Oh my, I cannot believe that I have completely left this blog empty for the past 8 months! Life has been indeed quite busy for the past few months back and I haven't really got time to update this blog. By the way, I am having a terrible runny nose while typing this post and I find it damn irritating! For this post, I have decided to summarise my life in 2011 into the different parts given the experience I had over the past 8 months (May 2011 onwards) so it's clearer for you what is going on. Okay, enough of my whining and so here goes!

1. Enlistment - 05 May 2011

For every Singaporean son, serving the country through National Service (NS) is part of his growing up years. The same goes for me, having gone through Basic MIlitary Training (BMT) to acquire the fundamentals of soldiering, life has never been the same again. I would say that my NS journey so far has been quite an enriching one. To think back in my JC days, I was kinda of apprehensive of NS, wandering how my life would end up given my poor physical condition. Nevertheless, after the months of training, I would say that I am fitter than never before! Plus, it was really fun to have met new friends and going thick and thin together. Be it the tough trainings, outfields or the 'chill times' back in bunk, every single moment was a memorable experience.

There's actually a smorgasbord of activities that I have never done in my life before until I came into the army. I think all these activities are rather once-in-a-lifetime experiences which money cannot buy for such experiences. Examples include rifle shooting at ranges, throwing a live grenade and learning to navigate with friends and all you have is a compass and map. Of course, there's more but I shan't bore you with them. More importantly, it's the company of friends that makes it fun. I guess it's inevitable that you'll meet people who screw things up and are really uncooperative at times. Nevertheless, life just have to carry on so yup. Like what I kind of say to my friends these days, suck thumb.

Life is quite different for now, given that there is no school for me now and there's no longer such things such as school holidays and homework. School days seems more carefree back then, but there are the stressful moments of having tests and exams. Same goes in the army, where there is time to chill and relax but there are also times where things starts going crazy and everyone panics! Haha well, guess everywhere you go is the same. I shall take the remaining 1 year and 3 months to make life enriching for me so that 2012 is also a fulfilling year and I would say a progressive route to 2013 for university studies!

2. Movies

For people who know me well, I ain't the kind who always go for movie sessions and watch all the latest blockbuster available at the nearest available cinema. While I do watch movies, this year is the first year I've watched so many movies in the cinema. A total of 13 movies! Okay, this isn't a big feat to you but I guess for me, yes. An average of about 1 movie per month in 2011. I mean like wow, that's quite frequent to the cinema.

3. Gatherings

This year has also been a year full of meet-ups with different groups of people I know, from friends in BVCB, in TJCO, my dearest 4e1 classmates to friends in 12/09 and my army friends made during BMT, SCS and MPTS! It's not easy to maintain friendships and stay contactable within one another.

I've heard once from my friend that contacts are like that, where "that" means short and lost as times goes by. Gosh, I shall not make that a truth but a myth! There are instances where I bump into old friends or even teachers who may not remember me at all! I must say, it's quite to nice to have met them on the streets. A golden opportunity to just know how each other is doing now and even though there's not much time to really talk, I feel quite delighted to have met them. Somehow, such coincidences would trigger back memories that I have with that person I knew. Even if I saw someone who I knew but isn't my friend, at least I would be like "oh that guy/girl from XXX".

Okay, I'm sorry if you find this post quite boring. It's been way too long since I've last written. Give me some time to build up that writing-a-blog-post momentum. To summarise, 2011 has been a very different year compared to other years in terms of the life I'm leading now. Many new milestones and many new people I have met. All the best to you in 2012, hope that your 2011 has been a great year for you and that your 2012 would be even happier and epic!