TRIBUTE TO A LOYAL, TRUSTED FRIEND & COLLEAGUE: P. SARASWATHY

I am truly out of words. I starred blank at the computer screen and could not comprehend or digest the news that I had just received from Chitra Muniandy. Sara is gone.... My heart sank. My whole body shivers and shaken. I felt so weak. Sara has work faithfully with me for more than 13 years and had never taken a single Medical Leaves. She took care of me and my office akin of a mother to a child though she was only 50 years old.

Losing Sara to an unknown sickness was as painful as losing a relative to a cancer. Half of my life was spend battling cancer and that is one battle that I am very familiar with but to lose a friend battling sickness was beyond comprehension.

It was only a few weeks ago that Sara confided in me of her unbeknown sickness. She felt weak and could not even climb the stairs up to our office. Her ankle and various body parts were swollen and she could not breath. I told her to go home and rest. Focus in getting better and do not worry about the office but Sara is a workoholic. At home, she continued to manage the office ensuring all work was well coodinated and done.

She was later admitted at the Assunta Hospital where the Specialist insisted for her to remove both her womb and ovaries but luckily she obtained a second opinion from University Hospital whom adviced her against Assunta Hospital's advice. She was discharged from the University Hospital on thursday last week to spend the public holiday at home before undergoing MRI and other checks for diagnosis.

Over the weekend she was admitted at the Columbia Hospital again for some complication and passed away shortwhile ago.

THE LONGEST DAY

When we talk about a bootcamp fitness program, nothing can rival Chief Brabon and Gunny Brabon 23 years old program at the Chief's Original Bootcamp, Malaysia (COBC) or commercially known as the Original Bootcamp (OBC) in Australia. The duo founded the OBC in 1999 from what was first a camp to slim down the wives (at their request) of the goddess looking Royal Australian Army. Chief customized the army training program for those wives and it became so popular their friends began to take part and today, from just a platoon of wives, it has expanded across 50 locations in Australia and 6 locations in Malaysia.

The program was further researched and various events were organized to keep recruits motivated while maintaining their training momentum. In Malaysia, the Military-Corporation aka Military Corp (pronounced as Military Kor) codenamed MC12 (Military Corp12 session) had trained more than 5,000 recruits since its establishment less than 3 years ago and the next most successful program launched under OBC/COBC stable was the 8 Week Challenge where a challenge was thrown to all recruits to transform their health and physique into their dream body in just 8 weeks. Those challengers with the best transformation, will receive a reward RM15,000 as the grand prize for the the Grand Champion. In addition to the overall champion, Malaysia Champion received a New Balance Voucher worth RM3,000.

Beside the Military Corp and the 8 Week Challenge, in Australia, there are three (3) other programs that became the talk of town every time it was organized namely, the Longest Day, the Hell's Week and Spec Ops (aka Special Operations). What is the Longest Day? This is the subject for this blog, specially request by 8WC Summer-2013 Subang Jaya Champion Sui Lynn.

The Longest Day was first introduced in 2011 and it was limited to only 52 participants-by-invitation per event . This was intentionally done to maintain the quality of the event and to make it exclusive. Only the best 52 applicants will be approved to participate. Thusfar, there is no recruit from Malaysia that had successfully participated and complete the Longest Day challenge. In 2012, one of our former instructor Daing was invited and had completed the challenge making him the first Malaysia instructor to have completed the challenge but that is expected of Chief's instructor. At the point of writing, there is still no one recruit that was invited to participate. The participation is by invitation only. Rumours have it, COBC instructors are currently grooming a few Deltas to take part in the challenge. Recruits will be nominated by their local lead instructor, having met all physical and motivational standards that are required. Recruits were not only judge on their physical ability but also on their mental fortitude.

The Longest Day event is a continuous 25 hours of bootcamp'ing!! Non-stop?!! ...almost!! The Longest Day was created to give civilians an insight into the level of physical and mental fortitude required to be a Special Forces soldier without having to commit to military service.

It began immediately the moment the bus transporting the participant arrived at the destination. They were greeted by instructors whom were either formerly infantry soldiers and/or some still serving soldiers. They were greeted with endless knocked on the bus door, followed by screaming and cursing army-style for all participants to get off the bus. Once everybody were off the bus, they were given a last call to retreat but if they are determine to proceed, they all must cross a line drawn which by then, there will be no turning back. 

COBC 2013 QUARTER 1: RETRO PARTY PART 2 (JANUARY TO MARCH SPIRIT OF BOOTCAMP AND ACERS)

COBC had our quarterly party in April at the Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club with the theme "Retro Party" (See: HERE) and part of the night's program was the certificate presentation for the achievers namely the voted Spirit of Bootcamp and those that was committed to discipline and sheer consistent workout- the Acers (100% Attendance, Commitment and Effort).

For the newbies, the Spirit of Bootcamp award is given to the recruit that motivates you to push that extra harder, somebody that makes your session more enjoyable, it does not even have to somebody that you know. It can be somebody that you have never even spoken to but you notice him/her to be encouraging, humorous and helpful. You determine who motivates you the most and you vote for him to be the Spirit of Bootcamp for your platoon. The recruit that was voted the most, will be the Spirit of Bootcamp for the platoon and will receive a certificate.

The ACERS... are those recruit that attended all the 12 sessions at his/her registered platoon including the Benchmark Assessment. Being military-inspired, it is important that we are always discipline and consistent with our training. Yes, you can attend as many sessions as you want, at any location (but must seek approval first before attending by SMS'ing Admin) under the Bootcamp-Buffet but you will only be awarded with the ACERS certificate only if you have attended the 12 sessions (including Benchmark Assessment) at your registered platoon.

NOW BACK WITH MAXIS

Last year, I courted Celcom, Digi and Tunetalk then ended an almost 20 years of relationship with
Maxis when Maxis became seriously ridiculous with the unlimited roaming Data charges imposed.

During the courtship, Digi stands out the best amongst all others in term of call rate (cheapest especially international calls) and with Digi, there is no additional charges if you have used up your internet data credit limit. Your internet browsing would just go slower. So there will be no eye popping, heart breaking, earth shattering exorbitant month-end bill. You pay maximum what you set as your credit limit for both data and call charges.
 
All mobile network have a credit limit sort of facility that you can set a maximum ceiling for phone and data usage per month and having set mine, I was confident my MAXIS line would be barred the soonest it reaches the limit but unbeknown to me, it did not and I received a whoppingly ridiculous high bill. Feeling cheated and not being satisfied with the answer from customer service especially since I had fix the credit limit (but my bill came out a few times higher than the credit limit - on roaming data), I terminated the almost 20 years of loyalty with Maxis last year and signed up with Digi.

All is well with Digi except the NO reception in Sungai Penchala where my home is and along the PLUS highway, KL to Johor.