Once again, I am plagued by persistent revisits of my past memories, all of which involve certain people that have left an imprint deep enough in my life for me to keep thinking about them. Well, yeah, I might as well be honest and straightforward: I'm talking about girls here. For some reason this whole week, it seems as though the slightest incident will trigger some memories that I once shared with a particular girl. And then the next slightest incident will bring to mind memories of another girl. And another, and another, and another.

Yes, I'm that scandalous. I've been involved physically and emotionally with so many girls that I'm beginning to be quite befuddled myself. Okay it isn't that bad as it sounds, and I'm definitely not trying to boast that I'm some high-flying charming gentleman who's dastardly popular with women. But the fact is, most of my best friends in my short life are of the female gender, and I believe that is why I've got so many significant moments with them.

You can pretty much guess what is the state of my emotions now. By the time I was through with this week, I've been left totally spent and exhausted. Oscillating between the extremes of euphoria and grief. I'm at quite a loss at how I'm supposed to be feeling right now, because I feel regret, satisfaction, remorse, joy, guilt, and happiness all at the same time. It's more of the negative feelings though, cos of some really unpleasant experiences. And when you go through such exhilarating emotions all at the same time, I think it's difficult to escape the eventual evaluation of your own past. What did I do wrong? Should I have done that? Was it the best solution?

And if you knew me really well (by that, I meant those people who cared enough to listen to my most dire predicaments), you might have noticed that I don't exactly have a very smooth history with girls. Most of the time, they either end up devastated, deserted, disillusioned, or dead. My love stories are kinda sad in that way. And I certainly do not need reminders that I might have been the cause of most of these painful departures. A little mistake here, a little shouting there, some ignorance, some half-hearted attempt at reconciliation, and a load of other travesties that I've committed.

Let's see. I'm quite a hypocrite at times. I can promise you the whole world and its stars, but when it really comes to that, I'll shatter that promise. I can be you friendliest best buddy you've ever had in your life, and I can also snub and put you down as easily as my worst, disliked slug. I can go miles to do something for you, and I can leave you rotten and dead too. I can give you happiness, and make you wish you were dead. I know how to be heartless, to torture a person into an emotional wreck, to make them come begging in humiliation for love, and to ignore them in return. Add all these up, and you've got me, a sanctimonious, self-seeking jerk.

Which probably explains why the word 'reconciliation' has constantly played across my mind this few days. I really need to sort things out with a lot of people. But I'm like, the world's greatest escapist or something. I don't want to face the horrors of talking to people whom I have had the most meaningful memories with, and also hurt them equally greatly as well. What would you say to that person? People keep advising me to at least try apologising, but I'm such an arrogant prick that overbearing pride tells me not to. Or I reason out some lame excuse to weasel out of that awkward situation. After all, most of them don't really talk to me, or don't even want anything to do with me now. Why should I try and force myself into their lives again?

This week, I've got a sudden, mad desire to try and at least contact this girl that I know I've tormented really greatly. My relationship with her was saccharine-sweet for a few months, before it degenerated into sadistic abuse, to tell the truth. And I was this near to sending her a message, but courage failed me at the end. And I am secretly glad that I did, because on hindsight I realised that it was very much a spur on the moment, and I wouldn't have known how to back out, or what to say if I have really called her out and met her.

And then I realised another thing. If I had indeed asked her out, I'd know that she would have been thrilled. Because that was what she really wanted all along, that is, to meet me (cos I'm avoiding her). Because, unlike me, she has a much better capacity to love. Above all, she's got more courage than I've never got.

With that, do keep me in your prayers, or hope for the best for me. Because everyday now, I'm just thinking of her.

Event for today: Smile for a Mile for the Disabled People's Association. It involved a 10km run from the Esplanade, to Clarke Quay, to the outskirts of Orchard Road, and back again. So I was up at 6am in the morning, and made my way down to City Hall MRT to meet Qiling and Amy. We all got a tee-shirt from the organisers. Well okay the 10km run wasn't too bad, or at least for me, it wasn't bad at all. I was running at the two girls' pace, which is a lot slower than the speed I go during my endurance runs in the army. So, yay, I'm good. HAHAHAHAHA. And that brings my total running mileage to 25km for this week. GOSH.

