You know, I was just thinking. I can't remember the last time when I woke up on my own bed on a THURSDAY MORNING. Thursdays used to be my favourite day of the week because it's almost the end of the week and after going through Thursday it will be Friday the next day and Fridays are generally happy days, but for me, Thursdays are even happier. So I'm awfully happy that I'm home today on a good good Thursday, and not in camp doing physicals or whatever training.

Anyway, I spent my day at Vivo again. Met Devin and Jeremy in the morning cos they are going back to Sentosa for a visit! And I happily left house forgetting to bring out my Sentosa Family Pass, which can allow me into the island without paying for the admission and transport. So what to do? We paid to go in. It was kinda nostalgic, taking the trains with the thought that all 3 of us worked there like three months ago, and now we're all in the army. Went down to Beach Station, talked to old colleagues and friends, met some of the new people who just started work there, and before an hour was up, I was on my way out with Azliza (on her lunch break) back to Vivo.

Then I went to find Qiling at the Golden Village cineplex. She had a pair of free movie tickets to redeem for, so I was there to exploit the "free movie" and fill up the seat. Qiling insisted she wanted Spiderman but I said Shrek 3, so I overthrew her after a huge tussle which included the GV ticketing counter guy, and we got Shrek 3 tickets. Then guess what? She meekly passed me a piece of paper that she had printed the night before, and they were MOVIE TIMINGS FOR SHREK. She had wanted to watch it all along! Blooiee. Anyway, we went for lunch at Secret Recipe, and shopping around in Vivo! Then came back in time for the movie. Then after that, shopping somemore. I reckoned I spent three or four hours trawling Vivo. And I'm just watching on as she browses through millions of clothings and accessories and spends all her money on Tofuman and accessories which she doesn't really need.

Came back to Bishan in time to meet my mum and my sister for dinner! Heck, I miss my family. I miss irritating my sister just for the fun of it. I like to see her all flustered and annoyed. Whee.

Oh oh. I didn't mention this: Today's the first day I watched a movie after almost a year of not visiting the theatres. My last movie was Cars, which was June last year with the Dale Carnegie people! And check this out: I've only watched a grand total of THREE movies in the past year and a half. Obviously that would tell you that I'm not a great movie-buff. I think it's a waste of money paying to watch something for 2 hours! And and and, fifteen minutes after the movie ended, I would not be able to tell you what happened or what was the plot or who or how and whatever. Yeah, it's that tragic. I've watched all the first instalments of Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean and Shrek, but I didn't catch the sequel for all three movies, and now the third instalment for all the same three movies are out around the same time, and I'm quite reluctant to watch any of it because I didn't watch the second one and I've clean forgotten what happened in the very first one. Okay Shrek 3 wasn't that bad because it wasn't really related to the first two ones. Well it's not a bad thing. I've forgotten the plots for most of the books I've read too. That's why I'm re-reading my Harry Potters now.

OH OH OH. I forgot to mention this too. I saw a rainbow yesterday on Tekong! We were queueing up to draw out our rifles for weapons inspection, and someone shouted "rainbow" and there it was, faint in the sky, but the colours were unmistakable. It's been a while since I last saw one, and you know all those connotations with rainbows. It represents hope, promise, joy, a new beginning, a new start, etc etc. And I figured that was probably all that I need in my life right now. I'm in quite a screwed-up state now, so the rainbow appeared as a welcome relief for me. But well, it's a new beginning after all! I shall be optimistic and stick out my head with confidence.

It's been a good day today. Yay. Tomorrow will be an obstacle.

I'm staring right in the face of another long weekend. 4 complete days and nights! Thanks to Vesak Day and some funny weird reason why I don't have to book in tomorrow, that isn't a bad thing at all. Add to the fact that this week is a fantastic short week in camp (3 days), and you wonder why I'm in quite exuberant spirits.

