Today was a special day to remember... In the evening, I went to a Christmas funciton. Yes, you see the right word: Christmas. Basically it was an outreach event to the residence of brownie towers, a residential apartment. The church Yvonne was in organised a Christmas celebration for the residence for them to experience Christmas in winter. And of course, what would the Christmas celebration be without christmas jingles. Hence I was there to play the sax and hopefully it brought them more joy with the music we played.

The pastor delivered a simple message that I thought it was meaningful. He said that Christmas need not be celebrated only at the end of the year... It could be celebrated everyday becoz the essence of Christmas is the birth of Christ and His presence and we know that His presence is always there 24/7. Hence Christmas celebration need not be confined to Dec period...

Anyway, to end of, I like to say that I was happy to see the 'half' reunion of my jazz band members.. the picture shows of me, ee ching, my pianist and yvonne, my singer. I'll like to leave you with this solo I played during the function.. hope u guys will enjoy..

Can't believe I finished the 40 episode of Triumph in the Sky drama serial in a couple of days... Thought I can kill some time by watching the show slowly to fight boredom.. In the end, I watch it in 5 days... I didnt know I am so effiecient in doing things...

I was be impressed by how real the story is about the training of the cadet pilots, since I am in that phase now. I'm even more impressed that the show even mentioned also about cabin crew training in which my wife when thru and the many good ethics that can be learned. However, having said all these, I m not impressed that the show emphasised so much on the topic of fate. Guess this is a chinese culture that all chinese identifys strongly with. But being a christian, my belief is that God gave us a life of freedom, we are free to choice what we want in our lives... But of course on the other hand, we seek His will first.

Another thing I am not impressed is that the cadet's were given aerobatic training... these guys are training to be a commercial pilots and not fighter pilots. Why is there a need for them to learn to fly aerobatic... Maybe the passenger planes can do aerobatic stunts all along and I didn't know.. hmmm...

Today is my second flight.. but before that, I saw a very big rainbow.. reminded me of my holiday with gelene, my lovely wife in NZ. I'm sure if she's here, she will love the sight... So the video is a dedication to my wife. Though she cannot see it for herself, hopefully the video will bring the same effect I have experienced to her..

Finally did my first flight... long awaited.. checked in here on the 11th July.. 24th July then got my hands on the Cessna 172R control. So sensational to flight again after the last one in seletar.. since Jan?? Anyway, my impression of the 172 compared with the 152 is that it is a tougher aircraft... hence need more force to handle the aircraft well.. but once properly trimmed.. the aircraft will behave well... nicely balance and very stable...

Just wanted to say that God is really wonderful and gracious in letting me fly... I thought the weather was bad enough to kill off any hope of flying. Even when I got over to the ops room was to carry out my duty as a typist though I am scheduled to fly at 1600. In the end, my instructor decided to go ahead with the flight though the weather didn't improve and the time was 20mins past my schedule flight time... God really like to play tricks on us.. so expect the unexpected..

OK.. what is even better now is that I will be flying tomorrow... so I better get some good rest..

Finally flew for the first time though not as the pilot but as a passenger on the back seat after almost two weeks staying here. Finally got to see the surroundings of the area. Have some 'nice' features like lakes that were dried up, power lines, factories with tall chimneys.. probably that's the tallest 'building' u can find around here.. But seriously, the coastal area is beautiful. One day I must head down to the beach.. I'm sure it will be so much better than those I've seen in melbourne..

What wasn't pleasant in the flight was the instructor tried to show Afiz, the trainee, what the C172 could do... so I had a little roller coaster ride at the back seat which included a 2G windup turn maneuver. The instructor kept checking on me whether I was ok and of course, being the tough pilot which I foresee myself to be, I gave him a thumbs up signal... Good thing the roller coaster ride was confined to the minimal and most of the flight was straight and level..

So now, at least I crossed the milestone of going up into the sky.. now I am just waiting for my turn to pilot the aircraft. I know that day will come and is very soon...

I can't believe it.. Yet again, my third attempt to perform my madien flight was unsuccessful.. thanks to the cold front development at perth area as observed in the picture... From the picture, you can see the patches of clouds over perth area. And those clouds were responsible for bringing thunderstorm, max crosswind and etc... For the last two days the weather was perfect to fly.. even this morning... only when I was about to fly, these clouds decided to come in and hamper my first flight...

