BenLow's blog

Well in front of the office comp now blogging as usual. My duty team nakama just left, leaving me behind. Booking out tomorrow instead to ensure that I will only have to book in on monday, so I can enjoy the company of church peoples and my relatives! Wonder how Paul's doing in BMT? Lol. Feeling quite lonely since I'm the only one in front of the comp in the office at this time, and after blogsurfing and reading about random friends and outings and whatnot, can't help but feel like that. Oh well no matter. Book out loh! (tomorrow) This week watched a couple of movies: 2Fast2Furious, Iron Man and Ghost Game. Also continued reading my manga and anime from Tsubasa Reservior Chronicles. Played quite a bit of PSP, training my Monster Hunter Skills while using a sword and shield/dual swords. Starting to learn Katakana already for jap. And of course, mugging for my BTT. Not forgettng QT and worship. Colossians has a pretty nice verse about worship that I can't remember. Still ...

And so my first long weekend comes to a close. Shall give a couple of higlights! #1 Put $20 in BBDC account #2 Bought my LCP rank and sewed it on #3 Got my PSP memory card... Gonna put games in it soon. #4 Started on Ouran High School Host Club #5 Met Marcus for Spiritual Dicsiplines #6 Went for worship prac #7 Went to play pool with Paul, lost all games #8 Revised sign language alphabet #9 Went for AHM... (Pics coming soon) #10 Went for YE, service, then syc 2 meeting #11 Managed to book BTT on 16th Sep (Where did I leave my BTT book hm?) Things to plan over next week: #1 Meeting people #2 Spiritual disciplines with JS and Andrew #3 Stress Talk Games to put in PSP memory card: #1 Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness #2 Monster Hunter 2 Portable G #3 Yugioh GX Tagforce 2 #4 Medievil Resurrection Ok enough of listing stuff. Shall start with Ouran. Its seriously one of the funniest I've ever seen. Better than Clannad IMO. The interaction between characters is the highlight of the show, as ...

Well... Good news good news! Ben Low is now a Lance Corporal! Although its actually no biggie I'm actually glad my rank has been upped. Kinda feels like you've completed a quest or something. So I've added something to my to do list for the week. Reminders to self: Top up BBDC account Start asking people out Cooking Go learn more sign language Get lots of snacks and bring guitar into camp Get new PSP memory card Sew on IPPT and Rank on No.4 Yup so my first duty officially ended today. Its been great. Especially the weekends where we got to do anything that we wanted. Over the week quite a few exciting things happened... Such as the sergeants moving to our bunk, a new set of UIP signallers coming in, playing soccer, playing PSP, doing the laundry, AHM Briefing, watching Blood+ on the company comp, singing and playing songs to God at the balcony etc etc. Off count: 4.5 Leave count: 7 Total rest days: 11.5 Excited about this coming weekend and the next duty weekend. Lots of in...

And so... My duty has finally started. This week of all weeks. Not too bad, but had some things to do over the weekend which I had to cancel. Sorry to Sarah for at first agreeing to lead bs for faith, then backing out. Sorry also to Andrew and Marcus for postponing our spiritual disciplines thing. And SYC! Oh no... Seems like I can't go for any sessions if the week isn't switched. Aite... So list of dates I'm free for this month: Thursday 21st Aug Morning Afternoon Evening Friday 22nd Aug Morning Evening Saturday 23rd Aug Morning Afternoon Sunday 25th Aug Morning Afternoon Please feel free to book me. =) SMS or Email would be a good way to contact me since I'm too lazy to get a tagboard. Reminders to self: Top up BBDC account Start asking people out Cooking? Go learn more sign language Get lots of snacks and bring guitar into camp Get new PSP memory card Upcoming things: AHM 10 km run on 24th morning Spiritual Disciplines with Marcus & Andrew on 22nd afternoon Synth...