Alright without further delay, my update of the week. I threw my grenades on Monday! We had some practice throws with practice grenades that just make a small pop after you throw them, and then the real thing was issued to us. I'll probably never forget the horrible feeling of holding the live, real, actual, fragmentation grenade in my hands. Even more terrifying: keeping it in your pouch that is strapped to your vest and the thought that it might blow off any moment. When it was my turn to throw, I had trouble pulling the safety ring out because I couldn't figure out which way to ease the ring out. Then I lobbed the grenade towards the target and my Platoon Commander body-slammed me into the wall of the throwing bay. Counting down and anticipating the explosion, then you hear the loud blast and feel the shockwaves as that small bomb explodes into smithereens. Then I whooped like crazy.

Oh. I reported sick today. Diarrhoea for 2 days, and my throat's inflammed.

Sometimes I really hate those dratted dark storms in my life. They just engulf me whole and trap me in, making me wish I've never been borned. However, the more I think of it, I realised that it wasn't so much of me walking into the storm or the storm walking itself towards me. A lot of times, the storm isn't around me; it's within me. It's brewing and stirring and whipping up massive blizzards in my troubled soul. Well, I learnt this week that resistance to this inner storm is futile. The more I resist, the more fragile I become. Instead, I tried to walk through it, facing it without trying to overcome it, letting it sweep over me. All I have to do is shut my eyes, plug my ears and walk in faith. And without knowing it, the storm is a thousand miles behind, too far gone to trouble me.

I think my blog posts are becoming too metaphysical.

Ahh. It's 0136 hours now. It's considered extremely late into the night now, since I'm already quite used to lights out and sleeping by 2230 hours. But today was a jam-packed, busy day! I didn't reach home till past midnight. Alright, here's my account for the day.

Woke up dreadfully early in the morning because I have to be at Nee Soon camp by 0830 hours for SAF band audition. Apparently the army managed to trace back my CCA records or something, but the point is, I was scheduled for an cornet/trumpet audition. The problem is, the last time I played cornet was SECONDARY ONE, which is about 6 or 7 years ago. So I was thinking of skipping the audition since I probably stink at playing any instruments and they most likely ain't going to put a fighting-fit, Pes A guy to blow trumpets. But I was instructed to turn up anyway. So I travelled all the way there, walked a million miles into the camp just to tell them I'm not interested. And while waiting for Guan Heng and Rizal's (they went with me) audition to end, I drew out one of their cornets just to fool around. To my amazement I realised I still can buzz into the cornet mouthpiece, and a decent musical note sounded out! Whee. So I played through the C major scale, before realising that I've forgotten all the fingerings for all the flat or sharp notes. Worse, I tried playing off a very simple musical score and realised I can't sight-read as fast as I used to be able to. So I just bummed into the holding practice room waiting for my two platoon mates to end. What a waste of my morning sleep.

After that, I came home to change out of my uniform and went all the way to Choa Chu Kang for lunch with Qiling. Pizza Hut! Gosh I realised yet again that I'm missing out on all the good food just because I'm in army. I shall eat something good for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Anyway, after lunch, Qiling rushed off for her driving lesson while I went to the library over there. The amount of books they have over there is puny. I wanted another birdwatching guide but couldn't find one. That's when I decided to go home.

And then I went out in the evening again! Going for Aristal, which was a combined dance concert of all the major dance groups of NJC. Venue was at Ngee Ann Poly. In a way it was like going for prom or something, because I met all my college juniors and friends and classmates and teachers. Was with Qiling and Jaslyn on the very last row of the stands. Well, the dance performances were good! I think my favourite ones are the Indian dances because I just like Indian dances. Haha! But all the dancers were good. Ginny was up onstage for Western dance alumni performance. Oooh, one of the performances make no sense! They started out in white gowns with some classical, fairy-like atmosphere, then they suddenly changed to some heavy metal rock music and the dancers were clad in red tights that looked really horrible.

Anyway, after the performances were all over, we went around taking photos and catching up with friends with a handshake or a hug or a kiss or a jig-around-dance. I saw my junior class with THEIR junior class, which only went on to make me feel even older. I met other friends and juniors too, of course. It feels like going back to NJ. Blee. Then Jas and me and Qiling went down to KAP for supper, of which Annie joined in halfway, before we all went home.