We met Mr Yong and his flank of canoeists. Of course, he just completed 217km at Death Valley, so this run should be some kind of a stroll in the park. And I met Alicia too! Alicia Ong, for that matter, since the number of friends I know that are named Alicia are growing steadily. And and and, Elaine Hong was there too!! My eyecandy!! Ah ha. But I didn't go nuts or do anything stupid in front of her, so I'm way cool.

After the run, Qiling and me went to Raffles City for lunch. And some shopping, which is inevitable whenever I'm with Qiling. And that's that. The only photo for today, with Qiling and Amy (since I didn't have the courage to take photos with Elaine).

Okay here's my weekly update. On Tuesday, we had our summary exercise which rounds up nicely our Common Engineer Course that we've been in for the past month plus or so. Then there was a Games Day the next day, which, well, isn't exactly your idea of "games". Their idea of games involves carrying a jerry can filled with water and running 600 metres with it in battle order. Or balloons. Or team building games. Hahaha the army can sometimes be like some college orientation or something like that. And we ran 7km around the camp on Wednesday, and 8km at East Coast Park yesterday. And I had guard duty yesterday too.

As for today, I went down to Upper Thomson for prata with Khairul! We're playing catching up with each other on our respective army lives and progressing to become prata connoisseurs. Then we walked down to Thomson Plaza, hung around there for a while before I came home. And I slept for a good four hours because I just felt so tired.

I've got another run tomorrow. Qiling introduced me to this Smile for a Mile campaign about a month ago? 10km charity run for Disabled People's Association. And that will mean I have to wake up early tomorrow cos the start point is at Esplanade. Which means, it's bed time.

Got out of camp early this morning, after a full 24-hour shift (eh no that will be misleading; three of us took turns every two hours) of being a sentry at the main gates, feeling thoroughly important and magnificent knowing that I have contributed to the security of my camp. And some canteen uncle gave me a packet of cold, refreshing barley juice, while he was on his way out. Yippee!

And we guard duty people got wind of the news that we don't have to book in tonight, but tomorrow morning instead! Which meant that this opened up a whole host of other activities that we could be doing other than wasting time booking in. Double yippee! And that was why Sherwin and me both decided to go watch the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at Vivo, four hours after we got out of camp. I paid for his ticket, because I felt that it was a small price to pay in sacrifice for something else. Long story, which involved this ugly guy who looked like a wild boar and is totally gay. And we had Carl's Junior for lunch. Their burgers are wolfing-ly, tremendously, spectacularly, FANTASTIC.

I thought it was kind of a silly idea to watch Harry Potter and the Order when I haven't even finished reading the very same book. Yep you got me right. I'm still hopelessly stuck at book 5, when half of the world are eagerly reading or have already finished the just-released book 7. As a consequence, towards the movie's ending, I didn't really have much of an idea what was going. I liked the director's interpretation of the situations and the settings, but I thought that they cut too many portions of the story such that the whole plot becomes very disjointed. Oh, my dad bought me and my sis book 7 yesterday, but both me and my sis ain't going to read that yet until we get our copy of book 6. And for me, till I finish book 5. Why in the world did my dad buy book 7 in the first place???

Then I rushed back to Bishan for a catch-up meeting with Captain Hary. Went down to one of the coffeeshops for drinks, and we sat there for an hour and a half talking. I am truly, truly inspired, by the many stories he told me and all the encouragement and help that he's given me. It's a fact then, that you have got to have a love for the people and a love for the thing which you are about to do. And the narrow gate will become wide; and you won't have to seek because you're already found. I've got a document on my table now that is waiting for my reply. And can you believe it? It's his birthday today! Whoo! I've got a lot of respect for Capt Hary, because somehow he seems impossibly confident, convicted and committed to the things he set out to do. That's something worth emulating.

And lastly, I bought a new pullover sweater today! It was a real steal, $19.90 from Pull and Bear. Okay I think it was a bit too broad at the shoulders for me, and the the cuttings of the seams and edges wasn't exactly perfect, but that's why it was at such a low price! I'm not complaining, cos it looks almost new. Yay. New pullover. I want new flip-flops next!

