|
|
Tidbits, snapshots, stories and other manly things
|
|
|
|
[18 May 2006|08:26pm] |
|
Have you been to Gayle's blog? It was only after reading a little article in the papers that led me to discover her blog. She's been building quite an uproar with her very candid and honest views on politics, singapore very mature thoughts and opinions. Take a look for yourself, because I cannot express myself as eloquently as she can. Go already!
|
|
|
[29 Mar 2006|10:23pm] |
Oh yes, does anybody know where in Singapore to get skinny ties?
Don't care whether it's this season, next or whatever.
I just need a couple of nice skinny, thin and nice ties.
I've been looking around but I never seem to find any shops, departmental or trendy, with skinny ties.. could it be that it's out of fashion already?! <-- what a thought.
Yes. So please, tell me where to get a good spread of skinny ties. Thanks :)
|
|
| Musings for the day |
[29 Mar 2006|08:49pm] |
Was walking around in Marina Square doing usual weekend things like shopping, catching a movie.. Pleasantly surprised, actually it took me by the balls, but I'm really impressed with how Marina Square has turned itself around.
Really! I'm sure people remember the day when Marina Square was an 1980-esque, bygone-era ugly duckling little brother between Suntec and Waffles City. Even when Citylink emerged, Marina Square was a quaint mall that protruded unceremoniously and undeclared into one obscure exit in Citylink. No one really noticed this dusty old mall, with a terrible elongated floor plan that just made no sense, a sad sad arcade, and lonely shops that struggled to stay afloat amongst the grey murky tiles and the dim oldfashioned lights.
Now look at the place. The large lobby/event-staging area.. so airy and lofty! The decor and the glassy uplift to the whole mall. All the new shops and restaurants, so much more life to the place. Yum yum. Fantastic turn-about I'd say. Interesting food places, some I'm seeing for the first time in Singapore, here. Ahh and of course getting a vote of confidence from established brands like Zara, NIKE, Adidas.. and a few I don't recall sheepishly. All in all, two thumbs up.
Anyway, the main idea was that I was walking around-- and along Giordano.. And I made myself stop and enter a shop that I normally don't. Wow! Interesting. Giordano is having a T-Shirt Design Competition. Yes! Okay, you have to design something related to the 'World Without Strangers' tagline. Prizes aren't mindblowing. But it is something to do. So all you arty people,... my SADM friends. Here you go. Give it a shot. Drop by the many Giordano outlets .. there's bound to be a poster stand bout it.
Why wouldn't I go shopping Giordano you say? Quite bland the stuff dont ya think. Even the printed versions look so blah. Most of all, there's absolutely no texture to the clothing. I'm not dissing the brand totally.. I know that there's a market for it out there. I have friends who swear by their polos.. and purchase a whole set, one of each colour. But.. nah, no thanks. Not for me. What would I rather choose? Anotehr story for another day.
So yes. Back to my main point. Do something new today! Design a tee shirt!
|
|
|
[13 Mar 2006|12:43am] |
Gosh Yiling.. how dare you. To suggest that I should apply to NTU's SADM.. I ought to wring your neck, toss you upside down and feed you to the birds.. for suggesting such a brilliant wonderful idea!
It's not like I haven't thought about it before. I've been enthralled by fabulous, mind-blowing and gorgeous works of graphic design all around me for some years. Looking at vintage print design from the 50's or 70's like tacky postcards and watercoloury pinups move something significant in me. And the feeling of experiencing a stunning design told me that this was want I wanted to do. You don't know the plans I've dreamt about flying away to faraway schools in dreamy European cities to immerse myself in culture and a world so steeped with history in design. Or maybe you do. Oh you bet I've been thinking about it.
Is it because I appreciate great design? .. but come to think about it, who doesn't? It doesn't take a Harvard grad to figure out a tasty menu or an alluring book sleeve. I say it's because I can safely say, in all certainly, that if I were to do this for the rest of my life, I'd be happy, contented and satisfied. Simple human gratification. Plus, lots of perks. Flexible working hours. Having no boss other than myself. A constant and evolving challenge unlike sitting in a cubicle crunching data. Dealing with people. Plus an art that is alive.
But brilliant old me has to set myself up for a dive into the corporate pool of Business and Social Science. It's not all bad. I think I'll gobble up the challenges out there, making that business shine, settling up my own shop and other daydreams like that. But I'll turn back and look at the other pool -- the arty one, Design.
