The Return of The King

Hey guys! I'm back again, and i'm truly sorry for the long delay for the last post. First of all, as some of you might already know, i was sent to one of the Singapore's most remote island (okay, i exaggerated a bit) without any means of access to the outside world. My handphone, wallet, and even my passport was confiscated just in case i tried to escape from the 'jail' during the next 21 days period.

However, for those who even believed that for a split second, i must say that i was joking, i have actually underwent a 3 weeks (from 1st Oct-21st Oct) worth of leadership building/team building/survival camp/torture course in Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) and honestly, it had been a nightmare experience for me most of the time during this course although there were time that it was really fun, although it was really rare and far in between.

And why does it takes additional 2 weeks for me before i could update my blog and not right after the OBS course? Simple, 4 reasons :

1. We were scheduled to come back on Sunday, yes....SUNDAY. The very next day, we were required to report to the Singapore Flying College (SFC). The first 2 days was quite a mess, a lot of administrative stuff needed to be done, and i need to sort out my travel documents as well.

2. It takes time to settle down here, unpack my bags, clean my room, buy toiletries and essential stuff, not to mention that the classes started from the third day onwards from 8-5PM daily. Yes, studying but for a normal office hour duration, nothing like secondary school or university.

3. Even if i was really free, i have not obtained the OBS photos yet. That's because there were like 5 different cameras owned by different people, and each with like 500-700 photos in their respective memory cards. So i had to wait for a single person to compile everything into 2 DVDs of approximately 5Gb in size and that took me another 1 week to get it.

4. No internet connection.

And now that i am back in one piece, i would like to share as much as i could of my experience and you guys be the judge, what say you?! Be prepared because there would be loads of photos coming up as promised, and because the whole experience is too dam long to be described in a single post, i thought it would be the best if i just split it into 15 different post, each describing each maybe 1-3 days worth of experience depending on the length of each day. So, do expect an update every 2-3 days from today onwards :) if i am not too busy!

Okay, not wanting to keep you guys waiting any longer, i will begin today with my Day 1 flashback. Take note that there was nothing much interesting for the first few days but i can assure you that the intensity/'fun' is building up as the time pass and it really climaxed during the final few days. We were given a journal each in which we can jot down our daily experience and i will just extract it exactly from what i have written back then. It was really my sincere thoughts and feelings everyday and i whined a lot, especially for the first week, so please tahan with me :P Ready? Well, here goes nothing!

Day 1

Excited, Pulau Ubin is within range. Not as far as i had expected, only 15 goddam minutes ferry ride from the Punggol Jetty. As i drew closer, i found out that the Outward Bound Singapore logo is in sight. It says something like "To serve, to Strive and not to Yield". I have no idea of what it means.

Two very friendly instructors greeted us at the OBS Jetty, Kenny and Hiap Luh. Half of the island basically belonged to OBS. Still in our formal shirt, we were lead to the dining hall right away where we feasted like nobody business not knowing what's awaiting us ahead.

After lunch, we were then brought to a replica of an actual ship called Indiana. We were told about the Blue Peter Flag and one of us was called to raise the flag as the sign of the beginning of our 21 days journey. That is to say, we can only leave this island officially after this very same flag is lowered on the last day of the course.

Thereafter, we went for a short opening ceremony consisting a short speech coupled with slides show. Many types of people meeting up, different personality, different nationality, different cultures, etc. Freaking hard to remember their names, but i guess it'll come slowly. After the opening ceremony, our belongings was confiscated and we were left with nothing except for our shoes and clothing. Bleh.

2 CROATIANS! Cool! Would be interesting to observe how different nationalities adapt to the local foods.

Our first activity is belaying practice, something that you will need to do when one of your friend climbed onto something high and you need to keep him safe by using a rope with proper equipment to hold him tight and lower him down slowly in case he accidentally fell down. Boring eh?

And why are we doing this? Guessss! YEAH ROCK CLIMBING, artificial one of course. When it comes to the actual thing however, it was a little different as in..we were to climb with the blindfold on! Meaning that you can only rely on your mates who screamed from below to direct you and you did not know whom instruction should you follow because everyone was trying to give their own instruction. Personally i heard a lot of, "Right a bit", "No No, your left your left", "Ok! Now left leg to your 9 o'clock, Nono, too much! Lower a bit", "Swap your leg! You will need right leg to step up to your knee level", "Aiya...not like that lah!", "YEAH! THATS THE WAY!", and so on.. And what happened to me? I prefer not to mentioned it but anyway, i sorta 'pancit' half way, gave up too quickly, coz it's so dam tough, my hand and my legs simply gave away :/ Should have put more effort into it.. sigh..