This week in camp, I snapped one of the buttons from one of my No. 4 uniform pants. And it's the fourth time a button has fallen off since my army enlistment. Okay it's only about four months since I enlisted into the army, so I think having as many buttons in total falling off my shirt or pants is kind of a major thing. It's like, how often do you encounter buttons dropping off your clothing? Probably on freakish occasions, because I'm inclined to think that shirt manufacturers and their factories are skilled enough to make sure that buttons and shirt material are joined firmly by strong thread. But the fact still remains. It was the fourth button to break loose from my uniforms.

It's a bit disturbing huh? Maybe it's testimony to the fact that I've been through loads of tough training, or doing too many physical activities, or my uniform is just too well-worn (despite it being four months old, at most). Whatever. All I knew was that I heard a loud snap, and next time I knew, the button on the top front of my pants just flew out with a twang. Erm okay maybe I'm getting fatter at the waist, although that's unlikely because my weight has been the same for the past two years. Blee.

Anyway, I decided to try and mend the button by sewing it back on. The past three occasions when my buttons fell off, I had to bring it back home for my mum to sew it back on for me. But I decided it was time for me to try and learn it myself, and so I took out the small packet of sewing kit that the army issued to all of us a long long time ago, but I've never used it before. It's really cool! It's got a small thin foil containing some needles, and extra buttons, a roll of green thread, and cloth patches of the same camouflage patterns as all of my uniforms. And I was about to begin sewing when I saw another packet of buttons, except that it was slightly different.

It said "INSTANT BUTTON" on the package. Consisted of buttons and pegs. The button wasn't the ordinary button with four holes for you to sew it back and forth through the clothing; it was just one single hole. You're supposed to poke one of the peg through the clothing, and then secure it with the button-with-the-single-hole. And there's that, you just need to cut off the excess end of the peg and you've got an instant button without sewing anything. I SWEAR THIS IS ONE OF THE FINEST THINGS THE ARMY HAS GOT. So I promptly forgot all about the sewing thread and needles, and proceeded to poke one of the pegs through my pants and then put the button over it, secured it and that was that. No needles, no thread, no fuss. Instantaneous.

Which led me to think (as usual). When we encounter a problem, do we seek an instant quick-fix solution, or do we go the long way just to solve it? I suppose most of us would prefer the instant solution, but are there anything in this world that can provide an instantaneous escape from all our troubles? Well, death could be an option, because it can be quite a quick way to end everything. But with the exception of that, I think there's really no escaping the long route just to smooth out your troubles. And don't forget, it is through this path that you learn something about yourself. You come out from the problem a stronger and more experienced person.

Which is why I have resolved to ask my mummy to teach me how to sew a button before the end of this weekend. I figured that the INSTANT BUTTON is the coolest thing ever, but I also figured that learning how to sew a button is quite a cool skill to pick up too. Heh. You can probably tell I'm not that domesticated myself. Well, good enough, I would say. I can cook dishes to some reasonable degree; all the simple stuff like frying an egg or vegetables or something like that. I help out with the household chores, like doing dishes and washing clothes and sweeping the floor. But I've never tried sewing. The last time I tried cross stitching for Cheryn, I ended up giving her the entire cross stitching kit and ask her to complete it herself.

Next time a button falls off your shirt or something, bring it to me and I'll mend it for you.

Oh ho I led worship at Friday youth service today! How long since I even sang anything other than army songs?? Okay I sort of missed worship leading, but in another sense I was kinda glad to stop leading worship about 5 months ago too. So it was with ambivalence when I got on the stage today, which wouldn't have happened if Yurong didn't ask me to lead in her place. It wasn't too bad I guess. Sometimes, doing something that you haven't done in a long time gives you a certain insight, a certain onrushing perspective that makes it worthwhile.

Other than that, it was the usual cell with Ben Ng and Wilson. And, Joel used my stupid ugly photos for publicity for his photo marathon! Terrible. The idiotic faces I made in front of Biru's camera half a year ago, are now staring back at me (with gleeful, put-me-down captions) on the big screen.

This whole week has been really slack in camp. Most of the time, my mind was on worship tonight, because I was mildly afraid that I wouldn't book out on time. And I know I spent the whole week praying that God will somehow help make my schedule free so that I can make it for practice, and let me book out on time, and blah blah blah. You see, I never ever know what's going to happen in camp, until like just the day before or a few hours beforehand, because my unit doesn't have a practice of letting us know in advance the training schedule! Bleagh. But I did make it on time though, except that I was kept on tenterhooks almost all the way. Haha! Now that I think back, it's quite hilarious.

