unspoken desires

random thoughts

2005-09-11T19:58:00.000+08:00

army half marathon today , after a whole week of shit and morale sucking activity.

sometimes i think that they train your mind here and not your body. physically its not that tough, like infantry but mentally you feel very trapped and claustrophobic. like it never ends. it never ends.

but we're almost used to it. if you dont think so much it goes away, for a while.

we used to live week by week, then day by day and now its mealtime by mealtime. when will this ever end?

just today i was talking to Jason and Nonis. met them ol buddies at the half marathon. Foxtrot platoon 2. times have changed but the people are the same. Jason is in running for the sword of honour, but i wonder who is going to save him from himself sometimes haha. he exudes this air of earnestness and yet at the same time he is also very...vulnerable. ive never known anyone with as much heart as jason. his heart rules him. and thank god it does because its so refreshing to talk to such people.

i wish you all the very best guys. i really hope to see you all on the parade square. we'd smile and laugh and grab each other and the moment will never ever ever end. not in our minds and not in our memories. and for this chance of making that happen we must perservere onwards.

after i told him about our training, jason exclaimed that he was darn glad that he is not in armour haha., he also got pissed cos "infantry is so pussy! we must do something about it!"

sigh, the male ego never fails to astound me. but still, competition is good for the soul. and theyd never beat us in terms of eating shit.

it was really great meeting up with you guys again.

as usual had the usual chit chat with jo and jianwei at TCC. i think we;ve made the place our unofficial meeting ground and chill out place. the drinks and food are just so good there haha.

were on a quest to discover singapore again. we've had many lobangs but just no time to fulfill all of them. thats why i must get commissioned soon so i can have more free time (and rights)

its strange how you know some people are lifelong friends because you can just sit down and talk about anything and everything.

its also scary how you can also do something wrong or have a change in heart, attitudes and values and then go your seperate ways. i hope that doesnt happen. life changes too much sometimes for its own good and even though i acknowledge that change is good for the soul and mind, too much of it is just so draining at times.

sometimes i feel 23 and sometimes i feel 17. im 19 and im not quite sure where its going, as usual.

maybe we all dont know where were going, just that some people are better at pretending that they know where theyre going. maybe i should ask my mom if she knows, although i know shell tell me she knows shes going to heaven.

one more week, back to camp. life goes on...it has to end someday.

isnt it ironic

2005-08-27T16:18:00.000+08:00

how people say one thing and do another?

how man seeks to dominate other people, whether consciously or unconsciously?

a few things make me pissed off. inequality (even though i agree it must exist) is one of them. and so is unequal treatment.

take this example:

a warrant asks me to come back at 430 pm to get a vehicle. i set my alarm for 425 so i have time to get there. i do section drills with my sectionmates under guidance of an officer.

at 425 i tell the officer i have to go and acquire the vehicle for practise tomorrow and that i need one more guy to come with me. he tells me to get someone from the other section (who has already finished the drills) to go with me. i need the guy cos we arent allowed to drive around the compound without a ground guide.

i go to the other section and they are having some competition or something that will not affect their knowledge of the drills. just playing time for them. so i ask one of them to help me and they tell me they cant do it. they say go a little later, wait till we're done.

the time now is around 445. im 15 minutes late cos i cant get a guy to come with me. i go back to the officer and i tell him i need someone fast. he tells me to call the other sections who happen to be having lessons somewhere else. they arent free. nobody can come, so it seems. and this vehicle happens to be a key vehicle used for tomorrow's exercise.

i get pissed and start swearing (under my breath) and i flash a finger to the other section. finally, im able to get one of my guys to come with me.

this incident might seem pretty small if not for a few things that some ppl said.

"aiyah dont worry la, lieutenant higher rank than warrant. just say sir needs you to do section drills"

and also
"er...a bit late nevermind right" (my officer)

ladies and gentlemen, we were half an hour late when i finally got there. half an hour in military terms is amount to suicide.

my question to them is... if someone is of lower rank, does he deserve the same amount of respect as someone who is supposedly "higher up"?

and if officers are so concerned about timings and they fuck everyone around them when timings are not met (even for a minute or so), then why are they not adhering to a simple timing themselves?

the situation is always like this. people higher up are not aware of the shit that percolates down. and if they are aware of it then they should go to hell because they arent doing anything about it.

i realise its damn easy to just slack off when youre at the top but then if you are going to slack off then please dont feed me bullshit about pride and honour and glory and working for your men when you yourself are looking pretty in the mirror when other people are sweating out there in the hot sun and getting screwed.

most of the time, i get the feeling that people in charge dont really know what is going on. at all. i dont want to name names, but the simple fact is that i was assigned 3 different positions and responsibilities and they all changed within a few minutes of each other with other people taking over me. he was simply calling names and people to meet supply and demand without taking into note the bigger picture. (sounds complex but its really very simple. he cant fucking make up his mind as to what he wants to do)

fucking people is a distraction. it is supposed to make up for lack of ability and ignorance. in terms of man management, the army is probably the worst place to go if you want things to get done effectively.

how does saying "fuck you understand" to a person in push up position make up for efficiency, lost time and work done?

also, there seems to be a need to act big in front of so called "men". corporals or sergeants or warrants.

there were other guys with us there at the training site undergoing the same training as us. corporals and sergeants. attached to us.

our in charge had a field day. talking macho big words. cussing, swearing, exuding so much testosterone that if you looked closely, he appeared to be gently steaming.

in front of them, he gestured towards them with an open palm;

"guys, you know who these people are?"
"these people are men"

he might as well have called them chickens, or beef steak.

