seems like my entire estate, my speeds are much higher (downloading huge files and having instant message conversations are now much more pleasant) and my internet connection is stable. I don’t have to worry about the connection randomly cutting off while I’m getting into the thick of a conversation with a friend.

Strangely, though, I find that, sometimes when I’m downloading large files at high speeds, I’m unable to surf the internet properly, with many pages not loading or displaying error messages. The problem seems to lessen, however, once I stopped all my downloading so perhaps it’s just a matter of overloading my connection or something (I wouldn’t know, being the utterly clueless ignoramus about IT that I am) but it’s still rather annoying. Hopefully it is a teething problem that will somehow be solved as time goes by.

Still, despite all the little problems that I might encounter with it as well as the horror stories I’ve heard from some of my friends who use the same plan, so far my connection with Singnet has been much more stable and dependable. Hopefully this will remain true for the rest of the next two years under my contract. 

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Sixth Month Soldier

Today officially marks the end of my sixth month as an NSF and, boy, what a six months it has been. Oxymoronic as it might sound, the journey so far has felt both long and short at the same time. While six months is only a quarter of my NS journey (there’s still a long way to go), I feel like I’ve been in the army forever. And yet, enlistment felt like just yesterday.

Looking back just those short few months ago, it seemed like I was quite a different person. Freshly graduated from poly and armed with my diploma (it’s hard to believe that, at the start of the year I was still busy rushing out projects and NS seemed such a distant concept at that time), I joined hundreds of others on that faithful bus ride to Tekong, the day when I would cut my hair, don the green and brown uniform (well, for the first day it was just the brown admin tee and black shorts) and begin my life of daily PT, water parades (amongst other parades), cookhouse meals and having to share my bunk (and toilet) with several other people at the same time.

I remember that, at that time, I was terrified at the prospect, my heart filled with trepidation and fear inculcated from an entire childhood weaned on horror stories from those who have gone through this phase. Would I be able to survive what seemed like a grueling time to come? Or would I crumble like a cookie as I seem apt to do in situations that I’m not comfortable in.

Thankfully, PTP/BMT proved to be a much more enjoyable experience than I expected. Sure there were some moments where I felt like giving up and there were some moments where I thought I would never be able to make it (heck, the first two weeks of confinement felt like an eternity as it was) but I guess I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Strict yet understanding (and encouraging) commanders; a more comfortable training schedule (coming from the three months PTP batch really helped me, in hindsight); pretty decent food; and of course, a wonderful platoon and great bunkmates; it was better than anything I could have hoped for.

Pretty soon though (those last few weeks of BMT seemed to really fly past), I had to leave Tekong just as I was getting settled down again and be uprooted to my new unit, where I am to serve my next two years. Whilst friends and platoon mates opted to go to command school, I decided to eschew the trend and chose to serve as a man instead, a decision that I still am undecided about even today (of course, it’s not like I would have made it through the selection process for command school anyway).

I got posted to an armour unit, one of the fabled “shiong” vocations. Still, I was (and still am) quite determined to see the best in every situation and I have to say that, so far, it hasn’t been all that bad in my camp.

True, the training is much tougher than those I had as a recruit, both physically and mentally but still, it’s all a learning experience right? And, while I haven’t made as many or as close a number of friends as I had in Tekong, I’m getting along pretty fine with the people I have to meet and interact with everyday. Plus, on some days, the food at the cookhouse is really good. So, it’s not all that bad yeah?

Still, despite all that has happened in the past few months (I’ve sure had to adapt quite a lot more than I’m usually comfortable but that’s all part of growing up eh?), I’ve still got a long way to go before I ORD so here’s looking forward to an eventful (but in a positive way) next 1.5 years!

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Creative Zen (and my history with mp3 players)

The very first mp3 player I had was a Creative. At that time, I was in upper sec and, wowed by the wide list of extra features it boasted (FM radio, microphone etc.) as well as the promise of superior sound quality (since the company was famous for its audio equipment), I got the Creative Muvo FM instead of the (even-at-that-time) more popular Apple iPod.

The device served me well over the next few years and, despite experiencing cognitive dissonance a few times just because the iPod was so much more popular and I was a conformist by nature, it was my constant companion. Although I did never did get to use those extra features much, it was always a comfort to know that they were there.

Then, one day, the player just decided to hang on me. Out of the blue, it refused to start up, choosing to display a weird error message every time I tried the “on” button. Feeling rather disconcerted by the sudden spoilage but also knowing that it was time to move on (like most other teenagers, gadgets seem to have a very short shelf life for me and the two years I had with this one already seemed a lifetime), I decided to go with the popular choice and got an iPod Video to replace my demised player.

Despite the fact that it was pretty bare-bones on features (the extra FM transmitter cost a whopping S$80, as did the external microphone), the iPod was (as most people would know) a looker and packed a hell of a punch in the interface department. Its user interface was intuitive and simple while iTunes, with its autosynchronization feature that synced it with any attached Apple player as well as its ease of use and in-depth management system, provided an unparalleled usage for an obsessive compulsive neat freak like me. Sadly, though, the sound quality was, while adequate, simply sub-par compared to my previous player as well as some others on the market that I’ve tried.

After another couple of years with it, however, I felt it was about time for a change again and, when a friend offered to buy the iPod Video from me at a pretty decent price, I handed it over to him and, after a grueling comparison, I decided to try Creative again, this time getting the new centerpiece of their current catalog, the Creative Zen. Having used it for a few weeks now, I think I have a pretty good idea of how it stacks up to previous experiences.

Looks-wise I think the Zen actually holds up pretty well against the (by-now) rather antiquated look of the iPod Classic series (although the new iPod Touch is a whole different matter). While its landscape orientation and placement of its button might give it an impression of being, at first glance, the back of a consumer digital camera instead of being an mp3 player, the black, rounded and smooth exterior, along with the glossy finishing, gives it a pretty sleek feel.

In terms of sound quality (as well as the quality of the pre-packaged earphones), this player, like my very first one, beats the iPod flat. While I’m no expert audiophile, I’d say that the sound is fuller, much more in-depth and actually provides a truly stereo experience when it says it does, unlike the iPod, on which even the most high-quality mp3 tracks end up sounding pretty mono and muffled to me.

Features-wise, the Zen serves it up as usual, coming packed with FM radio (although its rather lousy auto-scan feature, without any option of manual scanning available, means that I can’t listen to some of my most beloved stations that the scan doesn’t seem to sense), microphone, video-playing, in-line recording and even comes with an expansion slot for a memory card which, in accordance to the rules in my army unit, I can’t utilize.

The one thing that the Zen majorly loses points on, though, is its interface with the PC. While its in-system interface is on par with the iPod’s (sometimes, the super intuitive interface and song search options make it even better than Apple’s player), the programmes it comes packaged with for the PC leave much to be desired. The media explorer’s synchronization system seems to be patchy (instead of making sure the songs are exactly the same as my music folder, it just adds whatever is lacking onto the Zen, neglecting to remove any files that I might have decided to delete off my computer, resulting in a lack of storage space on the player) and the playback programme it comes with (Audible) isn’t anywhere near as feature-packed nor even as aesthetically pleasing as iTunes. Plus, creating playlists is a headache, what with having to go through all my folders manually to add the songs in one-by-one.

Still, even with this one major flaw, the Creative Zen still gives a bang for its buck and is perfect for anyone who is more concerned about features and sound quality than looks although, like I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t look too bad itself.