Well, I guess for now, I shall relax a bit and not be too hopeful and expectant of my first flight.. then only it will come... hopefully.. did I just become hopeful again???

For those who like to see aircraft land and takeoff.. this video clip should be of interest to you. Just unfortunately my low end digi camera cannot capture high resolution... Anyway, that was the first time I witness two aircraft of the same type landing at the same time.. how cold is that... the aircraft according to my instructor is called nan chang.. enjoy..

OK, I'm going to add a bit of spice to my blog.. since now technology so advance.. can put video, podcast, live recording on the net.. so why not made good use of it.. This is the first video I have uploaded.. took me so long to just upload this.. but have fun and enjoy the tour of my room...

Wow, its has been almost a week while I last post my blog. Guess I'm back to my lazy self.. Anyway, the picture is me on the C172 ready to pax along with my friend who was doing his first flight. My flight was cancelled on the 14th July due to the weather. Can't believe today my flight had to be cancelled the second time due to my instructor on MC.. What I thought things going on my favor e.g. I am the second person for my planned first sortie, is turing out to be the opposite, e.g. i am like going to be the last few doing the first flight as more of my course mate did their first flight.

Feeling was like i've given up working hard and going to be slacker then ever... It's actually quite hard to sustain the excitment when things are going so slowly...

Well, I'm sure the excitment will come back again just prior to my next flight. Today I went out with a few guys out to garden city to do some shopping. Since I was the only one that knows the area a little better that the rest, I volunteered as the navigator. Being the navigator, I felt burden of responsibility on me and fear the worst might happened: getting lost and spoilt the whole event.

Yes, as usual, I brought the guys for a little touring about the neighbourhood before we finally reached our destination. Funny thing was that the driver asked if I was lost and figuring out where we were and I replied, 'that was like a few minutes ago'...
Lesson learn, sound out at the slightest hint of being lost, and not to repeat that in my flight training...

Its thursday and I am not yet gone... that means I'll get to see my wife.. It's really God's grace once again. Situation is not as bad as how it has pictured to be initially. It had been five weeks without seeing my wife and God had seen me thru during this period. Can't imagine what would had happen if I were to go before she came back.

During the time when she was not around, I only began to feel her absence gradually. Prob most after my exams when all my attention on my studies were no longer needed. Thru this, I realised that the true feelings of affection can be somewhat suppressed by keeping oneself busy. That applies to being passionate with God and the danger here is that such passion is so easily compromised when one is filled with activities. That's why we are always encouraged to be still and know that He is God...

That's Jacob in the picture. My cool guitarist still got the blues and playing it well. It was on a wed evening that I decided to have another jam with my band before I head off for aus. It was so great to jam with musicians that one is familiar with. No stress and pressure. Maybe a bad thing that comes out of it is some wrong notes played since there's no pressure to play properly.. But I know that's a bad habit and certainly not condone in good musicianship. I shall kick that habit away...

My regular drummer, amos and my keyboardist, ee ching. I must say they have greatly improved their skills. Maybe they engaged more in listening and playing jazz. Oh dear, looks like I am lagging behind... If I don't practice harder, I am certainly going to find myself out of the band. Worse even, I am going for my flight training and prob dont have the time to practice. Guess to do the least is to listen more to Jazz... Like what I am doing now while writing this post.

Anyway, back to the jamming. It was certainly great doing the 'never go wrong' numbers eg. Fly me to the moon, So nice, Blue bosa. Hence if I am really out of touch, these are the songs I can fall back on.. haha..

Today I did something unbelievable: I went on a cycling trip by myself. Ride along the singapore river all the way to kallang and ended up at mac donalds and thereby sending out this blog.

Some discoveries I made along the way. Found out that the city center has got some nice heritage trails for tourist.. probably for locals as well who don't bother to know about Singapore history like myself.. Found out also that now its an offences to ride when passing thru the underpass and in Clark Quay.

Oh, first time witnessed the 'landing' of the duck tour boat... quite interesting with all the water slashing all over the land. Anyway, guess I had a great workout. Now its dark and I need to get back.. probably will hit nightfall by the time I get back home.. better hurry...