"they are watching you, so if you fuck around, theyre gonna laugh at you"

at this point of time, a few of them rolled their eyes.

i didnt know where the hell to cover my face. i cant believe that im part of this bullshit.

and then later some other even higher up person comes along and he tells us that we are a "special breed of men" with "IQs of above 100" and "the top 10% of the top 10% from dunno where and when"

who gives a shit when i dont think anybody will be fighting for the top 10% of the top 10% anytime soon with that kinda attitude.

the best part is that some of them actually believe it. they actually buy into it. that they really are that great. fuck you, understand.

just because you want to chiong. doesnt mean that others want to as well. people think that just because they want to do this, others will wanna do it as well. it becomes dangerous and irritating when you have others under you and you think you are god's gift to mankind.

sigh. i can go on and on and on. so many examples.

the ironic thing is that he told me that i could make a difference. i could Not be what i hated. i could make things better for others.

only time will tell.

2005-08-20T09:57:00.000+08:00

have you ever had situations in which you recalled details of your past because you suddenly thought of a song? or a place. or maybe even a particular fruit.

nostalgia is that small ache in the hollow of your tummy. cos you know you cant ever ever go back again. you cant ever ever experience things the same way, talk to the same people the same way anymore. and that hurts. a bit.

quite lately, whenever i turn my zen micro on, ive constantly been sent back through time and i find that i link certain songs to certain periods in my life. take this for example: Eve 6's Here's To the Nights makes me feel like the end of service term, when we all split up and went our seperate ways... and we all didnt want to leave but we all knew we had to.

and i can still remember the night i played that song over the speakers to adrian and nikhil. and how for just one moment we all sat in silence, thinking. now nikhil has disrupted and is reading Medicine. and Adrian, the one with the most drive and potential of us all, has ooc-ed. strained nerve in his hand from Spade. sometimes i also think that life has a way of bringing you back down to earth. we all thought we were invincible.that anything was possible. it still is...but you have to consult Higher HQ before you can carry out what you wanna do.

robbie william's Angels is the song running through my head when i first came into armour. i suppose i needed something, anything, to hold on to. its strange; whenever times are hard, you always mistakenly think that it's never gonna end. but that's not true. if anything else, i've learnt that the one thing that never changes is that all things come to an end eventually. so i guess that is a source of comfort. and its how we carry ourselves during these times that make us who we are.

other songs. like the one that takes me to Lido, with its popcorn smells and energetic bustles and guys in uniform after school looking at girls in uniform after school.

and the one that's halfway between RJ and ACJC. that transition period. i remember it was raining, and we were in the A huts. cuddled up and with lynn teaching and we were cocking around as usual...and the song was playing in my discman.

theres one for canoeing finals, and the last time i ever rowed. and one for beginnings. one for lost loves and one for going out with my family (which always makes me feel a certain way. a bit of boredom, mixed with dread but also tinged with some bits of happiness and gentle resignation.)

i dont go out with my family anymore these days. i wonder where im going.

Boredom's in the back room, shaking out the loose teeth
Sally's in the stirrups, claiming her own destiny
and nobody nowhere understands anything; about me
and all my dreams

lost at sea

-'Stumbleine' The Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

i feel old

2005-08-07T01:21:00.000+08:00

wow, its been a while since i've last blogged....5 months in fact. and i wonder why im here all over again.

for a period of time, ive been really busy. im still busy. in fact, im busier than before and all im thinking now is that its been one hell of a roller coaster ride. from heaven to hell to heaven and back again until i dont even know which way is up or down anymore.

im halfway through my course in OCS and i feel old. i feel as if ive aged 2 or 3 years. i feel as if im 21 or 23 but im not. im 19 years, 7 months old, almost to the day and its only been 8 months since ive stepped into the army.

people in the army look older. they act older. sometimes. sometimes they act retarded, especially people in charge of other people. i pray everytime that im in charge that i treat others with kindness and compassion and with understanding. and that i put in more than my fair share of work. those bastards.

so many things have happened in these short five months.
ive learnt how to lead, just a little bit more.
ive led guys to greater heights, at least i think i did and i believe i did.
ive failed and fallen, pretty hard.
i got back together and i broke up again and that really tore me up cos i really thought we had a chance. and it almost destroyed me. almost.
i came back from my depression and now im all burnt out and im wondering when this is ever going to end.

im burnt out.

i need relief but if anything, we are going to be pushed harder than before. ive got my friends, but theyre new and untested, not like the strong bonds we had back in Foxtrot safti. time to build bonds again. they say you arent really a leader unless you invest an emotional stake in your guys. people get burnt.

and i suppose ive learned a lot. from talking to a lot of people, older than me, wiser than me. my majors, my sergeant major (who screwed me good for being a pussy).

most of all i think ive learnt just a little bit more about what its like out there. people arent gonna sit you down and talk to you nicely out of your troubles. theyre there to put you down when you cant go any lower and all you can really do is keep your chin up and keep fighting. and keep smiling and laughing.