After rock climbing, it's almost dinner time, everyone washed up and went for dinner and that night we had another briefing from instructor, mainly about ice breaking, and sneak peek of our tomorrow's activities. We also shared our personal strength and weaknesses about ourselves, and what each of us afraid the most. Me? I told everyone that my biggest fear was to run! Mwahaha, and guess what? The instructor laughed and told me not to worry because we would be doing loads of running for the next 20 days. Uh oh... I'm doomed. Oh and there's this team journal in addition to individual's journal which everyone's thought is summarized for the day. Enjoy!

Mood : Excited!
Days Left : 20

Pre-exposure to flying = Pure fun!

There is this one of my future buddy (his name is Ted) going for the same training batch with me for the coming 1st October. He's a really realy nice guy and to my surprise, turned out to be a PPL(Private Pilot's License) holder for about 5 years already at the JFC(Johore Flying Club) and he has been flying through and flow mainly from Singapore to Malaysia ever since, ferrying countless of people accross, some for official purposes and some of it were simply for leisure or you may call joyrides. Keep in mind though, these rides were not normally free because the fuel cost could be as high as RM 300 per hour on any trips and hence, the passengers will usually fork out their shares as well depending on situation.

Overview of the Airstrip used by JFC, shared by Senai Airport Cargo Terminal

Not-so-organized Senai's hangar, but it does its job :)

However, I was one of the luckier passenger earlier today as he allowed me not only join the ride at no cost, but also teached me a lot about the handling of the particular aircraft he's handling, even though i could only understand 10% of what he's saying, but... well, thanks a lot of the explanation, really. That made me realize that there were really a lot of stuff to be learned in the future and it seems to be very exciting. If fact, i was allowed to actually feel how does piloting a light aircraft feels like by letting me handle the control yoke for a while on air since i was in the co-pilot (right) seats and the plane is operatable by 2 persons at any time. The feelings is, well...unstable..due of the size and weight of the aircraft, it really wobbles a lot and the challenge is to keep the aircraft level and stable at all time, or in another word, keep it flying straight because a wind gush will easily throw your airplane off the stability scale even though you are flying on a fine day. At least, that's how i felt. The lucky plane chosen today was a TB-9 with the registration number of 9M-BIG (just like any car plate's number).

Walking to the aircraft and part of pre-flight inspection (done by Pilot :))


Hmm.. It says BIG!! Nah..it's not that big, really! :P

Keep in mind that, to keep the plane flying is one thing, but the procedure to take off is completely another. This little baby has to be checked thorougly for her health before every flight, namely to check that all parts of the plane are functioning properly, for example the rudder, flaps, brakes, fuel level, etc. There's a complete checklist on board in which you have to refer to during the inspection and it's rather long. And of course, you need to declare yourself and the passenger of whom you are travelling with in the passenger manifest with the local authority as well as submitting your flight plans to them before taking off. It's quite a lot of paperworks i assure you, for such a short distance flight. So much hassle eh? So for those who thought that you can fly any plane you want, carrying anyone you want, and fly to wherever you want without any pre-flight planning is wrong :P

Overall cockpit view and the captain(left) seat

Our flight route is from Senai Airport, Johore to Seletar Airport, Singapore, yes the place in which i will be having my training next month onward. So it's a good thing to have a look around beforehand isn't it? Hehe. The whole flight took only about 15mins and the bad thing is that, there is no air-condition in the plane, and we have to get our air from the natural environment instead. If you want cooler, fly higher. That's it. However, in our case, our altitude is limited to 2000 feets (650 metres) according to the control tower and therefore, the temperature drop is hardly felt at all, maybe 1 or 2 degree celcius. So it's still very warm inside around 11.30am. So off we went! On air, we were cruising at about 80knots (about 160km/h). Not very fast i know, but it's fast enough considering we are taking direct route to destination instead of going through winding roads and traffic on the ground. Together with me were the pilot Ted of course, and his friend Cooper (is that how it's spelled?) from JFC as well. Oh, the communication with the control tower was a mess by the way, at least that's how i interpreted it because i can hardly understand what are they talking about during the entire flight permission clearance. It was just too fast for me catch any phrase out of it. Haha! I guess i will grow accustomed to it eventually with training :).