It's two different worlds. With different values and different emphasis on different skills. Put a cold muzzle to my forehead and ask me which one is more interesting: Lateral Resource Management or Chip Kidd's The Cheese Monkeys and the answer is obvious hmm?
Damn thing is.. they want a fucking portfolio from me. :) I can talk and ramble all I want. But a portfolio speaks more words that anything I can come up with. And you ought to know that I'm not like some child genius who can paint and sketch really well. Ideas come. But I have trouble putting in down.. and isn't that what a whole lot of designing is about?
Yes. So while I may like to swim in the other pool, the one with all the big foamy waves and I can't see the bottom.. I may just not have the right set of tools or skills now. The big pool may be more public, less exclusive but it is something more tangible.. but oh so lifeless and coursing to the wrong ideals and currents. I'm set to head off to SMU to study Business + Social Science. That's my pool.... And I don't think I'll be switching to the one that I really want.
Or if I want it enough, I just might.
|
|
|
[05 Mar 2006|06:43pm] |
Chances are, you have no idea that 'compound' as in bunch of buildings close to each other, came from..
here.
|
|
|
[05 Mar 2006|06:14pm] |
It's awfully strange when I scroll down my friend's page.. and all I see is 'arcadia_yl' and 'shutupmoveon'. Something is very wrong! Where is everybody? I clearly have two girls who write pretty interesting stuff on a regular basis.. and I'm looking for some variety here. Either I could expand my friend list, but because I'm keeping it sentimental and all dunman-y I don't think it'll grow too much in the near future. So I'm depending on all of the rest of you to buck up. Buck up! Write. I never see you guys to start of with. :P
It's damn weird to go to work and get called 'Sir.' Yes I know it comes with the rank and everything. But I'm not freaking used to it. It's pretty bad when my fellow specs (aka sergeants) call me sir and all of them are at least a year older, if not two, than me. I'm easily the most junior fellow in the room and officially, I'm the head of the pack, leader of the gang, whether I like it or not.
Don't get me started when 30-plus year-olds to those happily in their fifties, all Staffs, Master Sergeants and Warrant Officers of all sorts, call me 'Sir."!
When you're an OFFICER, people EXPECT a lot from you. They expect you to be perfect, smart, charismatic, influential and everything. It's not that I'm not.. BAH. I am all of that, mind you. ;) It's just that, while I can get along with being Mr Fantastic for hours at a go, I'm actually human all the time. So officers are not always better at everything than specialists. I make mistakes. I make bad decisions sometimes. I don't know what the hell is going sometimes too.
I haven't proven myself to my team.. obviously because all this time, I've been an eager apprentice, an understudy to the job I have not taken as my own. Come March/April, when I'll be in the driver's seat, I'll prove my worth to them, my superiors and most of all to myself. Ha.
Come that time. I won't cringe when someone walks over with a cordial 'Sir,' or with a sharp salute. I'll be returning that salute. And while it's undeniably hard at the top, the satisfaction and the reward.. Damn. :)
|
|
|
[27 Feb 2006|08:12pm] |
It's been nagging me for a while already and it's only over this weekend that I discovered something interesting:
Lieutenant.. means 'holder of position.' It makes sense. Lieu = place/position. tenant? Holder. Never broke up the word to its roots this way. Ha. So a Lieutenant's job is to hold the fort when the superior's (Captain) not around. Say the Captain has to go for a meeting. The Lieutenant is there to charge into battle in his place. We plug the holes. Anytime the Captain's not around for whatever reason, we're here to do the chaos management.
And looking at my position right now, it makes PERFECT SENSE. TEN out of TEN! My *cough* Captain is rarely in camp. When he is, he's in a daze, not knowing what's really going on. He can frantically reply emails to issues settled by his placeholders a week ago. He can enter a meeting with nothing on his hands and still smoke his way through.
Can you imagine a 30-year-old plus, doing something like this? What kind of work ethic is it? It's common knowledge that he sleeps around in camp.. not with other personnel you dirty perverts! He has a mattress and an ashtray stuck in one of the rooms under our charge. He's the king of slacking and not getting caught for it. He has the cheek, as the top man of our branch, to do this..? WTFF is going on!!!!
