Emotional inertia
Hello from Sembawang Medical Centre. Using the I-net terminal there as i'm supposed to stay in for this whole week. Don't grieve, as I have this I-net terminal, a TV, a playstation to keep me company lest I get bored. Did i also forgrt to mention that the whole place is air-conditioned? 2 days in here already and my skin started feeling dry..
I have come to the conclusion that I'm just not suited to anyone, and I have been denying this fact for a long time. Boon kwan once said i was a neither here nor there person, thus no one can really classify me into a type thus it is impossible to identify the type of person who would click with me. Plus my star sign is capricorn, and the horrorscope says that people with this star sign have few friends but the few are very good friends. Another piece of evidence is that I left a trail of bile in my last 2 army camps, something I'm not very proud of.
Anyway I have more less resigned myself to a quiet life for the rest of my 2 years. it's getting harder and harder to meet my friends from JC as they all have their own lives to lead, the guys either in different camps and vocations from me and the ladies busy with work travel play and soon uni. It's time to stop living in the past and face the present. Army has made me longed for the carefree school days where the only thing you worried about was grades, (a great source of worry though) still I know now that those days are memories and nothing else. Attending ms lui's wedding, I felt so out of place, the profound feeling of "i don't belong here" just came over me. And I don't think I could go back to being the cock person i was. Army has opened my eyes for better or worse, and I have become more jaded, and look back at some of the things I did in JC and wonder about the value of it.
Past is past. I have been desperately holding on to it, using it as some form of leverage against the army's corrupting influence, now I've decided to leave it behind for good. From now on I'll use the future to act as my anchor, my outlet to the madness in uniform. And if I have to do that alone, so be it. I can't always be looking for someone to share my sadness with, no one is that foolish to do that, and most definately won't do it for me. It's time I got used to the fact that, for the time being at least, i'll be alone.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Monday, May 30, 2005
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Of fuzzy memories and murky futures
Respite? What respite? Since I got home I've had to deal with one crisis after another, what with missing networks then the router going south on me to stubborn destiny downloads and the ultimate football robbery cum injustice, and top it all off with a late book out, albeit unavoidable, and most of all the jarring lack of social excursions this fair weekend.
Frankly speaking the 4 hours I spent without an internet connection was quite harrowing, shows how dependant I am on my connection.
Well, here I am again, only that I'm not writing this just hours before I book in. Just a few updates on my existence to all those that actually care about such trivial stuff.
- My hair is totalled. Refuse to go to the EC house at bishan ever again.
- BCS reminds me of building scout tents.
- My senior instructor calls the cat status hotline every half hour to check. Seems he himself isn't very hot about combat phase
- PSP lacks games
Nothing much to add i guess. My lasr few entries have been very introspective, maybe because of the isolation in army and the fact that I can't be myself in there draws me closer to my inner self, so I spend more time imagining scenes in my head.
And once again it comes to naught. Maybe, just maybe, it is time to give up the ghost , accept my fate and walk that lonely path.
NS guys are whiny???? Oh lady, how would you like to trade your comfy lifestyle for mine? Toilets with a family of cockroaches, lights that don't work and will never be repaired, no freedom at all, just pure regimentation, when you sleep eat wake up bathe are regulated, where having a higher rank means you're always right when you're obviously dead wrong, where people are generally unmotivated as what vocation they get is not in their hands, and most of all, having to live away from the safety net of your home. Do you think, for a second, that most singaporean girls can handle that? Chances are no. Being the person I am, the things I gripe about in army are stuff like inefficiency, rank means right, no room for thinking just blind obedience, speaking up is seen as being extra and defiant, where inflexible rules and contradictions rule the day, unhelpful and selfish platoon mates which cause the whole platoon to get punished for their sins etc. I could go on forever. So you ma say, what's new? another ns hating guy.
To me, NS is a necessary evil. I don't advocate it, neither am I willing to see it disband. I just hope SAF under it's 21st century revamping changes all the archaic rules and ensure that the old dinosaurs are gone before they continue to terrorise trainees again.
Ladies, please empathise with the guys. And above all, cherish the freedom you have. Regimentation is something easily done, but the most wretched of them all in my opinion as it reduces your mind's ability to adapt to new situations, as everything now becomes a conditioned routine.
You know what scares me the most? When I sit around with no real purpose, I almost long to return to camp, at least there are purposes to be found there. But I always silence that horrible thought immediately. I shall, no, must gain a purpose soon before this darkness consumes me.
Respite? What respite? Since I got home I've had to deal with one crisis after another, what with missing networks then the router going south on me to stubborn destiny downloads and the ultimate football robbery cum injustice, and top it all off with a late book out, albeit unavoidable, and most of all the jarring lack of social excursions this fair weekend.
Frankly speaking the 4 hours I spent without an internet connection was quite harrowing, shows how dependant I am on my connection.
Well, here I am again, only that I'm not writing this just hours before I book in. Just a few updates on my existence to all those that actually care about such trivial stuff.
- My hair is totalled. Refuse to go to the EC house at bishan ever again.
- BCS reminds me of building scout tents.
