• Exactly one year ago, in December, i took my P's. To which i failed with a score of 70something. Man, did i feel horrible! I thought i was ready, but apparently i wasn't. But something tingled at the back of my mind... A reassurance from God, i believed. If not, i wouldn't have jumped on the opportunity to retake my P's the very next day! And i passed with a score of 90something! Praise the Lord. Because of this, i'd learnt to trust in Him and not to be shaken by things that do not go according to how i want them to go. Even if only for a little while ;)
• I drove (that's right!) to Josh's house for the farewell party he has so graciously held for me before i was to leave for singapore. It was then that i realised how much all my friends in melbourne, whether from church or from school, mean to me. They have been great and encouraging friends who are always there for me to talk to and hang out with. Some have even been with me ever since i first came to melbourne! Even though i took a lot of you for granted, i realised then that you all mean a lot to me and have helped to shape me into who i am. Thank you for putting up with my weird antics guys, you've taught me a lot of things. More than you can imagine!
• After flying over to singapore, i got a job as a clerk for 2 months from January to early March. I must say that it was an eye opener into adult life. HOW BORING! Even though the pay was good, if work consists of having a 9-6 desk job doing monotonous information typing and useless production of files, then i will voluntarily wrestle the Hulk just to escape from it! I pray that i would do something more worthwhile and entertaining than this! Seriously, money is important, but not everything in life.
• March 9th, 2006. The start of my army life in BMTC, i was to be a recruit for 3 months in Taurus company. It was a totally new and different environment for me. Transforming civilians into soldiers, i had to endure a lot of crap in order to become one. Why? coz i was a chao recruit! One of the lowest life forms in BMT. I still remember those days where i was very enthusiastic about army and how i wanted so badly to go to OCS and be an officer like my dad. i had maintained a positive attitude about life in the army and enjoyed the company of my friends. (we still keep in touch) A few days after my BMT phase was over, i found out that my posting was in OCS! Praise the Lord! I'd expected some of my friends in my platoon to come with me was well, but i found out to my surprise that i was the only one!

• ok, where were we? oh yeah! June 19th, 2006. Got posted to OCS. I must admit that during this time, i'd lost my fire/enthusiasm along the way. My attitude was like "just do the minimum low and commission". Sadly, this was my thinking during my stay in OCS. I guess it's because i'm already "up there", so why bother putting in more effort? But i knew that this was not the correct thinking mentality, and that i have to buck up sooner or later. But it didn't help that i didn't have a lot of good role models in OCS to encourage me to do better. That was something that i've learnt during my stay there, it's not wise to depend on another person to solely help you and keep your fire going, only God can do that.
• Some date in September... i got posted to Khatib camp to be trained as an artillery officer. It was prayers being answered. I hated infantry life and wanted desperately to escape the grim prospect of having to go through a lot of crap. Plus, infantry are the first to die :P Anyway, i love artillery life. It's not as tiring physically as infantry, but it's tiring mentally, doing calculations and so on. But yeah, i find more enjoyment in artillery than infantry. And i've made a lot of good friends there, which helped me a lot to keep on going with army life without brooding on how army life sucks.

Well, i'm sure there are many more things i've forgotten/too lazy to write about, but at least i can say that it has been a fruitful year. From a civilian to a soldier, a boy to a man, i realise that i've changed and grown up a lot to be a more mature and independant person. Gone were the days where i was childish and- oh! a cute koala!!~ *runs after it*

(ps. next weekend, i'll be having my rifle marksmanship test, so i won't be booking out until sunday morning. So don't expect a blog post on saturday. Anyway, wish me all the best!)