=( My comp caught a weird virus... Took out Daryl's old CPU to use. Woo. Well NDP this year was really an eye opener for me. Especially because I was involved behind the scenes, in a place where no one would expect me to be. It wasn't very fun, but it was interesting being part of security ops. I understood a lot more about what goes into a seemingly simple celebration. Its more than just fireworks, airplanes, and parachuters... Heading back to camp soon... A little update before I go. Not sure when my 8 SIG duty officially starts, but I know a lot of exciting things will be happening for me, including driving, meeting random acquaintances, cooking, gymming, spiritual disciplines, preparing for talks and worships, going for synthesis, more anime/facebook/manga/dota etc etc. Also, there are a couple of interesting and funny clans within my company, like the Jap and anime loving group, the MvC & KoF group, the Thai song listening group, the PSP players, the MP3 listeners, the...

In an ultra good mood now. Ops off on monday and tuesday, then leave on thursday and friday. And the day I was back at camp I was enjoying my new anime in the manning office and soccer in the afternoon. Talk about slack. Speaking about new anime... I've now done with all FMP episodes. A special mention goes to FMP Fumoffu: its one of the most hilarious I've ever seen. So now my newest anime would be Blood+, another vampire story (sort of). I seem to like that a lot, after all I enjoyed Trinity Blood, Hellsing etc. Darren... That inconsiderate dude passed me his feverless flu. Kept on coming to my room over the past few days purposely coughing in my face. Coughing, sneezing, running (my nose) and hiccuping have been taking turns tormenting me. Not that I mind actually... It would've been better without, but I heal fast anyways. Well thanks to all those who gave me a birthday shout out for today. Kinda made me guilty cos I haven't been birthday shouting for a long long ti...

Its funny how I suddenly see a lot of old acquaintances around OVL... It started last week when my observation post was suddenly changed, and I was paired with someone else. And the person I was paired with was Jon Goh, a nice senior from RJGE. He was quite happy that we'd won gold, he said it was enough. Reminded me of my disappointment in the past and how I was so clueless about our achievements that I found it to be an unhappy experience. I was that immature last time hah. But now I understand, failure is never a sign of weakness. Something beautiful will spawn from every failure, and thats the bonus if you dare to fail. The next person I met was Law Chun Fung, ex RI classmate! Surprise surprise. Have no idea why he was there but saw him at a distance and said hi. The last person was Wai Lun, my friend from BMT... He looked a little sad. I think I understand... He was in SISPEC but dropped out and now he's in the ATI. And he wanted to be an officer so bad. The world can let ...

Back from my first shift of OVL. Just slept so not very tired. In fact this time we did only one shift of 3hrs each out of the 12hrs, mine was at 3am to 6am. Ok shall desribe the process of OVL I've been through so far. On wednesday we got our uniforms which were soaked in permethrin back. Permethrin's a pretty strong mosquito repellent that apparently does not work very well. Anyways brought home a lot of stuff that I didn't want to leave to rot in Stagmont Camp for a month or so. On thursday was OVL parade, some sort of a commisioning parade to send you off into official ops. So stood in the sun for a couple of minutes then proceeded for the briefing. After the briefing we were taken to Sungei Gedong camp to report for our duty. Stoned around for a couple of hours before finally leaving for our OPs at around 8. My OP is called SW5. A pretty neat place. It was quite windy and cool at night. The trip there was a headbanging ride. Lots of rock and roll and heavy metal. Took ...

Heya guys blogging for the first time from the com in the battalion office. Got my OVL schedule... And the good thing is... I only miss 1 out of 4 church sessions during the duration on the 20th July. And also, I'm free on my birthday! =) My first shift starts on Thursday on 9pm. Hope I don't get bitten much by mozzies. Its too bad I can't go for Amanda's farewell dinner. All the best to you and Kim! Have fun in Australia and may God be with you always. Germany 0 Spain 1! Long time since I've posted on soccer but here goes. My take on Euro 2008 was that some steady attacking side would win. So my picks for finalists were Croatia, Holland and Czech Republic. Unfortunately, Euro isn't very predictable. Also I expected Spain to win by 2 goals but that didn't happen. Oh wells. Finished watching Basilisk, now going on to Full Metal Panic, which my anime friend Edward-kun says is really good. Getting him to help me put the vids into Darren's iPod for viewing. ...