Haha. So it makes it really quite apt that I'm here. A lieutenant.. sigh. :) Isn't it interesting what words can mean?
|
|
|
[06 Feb 2006|08:19pm] |
coming to work is a fucking drag when it takes a whole two hours from the doorstep of home.. till i hop into bunk in camp. despite all that, tekong still amazes me sometimes.
back when i was a recruit, tekong gave me one incredible sight i never ever ever experienced anywhere else on this island. Girls, be jealous. So it's the field camp.. and we're almost through to the end of a week of grueling sweaty outfield. We troop our way to a part of Tekong known as the reclaimed land, and heave our packs off our aching shoulders. This is where we're to set up camp for the night.
Singapore is a country not known for its horizons. Everywhere you look it's some concrete skyscraper blocking out the beautiful grey sky. A lot of buildings. Or trees. horizon... what? So I'm back in tekong, lying back to sleep, with my pack propped behind my neck and I see the most amazing thing. All around, the dusk sky stretches from one end to the other. It's the whole damn sky, open for all to see, painted in purple and orang-ish, the kind we see as the sun's setting. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to block out this magnificent masterpiece. I try. I strain to look for a typical singaporean sight--something to speck the horizon. And I can't find it. It's stunning--seeing as far as my eyes want to show me. I don't believe it. For one night, I'm on another planet.
Close ya eyes. Imagine that for a long moment. Do you believe it?
|
|
|
[31 Jan 2006|01:46am] |
In a post that'll be totally out of sync with the previous one, despite it being the same day and place and me, I'm going to talk about dumb materialistic things, blindingly hedonistic romps.. the things that don't matter (too much)!
Thanks to dom, seowy and rui for making wednesday night pretty damn good. Clubbing is something that I never acquired the taste for, because it reminds me that so many people who club do it for reasons i don't believe in. Ftting in. Or being perceived as trendy and hip, and therefore desirable. Drinking beyond the point of reason and maturity that ought to be with people older than 18, because being drunk is ugly and disgusting!! But a little part of me secretly wants to go, because it's about letting go, and it's about fun and great thumping music and just about being human. I've been a couple of times with friends from other circles. And it sucked. Because I saw they as clubbing for.. reasons different from mine. I could be damn wrong. But it wasn't fun. And I saw it in their faces. So I wasn't going to do with them anytime soon, next week or whenever.
Okay I'm fucking rambling already. Wednesday Night was really fun. The pictures speak for themselves. The drinks aren't as watered down as other shittier places. The music's pretty ok. The space is amazing for the door charge. And hey, I'm stil thinking about haha.. nvm. Let's do it again sometime before you jet off to Aus.
I'm done with the romp. Let's talk about things!
I want an ipod. a freaking sweet 15in 'macbook pro'/the powerbook. nice portable speakers. comfortable shoes. a watch.
Okay, i'm done with things. Those are actually things that are easily gotten. It's just a matter of money. There're lots of other things that I want that can't be bought with money. That's a lot harder to work to.
So I'll talk about all that another time. I also have a couple of really good confucious jokes to share. I'm making all of you wait. Haha...
|
|
|
[31 Jan 2006|01:28am] |
There was a time when I didn't feel like writing anything here on this livejournal. It brought back too many painful memories i'd rather forget and leave behind. Can it be too hard to guess for an innocent bystander by yourself? Anyway, it's over. I'm happy to be past all that.. luggage. And no. if you're thinking it's about some girl or some sexuality problem.. it's far more family-friendly than that. Ha!
So anyway, it's the new year, and although I've been harbouring ideas of creating a new blog somewhere else.. i can't. Because of the people I suppose. It just feels right here. Who knows of course.. but for now, and just because it's a new year. I'm writing here again.
so yes, happy cny to one and all!
It's nearing 2. Just finished watching a fantastic flick.. called hainan ji fan, aka Hainanese Chicken Rice. Filmed on location in Singapore, but featuring a cast of totally un-singaporean actors posing as singaporeans. Makes no sense! Still, i loved the directing of the film.. it's delicately beautiful in a subtle, unglammed style that is refreshing after watching so much .. hollywood. You know what i mean.
So since it's the new year, i'd like to leave everyone with my favourite quote from da movie.. 'Life First. Things Second. ... live life and don't let anyone stop you.' In my own increasing materialistic life, it made me think about what's really important. It's not things that matter, not well-designed apple products, or designer homes, or the dream car, or clothes, or a toned fit-as-salmon body, or all that stuff.... that matter. It's what surrounds all these.. the emotions, the experiences, the people.......