It was on sunday that I had the honor to be treated by my caregroup members at a restaurant called Giraffe. It was so heartwarming to have them celebrate my farewell and wishing me all the best for my next stage of training. And especially so when rachel turned out as we haven't seen her for a while. It was unfortunate that my wife was not around to join us for the occasion.
Anyway, the serving of the food was huge. I had back baby ribs and it was so tender and sweet. The ambient was nice and cozy, sophticalted at the same time. I am certainly going back there again. Perhaps to have a lazy evening there with my wife enjoying the view (of the cars travelling along orchard road).

And of course, we had a fun time taking pics on my mac book with effects some more. Thus the pic shows the members in my caregroup. NG9B4... Not in the picture was Rachel as she came late, YK came back but said he had a headache, what's new... and my wife gelene who was still training in Chicago...

I know this may come a bit late but I want to include it on my blog before I completely forget this portion of my life in seletar.

It has been a solid 6 months spend in a land of traquility such as seletar and many things happened during this period. As a cadet pilot, we are supposed to spend our time here after classes so there will be minimal distraction from the outside world. The place we stayed is at 1 oval road. Nice house located at the circle intersection of the road. There were 7 of us in the house, those on the pic from left to right: Bong, myself and Godwin.

Life as a cadet during this stage had been both fun as well as stressful. Fun when we celebrated Bong's b'day. As we got the biggest house in our course, almost the whole course came over to have a drinking session. And of course the person who drank the most was none other than the b'day boy himself. He ended up puking and laughing. Stressful when our exams were drawing nearer and the 7 of us were on a debate of the right version of the answers to some ambigious questions...

Remembered during revision period, my leisure activity would be watching the channel 5 news with my news buddy chris. That was the time when we put our thoughts away from the lectures and enjoy some bit of interesting stuff such as news... How exciting yeah?? After the news, chris would go back to his room to cont studying diligently while I go back to my room to cont surfing the web diligently too.

The house has got a big 'garden' full of grass. That's where I parked my little white dot. I enjoyed washing my car there especially with the water hose. During our stay, we realised we had a mango tree at the backyard. Managed to pick some and tasted them but they turned out to be sour...

Finally, I will like to come back again, not because I have to repeat the course.. but to stay here as a resident. Maybe somewhere near... I just love the peaceful nature of the place and the sound of the aircraft taking off from time to time...

Posted my last post like very long time back.. Oh dear, that means I haven't been using my macbook much. Will try to post more regularly.. Prob make it a daily activity, if not every other day activity if that standard is not too ambitous for a novice blogger like me.

Wasted the whole of Friday lazying around at home. I noticed that comfort zone can do so much damage to spending your time fruitfully. When I am out, I catch up with friends, do sports which is good for the body, run some errands with my little white dot (my mini cooper) and time is well spent. On the other hand, if I stay at home, I just fix myself to the computer and play games, sleep on the bed and waste my time away...

Anyway, I cycled to my bike mechanic to get my mountain bike tuned in time for my next mountain biking session. Finally met up with Zac after the last time which was when I bought the bike from him, that was 3 years ago. Shows how much I 'treasure' my bike. What was even better was I learned that normally for bike enthusists, they changed their chains every year for optimal performance. For me, it never even occured to me that the chains should be changed. No wonder I got all the gear slipping problem the last time round when I ride.

It was late in the afternoon and the mechanic had quite alot of things to do, I decided to get my bike fixed another day. Actually, the real reason was that I wanted to avoid the service fee. Heard from my friend a decent fees is about 70... Wow, I can service it myself and save the 70 heehee.. cheapskate right..

As usual, I was late for the Fire Conference and my caregroup leader had to come out to usher me in. Met up with Wei Ping (my ex's uni friend) and his girlfriend Christina. Good to see them still so on fire and attend such conference. The speaker Reinhard Bonnke encouraged the Christians with the verse of the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30). What struck me most was that we should use our talents, even if there's a risk of losing it, e.g. mission that we embarked on turns out unsucessful. At least we can say that we tried. God will honour our actions.

After the conference, KC me and henri decided to hang out somewhere to watch World Cup quarter finals: Germany vs Argentina. Ended up watching at some coffeeshop which we can't make up the ball at all for the first half. We rushed to Robertson Walk where the screen was much bigger. Good thing was that the exciting part of the match was in the second half. Unforunately we missed the witnessing of the first goal. But it was ok.. I am a supporter of Germany. Hope they will win the World Cup since they are the host.