Rocky Hill Mess'ers on Comms Ball Recce!

Rocky Hill Mess'ers went out on a recce for Circwood's Commissioning Ball yesterday!

It was a pain in the arse, I tell you. You would think that since hotels are open 24/7, their Catering and Sales would be available too, but no!! We paid painfully for our mistake of not making appointments beforehand.

"You'd have to make an appointment with our Catering & Sales," is what most of the receptionists can say. ARGH!

And so we got little work done. We did manage to see the place, and we did manage to get some quotations, but nothing fully customised to our situation and what we want.

So anyways, this is the chronological story...

We first made our happy way to Raffles Marina in the morning after we have met at Boon Lay Station. We turned out to be too early because non of the sales people were there, and there was no one to show us around.

Having nothing to do, we decided to check out the outside.
Beautiful! All these photos, I might add, is taken non other by Zhimin!!

Wah. He really has quite an eye for things. I'm not showing all the photographs because there ain't space. I'm only showing photos with me in them! Muahahahas!!

Anyway, we loved the scene with the yachts parked outside, and the view was breath-taking. We all thought "this is it!" Soon enough, our little Circwood bodies couldn't take the immense heat of non-air-conditioned weather, so we had to adjourn inside to find more things to do while we waited for the people to arrive.

We found this small bowling alley in the club and went bowling!
Now, that's The Silmarillion I'm holdin in that 2nd photograph. I'm proud to say that I have finished it for the second time! Ahh, and you can see Zhimin telling you to kill pop stars, and Wen Tian in the first photograph. That's BJ at the back, and Jeremy in front in the second photograph.. Jeremy is not a much of a bowler. Neither am I, actually.. I ended the game with a sucky 49 points. WTF!

Raffles Marina turned out to be a disappointment in the end because the ballroom didn't fit what we had in mind. The location was quite an issue too, because it was far away from any place in Singapore. OUT!

Next, we went to check out Equinox. Unfortunately, we did not make an appointment, so they turned us down right at the entrance. What great service =) Jeremy is still keen on that place though. I think otherwise.

Then we went to Fullerton!
The receptionist was kind enough to show us the Ballroom and the Straits room after we explained our predicament, and gave us several catalogues and told us that we could contain Sales if we needed more customisation. Excellent service. No wonder it's a six star hotel man!

I personally liked the location and the place, but was quite against holding Comms Ball there because I had prom there! Its perks are really enticing though..

From their catalogue, there was something about complimentary limousine service. I suspect it is only for weddings though.. who would want to ferry 44 couples for free? That's a lot of petrol okae!

But Fullerton is definitely one of the top choices =)

We went then to Raffles Hotel...

I loved the architecture of the place, and the fact that it is reminiscent of the Circwood building. This way we would have some sort of a link between Comms Ball and our course you see.

Unfortunately we didn't manage to get much information from the receptionist. Hmm. We did take the opportunity to plan quite a bit of our general programme though..

Believe me, Comms Ball will be a blast! Now who wants to be my date? Hahas

Anyways, Raffles Hotel is BIG. The ballroom was cosy and grand with chandeliers and all. Very colonial, I say. It's my top choice. =P Pricing is quite steep though.. We'd have to work on that won't we!

Raffles more or less ended our recce, the time being late then, and we all had places to go and people to meet.

I went on to buy my camera with Chee Wee, Julian and Wen Tian! Chee Wee intends to buy the very same camera because he figured that it's a very zai and professional camera. =)

Did I say that I bought my camera?! HOHOHO! Yeah baby~ The Panasonic DMC-FZ8 is mine! My precious!!

Here's the FZ8..
Chio right? I've been playing with it all day. OMG. The quality is super good. The weight is surprisingly light too.. It also has a function to tell you the exposure at the shutter speed and aperture you set so you don't get underexposed or overexposed photographs.

I love the fact that I can manual focus now. Hahas. Sheesh. I'm hysterical!

You are going to see a lot more photographs on the blog man.

Alrighty! I should get back to my work. Til next week! Take care!

P.S.: To those who think they are falling sick, or fell sick, must take care of your health! Youth is not immortality leh! A lot of people getting sick lately. Don't let me worry okae? =)

Tales from Circwood

It has been a few days here at Circwood. I’m starting to get used to the place and the people, the instructors and their fluid moods. We all get used to things after time I guess.

Just one week back, I had one of the worst weeks in my recent life. Feeling Godless, feeling lonely without anyone to talk to, and facing the cruelest things I could say to myself in my head. Never once did I tell anyone this, because I knew neither comforting words nor condemning words could do me any good. All I had to do was to work my way back to grace with the help of God. I had to get myself out of that frame of mind and out of the negative thinking.

I don’t really know how I managed to get out of it, really. I can only guess it was meeting the kayaking people, actually going to church after what seemed like so long, and chatting with Jamie over MSN.

You know that cryptic and poorly written entry posted last week? I guess what I really wanted to figure out was why I managed to feel so much better after the convo with Jamie, and I thought to myself “I feel happy when talking to Jamie because I tell myself I’d feel happy when I talk to Jamie”. Isn’t that cool how our mind works like that? Then again, I wouldn’t really know how my mind really really works. I’d have to ask God on that!

So anyway, the first day here at Circwood was spent on learning about the organizational structure of their healing and provenance branches. Day 2 was on the journey and restoration divisions of the Legion. Word has it that we would learn about the last and final pillar of The Organisation Where Everything Comes From, strength. It appears to me that they do not value Strength much. Hmm..

Generally the lectures were difficult to follow. Despite trying my best to follow what the lecturers were saying, I either ended up asleep or lost. The exception would have to be Journey. It was so straightforward that I even managed to understand a little bit more of the other branches better because their structures were similar in small ways.

The lecture by WO Bala was to me, the most interesting of all. FORMS! Learning how to account for things in the Legion. So I learnt about a lot of TWELVEs and about the Gs. Really quite interesting how there’s a form for every single thing ever. I learnt also about the Enterprise System. Not much yet, but enough for me to be quite amazed. I’m waiting for more!

Another thing that was introduced was Problem Based Learning by Captain Sima. What happens is that we are given case studies to dissect and to analyse, and then to ask questions from those case studies, and then find out the answers to the questions ourselves. In that way, I think we would have greater information retention, and the things we learn would have greater applicability in our future vocations.

As I said before, the food here has been superb, and the place is starting to grow on me, and I keep catching myself wanting to take photographs. Just today I saw the nicest lighting by the lamp above the roof to take a shot. Too bad I don’t have my Lumix DMC-FZ8 yet!! That shall change soon though! Hehehs..

Just today I got caught by 2LT Yong Chiang eating Jack ‘n’ Jill’s in the canteen. After which he asked why I was eating chips when tomorrow is IPPT. Argh. 2LT Wensheng asked me the same thing then. At first I wasn’t really bothered, because I am quite sure that the Gold is within my reach (think about the $200!!) Right now though, I’m starting to feel a little worried.. I’m terribly insecure about my own capabilities, I’m afraid. We shall see tomorrow, I guess! I’d get a bag of chips from 2LT Yong Chiang if I do get gold! Hoho!

Right now, I feel the serenity of an ocean. Now that my CPS term is over, it seems like I can afford to breathe again. It has been a good learning journey where I discovered my weakness of low self-esteem, and I think I did a pretty good job of overcoming it. I also learnt never to let anyone tell you or suggest to you what you can or cannot do. Because you know yourself best.

I feel also, that I have been made right with God, and that He has many good things in store for me here at Circwood. Can’t wait for tomorrow!