Read my lips

After almost a month of zero post, i guess it's time for me to drop a note and of cause as you can see, a new layout. The past few weekends have been rather meaningful and occupied, and this explains why i haven't really got much time to blog, not to mention changing a new skin after almost a year.

So, i'll let the keyboard do the talking now.

I'm going to start with what happened more recently and slowly go back as i probably would have forgotten the stuff which happened more than 2 weeks ago. For a quick start, i finally submitted my application to IDA scholarship and had my psychometric test over at Civil Service College yesterday. For the benefit of those who hasn't got a clue what the hell it is, it's a test whereby there were 3 sections, and each of them were given 30 minutes to answer them and that includes shading of bubbles on the OMR form.

The first one is what i would call patterns reasoning. Given 9 shapes/patterns, one of them is left blank. So you have to figure out what's the most suitable shape/pattern to fit in. The challenge and difficulty increases as you go along. With 8 options to each question and 36 questions to answer in 30 minutes, try imagining how fun it is.

The second part is on mathematics. Given a short scenario, you have to answer 3 questions with 15 options. The questions requires quite a bit of calculation and of cause no calculating devices were allowed. Likewise, the difficulty increases as you go along, there were 10 scenarios and thus 33 questions to be done in 30 minutes. For this section, i can bet with my last dime, majority of us didn't finished it. And with 15 options to each question, trying to "ti-kam" would also require you to be super lucky.

The last section is somewhat called verbal reasoning. Given 15 short read ups, with profound grammar and words all squeezed in a single paragraph, you have to answer 4 questions each, and answer them either True, False or Can't tell. Seriously, i think i "ti-kam" my way for this entire section. 60 questions under 30 minutes works out to only 30 seconds to try figure out whether the question is true, false or can't tell from the passage.

With almost 150 personnel taking the test, i just wonder what's my odds making it through to the interview stage. And if i'm not wrong, yesterday was just one of the many dates the test is conducted for the scholarship applicants.

And so with this, i guess i can only pray and hope for the best.

Moving next, Sam is back. After making a trip down to Tamworth, like what i did a year ago, he came back with a failure, but i'm sure with many fond priceless memories too. Judging from the way we discussed about the instructors and the stuff over there, i'm sure it's an experience anyone will never forget. Minus the very fact that we both didn't make it to be a pilot, the fact that we did had our shot at it was just as good, if not better.

The whole of last week was pretty tiring. My battalion is on exercise, and its a overnight exercise which stretches for 4 days. And since i'm an officer, like what my men always like to argue with me on, i did 2 night shifts, stretching from 9pm to 9am. To be more accurate, i had to do longer than that, since i was there on Tuesday morning and only get to feel my bed after 26 hours on Wednesday morning. And 5pm from Wednesday evening to 8am Thursday morning. There were reasons why it ended up like that, but i guess i'll skip that part, for they are unpleasant issues to be discuss here. In short, it sucks to be an officer, and worst when you're NSF officers. Go figure out.

There will more of such exercises to come and all that i can look forward would be end of May, and perhaps the 1 week of battalion off just before my birthday.

I guess i'll just end here. Pretty brain dead now. Leaving ya with a new layout and also a new song. Somehow i like it alot, for the lyrics's pretty meaningful. That's all folks. If i'm neglecting you guys, i just hope you all understand. I have my own reasons.

Till then.