Gosh! I can't believe I'm so .. mushy. Or snaggy. Or whatever. I dont' care.
Anyway, THINK ABOUT IT. I WISH EVERYBODY A HAPPY NEW YEAR. GAM BEI! :)
|
|
| I think I'm catching the shutterbug! |
[14 Aug 2005|04:54pm] |
Yes I think I'm really getting to photography. I bring my camera whenever we've got training or something going on. It's fun to experiment with angles and colours and all the little functions I never my camera had. I love it when a photographer can make an ordinary situation unique and amazing through some creative photo-taking. It's a hell lot more interesting than just taking neoprint-ish snapshots with a point-and-shoot camera. And a lot more satisfying too.
Two days ago.. Mandy threw a farewell party coz she's heading off to the States to study Film and Business. Quite a night..we played lots of foosball. Hurray to Theo: together we were the undefeated champions for seven rounds running! Unlike Brandon had to spoil our streak. We played Pokemon Monopoly as dorky as it was.. haha. Card games always rock in parties.. we played what.. heart attack and snap I think. It's funny how Cheryl was complaining about SMU's orientation and getting so freaked out when the dog came close to her. It wasn't the most rocking party because people just hung out in their own groups,.. to some extent. But hey it felt great to behave as if we were all still in AD1.. still in JC playing our lives away. WIthout a care and without things like NS and Brunei to tear your mind away from the present. Even though we're all different in our ways and all going in different ways.. I hope that our class'll be able to gather back when we're old and cranny and knobby to play card games once again! Of course I'm not going to wait that looongg.. here's to AD1. Cheeers!
More pictures..
|
|
|
[14 Aug 2005|03:48pm] |
Down with a flu right now.. and it stinks! The antibiotics from the doctor cost a bomb. Oh it's been very effective.. at making me groggy and rather lightheaded the whole morning. I've even developed some slight buzzing noise from some corner of my head.. arrghh! But I just wanna get well before Brunei.. never good to be on status when training.
Well, this year's NDP went pretty well I thought! The military parade was super impressive.. marching quite spot-on. I was super excited when the camera zoomed in onto the colours party.. because the first guy in the row, carrying the red flag, is my sir! Yes, it's Lt Azmi and he's carrying the SAFTI flag. I'm super super proud of him.. He's quite the picture-perfect garang and full of pride and honour sort of officer. The show segment wasn't as cheessy as previous years. The national day song.. the one by Taufik and Rui en was honestly quite forgettable. But she looked pretty snazzy on stage so all was good.
We booked out for a day on National Day and I made it a point to spend it the best I could .. so I did! Met up with Theo, Ash, Mich Koh and Eugene to catch some fireworks at Marina South.
Yay! Not as magnificent as the ones on NDP itself naturally .. but the final barrage of fireworks at the end as you can see, was yea pretty damn good. The bangs and the booms and the whole night sky being lighted up in fiercy red or mysterious green reminded me of E4. Heck, it feel like I was in WW2, huddled in some trench on the frontline, with the German artillery booming and shaking the ground. And flares zipping up and erupting in mid air, illuminating the dead battlefield below. FIreworks are meant to be celebratory and fun and awesome. I wonder if those poor soldiers felt the same when arty shells and flares exploded around them. A mixed sense of beauty and awe, in stark contrast to the death all around.
Enough of that.. after that we tromped off to China Black. I figure I'm really not the clubbing sort.. because I just feel so wierd on the dance floor. Self-conscious and feeling quite silly about myself. Hahaha. Sometimes I see guys dancing alone, a few steps away from the giant throng of clubbers in the centre. Dancing quite well I would say, as if they'd jumped out of a video off MTV. But WHY?? What are they dancing for all alone up there? To attract some chicks to come dance with them? I didn't see them pick anyone up. Quite pathetic .. why not just hang out and dance with your friends and have fun.