Random picture taken on the way to Seletar and Dancin' Cooper (right)

Reached Seletar Airport after about 15 minutes and after immigration procedure, the sun was directly over my head already. Took a cab hastily to Serangoon Road because Ted was supposed to have a lunch appointment with his friends at 12pm and he was late for it. (Sorry, i hijacked your lunch appointment :/) After we had our lunch, it's time for us to go back to Senai at about 2.30pm because he has to pickup a friend of his on the way back as well. So it was quite a short trip but i found it really enlightening and fun, and i definitely could not wait to learn more about it.

Seletar 'mini' Airport.....

....and its 'mini' Departure cum Immigration hall

While waiting for clearance to take off at 2.30pm, i have taken the opportunity to snap pictures from the surrounding including some aircraft i could not identify and a AirAsia plane that seems to lost its way back to somewhere :P As usual, there were more inspection done (again) before the plane engine is started and the usual checklist has to be scrutinized carefully again whether you like it or not. That's the entire story for now!

Random aircraft pictures in Seletar!

Looking on one of the AirAsia's 'sesat-ed' cargo plane

More inspection before flight home!

Communication with control tower to obtain clearance to fly

Before i conclude, here are some pictures i snapped wildly on the way home simply because i could not resist it, and at the end a short video of the pilot doing pre-flight inspection. Enjoy! :D

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Medical and Final Call-up

2 Days after the interview, i found myself again being awoken by the odd morning call that nobody has requested for. At 8am, i was waiting at the hotel entrance again(along with my buddies), like i did during the first day, expecting a shuttle van arriving anytime soon. However this time round, 2 cabs was hired instead of a shuttle van. I did not know what is the reason though. We were told that we had to go earlier due to the possible heavy traffic during peak hour. To my surprise, the traffic was not actually that horrible in the sense that the flow was moving even though at a slow pace due to a number of traffic lights here and there. Eventually, i arrived at the medical centre at around 9am and get our document checked and processed. Everything else afterward was pretty much straight forward, test test test....The first thing they did to me is to 'rob' some of my precious blood away to see if i have a HIV positive, then there was this usual eyesight test to ensure that i do not possess a pair of eyes capable of x-ray power and the like, ECG to check that my heart is actually beating and that i was not a zombie, x-ray scan to make sure that i do not have any osteoporosis problem, hearing test to ensure that i could not possibly hear any sound in a supersonic frequency range, and anything else that you can think of. In another word, the medical test were really really thorough and you can't escape from anything. Oh, and i was joking about the purposes of those test.

These tests alone took about 2-3 hours to complete and just when i thought everything was over, we were told that we had to go to another 2 specialist recommended by the Aeromedical Centre just to double confirm that the results produced were consistent with each other. Therefore, we were require to repeat the eyesight test and hearing test again but at another venue, and by another person. I guess these 2 criteria were extremely important if compared to the others huh? So much trouble :P

Everything went smoothly afterwards and we were told that it will take about 2 weeks to clear our medical status. Clear as in, i am certified to be medically fit and is ready for any upcoming plan. Around 1 week later, i was notified that my medical was cleared and that i was to wait for final call up from SIA to commence training.

From here, it's another waiting game since i had to first, get an employment pass to be able to legally work in Singapore. My application was currently being processed and is expected to be ready in 3 weeks time.

And guess what? It was only 2 weeks ago when i was finally called up for a training course commencing on 1st October. Hmm, how many weeks of waiting was that? 9 weeks? 10? Oh, it doesnt matter anymore now because i was too excited to even think about the training now :) The training will kick off with a 3 weeks of OBS camp in Singapore where we will be exposed to the basic survival skills and it will be really challengin.... or so i heard. Hmm, i should have started to prepare myself mentally and physically for the course by now but i was just too lazy...zzZzZzzzzZ. Anyway, i should go shop around to get myself necessary stuffs for the upcoming camp. Weeeeee.... will keep you guys posted!

P/S - Everything that i have written up until now was mostly quick flashback about my career application with severely shortened passage of time it took until today. Therefore, they do not have any photos attached. It has been a little boring i know, and i'm sorry about that :P. The good news is that however, i have finally get back on track of what i am doing currently and will be putting more details into activities that i will be going through along with a lot of interesting photos. So stay tuned!

