Frustration and Sadness

Tentative date of departure for Jandakot, Perth : 02/05/2008. Sounds good!

It's like end of the month already now? Yes, i'm still stucked in Singapore. More importantly, what the heck am i doing here? First of all, some stupid new Australian visa application regulations required us to submit our so called "Certificate of Good Conduct". What crap was that anyway? It wasn't like this before. We complied with it nevertheless, filled up tons of useless and seemingly unnecessary forms, like what's your siblings name, how old are they, what are they doing currently, what's their education level, heck..is that even relevant to what i am applying for? 16 of us submitted the visa application form around the same time, but only 14 of us got cleared the very next 2-3 days (Yes, they are in Perth now). Me? It's been 2 weeks now and still counting. No news whatsoever, i'm just sitting around idling like nuts now. Everyone kept asking me why am i still around and stuff, and i grew tired of answering them. Is it because they are still processing my application? Did i filled up something wrong in the form and thus get rejected? Or did they lost my application altogether? Any clue at all? How long further do i have to remain here? Everyone has started flying and i am going to be soo lag out and falling behind when i get there...1-2 months later? Fuck this shit.

On a separate news, i would like to announce that our beloved college 17-years-old-pet dog, Ah Girl, was involved in an accident recently and had since passed away peacefully(I hope). I was not there when it happened , and i really couldn't believe the news at all. Let's just say that I saw her with my very own eyes and she was happily following me in the morning wandering around, and the next thing i heard was that, she already passed away in the evening. In any case, RIP Ah Girl.

Ah Girl : In loving memory - 21st May 2008

Flight Simulator Session & OBS Day IX!

Small updates, just a few weeks ago, all of us was blessed with the opportunity to visit one of the ever fully-booked simulator session in STC. We managed to get a hold of a few slots available on the Boeing 777-200 simulator and guess what? It's all done from 12am, yes MIDNIGHT all the way to 6am in the morning. That's how limited the slots availability were. Crazy eh? Here are some of the photos i managed to take and all of em are quite dark due to the bad lighting but i hope you guys were able to enjoy it. I knew i did :P Compared to the real simulator with all the full sound, lights, motion it will no doubt put all the computer simulator games out there to shame including the infamous so called Motion Master in Genting Highland. Graphic was definitely top notch and being quite an advanced computer user myself, i knew where those graphic qualities really stand. It's just soooo damned real that it can be very scary at times especially when you screwed something up while flying. Imagine those emergency alarm and red warning lights popping up and stuff...Geeeze.And i'm very sure the central procession unit of these sims do actually possess some serious processing power to be trifled with. Oh, i crashed landed once wahahah! But that's because somebody sabotaged my aircraft during the finals and right before the touchdown. LOL. All in all, the simulator session were nothing more than to let us have a feel of what we are going to do in the future. I really can't wait to get into this room again soon!

Oh, and it seems like it's been a while since i've last told the Tale of OBS due to many unforeseen circumstances and i shall return to my story telling once again. Just for the note, for those who have not been following and wish to keep track of what has been happening since Day 1, i'll make it easier for you guys to keep track of my journey by following the links provided below. Enjoy!

Day : I | II | III | IV | V | VI| VII | VIII

Day 9

Today, i was exempted from the morning run again to allow my blisters to heal a little bit more. Went for breakfast after doing the timekeeping for those who ran. We departed for the mainland sharp at 8.30am, subsequently switched to a air-conditioned bus and finally reached the destination, "Red Cross Home for the Disabled" for the second time at around 9.45am.

It had been a busy day even though there's really nothing special happened except that it did felt like a REAL resting day after doing so much for the past week. WHAT?! It's been more than a week already since i came? Gosh..that was quick.

We cleaned the compound area according to plan, met with some of the residents, smashing up some unwanted furniture into smaller pieces so that it could be easily dumped away. No...no burning is allowed. Was quite tiresome but as a furniture demolition division leader, i simply assigned the job to my underlings while i 'oversee' the progression. Yeah, very convenient right? :P

Left : Rubbish collector team Right : Sewer system cleaning team

Left : Slacking off Right : The fierce lumberjack is back with vengeance

We even uprooted a perfectly healthy tree upon request of the administrative office of course. It was no easy task i can assure you. Have you tried pulling out a perfectly healthy tooth out of mouth? I know it's a bad comparison, but yes, that's how tough it was. Coincidentally, the tree which we were uprooting was also an ant nest. Hence in the process of pulling out the trees, we also battled with swarming ants in an infinite number. These fearless soldiers just kept coming at you no matter how many nuclear bombs aka Insecticide Spray you dropped onto their bases. We practically wasted almost whole can of the insecticide spray just to get rid most of the soldiers and we still get bitten like nuts everywhere. I bet those ants were really furious that we attacked their nest. I'm sorry, we had no choice but to obey to our superior :(

Left : Ivan chewing sugar canes found in the wild Right : I'm sure he robbed the scooter from the less fortunate one

Left : Awww...banana... Right : Leaving silly mark at the back of a bench. 132 represent our batch.

