saturday was my first civilian driving lesson.. though i can drive military vehicles, i alrdy knew that i shld haf troubles wif civilian ones, and not surprisingly, i stalled the vehicle 6 times that day.. there's sort of a trick which i used b4 to prevent stalling of the military vehicles, but i cant use it wif the civilian cars coz the biting point is low and exact at a particular point and i cant juz accelerate alot..
however the instructor kept saying that it was alrdy a good enough attempt at first try of civilian cars, but i juz feel that i need to improve much more.. the driving lesson was also mixed wif other weird components, like social studies? due to the instructor and i confined to the small space of the car in the one and a half hrs, he wil start talking abt some rather weird topics, mainly social studies... all of a sudden he asked me wad's the purpose for ns.. i was rather stunned at that point coz i didnt noe if he wants an opinion from me, a funny answer from me, or a 'correct' answer.. den he started to 'explain' to me like a teacher abt why ns was started (he said it's mainly to keep teenagers from going astray), and den continued to tell me the history of how a couple of our past presidents deserve to become presidents, and even said abt how one of them tried to use the reserves that time during economic downturn and de proposal was rejected by the then PM.. (ironic coz i saw ytd's papers and sth mentioned abt the intention of using the reserves)
throughout the lesson, my instructor was talking abt his belief abt how we, humans, shld take things easy and not be too concerned abt stuff like pride etc.. he's into the belief of taking a step back if needed.. his point is that each of us is too insignificant, and that our lives can be taken away from us very very easily.. be it a hurricane, a tsunami, or even juz a bullet.. so he says to enjoy life while we can.. pretty much interesting stuff from a 60-year old.. it differs much from sq, my fren in the army, who's a 21-year old now, coz he has many dreams, and his main and biggest one is to leave a legacy behind such that history books in the future will have his name in some significant event.. perhaps the ages and experiences make much of a difference between them..
at the end of the lesson, my instructor even comes to the topic of feng shui, which he claims to have quite some knowledge of it... he brought up a phrase quite familiar, which is 五雷轰顶.. to translate it is to mean five thunder hitting u? lol.. last time i only thought it refers to a punishment where many lightnings will strike u.. but actually the 五雷 refers to the five different elements in chinese fengshui, which are metal, wood, water, fire, earth.. everyone of us will die wif regard to any of these elements.. for eg, when killed by knives and weapons is metal, wooden rods and falling from heights is wood, drowning is water, cremation is fire, and finally burial is earth.. so it's rather interesting stuff eh...
in view that i dun hafta book in last nite as i took off today, we painted our living room ytd late evening... painting may looks like an easy job but it's actually not! first u hafta make alot of preparations so that ur paint doesnt drip onto unmovable furniture or the floor... den the actual painting process u hafta paint, den wait for it to partly dry, den see if the layer is thick enough anot, coz if not u hafta re-paint to add onto the layer.. and becoz the colour of de paint looks different at different degrees of dryness, when u look at the wall wif paint of varying degrees of dryness, u'll get the perception that mayb some parts are not painted well enough... but it looks rather decent as i look at the living room today, so it's quite a job well done...
sth rather unpleasant happened last fri in camp when i took off.. apparently they needed 2 drivers from our side for a 3-day exercise this week from mon to wed.. daryl is of coz arrow-ed coz he isnt an ord personnel, so left 1 more spot to be filled... sq has ffi today, so he is out.. left me and wy, and coz i took off today, naturally it shld be wy who needs to go.. however, he immediately insisted that he will take no part in it and openly declared that he will take a mc today juz to escape.. so the situation on fri after all these was that my off today would be cancelled and fill the last spot.. sq msg-ed me abt all these and wanted me to go talk to wy abt it.. but of coz i didnt.. we all knew he has always been like that and i dun see any point of talking to him.. so my reply that day was 'so be it', saying that if my off was to be cancelled and go for it den i'll juz go.. however, no idea if it's becoz of sq, yow or PC, somehow it became that dun need drivers from our side to go le, thus sparing everyone
now that i needa go back tonight, i duno how my response and reactions shld be.. on one hand, i shld be angry at wy for being so ball-less and inconsiderate for his friends, which inevitably means de usual gang of 4 of us shld begin breaking up... on the other hand, i have no reason to be angry coz ultimately, my off is still intact, and i didnt hafta to go for the exercise.. therefore it's quite a ma fan thing from today onwards..
