🇸🇬 Once In Our Lifetime, Two Years Of Our Life

Some people would usually ask this, if you were given a choice, would you serve two years of NS (Nation Service) willingly? To be honest, if there are no repercussions in not serving NS (not being able to find a government job easily, loose citizenship, get charged etc), many people would do it, including me. Many people have different reasons of not wanting to serve, some feel that they wont be able to withstand the physical challenge, some feel that they wont fit in socially well, some just want to use this two years of their life to study or work instead and some simply find these two years is a total waste of their time. To most Singaporeans males, NS give females a 2 years head start in life because females do not need to serve NS.

 However, despite all these negative general opinions, I did not find my 2 years in NS a total waste of time. In fact, I did appreciate these two year of NS as it gives me time to do my other stuffs. In school, we are tied to rigid schedules and strict timetables. Every single second is important as it could be used in studies which eventually will most likely determine whether you can attain your dream job. Even in weekends, if we had nothing to do and exams are coming, we still have to mug like crazy if we want to score results with flying colours. However in NS, during our admin time and when we bookout, we do not  have to study or do projects, we can just literally slack and do nothing and enjoy every single moment of life without having to worry about anything. We can just play computer games, watch online movies and shows, go out with friends etc without having this fear of losing out to others academically in this paper chase race. We have literally nothing to worry about during our free times. These two years was a well-deserved break from the rigours of studying. I get to do many things during my free time, like reading countless books, learning guitar, watching lots of movies/tv series, catching up with old friends, reading up about my uni modules, spending more time with my family, being able to go church regularly etc.

In addition, I also learned a lot of skills and life long lessons in NS. Being exposed to people from different backgrounds had greatly opened my eyes to different situations that people are going through and also widened my perspective in life. Through interacting with different people, I get to learn different lessons from them. I admit, it was hard adapting and fitting it at first physically, mentally and socially, but after a while things got better after BMT (Basic Military Training). Life was definitely not a bed of roses in my army life, I had been through rough seasons and harsh encounters with unreasonable superiors and other people. Still, I learned a few lessons from these experiences. I learned how to be tolerant with some people and learn to respect people of higher authority and how to deal with unreasonable people. Sometimes, life is unfair. I had learned on how to accept certain unfair things and deal with it during my army life. I also learned how to trust God when I was in deep waters, because in the end He never failed me through any situations during my 2 years in NS. On the other side of the coin, the hard skills that I learned in NS was also very useful. Being a mechanic in NS impart me with technical skills that I would need to have in my future course in University (Engineering) and give me a taste how it would be like to be an Engineer.

This is personal to me due to the favourable situations, but I thank God for giving me a general stay out life and my camp which is near my house. I remembered before getting my unit posting, I kept praying to God to let me be posted to Kranji Camp forever after my vocational training which was also at Kranji Camp. Things got ugly during the posting session and somehow the clerks blundered, but whatever that happened or meant to be happened, I thank God by His grace that when I was in two different unit, my location was always at Kranji Camp. This saves a lot of my transport fees as I do not have to take the public bus or train when I book in or book out. Also, because my camp was near my house, I could wake up later than my other friends in the morning and reach home earlier too after work. Even though the work environment was quite cancerous and there were frequent OTS and several outfield, the location of the camp being near my house really made up for all of that. Having a workplace that is walk-able from my house is already such a great blessing from God. Eeven though the environment in my unit was cancerous, I learned a lot of life lessons from it and made quite good friends from it which made up for the cancer.

These two years in my life is really a unique and an enjoyable experience for me. If given a chance to serve NS out of freewill, I might not choose to serve it but I definitely do not find these two years a total waste of my time. In fact, I am thankful for this season in my life as it taught me a lot of life-long lessons and values, allowed me to take a break from studying, letting me relaxed and doing the things I wanted to do during my free time. Once in our lifetime, two years of our time. If you are about to enter NS or going through it right now, make this two years of your time enjoyable, make more friends and make full use of the time you get away from studying/work so that you would not find NS a total waste of your time.

📱 Miraculous Return Of My Lost Phone

12.06.2018.