- My senior instructor calls the cat status hotline every half hour to check. Seems he himself isn't very hot about combat phase
- PSP lacks games
Nothing much to add i guess. My lasr few entries have been very introspective, maybe because of the isolation in army and the fact that I can't be myself in there draws me closer to my inner self, so I spend more time imagining scenes in my head.
And once again it comes to naught. Maybe, just maybe, it is time to give up the ghost , accept my fate and walk that lonely path.
NS guys are whiny???? Oh lady, how would you like to trade your comfy lifestyle for mine? Toilets with a family of cockroaches, lights that don't work and will never be repaired, no freedom at all, just pure regimentation, when you sleep eat wake up bathe are regulated, where having a higher rank means you're always right when you're obviously dead wrong, where people are generally unmotivated as what vocation they get is not in their hands, and most of all, having to live away from the safety net of your home. Do you think, for a second, that most singaporean girls can handle that? Chances are no. Being the person I am, the things I gripe about in army are stuff like inefficiency, rank means right, no room for thinking just blind obedience, speaking up is seen as being extra and defiant, where inflexible rules and contradictions rule the day, unhelpful and selfish platoon mates which cause the whole platoon to get punished for their sins etc. I could go on forever. So you ma say, what's new? another ns hating guy.
To me, NS is a necessary evil. I don't advocate it, neither am I willing to see it disband. I just hope SAF under it's 21st century revamping changes all the archaic rules and ensure that the old dinosaurs are gone before they continue to terrorise trainees again.
Ladies, please empathise with the guys. And above all, cherish the freedom you have. Regimentation is something easily done, but the most wretched of them all in my opinion as it reduces your mind's ability to adapt to new situations, as everything now becomes a conditioned routine.
You know what scares me the most? When I sit around with no real purpose, I almost long to return to camp, at least there are purposes to be found there. But I always silence that horrible thought immediately. I shall, no, must gain a purpose soon before this darkness consumes me.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Losing my touch
The one great thing that makes me sad is that army has reduced me into a person whose mental reflexes are as slow as molasses on a cold day. The theory that once you put on the helmet you can't think straight has some echo of truth to it, it seems.
Many things have happened. Confirmation has come in, I'm going to be posted to sembawang air base medical centre, in addition to normal medical centre duties I'll also have to do search and rescue exercises. People tell me it's a good place to go. Personally I'm just glad not to be under the green uniform umbrella anymore.
Bought a PSP. Ok I admit I may have made an over hasty purchase, but I'm rather satisfied with it and my parents bankrolled the set itself so it isn't that bad. Like I told my mum the 455 she forks out now will go a long way to healing my tormented, game console-less childhood.
Anime overload, bleach is nice but ominously enough it seems to parallel tokyo underground, a horrible series that I had the misfortune to watch. Just got FMA from adrian, still continuing on with gundam seed destiny, playing games such as KOTOR2, will get pirates from adrian next week.
And about phillip yeo's remark that guys are a whiny lot. I say, really once must consider why we complain. If you are constantly punished for the sins of others, frustrated by the idiocy of some of the army's regulations, and the fact that rank means right, you do wonder why we complain so much. Just 5 months in the army and I feel like half the person I was in school. Frighteningly enough I lost all interest in reading newspapers, even when I book out.
Seriously I wonder how I'll go and handle uni if i don't make a conscious attempt to arrest the rot. I refuse to let the army degenerate my brain.
Just bear with it for 1 more week Graham, surely you can do that. I want to be the master of my own destiny. I don't want some annoymous data pusher to randomly throw me to some place.
I want to be in the place where I'll that I can thrive there.
The one great thing that makes me sad is that army has reduced me into a person whose mental reflexes are as slow as molasses on a cold day. The theory that once you put on the helmet you can't think straight has some echo of truth to it, it seems.
Many things have happened. Confirmation has come in, I'm going to be posted to sembawang air base medical centre, in addition to normal medical centre duties I'll also have to do search and rescue exercises. People tell me it's a good place to go. Personally I'm just glad not to be under the green uniform umbrella anymore.
Bought a PSP. Ok I admit I may have made an over hasty purchase, but I'm rather satisfied with it and my parents bankrolled the set itself so it isn't that bad. Like I told my mum the 455 she forks out now will go a long way to healing my tormented, game console-less childhood.
Anime overload, bleach is nice but ominously enough it seems to parallel tokyo underground, a horrible series that I had the misfortune to watch. Just got FMA from adrian, still continuing on with gundam seed destiny, playing games such as KOTOR2, will get pirates from adrian next week.
And about phillip yeo's remark that guys are a whiny lot. I say, really once must consider why we complain. If you are constantly punished for the sins of others, frustrated by the idiocy of some of the army's regulations, and the fact that rank means right, you do wonder why we complain so much. Just 5 months in the army and I feel like half the person I was in school. Frighteningly enough I lost all interest in reading newspapers, even when I book out.
Seriously I wonder how I'll go and handle uni if i don't make a conscious attempt to arrest the rot. I refuse to let the army degenerate my brain.
Just bear with it for 1 more week Graham, surely you can do that. I want to be the master of my own destiny. I don't want some annoymous data pusher to randomly throw me to some place.
