Heartbreak

The title says it all. After all the optimism, reality came crashing down on me as I read the rejection email from the folks at Singapore Airlines. I'm not sure what happened or where I failed the medical, but I'm pretty sure of one thing right now - God doesn't love me.

How else can I explain the fact that I end up in all the wrong places in life?

A Week Later

Been back here for a week and already so many things have happened. Arrived at a block where the power was out every alternate night, stayed there for a week, shifted out, bought a newspaper last wednesday and found out Lebanon was bombed.

Damn. Why must I live in a land without TV?

Post Match

They won it!! Italy Won!!! I had no doubt they would be world champions for the fourth time! YES!!!!

Pre Match

It doesn't matter if they win or lose. They're heroes already. At least to me they are. They've proven me wrong in going this far and I'm proud to be a supporter of their team since Euro 2000. I'm writing this as the teams are listening to their national anthems and I'm sure they're gonna win it. I've even bought their jersey to celebrate. Forza Italia!


I can't believe this is my first blog entry about the World Cup! And on the final day at that!

Look, ma...

...I can see my house - literally, on this miracle program called Google Earth. Don't believe me? Have a look yourself!

Home!

That's right, you can even see the cream colored driveway that differentiates my house from the neighbors. Here are some friends' houses.

Vicki's house at Taiping Garden:

Peh Siong's at Glenview:

Moving further towards town, Tharan's place at Aulong:

And on to Lakeview. WC's former house, I think. Can't see the house numbers from satellite pics:

Still at Lakeview. Justin's place:

Closer to town, Kev's place. Once again, I couldn't make a positive ID without numbering, but it's one of these houses:

And Seng Wah too. Can't see Hock Heng undertaker from here, so I think this should be his house:

Funny the 'Taiping' marker should be smack in the middle of Aulong and not the center of Taiping town itself:



Close up of SGI (primary & secondary), where we Sons of St George's all walked through, except WC who 'defected' mid-way to SMK Cheras!


Close up of SGI secondary:


How it looks like from ground zero:



The sad state of the abandoned Taiping airport with its stripped runway. This was the first airport in Malaysia, btw. Tharan told me a Caribou military transport once landed here way back in 1970 but couldn't take off after that because the runway was too short...

Take your own tour of Taiping (or somewhere else): http://earth.google.com. Be warned though, the clear satellite images only last till the beginning of the lake gardens.

3 Places in 3 Weeks - Fun this ain't

Finally got my laptop back today, more than two weeks after leaving it in Singapore. So where was I for three weeks in June?


Week 1: Unimas

Nothing much here. The same ol' Unimas sights greeted me...until I opened my room door and found the place raided from top to bottom, no doubt by the cleaners. Among the items on the missing list:

- Brand new, two month old table fan
- Giordano jacket
- Half used tube of toothpaste
- 9 leftover sachets of 3-in-1 Milo
- Large bucket
- Almost empty bottle of Dettol shower foam
- Electric boiler (later recovered from the unlocked cleaners' room)

Think these thieves were cheap? Damn right they were! I mean if you're so f***in poor that you can't even afford Milo and toothpaste, tell me. I'd gladly donate entire crates of each to you!


Week 2: Singapore

Checked into the Paramount Hotel on the morning of the 13th to prepare for day 1 of the Singapore Airlines cadet pilot second round interview later that day. And as far as coincidences go, this really was one of the biggest. The fellow applicant I shared a room with turned out to be a Taiping guy through and through. What's more, our homes are apparently within walking distance and he attended the same secondary school as me. Two out of 10 shortlisted applicants from SGI. Shows you what us Georgians can do , eh?

Anyway the first day consisted of a check of our educational certificates and a psychomotor test in the evening, which everyone including yours truly, thought they blew. Truth is, with the results kept secret we'll never know...

Day 2 of the interview was the most taxing. There were group activities in the morning. My guess was they were designed to judge who has leadership and communication skills. I'm not going to go into specifics about what these activities were, but let's say they involved drawing and lego blocks. In the evening was the interview proper, where each individual was faced by a panel of 5 pilots. Only one person from this five was present from the group activity session in the morning (he couldn't be more appropriately named Captain Goh!) and again I came out feeling like I had blew it. Guess I should've done more research on fly-by-wire and glass cockpits. Anyway, there was a short tea party after that, where some light food (and beer!) was served and we took this chance to talk to the aforementioned pilots about their job, etc. Certainly was an honor to meet an A345 captain who had been flying for 30+ years!

To cut a long story short, we called the SIA folks at 11am the day after that (Thursday) and found out that only 4 of us, including me (yipee!) got through and were due for a medical checkup the next day (Friday). It wasn't all fun and celebrations though. The mood around gets really subdued when you realize that others who wanted this just as much as you didn't get through.

And the medical checkup? Well the eye specialist at Mount E wrote that the visual acuity of my right eye was worse that 6/60! I mean what the...?! How can that be? Oh well, just gotta hope for the best I guess.

So how did I find the entire experience? One of the guys who got through, Sam, said it was like a reality show. And I couldn't agree more.

With the guys before they left the hotel

Week 3: UiTM

Now for the hard part - practicing how to stand under the hot sun for an entire day for 4 days before the official ceremony on Saturday. What ceremony you ask? Why it's a cop ceremony. That's right, I'm a cop now!

But I guess was pretty lucky. Due to the interview, I took the previous week off which meant I only had to attend the marching drills for only a week whereas the other guys in the platoon had to endure two whole weeks of it. And I got to shake hands with the IGP too! All in all, a unique and eye opening experience, considering I had only joined because I had wanted to fire a gun and get paid to do it.

Spot the Weiyang - again!

So I'm back in Taiping now, enjoying all the 'wat tan hor' and home cooked food I can before heading back to dear ol' Unimas this coming Monday. Damn sien la when I think of it...

Ad Astra per Aspera

Was browsing around nasa's website today, looking for the NasaTV link to watch the Space Shuttle launch when I found a reminder of just why I had wanted to be an engineer.

JFK's 'Before the decade is out' Speech:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/highlights/index.html

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out,
of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish,"

- John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

Yup, somehow listening to the speech again made the thought of returning Unimas seem less and less depressing. And though I know my current GPA probably wouldn't be enough to get me into a reputable grad school (which might serve as a launchpad for me into the NASA workforce) I can probably take solace in the fact that there will be people my age working on the project and maybe even making the journey itself across the void to the moon, Mars and beyond.