So!

Basic Military Training has come to an end on the 7 of January.

Went through one heck of a 24km march I must say.

Its almost never ending it seems. Time after time I tell myself "Okay after this few kilometres things are going to be alot more easier"

But nooooooooooo

There pops up the Singapore Flyer that never seems to get closer no matter how much you think you've walked.

Then you reach the checkpoint where you get your free 100plus and you think its over.

But nooooooooooo

You walk another few km to get to your sleeping point which is just a patch of road at where the F1 Village is during Formula 1. Never thought I'd be sleeping at where Adam Lambert was performing.

Ok Passing Out Parade was bearable. The adrenaline pumping through your blood is immense as you stare into the crowd.

And as they said "When POP comes, everything becomes possible"

Managed to stuff my Load Bearing Vest (That body-armour-like thingi) and my helmet into my over loaded field pack.And as of this moment..

I was declared a.....



Trained soldier.



Being posted into Ninja company for BMT wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be.

Sure, its dam strict with its rules and we don't get alot of admin time to do our own things.

But other than that, they are not unreasonable and we still win alot of competitions in the name of Ninja. :)

Needless to say, I've learnt alot in this 9 weeks.

Military and lifeskill lessons were taught everyday.

Some were in the syllabus while some were just observed by me.

Time passed surprisingly fast actually.

In a blink of an eye it has jumped from November to January.

Good...go faster.



My BMT wasn't as enjoyable as I would have hoped it'd be.

But its mainly because of how I chose to perceive it. Not that many did not enjoy it.

I didn't really get the whole sense of camaraderie I was supposed to feel.

Because I did not mix well with my bunk mates, nor received much of their support in tough times.

Guess i'm a different person in army? Haha. Not an army-person.



Well obviously I believe I didnt do well for my peer evaluation for that reason.

As as of Friday (13 Jan) I got to know my posting!

I am posted as a FATA Locator at the Artillery camp in Khatib.

Yes I believe it's a 'Man' position.

Not command school.

Bummed out? Yes I am. Because it supposedly hints that you're not command school material.

But hey

Who's to judge?


On the bright side

I heard my vocation is not that tough (Comparatively)

And I'll probably have more time to myself to do things that I want. Probably bring some things in to read or smth.

Little is known about my vocation though, and I believe it's classified.



Theres too much talent in this world seriously.

Just a quick search on Youtube and you'll find amazing singers.

Some just don't know how to market themselves.

Some of the good songs that I like are put on this blog for everyone (mainly me) to listen :)

Can sorta guess what kinda songs I like from there...

I wish I was hardworking enough to extract them to put into my itouch.

Enjoy!

Anddddddd I'm back from Formula One 2011 :)

2 Days ago actually...

Been looking forward to this stint here since the last time I did it back in 2010.

First discovered it through a random website on the net and got through the interview.


The position I got in this SGP Entertainment Team is Transport Coordinator.

As you know, the other selling point about the Singapore Grand Prix is its lineup of artistes performing on the race nights itself.

Artistes ranging from random stilt walkers, to magicians, to A listers like Linkin Park these year are all flown into Singapore to perform for this big event.

So! Every event that flies in their performers will usually have to see to their transport arrangements, making sure they are picked up from the airport, get into their hotel, get to site for their performance, go back to the hotel to sleep, and leave the country. This is usually multi tasked by the liason officers (minders) for small events.

However for one of THIS scale. With 500 artistes being flown in and road security procedures being such an a**, a dedicated team of staff is needed for transport.

So yeah we make sure our artistes are

1) Picked up upon arrival
2) Sent safely to their hotel
3) On event days, reach their performance venues from the hotel, on time
4) On event days, reach the hotel after their performance, on time
5) Leave Singapore safely and happily at the end of everything.

Although it seems like quite an easy task.......

....Its NOT

It's not as simple as sending people to and fro on taxis or getting someone to be a personal driver for them.

We've got hundreds of artistes, and only a few permitted vehicles given by our outsourced transport company have the 'permission' to enter the sites. And the schedules have to be planned nicely and in sync in order to get our artistes to and fro on time, sometimes at unearthly hours.