I want to be in the place where I'll that I can thrive there.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
I choose my own path
It's been some time, things haven't changed much. I'm still on course, another 2 and a half more weeks to go, but at least I should be posted to somewhere fine. More details once it becomes concrete, don't want to jinx it by trumpeting it out to the whole digital world.
One issue has been bugging me constantly. After bouts of self introspection, I have come to realise that my social circle has always revolved around what I like to term, circumstancial friends, meaning friends that one did not go out of the way to meet, normally people like your classmates, cca mates etc. I don't really wake up one morning and say to myself, "today I shall go up to a total stranger and make friends with him/her" (more likely to be her haha) But yeah maybe because to me I have the view that everything one does needs to have a convincing reason to do it, and I can't really see the purpose of approaching and disturbing total strangers.
Anyway, my point is that I'm afraid that I won't be able to meet enough people to find the one who is my supposed soulmate out there. It's not in my character to go to a club and try to pick up girls, and I don't really like girls that club anyway. (that's another issue for another time) I can't really make good circumstancial female friends now because, well, frankly the army has a deficeit of females. I guess it'll be even worse once I go out to work, as they say going after a colleague is just asking for trouble.
Sometimes, in the dead of the night in my bunk where everyone else is asleep but me, i just stare at the ceiling fan and let this sense of lonliness come over me. I understand the concept of "Alone in a crowd" far too well. I look at my bunkmates chalking up insane phone bills talking to their girlfriends on the phone till 1 am and I feel a tinge of envy. Not that I'm in a hurry to be attached, it's more like I just want someone to share my thoughts, the events of today, my fears and feelings with. I know I should just keep a stiff upper lip and soldier on, but sometimes there are things I just to talk to someone about. But I hardly ever call anyone, not wanting to impose on them my own problems and worries, for it is certain they have their own as well. It is just too selfish of me to do so.
Another thing I come to learn is, if you like a person so much, you know she's the most perfect girl you ever met, and all you want to do is to protect her, comfort her, and be by her side whenever she wavers. I'll glady be the one holding the umbrella for her when it rains, the one that ties her shoelaces when they come undone, the one who'll lend a shoulder when she cries and then wipe the tears away with tissue paper. Crazily enough I don't need anything in return from her. Just being by her side and supporting her would be fine.
If however, she and I are not met to be, I think it is very hard for me to get over it, as I know I'll never find another person like her, ever again. I'll end up always loving her for the rest of my life, in one corner of my heart. Memories buried, but always ready to be dredged up at the slightest hint of remembrance. The perfect girl, but we were not meant to be...
It's been some time, things haven't changed much. I'm still on course, another 2 and a half more weeks to go, but at least I should be posted to somewhere fine. More details once it becomes concrete, don't want to jinx it by trumpeting it out to the whole digital world.
One issue has been bugging me constantly. After bouts of self introspection, I have come to realise that my social circle has always revolved around what I like to term, circumstancial friends, meaning friends that one did not go out of the way to meet, normally people like your classmates, cca mates etc. I don't really wake up one morning and say to myself, "today I shall go up to a total stranger and make friends with him/her" (more likely to be her haha) But yeah maybe because to me I have the view that everything one does needs to have a convincing reason to do it, and I can't really see the purpose of approaching and disturbing total strangers.
Anyway, my point is that I'm afraid that I won't be able to meet enough people to find the one who is my supposed soulmate out there. It's not in my character to go to a club and try to pick up girls, and I don't really like girls that club anyway. (that's another issue for another time) I can't really make good circumstancial female friends now because, well, frankly the army has a deficeit of females. I guess it'll be even worse once I go out to work, as they say going after a colleague is just asking for trouble.
Sometimes, in the dead of the night in my bunk where everyone else is asleep but me, i just stare at the ceiling fan and let this sense of lonliness come over me. I understand the concept of "Alone in a crowd" far too well. I look at my bunkmates chalking up insane phone bills talking to their girlfriends on the phone till 1 am and I feel a tinge of envy. Not that I'm in a hurry to be attached, it's more like I just want someone to share my thoughts, the events of today, my fears and feelings with. I know I should just keep a stiff upper lip and soldier on, but sometimes there are things I just to talk to someone about. But I hardly ever call anyone, not wanting to impose on them my own problems and worries, for it is certain they have their own as well. It is just too selfish of me to do so.
Another thing I come to learn is, if you like a person so much, you know she's the most perfect girl you ever met, and all you want to do is to protect her, comfort her, and be by her side whenever she wavers. I'll glady be the one holding the umbrella for her when it rains, the one that ties her shoelaces when they come undone, the one who'll lend a shoulder when she cries and then wipe the tears away with tissue paper. Crazily enough I don't need anything in return from her. Just being by her side and supporting her would be fine.
If however, she and I are not met to be, I think it is very hard for me to get over it, as I know I'll never find another person like her, ever again. I'll end up always loving her for the rest of my life, in one corner of my heart. Memories buried, but always ready to be dredged up at the slightest hint of remembrance. The perfect girl, but we were not meant to be...
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