What happens when your prayers become so specific that you're actually struggling to phrase it in another way every night, just so that it sounds different from the one you prayed the night before?

And today is a nights out for my entire company, which sort of explains why I'm home on a Wednesday night. Have to be back in camp by 8am tomorrow morning! Cripes I don't even want to know whether I can wake up in time or not. I was wondering should I even bother booking out just for tonight, because it's kinda senseless just to come home to sleep when I could do so back at camp too. Then I was thinking of going for a late night movie, or stay over at a friend's house, or something like that. In the end I'm back home. Okay la it feels great to be home.

The people at SAFRA finally mailed me my card, after like 3 or 4 months??? I called them last Monday to check my membership status, since most of my friends got their cards almost 2 months ago. Guess what reply they gave me? "Oh, you're already listed as a member, but we don't have your mailing address in our database so we can't mail you your card." What a lousy reason! Then you can at least give me a call or something. Blee. Should I choose some Philip shaver or a year's subscription of Maxim for my free gift?

Life's kinda unbearable sometimes. I wish I have a much more simplistic approach of dealing with things.

Alright. Time to sleep if I don't want to oversleep and be late for book in tomorrow. And I've got guard duty through the night too. Okay okay okay sleeeeeep.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I've arrived at the conclusion that the term "appreciation of nature" only imbues itself in an extremely exclusive group of select individuals only. The majority of Singaporeans is not the least bit concerned about the green environment around them, preferring to stay confined in the concrete slabs of building that they reassuringly call home. The occasional visit to parks or reserves would be for reasons not including nature appreciation; more often to exercise or for solitude or to spend time with loved ones, or any of those lousy reasons. Worse, sometimes it is the wildlife who invades into the urban areas, and these people will still not be observant enough to notice rare birds roosting in their own courtyards.

All these points to a highly apathetic and ignorant Singaporean society, in the context of environmental awareness. I think I'd be hard-pressed to find Singaporeans who can rattle off the names of some common birds other than mynahs, sparrows, crows and pigeons. Similarly, as much the hype over The Garden City, every tree along the road probably belong to the same species to the environment-nescient Singaporean. The common grasshopper will probably be akin to sighting a critically endangered Javan rhino. Every wild plant or flower, no matter how attractive, can be classified into two categories only: ornamental or weed. Cockroaches and lizards are the only animals they take notice the most often. How shallow and myopic are Singaporeans when it comes to flora and fauna.

It sounds quite damning, isn't it? But the resonant irony is, it's quite true. One of the largest and most magnificent bird that can be found in Singapore is the grey heron, and there's a large colony nesting in Seletar Camp. In fact, it's probably the only place I know which has such a successful breeding of grey herons. It's presence is unmistakable, whether in flight or resting. Yet, when I pointed the bird out to some of my friends, they told me they have never seen it before, despite at least 30 herons flying about the camp daily and them making a huge ruckus in their nesting tree every dawn and dusk. I know people who don't know what a saga seed is. I've seen people staring in wonder at common field frogs, and I'll be damned if the whole grass patch doesn't contain at least a hundred of them. I know people who can't recognise a papaya or rambutan tree when they see one. The commonest birds like kingfishers, there are people who go "Look! That bird is blue!". In fact, it is so bad that I think they will die of shock if I told them there's two subspecies of mynahs in Singapore, which is like, the most pervasive bird that you cannot fail to notice even if your brain is the size of a bird's.

