194th entry.

Well, I went to Church again. This time round, I'm getting less and less skeptical about Christianity. However, I'm not yet a Christian. There are still quite a number of doubts in my mind, and that I still had questions about everything I see now. "Is there really a God?" My answer's still no. I may be more open minded towards religions, but to get me to truly believe and commit myself to one, that's hard. I can't believe in God until I trust in that he had existed and is still existing. Unless I can make myself trust Christ, I won't be anywhere near any religion.

Other than that, I went with Ruiming and Ivan to Carnival@Marina today. It's the last day, so it's now or never. It's quite enjoyable really, there's much to see, hear and smell. There's displays of tanks, aircrafts and almost everything in the SAF. Truly magnificant.

I get to handle a SAR21 rifle, and actually aimed and shot with it. It's during a Urban Fighters exercise or game, that I actually used it. The smell after firing each bullet is unbearable, and it choked me. Our team lost, with the opposition capturing the flag. Darn Ivan, he got shot on the way back with the enemy flag. I did not kill anyone, nor did anyone hit me. Well, it's the first time I handled a rifle, and it's not until NS when I would handle another. A real eye opener.

Another thriller during the carnival is that we actually boarded the RSS Endurance. It's a big military ship of the Navy fleet, and probably the ship which has been on the most number of missions. Onboard the ship, we chatted with an Airforce officer who mended the chopper(helicopter) onboard the Endurance. He told us about real army life, and how those who signed on has "no dreams nor passion", and I found his words quite true. Another fun factor about him is his attitude towards the army itself, commenting about the "Academic meritocracy" and "Ranking of Officers" as "sh*t". He also used words like "f**k" towards the system in the army, isn't that ironic? He's quite racist too, and that probably what's the nicest thing about him too. He said that there's two types of people in this world, either Racist, or Black. He also commented that we could pinch each other all we want in the army, since all the high ranking officers have a turban bigger than the helmets, and he also commented something obscene which I won't blog about. He lived somewhere near us though, and I suggest you don't go knocking on his door.

While awaiting to board the transport to RSS Endurance, we commented on the names of the ship. We thought there's a reason to name each of the ships with a positive name. Until we see one ship called the RSS Bedok. We then wondered if Singlish was accepted as a National Language, would there be a RSS Bhai, RSS Simi, RSS Sek, RSS Lah, RSS Lor. Or even names like RSS Nathan, RSS Weixue. We're being abit mean, but that's what you do while waiting in a long queue to board a Navy ship.

I missed one event there, which is the 15mins firworks display to mark the end of the carnival. Reason being that there is too big a crowd streaming into Marina Bay. With the fireworks starting at 8pm, and ending at around 8.15pm, the crowd would hinder our departure and if I stayed on, I would not have reached home yet.

Nice day.