Oh, we also did some light but terrible painting to brighten the surround environment up for the residents who spend their time most of the time in the garden. We were also told to clear up the bushes, drainage system and basically everything that could lead to mosquitoes breeding for obvious reason.

These bluish theme seems just sooo.....wrong...

At the end of the day, all of us get nothing in return except for sense of satisfaction deep within us because we could at least contribute something to the community.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Went back at around 3pm and reached 'home' at about 4 plus. Evening run of 8km distance was still on, but i was told not to run again. Mwahaha! What a day!

Night briefing was an interesting one. It was a bout our preparation for the next expedition which would be the cutter sailing expedition. Cool eh?! We were explained the basic operation and control of a sailing boat and is expected to perform it the next day. Best of all, it will be another 3 days 2 night away from the dreaded camp again! It's going to be funnnnn!!! Weeeee......

Briefing and preparation!

Mood : Excited/Sleepy
Days Left : 12

Back...Bigger!! Badder!!!!

Hmm..let me see...Whoa... Is it May already? And it felt like it was only 2 weeks ago since my last update on my blog. Boooo! *busy shielding myself from massive rotten eggs and tomatoes bombardment* Okay....Okay!! The fact is...well...err.. nevermind , it's the same old excuse all over.... Busy, lazy...all those stuff you know? Boooo!!!!! *more eggs and tomatoes* Anyway, i'm back again this time and hopefully i would have the time to update the blog more frequently (instead of every 2 months :P) because the ATPL exam is finally over! With over 99.99% passing rate, this is quite an achievement even for the college history. So cheers!!!!

So here's the scene from the ATPL exam day which lasted 3 days continuously with no break whatsoever (except lunch break) and it's where our 4 months worth of efforts and studies put to ultimate test. The instructors even mentioned that this would be the last time we would ever need to study that hard in our entire life. I think it's quite true as i already had enough of my 5 years uni life.

Good ol' Burger King...mmm....BK Whopper...


Chillin' out at Coffee Bean @ Changi Terminal 2 before entering exam hall.


Oooookay...maybe not all are chillin' out. LOL!


Same old shit exam venue...Zzzzz

Guess what, right after the final day of exam, i went ahead and bought a beloved new desktop computer altogether with a fking awesome 22" Monitor (cost me about $1.8k) ! Man, you can't go wrong with that! I'd desperately need this to kill my boredom when i'm in Australia for the next 9 months. As usual, nothing to shout about...but still, i wanted to shout about it. Haha!

Left : Power supply unit, Heatsink+Fan, and my beloved tomatoes comforter! Weeee...
Right : Awesome graphic card in a oversized-good-for-nothing-packaging (It looks cool though)

Left : Naked graphic card..mmm..Sexxxyy
Right : 2x2Gb RAM, Motherboard, and C2D E8400 Processor. Yummy!!

Left : Naked motherboard! Not as sexy as the graphic card though. *Geek*
Right : and finally...a fully assembled PC (No casing though :P)

Ok, enough of this topic :P I know it's a turn off for many of you (except geeks maybe). Let 's see what do we have next...oh...the most awaited customary initiation party. Instead of being initiated aka bullied like we once suffered many months ago mentioned in this post, being the most senior members in the college and more importantly, having passed the ATPL exam, had granted us the power to initiate (aka bash) one of the junior batches as to release our steam after having worked so hard in the past few months. Wahahaha... It was a fun party for everyone...really!

Left : Waterbombssss warrr! It's show time! Right : Hi Ah Ger! Are you here for celebration too? :D


Eat Eat Eat Eat Eat Eat Eat

Eh, curi flirting ye?


Syokness!

Left : OUCH! Right : Mmm..Icy cold waterr....

Viva la Batch 136! All the best to you guys and see you all in Jandakot soon!

The aftermath....

As of now, i am still waiting for the departure to Perth thanks to their dumb new visa requirement causing at least 2 weeks delay to all of us. Officially, our job here(studying) is over and basically doing nothing everyday only waiting for news to move on. Unofficially, we still have to do some typical office boy duties every day because the college is afraid that we might become lazy very soon if we are not given something to do. Haha! No big deal though. Could be fun once in a while, haha! Jamming the paper shredder machine anyone? :P