It's a shame, isn't it? I mean, IT'S DEAD BLOODY COMMON. You should know a rain tree when you see one. You should be able to tell a fig tree from a pine tree. You should at least know some fruiting trees and their flowers, and whether they are poisonous or something like that. You should know an oriole or a glossy starling or a bulbul or a pigeon when you encounter one. You should be able to, at a rudimentary level, identify a creature from its call. Again, I know people who hears a common house lizard's cackle, or a bull frog's croak, or the bird koel's call, or crickets, and they BLOODY CANNOT IDENTIFY THE DEAD BLOODY COMMON CREATURE.
The ultimate sin to me, perhaps, is people who think they know a whole lot about animals, and consequently embarrass themselves when they try to show off their knowledge. I've heard someone squeal "centipede!" when they see a worm washed up from the rain. I''ll show you a real centipede and you tell me the difference. I've heard someone identify a pong-pong tree as a apple tree. Common golden-orb spiders are known as tarantulas. A baya weaver's beautiful nest is a coconut husk. A common white breasted water-hen is a chicken, in what way I have absolutely no idea. Ospreys, white-bellied sea eagles, brahminy kites are all collectively known simply as eagles, doing no justice to those magnificent birds. Extremely common sunbirds, with its darting and hovering flight, are called hummingbirds to those morons who don't know that hummingbirds are only found in the tropical Americas.

It seems to me that this tragic travesty is only redeemed by the few people who are truly sensitive and knowledgeable about the intricacies of nature and its inhabitants. These are the only people who understand the fragility of the ecosystem, and just how delicate does nature manages its own equilibrium and relationships to ensure its survivability. And I am so fortunate to have known, met and interacted with some of these remarkable people. These are the ones who know their ficus microcarpa from ficus benjamina, and can tell the family, species and gender of a bird at one glance of it in flight. Their vast experience and thorough knowledge in their biology fields are anybody's envy.

Somehow, I feel that apathy and lack of profound interest is the only reason why Singaporeans still cannot identify the common birds they see everyday. It is only when you are remotely interested in nature, then you start noticing that the trees around you are teeming with birds. Take a koel's call for example. In recent years, the koel has become more and more prevalent as it settles successfully in urban regions, and you simply cannot fail to hear its dastardly loud call if one of these birds settle in your neighbourhood. However, the loud calls every morning will forever be an unknown nuisance to you until you learn to identify and appreciate the bird for who it is. Same goes for kingfishers and orioles and glossy starlings, and the like. They can be in your neighbourhood for years, but you never ever take notice of them. Mind you, they are often commonly seen and not the least bit furtive or shy. But once you start to observe closely, you realise the bird has a routine habit of living, and soon enough you will be thinking of the day when you will not see it.

Human beings are strange in this way. They may seem to want to know everything on this earth, about this earth and outside of this earth, but they don't seem to care a lot about the routines in life. I mean, it's a routine! You can go to school or go to work everyday via the same path, and not know the exact names of the streets you're travelling on, or the names of the buildings you past. It's the same with the environment. Once people start opening their eyes and ears to the wonders of nature, they begin to notice a whole lot more things they have never taken a second glance at, even though it's always there, for ages, waiting to be unearthed. There is a whole ecosystem out there all the time, but it gets bypassed because people are not observant enough. But once they are, they can discern what trees or birds or animals are common, and what is not. Pretty soon, what is rare can also become common if it is sighted frequent enough.

My friend Jun Ying claims he has trained himself to spot camouflaged animals like stick insects or frogs or snakes, or to just look out for the occasional wildlife that may be elusive to most people. I don't think you need to train yourself for that; you just need to be observant. But I don't doubt him either, because I've seen, or rather, I don't see the stuff he notices whenever we're out in the jungles for a trek. But the important thing is, you have to be interested in the first place in order to be observant. As someone once told me this: "You see an oriole, you won't give two hoots about what that shitty yellow bird is, unless you're a nature freak, in which case you'll want to find out more".

I couldn't agree more.

You know, I never realised that today is a Friday the Thirteenth. Okay nothing significantly bad happened, unless you count those 2 missed calls I had from Captain Hary. Anyway, here's a short update. Was home most of the time today, till I went out to corps for worship practice because Yurong asked if I could play the guitars. What has it been? Four entire months since I actually played something on the guitar! Yeah, that's how deprived a life we army boys live. That was that, and worship was fine. Then Captain Hary called back and we had quite a bit of talking with each other. And now I'm home eating cup noodles because I'm hungry. Alright. I'm going for a 8km run tomorrow, just to see if I can clock a decent timing. Good evening to you all.