From 11.06.2018 to 14.06.2018, I had a glimpse of what campus life would be like, I went for NUS Engin Camp18. On the second day, we had an amazing race around the campus. That day, I wore SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) admin pants, in which my pockets were small and loose. After finishing the games at the station at the science faculty, we took the NUS Campus Bus A1 from the science faculty to the computing faculty. At the games station at the computing faculty, I realised my phone was not in my pocket which I last placed my phone inside. I got scared and decided to check my entire bag for my phone. Realising my phone was not with me, my mind started to spiral away, thinking of the dreadful outcomes if I cant find my phone back. I mentally braced myself of the worst thing that might hit me, which is not finding my phone back.

If that really happened, my remaining two to three days in the Engin Camp would suck damn bad and I would regret signing up for this camp, never ever willing to go for any other camps again. My parents would be so mad at me, of how careless I was. Cancelling my phone number  and getting a new phone would be very troublesome. All my precious photos and important friend contacts would also just be gone like that down the drain. It would be hard to start over again socially. I would be depressed for like about a month, no mood to go out with friends or continue working. At that moment, I knew that there no one which I could look up to except God. I started to pray in God and spoke in tongues softly. As I prayed in the spirit, I heard God is telling me in my heart that everything would be fine. I was unsure if I left my phone at science faculty, on the A1 bus or around computing faculty. Just then, I felt from the Holy Spirit that I just left my phone on the A1 bus.

Putting my trust in God, I told my OGL that I probably left my phone on the bus A1. It was also probably the easiest and nearest location to search first. We then took another bus A1 all the way to the terminal, hopeful that the bus stopped at the terminal and not in the midst in its second or third trip. Throughout the journey, I remained calm all the way. From my past experiences, God always delivered me through and out of the storm, I believed and have faith that this time round He will still deliver me. I just keep remembering of how in the past I been through worse things in my life, yet His grace always extend to me and He never fail me. Somehow, God's miracle would always manifest in my life through His grace and power even though I had failed Him countless time. When I reached the terminal, there was no one at the main office to help us. I just had this idea instantaneously to tiptoe and look at the back seat (where I previously sat) of every A1 bus to see if my phone was on it. However, I was not tall enough. My OGL decided to help me out with it and thank God, we found my phone at the back seat.

In conclusion, God was very faithful. I thank God for giving me peace in that situation and also delivering me miraculously out of that situation.

🌱 Restoration Of A Friendship

I first met my childhood friend, Joel Heer, at my old church (Hebron) during one of the Sunday classes that I attended last time in church when I was 12 years old. I recognised that he was also from my primary school, De La Salle Primary School. From there on, we became good friends and always hung out with each other after church. During church events and camps, we would always stick together. After PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examinations), I started learning playing DM (Duel Masters) and I introduced Joel DM. We both started spending money buying more and more DM cards and started to play at our house and even during and after church. During the December Holidays, I would frequently visit Joel house to play DM, chess and computer games. We would sometimes play basketball too. Even though our PSLE scores were of great difference, even though we entered different academic streams, we still went to the same secondary school- Kranji Secondary School by God's grace. Even though we did not tell each other our choices for our secondary school that we keyed in the system, we were shocked that our first three choices were the same. It might be a coincidence, but I believe meeting him was a divine encounter from God.

After my Alevels, I went into army and he went into Poly. We grew apart as the rhythm of life split us apart. I messaged him and also Facebook message him to ask for meetups, but he did not reply back at all. The last time we met was in 2016, we went to Republic Polytechnic Open House together. For two to three years, we did not met at despite staying so close to each other, literally a neighbourhood away. In 2018, which would be this year I am typing this blog, I started to praying to God desperately for God to move and restore this friendship. After a while, he messaged me first stating he happened to saw me from his car which passed by me. I knew instantly that God was moving. After a while, we decided to meet up on 02/06/2018, have lunch at yew tee point. We had an awesome catch-up and ate at 18 chefs. While we were almost done eating, I saw Kin How, one of my secondary school friends whom I was good friends with but also lost contact. I called him out and He came to talk to us. We decided to talk cock and had a great catch-up. Kin How also knew Joel as they were both in the same CCA (Co-Curricular Activities). He was mutual friend. I thank God that fateful day. I thank God for listening to my prayers and answering them. I also thank God for instead of restoring just one friendship, He also extend His grace to me by restoring a second lost friendship.
     
Friends, after reading this, even though this might be a personal testimony, there could be still some takeaways. God will restore things, so do not give up and keep praying to God for restoration!

playing chess and duel masters to relieve childhood memories