And so I'm leaning on a wall, away from the dancing, taking a breather. This fellow, Chinese early-20s with a boyish face, comes up and stands next to me. Then he leans over and ask 'are you okay?' I go.. 'yea sure.' And smile sheepishly. I mean.. WHAT? Of course I'm okay. And then he asks me for a cigarette.. lol. No sir, I don't have any of those. After that, he drags me over to a bunch of young girls (who looks suspiciously underaged) and begins to intro me to them.. saying that they wanna dance with me. HAHA quite an opener for me. Never tried talking to strangers in clubs before.. And then after that, he disappeared as fast as he came. Well, I didn't talk to those girls after that.. even though I think one was quite cute. Too damn nervous and you know, I dance terribly. But it was an interesting exchange..
After that we headed off to the BEACH after a short pit-stop at home. Inami joined us and we played volleyball. Lots of fun because all of us sucked at it. Waddled in the sea. Swam over to the one of the islands across the water and relaxed there. Got burned to a crisp! I love the feeling after a swim, when I've showered and dried up and on the way home. The feeling of a nuzzling warmth spread out in your tired muscles. The feeling that you just wanna go to sleep peacefully. Shiok man. I love the beach! More pictures if you click on..
|
|
|
[07 Aug 2005|04:29pm] |
|
The long weekend was spent recuperating from aching calves and blisters at various spots on my feet. Tis the pain of an infantry soldier! We had an insane 26 click route march around camp.. we had to carry our company weapons. The legendary 84mm. This bugger they call a recoilless rifle.. but nooooo it looks nothing like an m-16. And it's weight? Not even close. It's a freaking bazooka.. a giant solid metal pipe thing with rounds the size of large coke bottles.. the 1.5l ones you find at BBQs and parties. Imagine something heavy enough to sent a bottle hurtling straight through space to kill a tank roughly 800m away. I have to salute the commandos here (we have 12 commando crossovers into Delta Wing).. They are incredible. I swear they are not human. These guys shouldered the weight of the 2 84's each platoon had to manage. Plus the various man-packs (with ammo rounds strapped to them). For more than six hours of nonstop marching. That's 2 Titanics back to back. Nuts I say.
Well enough of the damned march :) In roughly a week plus, we'll all be sent over to Brunei. Where we will undergo the craziest and definitely the most challenged training we've had so far. We're climbing Mt Piang.. I think it's the tallest peak there.. climbing it, naturally, with full load-- our weapons, our full packs, our 84s, our claymore mines and law tubes, our signal sets, our water supply, everything. It's 2 weeks la. Wish all of us luck.
Alpha Wing commissions! The parade was pretty awesome. But I have to say I'm a little disappointed.. in that there wasn't many spectacular moments. Lots of activity on the parade square was saluting and greeting various VIPs and such. Ya know, I'd expected a commissioning parade to have more OOOMMPPH. But I have to take my hat off to their drill precision.. super zhun. Yea and everyone looked like fantastic and everything in their No. 1s. Can't wait for OUR turn! After the parade, we had quite a bit of fun saluting all the new officers... definitely the first times in their lives that they are RETURNING a salute rather than saluting a superior. What a feeling.
|
|
| The impossible! |
[23 Jul 2005|11:54am] |
This is coming to you live from OCS. Live from Delta Wing.. yes, can you believe it? I'm actually hooked up to the net from camp. Ha! Thanks to Lt Azmi who graciously provided the *hehehe* proxy settings and all that, I can do something few cadets enjoy-- surfing the net from camp. And I'm supposed to be on Weekend duty!
Weekend Duty.. ahh it's the bane of all cadets everywhere. It means that while your fellow mates book out, go clubbing and shopping, snuggle up to their girlfriends and enjoy the weekend.. You. Stay. In Camp. 4 victims per week, 2 for saturday and sunday each. It's mundane and dry.. usually. Unless you have entertainment! See how happy I am:
On an even happier note.. I GOT IPPT GOLD! It's basically army's Napfa. Yes this shows that a slug like me can achieve the impossible in Delta Wing! Here's the badge we get to pin onto our No. 1s. It's awesome.
Did you know that the No. 1s .. meaning the ceremonial/parade uniforms worn at NDP and serious important occasions don't belong to us? What, right? Yes.. it's an army controlled item. You loan it out, wear it proudly for a day, and return to the store. How memorable. Why can't they just let us keep it? I understand if you want to keep your rifles and missiles and F-16s behind lock, bar and key.. but a military uniform? It's not going to kill anybody.. 'oh watch out! A flying button of death!' Oh well la hmm..
|
|
| Day One. |
[10 Jul 2005|10:43am] |
Hellos to all,
Too long! It's been ages since I've written here. I suppose the inspiration and the want to write on this journal just fizzled and flipped over dead. I had entertained ideas of opening up a new blog somewhere trendy like blogger.. but I suppose this good ole place has served me well. Argh.. old sentimental me just doesn't wanna leave. Suit me.