Ok so NUS has rejected my appeal. Not that it matters anymore. To be honest I'm quite glad where I am now, and I've already made preparations for it. The release of the results was nothing more than a form of release, and I mean it in a good way. Now its time to relax for about 6 more months before I make my next move. And 6 months is a lot of time to do the things I want to do before uni. (Now that unit life is slacky =P) I suppose a certain Daughtry song kinda sums it up. Although it sounds like its written towards a certain person (looking at the forums this song kinda reminds people of their ex bfs or gfs lol). Its pretty applicable to my situation. Well I never saw it coming, Shoulda started running a long long time ago And I'd never thought I'd doubt you I'm better off without you More than you more than you know. I'm slowly getting closure I guess its really over I'm finally getting better I'm picking up the pieces Spending all of these years Putt...

Yup I'm finally done with it, that means all the privileges start coming back. I can go up to bunk early, buy stuff from the vending machine, use MP3s and what not already. Its been a tough experience, but after the whole thing you'll feel an enormous sense of achievement. Especially when the OC of the company finally pins the unit badge on your shirt, marking your operational readiness. Ok I'm now quite attached to my new unit, which is 8 Signal Battalion if you don't know. Its a pretty new battalion, so you can't find much about it online. Can't tell you anything else about it I'm afraid. But the people there are really nice, and the battalion is run like a professional organisation IMO. Which means there's none of the infantry style of getting into big trouble and getting many many extra. Whats more the higher ups want the best for their soldiers and take real good care of them. I'm in Alpha Company, and my platoon is called the GS Tac Platoon. Ca...

Right now I have a tingly exciting feeling which I don't know how I got. Its quite an interesting emotion running through me. This week we have finally been seperated into our specialisations within the company, and mine is based on the servers that we use. Other people got satellite, network or radio specialisations. Mine is pretty special IMO. Get to learn things that other people don't know, even those in the same company as me don't really know as well. Have a sense of power because of the knowledge I have. And the greatest thing about this week is that I finally found a sense of satisfaction in what I do. Seeing all the people work together showed me that every single person is an important cog in an important piece of machinery for the SAF. For the first time I feel proud of what I'm doing and have been through. Its been tough, but only one week remains before we graduate from UIP. Just finished my last ever guard duty I'll ever do. And after this coming week ...

Its been an exceptionally tiring week. As in physically tiring. The life of a signaller usually involves ample rest, but inclusive of last friday and saturday, I've had 6 days of less than 6 hours of sleep. Thats basically the reason why it was a lot more tiring than usual. RSM parade coming up next week, as well as the all important SOP test and guard duty stint. Besides that nothing more to update. The leaders meeting today went well... I'm glad. I feared for the worst after talking with Gerald yesterday over a drink at M Hotel. Thats all for this week. Nothing much huh.

Here are some of the photos from Hillsongs! Most of them were taken outside cos there was no flash photography allowed during the performances. In the back row: Cheryl Lin, Christine, Hazel. Front row: Shaunald and Daryl. From left to right: Mark, Aaron and Darren. Darren's wearing my shirt. =S Ok they were on the hill calling out random names to see if anybody from the crowd responded. *** I'm quite unhappy the tagboard was deleted without prior warning. I thought they'd have sent an email when the tagboard was inactive. Gah. Unhappy about many other things. 1. Firstly missing out on church camp, and another extra guard duty on 14th June, a saturday of all days. 2. Secondly I've been feeling that all my other friends have gone ahead of me. They're all walking their paths much faster than me while I stagnate. Examples: Shu getting her driving license, all the gals accepting their unis etc etc. I've got a year and 6 months to wait. Which is incredibly painful. 3....

As promised, a couple of pics from the alpha weekend. Here's Prem and Gerald. And here's Daniel coordinating the games. A friend from another church, Gordon (on left) with Martin (on right). Last but not least, Sarah. *** Ok so the past week has been considerably good. With new operators coming in, we've got more people to talk to and new people to share our circumstances with. I'll be going back to Alpha, which will be xiong. But one thing I've come to realise about Alpha is that its people are really much nicer than the people in an infantry battalion. (After recieving lots of complaints from Wen Qin) Just tahan another month or so and it'll be done. Some activities this week included CO's Parade on tuesday, Alpha Company Workplan Seminar on wednesday and attending the Army Pride and Safety Day at SAFTI MI on friday. For next week I think there are a couple of exciting things around the corner, but not sure what they are. Update you guys further next week...