The Grand Finale! (Part II)

I was awoken rather abruptly by the sound of the closing door in about an hour or 2 later. There i found my other mate who just entered the room, apparently he just had his dinner with his fellow friends. Envious of him, i got nothing to eat and no one to go out eating with :( He's really nice though and he asked me if i would like his company to go out eat (I never liked the idea of eating alone, really :P it's just not my style). Of course i was really happy and i agreed right away :) (thinking that i'd probably treat him to some drinks in return). It was around 10.30pm then, and to my horror, i cant find a single place to eat at that hour, and i was expecting some mamak stall scattering around in that area. I guess, Singapore isn't all exactly like Malaysia afterall, or maybe i landed in the wrong area. Sigh, anyway we have (or rather I) has not given up yet and walked further down the street and saw..eh! Is that a McDonalds?! And fuh..i saw a sign showing the something like digit "2" and "4". Does that means it's a 24-hours McDonalds? Woohoo! I shouted. But hey, how come the restaurant seems so dark already as if they were closing down soon. I thought they were operating 24 hours a day...?! No, wait, upon closer inspection on the 24-hours sign, i saw another sentence, but it's a lot smaller, it read :

"Only on Friday"

Chhh, there goes my final hope for dinner. Dissapointed and finally given up, i walked back to the hotel room with an empty stomach. In the end i called the room service instead and got a nice curry chicken rice for myself. A little expensive but heck, who cares now? No photo sorry :P I was just too hungry and before i could snap any picture, i have already swallowed everything in the plate.

The next day, i woke up early, automated morning call at 7am. I do not know who requested for that. Anyway, i got up quickly and got ready in no time. By 8am, a shuttle service has arrived on time and fetched all the final candidates(oh, didnt i mention that i was not the only one there? There were another 6 finalist placed in different rooms) to the SIA Training Centre. When i got there, we were first lead directly into a meeting room, fillings out some documents and stuff and a very short briefing about what are we going to go through for the rest of the day.
Next, we headed into a room full of computers, each equipped with a pair of pedals you can find at Daytona USA in arcade centre, well not exactly..but something close. Besides that, there's also joysticks! So what's the deal? It turned out that we have to go through some sort of computerized personality test, IQ test and some reflextology (does this word exist?) based game. Well, it wasn't exactly hard, but it's rather tiring and at the end of the day, the test will make you feel stupid when you step out of the test room. That's how i felt. The whole test took about 2 hours but time really flies and you felt like it's only half n hour when you are done.
Next is the final interview at 2pm which consists of a panel of 6 interviewers 2 HR staffs, and 3 senior captain, and a physcologist. Why physcologist? Well, he remained silent all the time and all he did was to monitor your body language and how you react to question thrown at you. That's all. Cool eh? Again, the question was moderately tough, ranging from some technical question to personal question. As usual, there were few questions that i was not able to answer. The whole ordeal lasted for about 15 minutes.

The final event of the day was the 'tea-party' where we were served some drinks and booze and some kuih-muih. There, we were joined by the interviewers where we had our casual conversation as to make ourselves more relax after being stressed up for the whole day. These people were really, i mean really amazing and i can't express enough respect for them. :) After that, we are sent back to the hotel room by the same shuttle serviced which dump us here earlier this morning. We were told that the interview result would be released in the morning the next day and were expected to call them up for the news. Only those who made it through would have to proceed to the medical.

Fortunately, i made it through when i got a green light the next morning to go for the medical. Otherwise, this blog would not have exist at all, would it? Haha! So there, my final hurdle : the medical test but i kind of....you know..dislike it. So BooOOooo for medical! Alas, i had no choice but to go :(

The Grand Finale!

Uhm...a 'grand finale' did actually have a whole lot difference compared to the preliminary one. No, i am not referring to the toughness of the question and all, .. i just couldn't explain it, but everything seems to tensed up and got really serious here. At least that's how i felt. For starters, there is only 9 finalist candidate chosen from a pool of at least 30-40 peoples from the preliminary round. Yes, that's how tough it is..maybe i did fairly good and with some luck i got through to the final round. Thank god! Secondly, unlike the first time i attended the interview, where they told me to come to their HR Department all by myself with nothing but a roughly out-of-proportion hand drawn map, this time round, i was provided a 'free' return flight ticket from KLIA to Changi Airport and inclusive of 3 days 2 nights stay at a chosen hotel there. Why 'free' and not free? Well, i said 'free' because it wasn't exactly free in a sense that it was applicable only to the ticket fare EXCLUDING the fuel surcharge and airport taxes, so in the end i have to fork out additional 300 bucks for the ride, but hey, it's worth it :). Why 3 days 2 nights? Apparently, the final interview procedure took longer time than the first one, and in case you got through the final, you still need to proceed to the final hurdle; the medical test. Nightmare. Otherwise, you can just tapao your bag and go back after the first night. A little cruel yes, but painfully true.