And so I'm doing something new now. It's not just the layout revamp. You see, I've got a new toy to lug with me to camp. It's a beautiful deadly black hunk of a camera. And with this expert piece of gadgetry, I'll be bringing you behind the scenes, into the life of an OCS Cadet. Muahahahaha!
It's bloody busy everyday in camp, doing this and that. It's this torturous and fulfilling, exhausting and mindblowing, overall quite bittersweet time that I wanna capture down somewhere. I don't wanna commission in December with hazy memories and fragile thoughts.. I don't ever wanna answer: "Yea .. uh.. OCS was fun.. Yea. That's it."
Apart from naughty pictures and other weird things that happen after last parade, expect me talking about whatever I'm up to these days, what or who I'm currently obsessed about, the book I'm reading, or my mangled thoughts and reflections. The usual things la okay!
Hey to all the old Delta guys, or whoever who's suffering/enjoying NS in OCS or whereever, drop a comment. Tell me what's up and how ya been. Say whatever you want la.. okay till later, bye bye!
|
|
| 06 February 2005 PM 02:48 |
[06 Feb 2005|02:48pm] |
It's starting to get easier to deal with the final hours before a book-in. Actually it's not all bad.. when you reach the station and see all the jockey caps and the resigned looks, you know that there's another 47 guys ready to rough out the next five days with you. Call it brotherhood, call it shared suffering but it helps. And it just takes another army joke to bring you back to army life.. sigh!
The army tries very hard to override the previous lives of all their recruits. Even chatting with Rui, the main one thing that comes to my mind.. ARMY. It's working goddamnit! National propaganda and brainwashing.... Everytime I feel like sharing some damn army experience, or some nasty thing the sergeants made us do, or the stuff we see and feel in camp.. I should just shut up and think about how life was before army. And talk about that instead.
If not it'll be as weird as meeting your army buddies during bookouts. Ha that makes sense.. I see this bunch of guys a good six days of my tired week and the logical thing is to see them again on the last free day right? I've had enough of army really!
So anyway I cant wait for CNY. I cant wait for BOP. I cant wait for ORD..... and I'd better be spending all my bookouts well. Oh and one tip for the guys who haven't been to field camp.... pls do your shits in the early mornings! Mosquitos and flies sleep in late.
|
|
| 23 January 2005 PM 03:33 |
[23 Jan 2005|03:33pm] |
|
I'm feeling an impending sense of doom.. it';s just 4 hours till I'm back in Tekong. Oh man! This first bookout is tough. It's hard to tear myself from civilian life.. and to think that i'll be back in training and all that. I'm going to miss a lot of things here. Again.. no more internet! I'm bringing an entire library of books back into camp to keep me sane.
|
|
| 23 January 2005 AM 10:31 |
[23 Jan 2005|11:00am] |
I have friends lamenting and feeling pissed off and depressed because of NS.
It's been 2 weeks already! God, to slide back into the monotony of normal everyday life.. meaning spending sundays lazing around, doing nothing, or reading a book or surfing hours on the net.. it feels great. Everything in the army is so different. You're always in a rush. 0530 Reveille, Breakfast at 0600 and strictly be back at the company building at 0630. Clean up your bunks, pick up your rifles in time for training to commence at 0730. There's so little time to just slack off and be a bum so yes it feels great to be home.
I was smiling like an idiot on the ferry and the bus back to Paris Ris MRT. How cant I not be! It feels great to see crowds of people milling around in Orchard station, and being bumped around in the packed train.. there's no such chaos in army. Everybody's doing what they want to do. I tasted cereal (usually my choice of breakfast because it's so easy to make) for the first time in 2 weeks. I had relaxed meals and vegetables that didnt taste like over-cooked plastic. Hot showers.
I dont see why so many people are pissed off bout NS. It's NOT THAT BAD. REally. The food is crap by mainland standards, but it's edible and pretty okay army food. The living conditions wasn't as dismal as I'd imagined (70's barracks with ancient rusty rotting tables bunks and living on the edge of a jungle drawing water from a well). The lectures are okay, even great because my platoon sits in the dark when we sleep, eat chocolate or make calls secretly. Scorpion company actually screened White Chicks for us!