my whole life is the army now. i feel alienated from the rest of the world. when i book out, i look at crowds with new eyes. im surprised to see so many colours, so many faces, females...
i know now that war is a terrible thing and if an army camp can do this kinda shit to you, then war must be a million times worse. if you arent in the army, chances are that its gonna be hard for me to talk to you on a conversational level (but we can always try)

its been intense, emotional and...long?
brunei, biang, spade, tekong, patrol field camp section field camp leadershipfieldcamp sleepovers runs moments of joy shared moments of anguish. girlfriends. girlfriends who break up with you. girlfriends who break up with your mate when he planned a whole fucking social night dinner for her. bitch. everyones problem is your problem. and vice versa.

sometimes i think my ocs life ended in foxtrot safti and a new one is beginning in sungei gedong, where im posted as an armour officer cadet.

sometimes i think people just need an outlet for all their frustrations. its been a long time.

if you wanna hear about all the stories, its gonna take many nights and many cups of coffee before all is said and done.

all in all, i think we've all grown just a little bit wiser, and maybe a little bit more bitter about things as well.

such is life.

shackles

2005-03-25T16:11:00.000+08:00

and as usual, as life works its little tricks and magic again, i find myself in ocs. the exact place where i was working so hard not to go, i end up in.

people get culture shocks, i got a culture meltdown. just about everything there goes against what i believe in. basically, they believe in the 7 core values and they drill that into you. although you get a lot more autonomy than in bmt, there is always the feeling that you will get fucked for the slightest error.

and when u do u get it badly. march improperly and you get 3 weekends burnt. confinement is dished out like free and even book out timings are not fixed. we were supposed to book out at about 430 but ended up coming out at 730 cos of slow movement and area cleaning. shit like that. and we book in the next day.

they tell you that they expect 100% all the time. get serious man, no human being can give 100% all the damn time. if u can than i think you are godlike. people need to relax every once in a while. at least, normal people do.

even the OC is damn particular. we were singing damn loudly and then he stopped us and told us to "sing from yuour hearts, not scream" cos "it sounds different". kaninah u fucking sing la.

standards here are much higher. we are expected to lead everyone. platoon sergeant, platoon commander, CDO and CDS duties are all handled by us. we run the whole damn company literally. and also, cos in my company we are currently the only platoon occupying, we also clean the whole damn building.

the people here are so on that turnouts and fire drills dunt work on us cos we anticipate them. we made the fire drill in 2 min 6 seconds. for turnout, we agreed to wake up at 430 am to do area cleaning before falling in so when the lieutenant came up to turn us out he saw a bunch of people walking about and ready.

i noticed that despite the high ideals that we are supposed to live up to, most ppl do things quickly or efficiently cos they dunt want to be fucked. its a mentality carried over from bmt. they dunt really think about efficiency or how to make life better for everyone. its chiong all the way, even our instructors are surprised that we are so good.

how long can you keep this up? if things dunt get done, our i/c fucks us. imagine, someone your age fucking you. if course you will be buay song la. im alright with it cos i understand where they are coming from, but that doesnt mean i like it one bit. tension is already there and its only 3 days for god's sake. dunt they realise that by setting the bar so high initially, once it drops cos ppl are tired it will become VERY obvious.

bunches of ppl already hate the i/c. we have 4 bruneians and my bunkmate is one of them. very hardworking, polite and pleasant people but even my bunkmate hates the i/c cos he "talks too much" and does nothing. if u can piss off a regular in the royal brunei armed forces within 3 days then i think there just might be a small problem as to how things are being handled.

ideals ideals. everything goes to shit when u get posted to a unit. in ocs, of course its easy to get ppl to do things, cos everyone is so scared of going OOC (out of course) that they will kill to survive here. but in unit, everyone wants to fucking bookout(including me) so of course the same strategy wunt work. and the more u fuck them, the more they will fuck you back, being men.

the instructors are good though. especially one lieutenant in particular. he is from the ADF, a small guy, shorter than me and smalle rin stature but i have the most respect for him. funny huh, how i respect small people, ud think larger ppl have a bigger impact.

in any case, he told us that loyalty to country is bullshit and we probably dunt feel it. but when the time comes "u will feel it, trust me". he speaks from experience cos he was activated for some mission somewhere in the world. within one week, he had to take 30 men to a hotspot in a life or death situation, take care of 1 million dollars worth of equipment and get everyone back in one piece. the amount of responsibilty is crazy.

he also moved out of his house and lived alone for 2 years to see how it is like. he failed his a levels and failed his ranger course too cos the load was simply too heavy for him (i estimate hes about 46 to 48 kilos only) but hes definitely big in heart.

he doesnt suscribe to wayang bullshit, gives leeway and is damn efficient. he would rather get things done and move fast rather than spend loads of time on making it super perfect. in other words, he understand what works and what doesnt and whatever is simply bells and whistles he just cuts out, which is how i feel an officer should be like, practical, not idealistic. nobody is asking u to build a castle in the sky.

its all about image as well. everything must be good. to show off. even the things we say, that we are the best and the elite....is about showing off. they call it pride. i call it stupidity cos if u tell everyone ure good then u damn well better be excellent. and if u cannot live up to it, then how?