To some extent, I think almost all forms of art engage in some form of suspension of disbelief (if you don't know what suspension of disbelief is, Google that, will you?) in methods not differing greatly from one another. Be it literature, paintings, pictures, photographs, plays, theatrics, dramas, and even movies; they all engage the human mind's willingness to reside in the impossible in various degrees. The audience's need for entertainment is greater than the need for plausible scenarios. Personally, I think this is somewhat like an exchange system. Whenever anyone reads a book or watches a movie, he or she is already agreeing (without consent) to a barrage of information that might not necessarily be true, or even logical.

So this means that the artist is given free liberty to depict or invent almost anything, as long as it remains possible and believable to a reasonable faction. In return, the audience must be prepared to ignore certain loopholes or failure of logical conjectures, in order for a wholesome and meaningful entertaining experience. This also means that a story has no solid need to be foolproof consistent in its plot. Minor plot holes, or obvious deviation from the logical course of action, can be committed in the story-telling, without compromising the audience's perspective. That is, if the suspension of disbelief is existent in the first place. If it weren't, it would seem to be a case of betrayal on the audience's feelings, when in actual fact, the tacit agreement unknown to the audience render the frustration useless. Similarly, there has to be a limit on the artist's license to distort the natural occurrence of events.

Basically, the suspension of disbelief is just a convenient excuse for something really stupid to happen out-of-some-unnatural-order in some fictitious story. Aliens can attack the world in giant numbers; romance stories of mock-epic fairy tale proportions; gravity-defying kungfu stunts; glaring loopholes in the plot; the action hero never runs out of ammunition, bleeds buckets but never dies, fallen but revives, seemingly dead but resurrects, fights 2687 men at the same time, and still has energy to deliver the knockout punch to the evil gangster leader.

Which leads me to my conclusive thought: are all works of fiction a mere pack of lies? Think about it. Fiction is a mind engagement of the imaginary and the invented. If the suspension of disbelief theory works in such a way for the audience to believe something seemingly contradictory and illogical, then wouldn't fiction be an even bigger crime? Something that is fictitious would be a hugely crafted, painstakingly and deliberately imagined story designed for entertainment. To dispense with the euphemisms, loosely, fiction would be deception disguised to cheat, fool, trick and mislead the mass public. It is nothing more than a fraudulent scam designed to manipulate the mind to believe in something as harmless as fantasy stories.

Don't get me wrong. I love fiction, in a critical manner. Like all those unfettered, peace-loving inhabitants of this uniform world, I like to enjoy a nice, fictitious story fed through the tube-like existence of nothing, and enjoy being swindled by a stimulant so intangible as the brain and its matter. Yet, despite all my efforts of tempting an invisible power to engulf my senses, the fact remains that I am unable to withstand such an onslaught of imaginative breeding that creeps insidiously like poison gas. Maybe I will do better with non-fiction, however objective or subjective or factual or truthful or boring it claims to be. Till then, I will still love fiction the same way as I love the enzymes of cheesecake.

On a very much lighter note though, I like these pictures. Thumbs up to Shi Hui for an excellent pictorial portrayal of the photograph's subjects (note: one of that is me). Combined with aesthetically pleasing angles and interesting backgrounds, this makes for remarkable tongue-in-cheek depiction of the lighthearted spirit of the actual proceedings. That, is something I could have assured you.

Went to the zoo with Shi Hui and Tammy today! Totally crazy, because I don't think you go to those places on a weekday and it's a school day for the two girls and I've got a book-in timing to rush for tonight. But oh what the heck! Then I decided to call Qiling to see if she can help us get discounts to get in, and she managed to unearth some voucher that waived admission ticket fees by half price.

Usual stuff. When you go to the zoo, you look at all the animals that are kept in their enclosures and take photos and either "gaga" or "eugh" over them. Then we went to the Animal Land to play! Although there's nothing much there now, because they closed the petting area for renovations. And we caught a couple of shows, and ended with Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

And, I met everyone I wanted to meet at the zoo! Qiling, Annie and Beetsma are all working there. Qiling, of course, helped us get the discounts (in return for a tofuman). Annie caught up with us just as we are all about to board the bus home. And I met Beets at Ang Mo Kio hub! She wasn't working today, but I still met her all the same. Yay.

Okay. Pictures in my Ipernity. Click here.