The plane i was boarding on was the Boeing 772 (or 777-200) and it was a rather pleasant ride, except for an embarassing moment when i was playing with my personal remote control by randomly pressing the button, not realizing that it's the 'flight-attendant call' button. I pressed it not only one time, but several times as i was amazed by the repeatedly ding ding ding sound by each press of the button on my the remote control. Okay, call me stupid. So when one of the flight attendant came, i knew what does the 'ding' sound actually meant. With a very warm smile, she greeted me and asked if i required any assistance. My heart was pounding madly and i was desperately trying to come up with a logical answer. Heck, no way im going to tell her that i was playing with the button. Out of a sudden, a not-so-brilliant idea came out from nowhere, and i decided to tell her that i accidentaly pressed the button when i was adjusting myself on the seat. Yeah right, accidentaly pressed the button for 5-6 times consecutively. Anyway, she probably knew that i was lying and simply node, still maintaining her smile, telling me it was okay and walked away. "Great!", i thought myself. "Can't even stay still for a short 45 minutes ride." I didnt touch anything else for the rest of the journey.

On the evening of 26th June 2007 i found myself at the entrance/exit door(whatever you want to call it) of the Changi Airport, took me a while to find the cab service. Hiring a cab was a hitch as they were loads of them and the next thing i know, i was already on my way to the hotel. Upon reaching the hotel, next thing to do is of course, check-in, and it's very straightforward as well. I only told them my name and that i was sent here by SIA, they quickly passed me the room key and told me that my other room mate has arrived earlier than me.

Without bothering to ask who or when, i thanked them and made my way up.....up and further down to my room, knock a few times. No answer. Insert my own card key and got in. Neat. Nobody is around, except for his bag and some clothes here and there. Hop up to my bed and lie down and dozed off for a while. Everything was just too comfy! ZzzzZzzzzz....

-To be continued...-

Waiting is agonizing....

Yes, waiting has never been more agonizing in my entire life. From what i heard, result of the preliminary interview will typically be released 2 weeks afterward, 3 top. Those who did not make it through will get a rejection mail instead of no news at all, so er...i don't really know whether this is a good thing at all. Sometimes, getting no news is better than being informed of failure dont ya' think? :S

I didnt get a single word from SIA since i last went to the preliminary interview, not even after 1 month (checking mailbox at least 3-4 times everyday)....no...2 months....no...3...NO! and so on... At that time, i was really nervous and worried because i thought they might have accidentaly left out my name. I was really tempted to send them an e-mail initially, but held back because i do not want add anything to the their already mega-heavy burden(and consequently risking my one time chance to get through), imagine if everyone is sending them the same e-mail asking for application status. Im sure it will drive me mad if i were in their position, hahahahha! Okay... i lied, my curiousness got the better of me. Exactly 1 month after i attended the preliminary, i e-mailed SIA again enquiring about my status. Fortunately, to my relief, i got back a reply a couple of day afterward stating that my application was held in KIV because i have yet to complete my study and obtain my degree scroll from MMU. So, even though a little sad, i was definitely relief compared to previous weeks. I patiently waited...and waited...and waited....

Waited...
Waited...
Waited...
Waited...

Ah..it feels like forever

Waited...
Waited...
Waited...

Ah! Finally, my final exam is over for the very last time, around end of May. Time to enjoy, i know, still not forgetting about SIA, i went for a Hong Kong trips with my dear friends Boss, LoudSpeaker(faulty amplifier), CurryLeaves, and CurryLeaves's Friend (Please take note that their real name are masked for my own protection). Uhm, okay, since this blog is not dedicated to my holidays event, let's move on :)

After i came back from HK around 10th of June, i noticed that i have not received any news from SIA yet. Have they forgotten that i have graduated? Hmm, i sent them an e-mail again, but this time only to kindly 'remind' them that i have completed my study in case they.....forget. HECK, i was wrong, it turned out that they did not forget at all, and ha s been processing my details when i was away.

Finally! On 14th June 2007, i received an e-mail stating that i have to attend to the final interview cum aptitude test on 27th june 2007, such a short notice but i really can't describe how excited and happy i was at that moment. This time i have nothing more to worry about, no study, no exam, no damned project, NOTHING except for my future. And this is what i wanted, i could not afford to screw this one precious chance up. So here i go, preparation and stuff, only more 100x more hardcore now compared to the first time, no more half assed preparation, no distraction...etc. You know what i mean! :P Everything is for the final interview, my future career!