leadership is lonely at the top. there is only 1 PC. if u are a sergeant, u have at least 4 to 6 other guys in the same situation. if ure an officer, its pretty much mano a mano. when the shit hits the fan, ure all alone and you have to account for 30 men. thats some major fucked up bullshit going on here. the weight is...very great. its so easy to become half fucked its not even funny anymore.

i look at my bmtc officers and now i realise their situation. its so easy to let standards slip cos if u push too high and too hard, your men will hate u like fuck. if u drop too much, your OC will come down and fuck you from the top. damn.

in a way although it sounds like shit and it most definitely is like shit, i cant help but feel i will grow and learn from this. no point staying in a situation where i will be comfortable in, like in men or being a sergeant. its too easy to chiongsua without responibility. the best officers chiong with their men, and then take care of them after everyone gets back. and then after that, they die alone in their beds. respect. i hope i can be like that.

but im not kidding anyone here, i would rather let other ppl die first. maybe that will change.

full circle

2005-03-05T12:22:00.000+08:00

as i sat there in the auditorium. listening, looking, waiting for my name to be read out, i couldnt help but think that JC is truly a dream. i'd already known my results beforehand so the surprise wasnt there anymore, but that doesnt mean i was any less pleased than i should be.

never in my dreams would i have expected all As and especially so for econs, which i don't recall passing at all during my time in acjc. maybe this is truly the ac spirit that they were talking about...performing during crunch time, but slacking at all other times haha.

still, as i sat there, i thanked God. and then i wondered why i thanked him. it was almost instinctive, this thanking of him and so remiscient of that time in p6, when the results were being read out and i was again shot into the clouds. its a great feeling, to feel like you were 12 again and knwoing that you still have a future and you dont have to go the long hard way.

how singaporean, to base my happiness on my results but then again it is more than just the results. its the fact that i somehow unknowingly, by serendipity or just plain dumb luck, have triumphed. over my doubts and fears that JC life will just be as screwed up as secondary school life was. that i would always be the loser. i proved to my parents that i am not a loser but i think the most important thing is that i also proved to myself that i am not a loser and that i can do things with belief.

Belief is such a strong thing. i remember back then, we were all fighting. fighting to win the championship, fighting to keep our grades, fighting to keep our heads above water and high and dry. i remember my grades dropping and dropping and....was there any pressure? i do not think i was pressured internally but externally there was a lot of pressure on me to quit canoeing, to give up my dreams. they asked me to reduce my training, to turn more time to studies. i guess that thought never crossed my mind. it was all or nothing. if training was reduced we would never have achieved what we did.

so out of everything, the girlfriend had to go i guess. and i think it was probably the best and boldest decision that i made at that point of time, along with the decision to carry on rowing. one month before the exams, we broke up. cos of pressures, cos we were incompatible, cos of...

they say fortune favours the bold. and in this case, it really does. life was always a game to be played. if u take it too seriously you'd just be a very bitter person. so we all played and in the end, we all won. by some roll of the dice, by some tinge of luck mixed with some regret, we won.

interestingly, only she and me were the only canoeists to go on stage to receive our certificates cos we both got 3 distinctions. i find that amusing because my econs teacher was saying how couples break up just before the a levels and then they self destruct. but then we werent an ordinary couple, were we dear? somehow the mental strength in training passed on to our lives and maybe that helped us some.

i also remember that before jc started i set out a few goals. that i would throw myself into my cca. not necessarily my studies but canoeing was for me an expression of myself. it exemplifies belief and perserverence and dreams coming true. and the dream has come true. it really has. who says you cannot have the best of both worlds? as long as you believe in yourself and the people around you, great things can always happen. and they did.

our guys did good. we really did. the band of brothers. the bunch of slackers. the horny bastards. the lazy layabouts. we came through when it really mattered and in the end, i bet we still didnt know how the hell we did it (but who cares)

i feel that ive come full circle. somehow i feel completed. that i have left a little bit more of the angsty child behind. that the broken child, after the events of sec school, can once again look to the stars. that my demons are finally left to rest. and i can give rj the finger.

heres to our teachers, mr lynn, mr how(e), miss ganga, mr sinclair ang, miss jaime tan, miss michelle wong, miss liao, miss lai and of course, the unforgettable Madam (who lets me sleep in her class)

and to our band of brothers again, for which support i could not ever do without and who opened my mind to another culture and another way of thinking. i have grown because of this.

and yes, to you, yina. for teaching me more about myself than i would like to admit. you probably wouldnt read this but i have a feeling that i will see you again someday. we arent star crossed lovers but we are both firmly on the ground.

Far Far Away in the South China Sea

2005-02-27T08:58:00.000+08:00

its almost time to go.

11 more days to POP (passing out parade). 5 more days to A level results. where will we go from here?

its almost as if life likes playing tricks on us, isnt it? just when you start thinking that life is stable, the inevitable curveball comes and messes things up again. and you wonder why. sometimes you get so so tired, but then everyone does. its just like a route march, with the full pack on your back and your shoulders burning. a burden to be carried, this life of ours.

in the full pack are the items you need for survival in the field. so in a way it is also your blessing, your saviour of sorts. such is the irony of life, that it is both a burden and a gift as well. and we carry it on our backs, just like we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders and the ... weight of our memories.