Precisely because of that, the transport team is usually given hotel rooms! And we start very early wayyyy before the event so we get paid more as well :P:P

The other jobs are actually Artiste Minders and the Hospitality Team.

Artiste Minders are the liason officers for the artiste, they bring them around the site, help them get whatever they need and make sure they keep to their schedule. They also work closely with us to organise their artiste's transport arrangements.

I applied for this at the start actually, cos I was really into Customer Service and it's quite cool to be a foreign artiste's only point of contact. However I was put into Transport cos of my experience interning at Changi Airport (Not that it helped much actually)

While i still look forward to Minding an artiste, I realise you don't always get the nice ones and you can potentially be stuck with some snobbish ones that create hell for you throughout the event. PLUS. No hotel stay :P

Hospitality Team stays on site at the performance venue itself. I havent really seen much of these people cos I don't work with them often. They basically have to make the artistes comfortable when they reach their performance venue and see to all their needs and wants while they are getting ready to perform. (Like getting them water, or tidying up the hospitality area)

It's too bad I won't be able to work for the 2012 Formula One event cos of National Service.. but I hope it'll be extended longer and that the same awesome people are still working for it! I don't mind recommending my friends for interviews for any of the above positions so contact me nearer to August next year if you want to :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And SO! I was given the awesome chance again to start work on 20th September and end work on 27th September. 7 days 6 nights at the awesome Swissotel The Stamford. (Complete with Buffet Breakfast every morning) I'm practically a guest at the hotel.

Highlights of my stay here are obviously the A-list pick ups and random encounters with them! Was there at the G Dragon TOP and Seungri pick up from Terminal 3. Shocking that there wasn't a crowd actually. But just enough turned up when they landed around 1am. Star struck obviously. None of the staff joined the main artistes in their vehicles but followed behind in other vehicles. There were police outriders (Those on motorbikes escorting) as well so the whole journey to their hotels looked pretty much like a movie scene haha.

At the hotel all of them hung around the lobby to get their accreditation settled and that's where I really got close to the entire entourage. I had the SGP pass on and was helping out so I just introduced myself to them when I could. Had brief polite handshakes with GD and TOP and some other korean dancers with them.

Somehow it really felt like the Adam Lambert crew last year but only in Korean this time lol.

After that we realised in the midst of the hastened pick up, one of the members of the entourage accidentally brought back an extra luggage (Someone's else's) and we had to send the luggage back to the airport later on lol.

I also saw Rick Astley when he was about to go on site (Really cool guy) Saw Shaggy at breakfast, and saw Charice when she was arriving at the basement from site. (Shook her hand too)

Words cant describe how it's like being star struck haha. But through this event (just like last year), after having liased with these celebrities on a personal level, I've become a fan of some but lost interest in others...Lol dont think I can say why.

Other than that! Met some really awesome people at F1.

Many of the minders are really nice people, although only knew more abt them after the event ended. Got to know some of the performing artistes as well. All very nice people some of them from really humble backgrounds.

Even got to know some of the Police Officers and Security Guards, hopefully next time they won't catch me if I do something illegal HAHA.

This was the 3rd highlight of my holidays. And it has come to an end.

Just like that.

But it has been damn memorable. All the nights walking to the Floating Platform to hang out, talking to random people near the hotel and laughing at silly antics by colleagues.

Till next time, F1 :)

(Pictures are in my Facebook albums)

Today's post is gonna be quite an interesting one!

(Please scroll down till you see a BIG BOLDED "OKAY" word if you don't want to go through all the boring history stuff about The Sims that i'm about to go into)

Avril Lavigne

This is really one of the MOST epic additions. With this expansion pack there are 3 new countries introduced into Sims 3. These 3 countries are modeled after China, France and Eygpt. The Sims now have an option to travel overseas for a vacation! And no it's not just some boring excursion where you go to a new place, eat, drink, sleep and play in a new environment. You actually get to enter Pyramids and Tombs to collect treasures and fight mummies. It's THAT detailed, with puzzles to solve and booby traps to avoid.

The Sims 3 Ambitions

This expansion pack also brought the game to an entire new level. We all know Sims can have jobs and when they go to work you're actually left in an awkward situation where the time fast-forwards and you're staring at an empty house looking stupid.