Yeah. It's been quite a happy, busy day. I forgot about getting depressed over the death of my dear hamster; I forgot about my troubles; I forgot about issues and circumstances that I know I cannot rectify but I'm still sad over it. Actually I should have done that a long time ago, but it's just that I'm stubbornly hoping for something out of nothing. Ahh it's good to have awesome friends around to make you feel happy.

And yes, pictures. The entire thing's on Ipernity, so click here.


Me and my succeeding Green Link president Hong Yi.


With Jas, Qiling and Khairi.


3 generations of A01! Blee.


'Tis random.


With Natania, Carmen, Hong Yi and Wei Zheng.


Pretty Ginny!


And my burger. I want burgers.

I'm home much earlier than the expected usual for this weekend. Somehow there were still some off-in-lieus that wasn't paid back to us in the past few weekends, so now the army's bending their backs and letting me out on a Friday night. Which is a good thing because it actually makes a difference on how much more rest you get.

Hmm. Let's see, I did 16km route march this week. Wasn't as tough and daunting and insurmountable as I anticipated it to be. In fact, we had quite a good time. Perhaps it was because the pace was a lot slower, and the weather was good. I think after spending more than 2 months in the army carrying equipment that easily weighs up to 10kg, you sort of become conditioned to the additional weight and anything lighter than that is really very light. Then it was mostly back to physical exercises and trainings. And today we had our IPPT evaluation test. Flunked my broad jump again, but on the not-that-very-bright note, my other stations like my 2.4km run and chin-ups have improved tremendously. Heck, I would have gotten silver if not for my inability to leap further than 2 metres. Then there was some muster parade which we spent hours ironing and starching our uniforms, and we only stayed on the parade ground long enough for a flag-raising ceremony. And when we're not having anything, we go into a state of atrophy in our bunks, which isn't a bad thing at all.

I'm still in a melancholic mood. Actually, more choleric than melancholic. I shouted at people that I dislike. I raised my voice more times than I did in the whole of the last 3 years. I made sarcastic jibes at people who annoy me, or people who are just plain stupid and idiotic and moronic. And today was peer appraisal exercise, where you have to rank every single guy in your platoon in accordance to their capability as a leader, as a friend, as a blah blah blah. I immediately condemned all the stupid idiotic moronic people to the last few ranks, while I took my time sorting through the guys whom I think have leadership potential. Ha! That was such a kick.

You know something? I think I never fully gotten over her. Whatever happened just numbed the memories, but it didn't erase it totally. I only felt the pain when I was utterly captivated at the beauty of beauty in itself. Something so fascinating and mesmerizing that it is the very epitome of child-like innocence and purity. And it saddens me even more to recall the past, and compare it with the current future. Oh what the hell. I keep telling myself I'm not the one at a disadvantage, but somehow my heart isn't in tango with my head.

Crap. I need sleep.

I bummed the whole day at home today. The only time I went out was for dessert after lunch alone. Lonely me. Nobody wants to go out with me.

I overheard this little girl saying "I like frogs because they hop hop hop". Sounds so cute right?

Sigh. Why do I still feel so down?

It was quite a terrible week for me. My hamster died last week. Couldn't sleep properly for 3 days because of that. It was made even worse when this week in army was mostly physical and strenuous activities. One of my friends in my platoon is facing some family problems. My buddy fell sick and got a stay-home leave, and he was platoon-IC so I was stupidly chosen to replace him just because I'm his buddy. Can't believe it. Second time I'm put through constant stress. Then Annie messaged to inform that her hamster died too, which got me even more upset. And one of my close friend's grandma was diagnosed with cancer. And she's depressed (shaldn't say who). We had an IPPT diagnosis test this week, of which I flunked. Couldn't jump far enough for standing broad to save my life. But the good thing was, my 2.4km run improved by a minute. And there was the Standard Obstacle Course evaluation test this week too. Run 50m, clear through 11 obstacles and another 50m run to the finish line within 6 minutes. There were 3 attempts in 3 separate days for us in total, but once you pass the first or second one, you can skip the rest. I couldn't pass all 3 attempts because I can't climb the 2m wall. Which is stupid because I can clear it without any equipment on, but once I lug my rifle and vest on, I can't jump high enough. Frustrating because the rifle and vest is only an additional 4kg, and I can easily clear the rest of the obstacles.