BMT is almost over. just like that. as usual, time slips past us like the thief in the night, like the cotton seed in the breeze, like the shadows in the night.

as i sat in the fast craft, jetting slowly away from the pier; the artificial beaches rushing past. the waves rolling past. the sun slowly setting over us all, i couldnt help but feel what everyone else in BMT is surely feeling. nobody really talks about it (cos were guys) but there is this sense of loss. that things and life will never be the same again.

and how could it be, that we were once young, brash, foolish boys who came in. and we are still young foolish and brash but it is also tinged by some more compassion, a little more streetsmarts and a touch of sadness...

of times that are once again going to be lost.

one of my best mates in my platoon expressed his sadness at everyone splitting up and going their different ways. to which i told him the inevitable "that's life" and "i may never see you again" scenerios.

and in the end, as i sat in that boat, far far away in the south china sea, with the tv stuttering, the people muttering and others falling fast asleep...

i watched the sun set. and remembered that it also had to rise the next day.

back to school

2005-02-11T09:51:00.000+08:00

i had a strange dream yesterday night. i was rowing a dragonboat and in it were my family members. only my cousin and me were rowing and the rest were sitting around but the dragonboat still flew over the water as if it were as light as a feather. it felt the same, rowing harder on one side meant the boat would turn to the other side and the cox responded likewise as well.

at the end of the dream, the thing i felt was this haunting pain. something like a cross between nostalgia and regret. it seems that i keep feeling this way about jc, as if there was something that i had left incomplete behind but really , as i think about it more, the answer would lie in the fact that it passed by too fast. much too fast for anyone to realise what was happening until it was all over. and then we sit there and we reminesce about the bulletproof years, the years which flew past us like bullets, the years where we were the ones shooting the bullets and not getting shot at.

we're going back to school today. going back has always been an event of mixed feelings for me. homecomings. returnings. all these have significance, dont they? it assumes that you are wiser and more mature than last time, that you have actually learnt something on your way back here. i hope i did.

and so we don our school uniforms again (at least, only jianwei and me did) like some wannabe role player for some lost dynasty and we triapse back through the school gates. we're there again and that's all that matters, not whether we're wiser or not or how much we've earned.

maybe you could see a rainbow heralding our arrival but we all know that these occurences are embellishments of our head. there is no rainbow but in our mind's eye. red and yellow and green and blue, purple and orange and ... its gone, just like our jc days were, droplets of water that shone with the sun but had to go some day, some time. and it was our time so long long ago.

12 years of being in school. theyre gone now. can you remember primary one and your first day in school? i can't. and i wonder if slowly, as i grow older, i'd forget other days as well. and those i'd forget i'd come up with more embellishments, just like the rainbow; in the vague hope that they would still be real. that they would still be a part of me.

i realise that the pain i felt in the dreams was the pain of loss. of knowing that time will steal them from me, like it steals them from you as well. the fallibility of the human race is that it never really remembers. but something inside me tells me that it is also our triumph. we move forwards, supposedly into the future but our past is never really forgotten is it? it either comes back to haunt us or it goes full circle, like that cyclical theory you learn in history lesson.

you look ahead and you see that your path in life is littered with so many more memories. some too insignificant to be remembered. some too significant to be forgotten. some you want to remember and you do. some you want to forget and you can't.

if someone gave you an option to forget everything about your life, would you take it? and start a new life. a new beginning. the thought is scary and why so? i think maybe it is because we are afraid of killing ourselves. if we dont remember anything, we kill ourselves, slowly.

and so, as i lay in bed, killing myself slowly with regret on my shoulder and nostalgia my bedfellow, i breathed a sigh of longing, a touch of silence and rolled over and went to sleep. as i lost consciousness, i remembered not to forget to remember but the memory of this was forgotten almost immediately soon after.

and i wonder how i remembered it if i was supposed to forget it. life is full of surprises after all.

tekong nights

2005-02-08T16:11:00.000+08:00

the nights in tekong are part surreal, part reality. back in the mainland, people laugh and scoff when you talk about spirits and ghosts but nobody really laughs when you talk about em here.

tekong used to be an old malay village until the SAF took over the place. its strange. in the day, its blazing hot. the air shimmers with the heat and people hack when the dirt gets into their nostrils, kicked up by the route marches through the seas of sand and the dead, overgrown jungle vegetation.

at night, tekong is another place. last light falls at 1900 hours and after that everything quickly becomes pitch black. cold winds blow across the landscape, fuelled by the open sea right next to the island. the temperature drops to something in between comfortable and chilly. heated and chilled, chilled and heated.

and when the clock hits 2230 hours, everyone goes to bed and its lights out. and then tekong becomes dead. as in, the home of the dead.

every company has their own stories and their own ghosts so to speak. here's a few from Pegasus company, which is mine. apparently, my company line is quite heavily haunted, which makes for some exciting moments in which your heart pounds and you squeeze your eyes shut and absolutely refuse to open them. its funny, isnt it? im 19 years old and im still afraid.

my platoon is platoon 2. we live on the 3rd story, the first story being the company offices the second belonging to platoon 1, the 4th platoon 3 and the fifth and highest level belongs to platoon 4. every level has its own ghost. how convenient.