NOW, although you still have to see time fast forward and stare at an empty house looking stupid, your work doesnt end there! There are actually things called 'Opportunities' that come randomly in your job, and you are required to use your 'after work time' to complete those opportunities for an added money boost or job boost. So for example, a Private Investigator might need to travel to Al Simhara (Their Eygpt) or Shang Simla (Their China) to look for clues and so on!

The Sims 3 Late Night

With this expansion, the nightlife scene is brought into Sims 3. You can now go Clubbing in Sims 3 (No joke) They also added in stuff like elevators.

With this expansion, they also added a Celebrity feature, which gives your sims a chance to be a celebrity. (There are 5 star ratings, 5 being a Super celeb) You get sent free gifts, buy things for free, and people ask you for autographs.!

The Sims 3 Generations

Okay this one adds on to the family part of the game, where you can now form memories, and more focus is put on the children aspect of the game. (You don't only just have to go to school, like previous versions) You can take part in Prom Nights and also after school activities! Its scary how close to real life it's getting.

Enough of the story behind The Sims!

I will now introduce you to my house and Sims in The Sims 3! (Its gonna be really messy cos I don't know where to start)

At any point in time you want to zoom in for a better look just click on the pictures.

Ok firstly I have 3 sims in this household. They can be seen all around the pictures. There are 2 girls (One is actually an identical clone of the other LOL, which is a feature of the expansion pack Generations) The other is a guy.



This is my garden! Where I plant all my different kinds of grapes, fruits and rare plants that are needed for my wine making (Called Nectar making in the game)

In the background you will see one of my Sims in my Garage.



The graphics are damn good right. This is one of my cars, the Margaret Vaguester. One of the fastest cars in the game. (And yes obviously for this particular game profile I actually used cheats haha)



Beside it is actually The Empire Eidolon, another dam expensive car belonging to the male Sim. Those picture frames on the wall are actually taken by a DSLR in the game (Came with the World Adventures expansion) With the DSLR I can actually take pics from my Sim's point of view and frame them up randomly in the house.


In between the Garden and the Garage is an elevator that brings you down to the Basement Levels of the game (Yes you can now create basements in Sims 3!)



Lol this is the erm...Build Mode view of my basements. (Don't ask why a coconut tree is sticking down into the basement..) I can actually go down up to 3 levels into the ground.



The first official basement level is sort of my ermm...'Gallery'. Where I intend to exhibit all the framed up photos of my household.



Its amazing how the Sims 3 begins to go into the detailed stuff and making everything customizable. I mean who wldve thought you can actually do such things in a game? It has come a LONGGGGGGGGG way since it's predecessors.



This is the 'Wine Brewery' (It's called Nectar making to them actually) So basically I read that it's best that the wine making facility is located at the lowest floor possible, hence I set it here. Here you can see two machines on the right for making the wine, and the racks on the left for placing my 'Done' bottles. (Obviously I anticipated I'll be making alot) Haha.



Close up...So what happens is that my Sim will throw the ingredients for a particular wine (Different recipes different ingredients, hence my Garden upstairs) into that brown wooden tub, and they will literally STEP on it and grind it with their bare feet like how you see french people do it. (Didn't take a screen shot aww) The machine then processes the juice and bottles it. :P

Oh yeah and that's my male character. Let's name him Ah Boy for the sake of this post.



What's a Sims House without the pool! As you can see, again, Sims has come a long way in terms of Pool creation as well. Now the shapes can be customised, and the graphics of the water is just amazing.



I actually have two threadmills by the pool for them to exercise. And oh! That's my female character 1, let's call her Ah Girl. It's almost difficult to tell the difference between Ah Girl and her clone



Ah Boy and Ah Girl in the pool with a new Pool Interaction "Splash." Lol the pool seems abit too deep for comfort.



Andd my imagination got the best of me. Decided it'd be DAMN cool to have a rock band set up in the middle of the pool! Such a sense of achievement when I got it done.



Tadahh The Band is playing. Ah Girl on Guitar, Ah Boy on Drums and Gridgirl on Piano. (You'll know why she's called that later)



And this is the Hot Tub area beside the pool. Back in the Sims 1 period it was only a jacuzzi, now it's a freaking flowing hot tub.