Ugh. It's a stupid poop week. I'm tired physically and mentally. I want to go sleep.

My hamster Nutseed just passed away. The one that was a Christmas gift from Cheryn and Andre and Coleman and whoever else. I'm quite devastated. What has it been? Two years? More than that. It was still okay this morning before I went out. Now it's just motionless in the cage. Sigh. I should have been expecting this sooner or later, but it's still a big blow.

What should I do with her? Just wrap it up and throw it away? It seems almost sacrilegious to to do that.

Don't tell me death is inevitable and that all living things will eventually die and whatever rubbish. I've been through that Shannon phase, so I should know best how to handle death. Yet I'm still wrecked emotionally. Nutseed was part of my life.

I'm so sad.

Ah. Okay. I went to KAP for breakfast today! Jaslyn, Annie and Terence. KAP became kinda more cool I think. When I ask them for chilli sauce, they told me to go to the dispenser where they have small plastic plates and those press-press-the-top bottles resembling soap bottles! And out comes chilli sauce for you. And when it was time for them to change the menu from breakfast to lunch, they simply rotate those overhead boards. Jaslyn wants to make it her lifelong ambition to rotate those boards. But their music is still the same. I heard my lousy irritating maddening never-ending train song above the ruckus.

There's something about catching-up with friends that makes it a bit nostalgic. The last time we were at KAP together, we were mugging for our A'Levels. Now we are college graduates waiting to go into university, or serving the army. And our topics never stop revolving around working or ambitions or relationships. I feel like a young adult. Okay actually I am already a young adult. But I don't want to be. I feel so old, especially having to make a decision about my future. Bah. All of a sudden I felt as though I've skipped half my childhood and sprang out as some guy in his late teens without feeling very experienced. The working adult world isn't quite ready for me.

Terence drove his dad's car to KAP and gave us all a lift home or to wherever we were going after that. Yup a lot of my friends have gone for driving lessons and are qualified to get a car out onto to roads and speed down the highways. My army buddy wants to get a driving vocation because he thinks being a driver is cool, but for a healthy A'Level student, he'll probably never get it. For me personally, I probably wouldn't be going for driving lessons. My dad doesn't own a car anyway, so there really isn't a point for me to go learn driving unless I've got some rich punk-ass who has several cars to dispose of. I don't like driving, I like being driven around. All my friends can go learn driving, then drive me around. Oh oh speaking of which, I like those majestic 5-tonner trucks that the army uses to transport store items or people or basically anything. I always choose the innermost seats because even when the 5-tonner is travelling at less than 40km/h, you feel the wind in your face.

Shannon once commented that birds must have the best life in the world, because all they do is fly around and chirp and eat and roost in their nests. I can't agree more. I like bird-watching. I feel satisfied when I can identify some bird that I see hopping around. I enjoy tracking the living habits of more common birds that I see around my neighbourhood, or on Pulau Tekong. I'm sure nothing beats soaring up high in the sky on the rising thermals, and for the raptors or the birds of prey, excellent vision over the entire land. Most of the major bird-watching field guides writes that magpie robins are a "rare sight in Singapore" due to poaching or lack of natural habitat. But on P. Tekong, there's a nest of magpie robins on the trees just outside of our company line, and I hear their calls everyday. Magpie robins are my favourite birds. Shannon thinks black-naped orioles are cooler. Nah they just look pretty and eat all the fruits off fig trees. And since when have you ever seen an oriole on the ground hopping?? Magpie robins hop around like nobody's business, with their tails cocked up high. That's more funky.