That was damn weird. Enjoying the movie.. laughing at all the gags and Hollywood's lame attempt to insert some moral message into a formulaic comedy. And then when the credits roll, I see throngs of botaks in grey t-shirst, with ARMY stamped on the back stand up and fill out of the LT. it's really weird trust me. And then we walk out into the light, expected Orchard Rd.. or at least relieved faces smiling or people dying to take a piss. Instead, I gaze out to sunny BMTC School 2 and the thought that today had more rifle drills and PT. Fuck. I'm still in camp. For taking me away from reality and totally erasing Tekong from my mind for 2 hours, I never LOVED and HATED movies so much at the same time.
My platoon is really fun. We have silly army songs and one guy who sleeps sitting up. No kidding, he's in this meditating position the whole night. Whenever he's late to fall in, we tell the sergeant he's levitating over the toilet bowl! We've got the usual mix of jokers and serious fuck-uped cases. overly enthu guys irritate a little. We share chocolates and have our own parties in our bunks. We challenge our sergeants to arm-wrestling and see how can strip a rifle faster. My fellow recruit actually beat my sergeant at stripping the thing.
I think most people know that the people you meet at BMTC will most likely fade from your friendship circles once this 9-week honeymoon is over. Save for a few of course. Just like that, army is just 2 years of our lives. And once it's over, you'll forget most of it except for the memorable and wonderful moments. So why make a huge fuss of it. Bookouts are only so long and I wanna make the best out of this mess I'm in.
There's no use in hating army. 'Don't test the system.' ahhahahaha back in 2 weeks..
|
|
| 11 December 2004 AM 02:28 |
[11 Dec 2004|02:57am] |
I've begun to tag everything with 'Last'. Last time I'll be seeing my cousins for 2 years. Last real holiday before NS. Last Christmas before BMT.
AARRGHGHGH! I'm sure it's not just me. I've got some friends who are EXCITED about BMT. Sure.. I guess I can pretend that it's going to be lots of fun and psych myself up. I'm not so concerned about the torture they will put us through (in fact I'm looking forward to the challenge) but I'm so frustrated at how Army really infringes on life. It's not just 'National Service'.. it's a life commitment for two years. No holidays whenever I want. No time to pursue part-time studies (unless I'm lucky enough to land and break an arm or leg and become a clerk yes!) No time to do anything but serve. That's plain stupid.
Turns out that I'll be away from Singapore.. during the xmas period. From 18th to 26th. Wth.. that means I'm missing your birthday rui (!U#@Y!&@*) and Christmas too. I'll be off to China.. yay! The Yun nan province, meaning lots of scenic lakes, chilly mountains and lots of rural fun. Ahh yes.. I love that, but not during christmas please! Damn but there's always the New Year paarrties!!
Prom was pretty okay. My stand is still that its a overhyped overpriced photoshoot, where we provided the clothes and the amatuer camera work. The Ritz is a glitzy place sure.. but only the lobby! The ballroom (unless we got some second-rate subpar one..) was decent, but nothing to write home about. The girls were gorgeous! Okay okay I'm a great liar too, but there were some really pleasant surprises.. The guys looked smart and neat for once. Our part-time student Ben actually looked neat in his suit.. he's usually either absent, late or very sloppy. His shirts are never tucked in la.. but just for one night.
Clubbing was fun! Okay it was super fun in that it was so many's virgin experiences.. even the quiet girls went. Some guys especially those being packed to Tekong the very next morning tried to grab ass and 'get pussy' quoting the great Justin,.. (haha) .. quite interesting la, Zouk. The guys were kinda stoned and subdued, like just bouncing and not really dancing. The girls are the hawt ones! Woow. i guess I didn't make a fool of myself but then I didnt give a shit and just enjoyed the music. Some said the DJ was genius but the music was okay I suppose. I would return.
Oh and I'm typing this on my new comp! It's an Apple Powerbook.. my dad got it for the whole family. The OS rocks! I dread returning to XP after using the mac's OS X. Yes, being a geek again. Shiok! Those dudes who say that macs have no software should go drown themselves in acid. Apps here are usually shareware/freeware and easily integrated.. the only bugger is lack of games. But what the hell
okay bye!
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
cherhan's journal