the office of Pegasus HQ is eerie at night. its too quiet. at least, thats what my sergeant says when he slept there. his friend was doing COS duty at night and fell asleep infront of the telly which was turned down to a very low volume. suddenly, it goes to full blast and hes fucked out of his sleep. he looks around, thinking he accidentally hit the remote but he cant even find the damn remote.

platoon 1. apparently this level is the best level cos it has the least incidences but that statistic was put to rest when a recruit saw an orange face with black eyes floating above his bed one night. oooops.
and yes, its my batch. not some donkey story from 50000 years ago.

platoon 2. my level. our toilet is supposed to be haunted, which is why i fucking never go to the toilet at night. i make sure i pee my bladder inside out before i sleep. my bunkmate who is roman catholic has his religion and crucifix to protect him so he triapses off to the toilet alone at 3 am in the morning, which incidentally is the so called "witching hour" here in tekong. most of the shit happens at around 2 plus to 3 plus am.

in any case, there are two stories. (from earlier batches) one is that there was this recruit who went to toilet to pee at night. halfway when he was peeing, he heard someone doing hente-taki hen-ta (marching on the spot) on the staircase outside the toilet. fucked out of his wits, he quickly peed and fucked off and when he got outside, the hente taki stopped and a gust of cold wind blew past him. (incidentally, there are lots of gusts of cold wind in tekong and many also find their way into your bunk when your door is closed and your windows tilted downwards. they dunt so much blow at you but land on you and freeze you. thats the que for you to start squeezing your eyes and praying very fast.)

the other story is a bit funny. theres a guy who wanted to go to shit and so he woke his buddy up to go with him.(common practise which is actually regulation but ppl fuck care and just go themselves or their buddies just heck care them)

his buddy was ncie so he agreed and the guy went into the cubicle to shit and the buddy waited outside. the buddy waited for damn long an he went in and asked "eh., why u taking so long?"
"ya ya finishing already just hold on"

the buddy goes outside and continues waiting. he waits for so long that he falls asleep and when he wakes p his other buddy still hasnt ciome out yet. suspecting something was wrong (and damn right it is) he goes in and asks his buddy.
"ya ya coming out soon already la"

the buddy is by now damn ..... what the hell la kind of feeling so he bends down and looks below the toilet door. and he sees no legs.

"oh, so now you know."

the buddy faints.

other than that, section 3 (im in section 1 which is besides another staircase) used to have this guy who was levitated above his bed and the next day he couldnt talk. OOC after that (out of course)

if you want contemporary stories ive got a few too. they mostly come from section 3, which must be the section which attracts the most attention. apparently, there was one night where a guy heard a woman screaming.

and then my other friend wakes up and sees this greenish figure outside the window.(another incident)

theres also a high tech ghost at work cos my other friend receiveed an sms from a guy called Alvin. he has no friends called alvin. and when he got to his handphone the message had already opened up by itself. (instead of the "one message received" thingy that u usually get) and so alvin had sent a normal goodnight message, except the last four words are "Why Are You Here?"

so my friend thinks hes seeing things and he scrolls up to re read the message. and it deletes itself.

and then....alvin sends another message, but its not the same guy. cos the number registered is different. this time, its "????"

i guess the ghosts are impatient as well huh.

other than that, my section is quite ok comparatively, except that my friend who is muslim got his head and pillow scratched by someone on the first 3 nights but he says its ok now. we also get locks being rattled and "cold gusts of wind" coming in soemtimes. i also heard a recruit running down the stairs at night in boots at 3 am. you might think that it could be someone from Raven company right? (cos we share the building with another company) but during that night, Raven comopany was about 12 klicks away in field camp. incidentally, that night was the night where everyone couldnt sleep and everyone fell in late the next morning. as in, the whole platoon kinda thing.

also, you hear dogs barking viciously at something below, then they whimper, then they become silent. all this at 3 am or so.

platoon 3 has some shit that i forgot and platoon 4 has a house that is carved into the wall. apparently, a little boy lives inside the house and he comes out to play with his ball at night sometimes. although recently hes been quite quiet cos nobody has reported seeing or hearing him. and yes, the house is there.

but ive only heard things. i dunt see anything. i have the gift of non-sight and thus i am very happy. if i saw something, i would croak out of panic and then i would jump on my friend to wake him up.

the basic rule is that well, i guess they need their space at night so just listen and go back to sleep which is all you can do really cos if u dunt get fucked by ghosts you get fucked by commanders the next day. commanders are worse, generally.

tekong nights are beautiful but they are also fearful. i confess that when i first came i was lying in bed trembling when all this nonsense was going around. nowadays, im a little more desensitized. if anything happens, i just go back to sleep. for some reason, everyone wakes up at 3 or 4 am. no matter what time they sleep. ask any recruit what time they wake up at night (if they do wake up) and its always invariably 3 something. maybe they want to be heard. exhibitionists!

the dreams here are very very surreal as well. i have never had such a vvid and varied dream life as when i am in tekong. just last night, i dreamt that i had found my way into a woman's toilet. ok it sounds perverse, until i tell you about the decor. it could have won a bloody interior designing prize. its made of glass walls that have running water down it so as to blur out the details. marble plants decorate the washbasin which is carved from ivory and the area where you piss or shit in is formed from water that takes the form of a shell. and after you shit or whatever it closes gracefullly and transports the offensive waste matter away.