I'm quite happy indulging in my current prosaic, mundance, common, ordinary life. Nothing much to bother me. No expectations to live up to. No commitments to adhere to. No silly crushes on girls. No nuisances. Just plain, old me.

Yep, I'm out from army for the weekend again. Reached home in the morning. Then I slept for the whole day because I'm so stupidly lethargic. Was supposed to meet Qiling and Chiew Yee to go Chinatown and wherever they wanted to go today. But I was asleep so they gave me a million missed calls. Decided to get my bum out of house for dinner with my family, but that was partly because my aunt came over for a visit too. Then I had a mini dessert by myself at Kopitiam because I suddenly felt like eating rojak. Came back and Windtalkers was showing on TV, so I watched 15 minutes of it before I realised that I watched the movie with Ben Wong before. Gave up watching it because I figured that I probably won't remember the plot of the movie two hours after I watched it. Then Qiling called to try and get me out to watch a movie. 200 pounds of something, I don't know what movie. I don't want 200 pounds of anything, so I just helped them check the timings and gave them West Mall's cinema hotline number.

This week in the army was super duper slack. We spent half of our time on area cleaning and rotting in our bunks. Oh oh, we went to the live firing range for the past 2 days for our live firing test! That was probably the highlight of my week, after many practices and drills at the stimulated computerised range. Live firing is stressful, but extremely thrilling. Gripping my rifle in both my hands, putting loaded magazines with actual, real, live bullets, squeezing the trigger to hear the loud bang and feeling the recoil on my shoulder. That was way cool. I passed my live firing test! Think I just barely made it. They made me reshoot 2 or 3 times because my rifle kept jamming the rounds and I missed out on the actual shooting of the target. In the end, most people only had twelve magazines of four rounds each to shoot in total, but I had TWENTY, because of my reshoots.

I like my rifle. Okay technically it's not mine it was issued to me. But there's always a certain awe and respect for a weapon that is capable of killing someone. Heck, the moment I feel the live round in my rifle chamber, I have to keep reminding myself not to misfire and not to aim it at anyone. The horrible anticipation of squeezing the trigger and expecting the recoil and making sure you aim at the target. Then imagine me going through this stress level for EIGHTY times, one each for each of the bullets issued to me. After all that shooting, I looked at my rifle and I was determined to respect it, even after it jammed up on me like half the time. I hugged it to sleep for two whole weeks out in the jungles. I made sure I cleaned out every shitty thing stuck in the rifle. I know which part goes where and how to operate it and what to do under what circumstance. By then, the rifle is like almost a part of me. The other time my rifle got mixed up with another guy from my platoon, and I swear the rifle felt different the moment I touched it. The instinct becomes unmistakable, because you know your weapon through and through.

Okay, let's try and blog about something other than army. I learnt the importance of keeping hold to my faith this week. I didn't read my Bible at all. Shoots I didn't even bring my Bible to camp because I brought it back home the last time and forgot to bring it back. All I have at camp was this tiny booklet of the Gospel of John, which I suppose is next closest to a Bible. At least it's one chapter out of sixty-six. Anyway I didn't really bother with that booklet too. The only QT I did was to pray at night after lights out. But somehow I don't feel as if God is too far away, even though I know the extent of my backsliding. I exchanged my mp3 player with another guy in my bunk because he has the new Hillsong album in his, and he wanted to listen to Planetshakers. I found out that in another bunk, over half of the guys in there are Christians. There's just that common topic, common faith that is always present there. Which church do you go to? How's it there? Are you a youth leader or something? You can never escape these questions.

I also learnt that love is something that is quite strange. Very often, the turning points in your love life is not the dramatic events; it is more of the little things that happen on so small a scale that you do not think it is of paramount significance until it's too late. When you put a bunch of guys together with nothing to do, the topic will invariably touch on your "tragic love stories". I've already come to terms that my love stories are tragically tragic, and it remains that way. It will continue to remain that way, affecting any outlook of my life. My horrible flings and uncommitted relationships and whatever flirtacious approach on any girl, it's plain tragic. Okay I change my mind, I did not initiate any flirtacious approaches on any girls. But my love stories are tragic enough to write a book, make it into a movie and flood a city with tears. Anyway, I'm relatively happy I've not committed my life to any long-term marriage or anything of that sort. There's an unexplained liberty that comes with it. I'm still up for grabs though!!! (Never let down any opportunity to advertise your availability).