And introducing the Living Room! Here Ah Boy and Ah Girl are playing some random Sim created game called ShuffleBoard (Amazing details, the puck actually moves accordingly) While Gridgirl is playing the 'PS3 console'


Yes this is how close you can alter your Point of view to see your Sims. And the games on the screen are not still images like in Sims 1. It's really like a high def gaming experience with the rugby players running around.



And quite a few games too! This skateboarding game is actually a Real EA Games game so I think they're doing promotion for it through Sims 3 haha. (Smart)



And now she's playing some 'Brother Bear'-like game.



And here is......the reading area! Looks comfortable?




Connected to the Living Room is actually the Kitchen, where Ah girl here does all the cooking.



And the dining table is just behind the fireplace, for them to all sit tgt and eat.



Ok this Aerial view of my house seems quite weird cos of the wall cutoff here and there. But yeah the whole concept of the 2nd level bedroom is such that it gives the Living Room alot of space above it.



I really like this fish tank thingi! Its the only thing separating the bedroom from outside. Those fishes are added into the tank myself. Theres a new Fishing Skill in Sims 3 that allows you to fish for different kind of fishes. (Sharks, Koi, Clownfish and Dragonfish) So once I catch them I will bring them home and have a choice to eat them or put them into my fish tank or pond.



Anddd this is Gridgirl. Hahahaha. Found the attire quite amusing especially now it's approaching the Formula One Season in Singapore. This attire actually came with the Fast Lane expansion pack, which features racing stuff. (I can even buy a F1 car)



And this area is the Patio area outside my house (The walls are down cos of the view setting, it's not a big hole in the wall haha) Here I have Ah girl creating Potions via a Chemistry table and Gridgirl teaching Ah boy how to mix drinks (It's a skill that you can learn in The Sims 3 that came with the Late Night expansion) Basically used for bartending and creating awesome drinks. And yes with Sims 3, Mastering the Logic Skill allows you to teach skills to other Sims (Without them having to go through it!)



Tadahh Gridgirl doing her job. This is one of the cooler cars in the game. The Vistoso Speed Machine. (How do they come up with these names? -.-)




With the addition of World Adventures a new skill called "Martial Arts" is introduced, and basically your Sim can learn how to fight with Kungfu. This is learnt in the China country. With every skill level you increase you actually get a new coloured belt (Like in taekwondo) Ah Girl here is Level 10 (Mastered) Lol. Ah girl is a ridiculous name im sorry.



And with Generations expansion pack you get to create tree houses! These are mainly for kids to play with and since Ah Girl is already a Young Adult she cant play in it anymore. But the adults can actually WooHoo in it with another Sim (I think alot of people are like giving the O.O face now.) Yes now other than the bed, you can Woohoo in Elevators and showers too. (Lol awkward)



And this is the view from my house. (One of the more expensive build-from-scratch lots) This is the town that's offered in the Late Night expansion. You can now stay in Skyscraper apartments as well. (New feature)



Can you believe this club is in my house? It's actually connected to my patio lol. I converted the lower floor into a nightspot. So with the Late Night expansions you can create such clubs from a scratch, complete with lighting and effect machines.



Gridgirl is a Level 10 Mixologist so she has an option to Manage the Bar. Here she is making a drink for Ah boy lol. Idk what to use for the walls so I actually covered it all up with Mirrors to make it seem like theres alot of people and not only just 3 people hahahahahaa.



And LOL there's a shisha machine in Sims! (Ah boy is getting high at the back) But they phrase it as "Blowing Bubbles." How suggestive haha. It's definitely Shisha haha.


The lighting here's 'Black Light' so even the faces look weird. Now they're all Shisha-ing together. LOL ridiculous scene. The bubbles even have flavours like Pineapple, Mint, Strawberry and so on.

I realise Sims 3 is a really great place to express yourself. The 'customizability' of everything here + the awesome camera angles makes it easy to direct your own scenes and stories. But it's VERY tedious I must say, and time flies very fast (in real life) when you're actually doing up the stuff. But it's a really great sense of achievement when you're done with it.

JUST LIKE THIS LONG POST.

BYE!