my bunkmate agrees as well. the dreams are very surreal. life here is surreal as well but thats in the day and thats another story. for now, whenever we book in on sunday, we know that we have good nights until wednesday night and thursday night, when they all come out to play before friday night is spent blissfully in bed again and the only ghost is the toyo playing with marbles above your head as you sleep.

purple light

2005-01-20T22:38:00.000+08:00

ns is ... so many things. its pretty hard to write about cos the thoughts dont stay in your head. there is no time to write them all down cos you chiong almost all the time.

at first when u get in, its a little things that get you down. no personal freedom, having to greet and salute, having to march, having to live together. you feel like crap and you just want to go home so badly.

then a few days later, it becomes routine. wake up in the morning and its fucking cold. you stagger to the bathroom and 14 other people are in there, bent over 6 sinks. the shit from the 3 blocked up toilets fills the air with their putrid scent. the urine pools in one of the blocked urinals. good morning.

cold water slaps your face and your bleary eyes start to open. walk out and its even more cold. water wicking the heat away from your skin. you want to crawl back into bed but you cant cos youd get fucked.

march down 3 flights of stairs. fall in. water parade and you force water into your empty stomach. you imagine your stomach is a bag and your throat is a tube. it goes it cos gravity pulls it down. you switch your mind off cos youd taste the chlorine and gag if you didnt.

stuff like this i guess. army is a lot more welfare than our parents time, but i guess along with the welfare comes more of a philosophical outing. you sorta learn to sympathise with the sergeants

OC gets fucked by over pampering parents. OC fucks PC. PC fucks sergeant. sergeant fucks us. so in the end, if your parents complain cos they think you get too little sleep (eg), youd get fucked for it.

you sympathise with the sergeants, well at least mine, cos they dunt really give you that much stick for it. they take it as part of their job and im pretty surprised by their level of professionalism. theyre only 22, for god's sake. im 19. but theyre the boss, no questions asked.

my platoon is blessed with good sergeants and a good pc that understands that the army is full of bullshit rules and doctrines and charging but they still have to live by it. everyone does. i will not pretend to udnerstand why they do it cos everyone ahs their own reasons but my PS told me he does it to serve his country. might be propaganda, might be a way of consoling himself. might even be true.

in the army, you learn a lot of things. you learn how to care for another guy. you learn how to slack. you learn how to avoid being fucked. you learn how to do things without being seen.

but ive only been in here fo 2 weeks, theres still more shit to come. my company is a damn slack company cos i think we have a few white horses ehre and there, but field camp is coming and i anticipate lotsa being screwed over by commanders.

i guess guys are bonded by ns cos well, they go througha lot in it. it doesnt have to be tough, but it is. its not about being tough or rough or whatever. its about coming together during fucked up times and making the best of it. and all the funny things that come out of fucked up times.

-----

on a side note, i went for airforce medical today and was diagnosed with a "prolonged QT syndrome" which is a heart defect. im pretty surprised. but apparently, stress, physical activity or nothing at all can lead to sudden death do to my heart beating too fast for its normal rhythm.

i have a feeling they screwed up the test but im still worried. its like finding out youve been handicapped all your life and you might pay for it. very sian.

theres only one way to check right? ive got to run like a mad man again. lets give them extreme stress. speaking of which, my lips have not turned blue since i left RJ so long ago.....

the things they carried

2005-01-07T23:51:00.000+08:00

hmm, im going in tomorrow at approximately 1145 hours.

i feel...nothing. well, a little bit of excitement maybe cos its unknown and its a challenge and a change of lifestyle.

i think of all the potential shit that will happen and im apprehensive as well. my mom told me in the car not to start any fights, if not kena DB (detention barracks). i ask her why, im not particularly hot-headed...am i? mommy knows best.

im scared some sergeant will scream at me and ill snap and give him one in the face. its highly likely but i think if i go through this scenerio often enough in my head, when the situation comes ill be able to handle it. i cant take bullshit very well im afraid.

im also scared that my bunk in tekong will be haunted. there are stories and yea, its a nagging thing at the back of my head that only comes at night. guess ill have to pee b4 lights out no matter the cost haha. either that or scamper off to the bathroom as fast as i can.

sounds like what a kid would be afraid of yea? but i guess were all kids inside to some degree. apart from this, im also scared that i wunt be able to eat fast enough and thuis become damn thin and tired. (20 min for eating only, including lining up and chionging there)

so i guess i carry these little bits and pieces of adolescant fear with me in. they say boys turn into men in the army. i dunt think so. i think boys turn into law abiding, god fearing, boot licking mindless ants in the army. i will become one too. soon, i will come out with total fear of the law, like all good law abiding singaporeans should possess. i will believe that settling down and earning your pay is the sole aim of life and i will do my best to achieve it, sir yes sir. you better believe this change is coming.

i hope i dunt get into a chiong platoon or company. where stand by bed is everyday and arseholes chiong their asses off cos they want to impress the sergeant and get into OCS. theyre all wankers, all of em. i firmly believe that if ure good enough, ull get in. theres no need to bootlick and kiss ass. just do your best. if ure like me and you dunt particularly care where you end up in, at least not some mind numbing guard duty like vocation, then you are more than welcome to slack with me right at the back.