Gotta catch up on my sleep again. Army life drains you out quite quickly.

Hmm alright. Just came back home a couple of hours ago. For the past 3 days (including today) I was stuck out in the open fields again. Like a second mini field camp in 2 weeks? Blah. This time it was for our SITEST, which are just situational tests with stimulated missions to assess your capability as a leader for command school. I was a "trained" signaller for my detail! So I got to play with the signal set which is basically like a walkie talkie. And I'm quite familiar with walkies already! Funky. As for all the missions, my detail completed like only 50% for both the days? Most of the time we're bashing through the thick vegetation. Our knots and lashings are kinda unstable. And I readily volunteer for all the tasks that involves high heights (4m and above?) and climbing on poles cos it's fun! But I screwed up for one task when I was the IC. Not that I'm desperately wanting to go command school anyway.

Oh. And I completed my 12km route march! With like 2 or 3km to go, I felt so terrible and tired that I wanted to quit, but with a lot of encouragement from my sergeant, I managed to complete the last stretch. I think the total load on my body exceeds 10kg? Felt a bit crappy for not keeping up with the pace, but what the hell I pulled through 12km!

I'm dead sleepy. Kept waking up in the middle of the night because me and my SITEST buddy (Jacky!) found frogs and snails and loads of mosquitoes in our basha. But I like the birds and the grass and the sun! Still, given the choice, I won't want to be outfield all my life. Kinda depressing. Booking in tomorrow night. Whoosh.

Yup, it's Daniel and Kathryn's big day today! Breakfast with Tammy at Delifrance before the wedding ceremony. I'm happy for Dan and Kat! At the same time, I think I'm really old now, when I realise all the "big brothers and sisters" who grew up with me are getting married. It's just, surreal. Last night I dreamt of my own wedding. And throughout the vows and speeches and dedications and declarations, the love topic came back to haunt me. I'm at an age where I should start thinking of my future carreer, future wife, future plans for my life. Would I want to marry a girl and live with her for the rest of my life? Who would be that girl? What if I don't marry?

Brought along my camera, but was lazy to snap any pictures. Only took 3 photos, and it didn't involve the two important people. But at least they took photos of me with the bride and bridegroom. Which brings me to another disturbing thought: my pictures are stored somewhere in someone else's camera. An instantaneous, single snapshot of my life captured in a still moment. And I'll probably never get to see it again unless the owners decide to show me. Isn't that a disturbing thought??


Douglas, Dora and me.


With Matthew.


With Tammy.


And once again, army enlistment made me realise how sheltered and how horribly out-of-touch am I with the rest of the world. Didn't know Balestier Corps is now using our corps building on Sundays now! I caught up with Luke Ong. Met a million other people that I haven't seen too, some of them since 2 Christmases ago.

Sometimes, I feel like a foreign entity staring into a goldfish bowl. A lot of times this year, I've became sort of like an observer making notes of things happening inside a spherical dome. Exclusion from the actual happenings and quietly gazing, but still very much involved in the thick of the action. I wonder how many of you out there have this feeling. The world is revolving, but you don't feel like you belong in that revolution.

And for once, I'm actually glad of the mutual, tacit agreement not to speak to each other. Not because I've forgotten cleanly about it, but I think it's just a good thing. I don't want to be disturbed, and I'm sure you don't want me to harrass you too.

Okay I've decided. I shall marry a nice girl after all. Then I'll have the mango crepe (me and Dezmand are hooked on it) as a main course for my wedding dinner. And I'll have loads of confetti and balloons. But that's assuming I find a nice girl at all. And my wedding will be like 10 years later. Hopefully by then love will be a tangible enough prospect for me. But at the rate I'm going, it'll be another 3 billion years before I'm even serious enough for a dinner date.