The round-the-clock revision.

The bewilderment of studying.

Bring it on, law school, bring it on. Sleep is for the weak.

My Google Reader has over 20 feeds, which on a high-volume day can pull in more than 1000 items in a single period. On an effort to make it manageable, I have a separate folder for the nice-to-read-but-not-essential feeds, feeds like xkcd and Digg, which I just ignore if I have no time.

Other feeds though, have a higher importance. Some of these feeds include the New York Times, Metafilter and Paul Krugman. These feeds require a lot of quiet reading time, which is a luxury nowadays.

I’ve taken to installing the Google Reader application on my Android phone. It allows me to quickly star items that I find interesting, and when I get back home at night I can peruse them at my own leisure.

Some items are magazine-length articles, which given the sheer volume of items, can become too time-consuming to read, given the limited amount of reading time I have. For articles like this, I use Instapaper to save them with all extraneous formatting stripped out. I then sync my phone with the Instapaper server to download these articles.

Because my commute sometimes involves going into tunnels, my 3G signal may get cut off, and dropping to GPRS makes me want to pull my hair out. In cases like these I break out the Instapaper application to clear the backlog of articles.

In this way, I’ve cut down my computer time by write a fair bit, leaving me with time for other pursuits, and some much-needed rest.

I have not stepped into the school grounds since the release of A-Levels results. It was at once familiar yet alien. Familiar, because of the few constants – the cluttered left and right wings, the class benches, the cramped confines. But this is no longer the school that we once knew and played in.

So much has changed over the intervening years that I found myself lost, and bewildered. The track that we did our Saturday morning runs, our PE lessons and had our combined sports meet, no longer exists, torn apart to make way for the station. The gates that stood silent guard overhead have been taken down. The clean, serene environment of the high school has been despoiled, in the name of advancement.

The people. The people within were the greatest change, but that is only to be expected. The people in the school were not the people I knew. It would be silly to expect otherwise, but walking through the school grounds I half-expected to see familiar faces from my JC days. They will now have moved on to greater things, of course, but HC is the place where we first started out.

Despite all that, all the changes, it felt strangely familiar all the same, to walk down the wings and reminisce, and to realize that this, is where I once was, that I was home once more.

12/12/2009 marks a year into my 2-year bond in serving the nation. It has been a hard-fought journey, though some might not believe it to be so. At each stage of the way, I’ve had friends who’ve helped me along, encouraged me, and  maybe most importantly, were there to go through the tough times with me.

From BMT, to SISPEC, then the Air Force, each part of this 2-year story had its own ups and downs, its own share of giddy happiness and bitter sorrow. Some highlights were the POP from BMT, the 28km route march from SISPEC and most importantly, the POC from the Air Force.

In the one year that has passed since stepping off that ferry and onto that island, I’d like to think I’ve grown as a person. I’ve learnt patience, discipline and tolerance. I’ve known what it means to command (though not yet to lead) and manage. I’ve learnt the importance of friends when you’re down and out. I’ve known the significance of having people you can rely on.

I’ve had the fortune of being surrounded by people who have been through hell and highwater together with  me, and know what it means to be a specialist. They know what it means to wear the 3 chevrons on their chest, and all the duties that they entail.

I’ve had the fortune of having operators who have been patient with me, and coped with my sometimes unreasonable demands. They form a unit that I know I can trust to do things when the time comes. There is still much to learn from them.

I’ve had the fortune of having seniors I can look to for advice. In the early stages of BMT when I was blur and lost, there was a listening ear ready for me. In SISPEC when I tried to find the energy to pull through the training, they were my source of inspiration. In the Air Force, their impending ORD was my motivation. And now, in the unit, they taught me to survive, and survive well.

Now, I am the senior in this marathon. They have completed their bond, and are now free. It is my turn now to slog out that remaining year, and patiently wait for ORD. This day has passed without much fanfare nor excitement on my part. It is true that the anticipation makes the actual day anticlimatic, but nonetheless, it still marks an important day for me.

If I may, allow me this – ORD LO!

Begone, fiend!

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Tuesday		Aug 26, 2008	 	8am	GP Prelim at A207 - A207
Monday		Sep 8, 2008	 	8am	Economics Prelim Paper 2
 					1pm	Economics Prelim Paper 1
Tuesday		Sep 9, 2008	 	8am	Math Prelim Paper 1 at A411 - A411
Wednesday	Sep 10, 2008	 	8am	Chemistry Prelim Paper 3 at Hall
Thursday	Sep 11, 2008	 	8am	Physics Prelim Paper 3 at Hall - Hall
Friday		Sep 12, 2008	 	1pm	Physics Prelim Paper 2 at Hall - Hall
Monday		Sep 15, 2008	 	8am	Math Prelim Paper 2 at A209 - A209
Tuesday		Sep 16, 2008	 	8am	Chemistry Prelim Paper 1 at Hall - Hall
 					9:45am	Chemistry Prelim Paper 2 at Hall - Hall
Wednesday	Sep 17, 2008	 	8am	Physics Prelim Paper 1 at Hall - Hall

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