Its pretty interesting how being in med puts me in such situations involving major dilemmas. The 1 SIR and guard duty fiascos were just two of the few, and well... Here comes another one. So far what I've been going through is the Alpha Company UIP, supposedly the most xiong UIP out of the 5 branches within 8 SIG. Usually when people enter a new unit they'll first go through a battalion UIP, which we will be going through the next week. But since we came early, they made us do the company UIP first. Heres where things start to get interesting. Although we've been doing company UIP, we can only be sorted out into our respective companies after battalion UIP. But because of my medicine apps (gah everyone there's calling me MO already) there is only a small possibility I'll be posted back to Alpha Company, which I've been studying about for the past week and a half. Thats because Alpha Company is the only 24/7 operationally ready company. If I leave halfway (by dis...

I've been posted to a new unit: 8th Signal Battalion. What we do there is quite a big secret, so I'm in no position to reveal anything. But knowing military secrets makes me feel very comfortable haha. Right now I'm in a phase of unit life called the Unit Induction Programme. Its the toughest part of unit life, where you learn all the chim equipment and procedures, and your privileges like walking to cookhouse, eating extra food from the vending machines, listening to MP3s and going to bunk early get cancelled. Because of the studying till late hours, while feeling very bored it gets quite tough on your mind. However, my current unit life isn't all that bleak: after I finish UIP I'll have access to the computers, be able to bring all sorts of things to camp, go to bunk early to rest, play soccer, go to the gym, use the vending machines and what not. *** Alpha weekend was very very good for me. It was a time of renewal, a time of obtaining the peace of the holy spiri...

Woohoo... Sometimes I really think I'm blind. So many good things have been happening yet I've only seen the crushing pain the medicine course blues have given me. Event #1 Originally: Supposed to be in 10/07 platoon, with a majority of PES C, PES BP people. When I first sat in my bunk in the accomodations block I immediately felt out of place cos I was the only skinny guy there. No offense though, I'm very very skinny. Then... Was shifted to 11/07 platoon, which needed PES A and B people. Met lots of great friends, and people around my size at least. Felt more at home there. Event #2 Originally: Performed badly for an exercise, and was told by the course commander there would be a repeat exercise on either a weekend or a public holiday. Morale down. =( Then... There was no time to conduct an extra exercise due to the guard duties allocated to my course sergeant and others in my platoon. So no weekend/holiday burnt. Event #3 Originally: Was supposed to have guard duty last ...

Sometimes I'm afraid of losing my focus. Ok correction. I'm very afraid. These days I've been feeling quite empty, like something is missing. Perhaps I'm missing a goal for ns as a whole, but maybe something more that I just can't put my finger on. My service to God has... Diminished somewhat. Not in terms of the amount I'm doing. But for the attitude and commitment. Effects of ns? No idea. But these days I've been feeling guilty... I feel that I'm playing guitar, contributing in cell, going to SYC just to keep noticed by those around me. Its like you're beginning to fall from some high place, but you're trying to keep yourself there. I know I still love Him, but some knots are beginning to get undone. I think I'll need prayer...

Its been a pretty exciting week for me. A week of quite a few firsts I must say. 1. My first ever army sickbay experience 2. My first ever army guard duty experience 3. My first ever army attend c experience It all started on monday, when I suddenly developed a fever at night, which reached as high as 39.0 degrees. Its a wonder how I managed to walk to the medical centre in Stagmont, take an ambulance, and arrive at the medical centre in Tengah Air Base. Stayed in the sickbay for monitoring... Recovered the next morning. Felt ok enough to continue with lessons. So on and on I went until wed evening, when it was my turn to do guard duty. Prowling around the camp. Wasn't as bad as expected, but it was one of the things that made my sickness resurface. Thursday afternoon. Started getting bouts of nausea. Had no appetite. Could only drink. Muscles started aching like crazy, especially the back muscles. Developed minor fever. Reported sick in the evening again, and was driven the same w...