Sentry guard duty for the whole of yesterday and this morning. I think it's almost a routine for me to go report for guard duty already. And there's still at least 5 more duties waiting for me throughout the rest of July. Anyway, being a sentry is brainless. The most interesting thing that happened was this guy who was supposedly on SOL (Stoppage Of Leaves) who managed to book out without his company knowing, and slipped through the main gates without me or the RP-on-duty stopping him too. Kinda daring, because this guy was charged for malingering twice and he was in Detention Barracks for 2 weeks. Whoo. Dramatic.

Ooh. Last night, I got off my third sentry shift at 2am, and I turned on the television at the guard rest area and saw Snow Patrol on the LIVE EARTH concerts. Yeah, they were singing Chasing Cars. I think this entire LIVE EARTH thing is pretty funky! Imagine having a 24-hour concert promoting green causes to stop climate change and global warming!! I certainly did not think of that when I was still in Green Link. And on 7th July 2007 too. This entire concept is really great. Now let's all go green and save the earth.

And, thanks to the ever-cynical Kai Jie who entertained me so greatly during my entire guard duty (ironically he was guarding his camp too), and thanks to Tammy and Shi Hui for being so bimbo-loving.

Military life makes you treasure the comforts of your home. Yay. I'm home. But it's only a nights-out, which means I have to be back in camp later on tonight. Reason being, I have sentry guard duty tomorrow. Well it isn't all that bad actually, because I have Sunday and Monday free! It's not going to be like this for the next few weeks; I'll get horribly disjointed and disrupted weekends.

This week in camp. We did landmines and how to detonate them and blah blah. Loads of running too, and probably even more if I didn't skip this morning's battalion run. I was the company office orderly yesterday and today! Answering phone calls, doing all the office admin (wrapping books, area cleaning, running errands etc.) that my superiors are lazy to do. Then I came across this complicated incident report of a fellow soldier that involved transferrals between hospitals and downgrading, that king of thing. I wasn't really supposed to know, but the reports were left blatantly on the table! So it didn't take long for me to catch up with the story, and then strangely enough, I was dragged into it by some reasonable degree because the person involved called the office to report some things and I have to help draft the report a bit and pass it to my sergeant and blah blah. Whee long long story. Then today, we had a heritage tour to Kranji War Memorial and Changi Museum, to learn about the horrors of war and our roles as soldiers to defend the nation.

Last week, my life's most reflective and inspirational moments came to me at those times when I was brushing my teeth. I'm serious! Especially in camp. I started thinking about my life and purpose and all those big questions, with toothbrush and toothpaste in my hands. Today, during a standby-bed, my CSM saw my extremely frayed toothbrush and told me that it's time for me to get a new one. Blee.

This week, I'm in an equally reflective mood, but this time it didn't occur during those brushing teeth moments. I was eating bread with cheese now. Outside my bunk room, on the fifth floor of the building. There, I can see all the major buildings and installations of Seletar Camp. I can also get a magnificent view of the different varieties of trees, and an excellent view of the sky and birds. Seletar Camp can be like, some nature park or something, if not for the fact that it's protected by the government and restricted entry. There's at least 40 different types of trees planted all along the roads! And it's home to the largest nest of grey herons that I've seen in Singapore. Anyway, back to my story. It's evening. On one side of the sky, there was a dusty orange glow, with a few clouds here and there. On the other side, it was a murky purple hue with dark clouds. Right in the middle of the two sides was a nice blend of orange and purple. And since it's evening, all the herons are flying to and from this tall casuarina tree which was their nesting area.

Then it hit me like a rock. The thoughts just came flooding, and I'm still munching my bread with cheese. I think I've just discovered my life calling. Or something along the same level.

I'm feeling lazy now. Somewhere inside me, there's a yearning for love. But the queer thing is, I feel like sitting on it and squashing it flat. Okie I gotta book in at 10pm tonight. But I'll be out on Sunday morning, which is an awesome thing.

I'll make this short. Came back from guard duty this morning. Seletar Camp is bloody huge! It takes a full hour to complete one round of all the checkpoints, and I am expected to make EIGHT complete rounds altogether in my 24-hour shift. And I didn't really sleep much during my breaks either. Crap. I'll give a toe just to be excused from any more prowling guard duties. Okay. Gotta go prepare for book in already. What a disruptive weekend.