Sunday, July 31, 2005


Tomorrow heralds a new beginning, the start of a new life, a new chapter, while today, I turn 19. The last year of my 10s, before I enter my 20s.

19 years. Wah feel so old already. Haha.

I was born in Mt Alvernia (i think) 19 years ago. My infant years were spent in the kampong-like houses in Sembawang, b4 my very big family was relocated to Yishun to live in HDB flats.

The most vivid memories of my pre-school years were probably from the short time I lived in Bukit Batok. I think we (my parents, sister and I) stayed there 4 abt one year, managing a small grocery shop under NTUC. I was about 3 then.

I was a very bad kid then. Shouldn't say spoilt brat cos my parents din pamper me. Born like dat lar. In fact should thank my mother for her strictness, so I could go on the right path and become a good kid. =P Yah, I very bad tempered then always called my elders names. I called my father by his name...haha...until my mother told me cannot. Ya...only person I scared of was my mother la.

I remember this one incident. There was this stationery shop next to ours. One day my mother brought me there to buy some stuff. I saw this orange toy car I liked very much. I asked my mother to buy for me, but she refused. Then I did the unthinkable: I grabbed the car and ran.

I dunno how long my mother made me kneel on the floor pulling my ears, but it did seem like a long time then. She made me promise nvr to do anything like that again, and made me go next door to return the toy car and apologise. Luckily the gor gor (the storekeeper, they were twins if i remember correctly) was very nice...he said nvrmind and gave me the car as a present. I still have the car somewhere in the hse.

The rest of my childhood consists mainly of daydreaming, trying to "help out" in the shop, watching Ninja Turtles and Doraemon in the afternoons. Ya I loved Ninja Turtles. Mainly because they were green I think, a colour I was obsessed wif. I even had a Leonardo mask and sword. Heh.

Not sure where all the time during my primary sch years went. Doing homework, collecting "country rubbers", playing "ping pong" (not table tennies, something like dodgeball) in the sch field, clowning abt on the sch bus, writing "stories", attempting to design board games are some of the things I remember doing during my sch days. But the thing I looked most forward to were the weekends. Cos every weekend, my mother would take me to wai po jia.

Every week I waited eagerly for the weekend to come, so that I could go "ah ma jia" to play wif my cousins. I remember playing all the pretend games: pretending to be fishing, camping, pretend to be police, adventurers, ghostbusters...And all the toys that were there. We fought great battles wif those green soldier figurines, defended lego castles and thwarted evil plans of godzilla and frens...

And when we became older, we were allowed to go out of the house and play. We kicked balls every where, played catching on bicycles, sprayed each other wif water guns...basically made a nuisance of ourselves.....pity me and my cousins have somehow drifted apart now...

First tasted the bitterness of failure in sec sch. Sec 1: My very first project , very first website, managed to get into the final round of the TCHS Projects Day, and lost. Partly because of the malfunctioning projector and the lousy presenter -- me. I worked so hard, came so far, so close, and failed. Although my teammates (QY, xing ru and hs) took it quite well, I took it quite hard. I bit my lip all the way from the computer rm, to the bus stop, went on the bus, went back home, went into my bedroom, and cried.

Sec 2: I embarked on 2 projects. Both were eliminated in the preliminaries of Projects Day. One of the projects went on to clinch a fifth in Smartproject. Hmm...gives you something to think abt the credibility of the tchers who judged my project in P'day right? No tears this time. Just told myself that one day, I shall stand on the stage during the Grand Finals, presenting my project to everyone in the auditorium.

Sec 3: I did it. With The Tempest. I still remember my outburst when I learned that I got into the Grand Finals. Though we lost at the Grand Finals, I was happy, satisfied that I had achieved wad I had wanted. The project went on to clinch an Honorable Mention in Thinkquest 2001.

JC 1: Another failure. This time during the promos. Blundered and fell. Dreams of getting S papers crushed. In state of depression and self-pity for quite a long time. Then one day a jnr said to me:

"You are a black horse. You never shine until the last moment."

You may not remember saying that to me, but thank you very much. It brought me strength in some of the darkest moments of my life. So I embarked on a journey to prove myself -- to myself. I didn't do it for glory nor for the reward that laid at the end of the journey, but to challenge myself, to prove to myself that I could do it, as long that I tried hard enuff and believed enuff. And together with four of my good frens we did it. The Immunomatrix, 1st Runner Up in Thinkquest 2004.

And now I am 19. Ready to embark on a new chapter: Medicine. To be able to do a subject I like and have a meaningful and satisfying career is like the best of many worlds for me. Yet challenges and obstacles await me in the long path ahead. May I have the strength, preserverance and wisdom to face them, and emerge successful.

Happy birthday to me! Yay!

posted by nwxiang at 12:20 AM | 0 comments


Saturday, July 23, 2005


19 to 20 July: Night Adventure Cycling
(no, this is not Project Sunrise)

7pm: Warm-ups
After dinner, we(me and some of the mortar platoon guys) rented some bikes and began to ride aimlessly around East Coast Park. Began to get sian after a few rounds, so we went Macs to stone and played some arcade. Then we met some of the sergeants and Lt Wee there, who were deciding to cycle to all sorts of places. We joined them.

Checkpoint 1: Geylang
After a thrilling journey thru the underpass, we headed towards Geylang. We encountered heavy traffic along the way and had difficulty navigating thru the chaos. After a few streets, we decided to eat tau hway (yes, that one). Having our stomachs filled, we continued our journey. Guess wad, we saw Vincent Ng in his car when we went pass a petrol kiosk. Nice guy, stopped to let our bikes pass.

Checkpoint 2: Esplanade
Then we hit the expressways. At this time there were quite few vehicles on the road liao, so we tried cycling on the middle lanes whenever there were no cars in sight. Damn exciting sia. Imagine speeding on the expressways in the middle of the night, feeling the wind, the speed. Wad I always wanted to do.

When we reached the Esplanade, we climbed on top of the "I WAS HERE" stones and took a pic. Then the security guard came and chased us away. We took off on our bikes and headed towards our next destination...

Checkpoint 3: Orchard Road
Never imagined I would have the chance to speed down Orchard Road on a bike. We raced against each other on the straight stretch of pavement in front of Taka. The whole road was deserted (abt 2am at the time) and we just flew down. Woooohooooo. Took a pic in front of the The Island signboard. Decided to test our limits and head for Bishan.

Checkpoint 4: Newton MRT
Wah, finally a chance to use the toilet and wash face. Stopped here for quite a while and consulted the map in front of the station. Seems like we've come quite a long way.

Checkpoint 5: Bishan, Junction 8
At about 3am we reached J8, the furthest point we would go from our start point that night. Took another pic in front of the "Bishan" sign at the MRT station. Butt start to hurt majorly at this point. Visited the new RJ and embarked on the long return journey. But the worst has yet to come...

Checkpoint 6: Serangoon
Steep slopes! Uphill and downhill! Up down up down! The most challenging part of the whole journey. Really had to speed up and gain momentum b4 the slopes. But although the charges up the slopes were excruciating, the rushes that you felt when you charged down the slopes were intoxicating.

Checkpoint 7: Paya Lebar
The battle against sleep and butt-ache begins. It was such a relief when the surroundings became familiar again -- meaning we were nearing where we began.

Final Checkpoint: East Coast Park!!!
Thru the underpass again, but this time the feeling was pain, not thrill. (cos its uphill now) Past that final obstacle and we finally reached our chalet. Locked the bikes, showered and coillapse.

End: 5am

Porject Sunrise, I'm ready. Hiak.

posted by nwxiang at 1:30 PM | 0 comments