i guess army is also a good time for me to get fit. its time for the Eco, boys and girls. and the very first step is to get fit enough so you wont pass out in the middle of it. so wish me luck, as i try to emulate kelvin tan's footsteps. maybe we'll even beat those american bastards...

but yes, back to NS. its like losing your friends all over again. already, numbers are dwindling. ppl like joseph ting are feeling lonely. i feel lonely too, everyones mostly in right now. its gonna be my turn soon. its like youre at the top of the roller coaster ride waiting in line to get in. there will be thrills and spills and sometimes you feel like puking and you wish you never got on. but you cant stop halfway can you? so you sit and pray and maybe you start to enjoy it after all.

and then, 2 years later, the ride is over and you get off, with shaky legs you return to civilian life and somehow youre wiser. at least thats how i hope the story will play out. only time will tell eh?

civilian life, im gonna miss it. jianwei told me to get mentally prepared before i go in cos "the next two years of youre life is gonna be like that". adhering to a regimented schedule. no freedom, no mucking about. cheebye! and im going in with the JC batch, which is notorious for chionging, unlike the much slacker poly batch and the super off ITE batch. well, get over it.

am i mentally prepared? maybe. i dunt think the full extent will hit me till three days later in camp, when i wake up in the middle of the night and i need to pee and im afraid to go to the toilet, ill think....fuckkk! this is gonna be my life for the next 2 years. and then ill heck care and just go anyway cos my bladder is gonna burst soon.

so two weeks later, watch this space cos two weeks later, a boy has gotten on the roller coaster ride and hes about to tell you how shitty it is.

theme song as i go in: Seven Nation Army, by the White Stripes. i fought to this music, just to let you know.

moments

2005-01-03T22:08:00.000+08:00

wow, lifes really going at full pace nowadays...from the all nighter with joseph, ben, alex, bern, marcus an nick on new years eve/day to the soccer night with beer and all with my mates to soccer with ben's church which ended with an unfortunate and accidental muay thai knee and split head haha. hope the fellas ok now.

this is a typical blog entry because ther has been no time to think and no time to reflect, so little days left to enlistment in ns, no time to breathe. its just go go go all the time, go out with friends, soccer, church, family, birthday celebration, no rest and im so fatigued that sometimes i think i would just drop dead but somehow it has also ignited a corresponding passion for life.

seems like i am only alive when i am doing things. i guess its pretty much the same for everyone else. everyone likes being busy, well, at busy doing the things they like. do they give meaning to your life? i dunno. i guess what im doing now does give some meaning to my life. i can at least classify it as the "after a levels and before ns" period of time that i will forever remember as a time of fun in the sun with good mates and better activities.

funny huh? i thought that mindless activity like this would be meaningless but there have always been moments in between with much meaning in them.

like this one.

i was in church last sunday and my youth pastor came up to me and told me that they 2were going to pray for all the guys going into NS, which is like me and one other guy.

he looked at me straight in the eye and said :"we're gonna pray for all the guys going into NS so dont run away....dont run away..ok?"

i guess i saw it on two levels. superficially speaking, i always zao church and i rarely go down for cell group cos well...im not christian. those who are close to me will know my situation. but i guess spiritually i felt it on another level as well. its something like a half plea, half advice kinda thing. like he sorta knows that ive already turned my back on it and that hes trying to get me to change my mind. only time will tell if the path i took is the one that was meant for me to take.

he said it with a straight face but his face was tinged with a touch of sadness...or maybe i was reading a little too much into it as usual. hes usually a cheery youth pastor but he turns serious and almost morose when he speaks to me. perhaps cos i hardly speak at all in church. i dunt really talk to anybody and i keep to myself. its wierd and you kinda feel all alone which is ironic cos in church, nobody is supposed to feel all alone. but i do.

and its a cycle that just repeats itself again and again. how long will it be before something, anything happens?

--------

heres another moment.

on new years eve, we were all at the esplanade. joseph, ben, marcus, bern, nick and i. alex came later.

but thats just the location and the characters involved. there was a live band playing and they were pretty good but i sat on the siderails. the ones bordering the kallang river where it opens up to the sea. the one with the docks just behind it. the one with the CBD just behind it, with the OUB building and the merlion glowing softly in the night. the lights reflecting off the water. and the water itself was strangely calm and undulating.

there was a bridge. that bridge. the one where we rowed as one team during Junefest. and there was the other bridge, where our hopes were raised and dashed just like the waves dashed against the breakwaters lining the bay area. its funny at times like this...you think to yourself...was it worth it? and you remember their faces. the juniors, sitting at the back, shit scared. its their first junefest and theyve just screwed up nationals big time. morale is at an all time low. the starter is lining up the boats and theyre shit scared. theyre scared to fail, just like anybody is, really.

the seniors are mostly in front. pek hongs in front of me. terence is besides him. shiwei rows besides me. lionel is behind him. i forget who rowed behind me. i think it was auggie but im not too sure...such are the tricks memory and time play on us. i look behind and the juniors are shit scared at the back. weiyuan's quiet like he always is under pressure. people are different. some ppl fire up under pressure. others go into a protective shell. others lash out at others. weve been trained not to lash out at each other. so some go into their shells. its ok cos its their thing and theyre focused on the task in front of them. but not when the juniors are shit scared. not when ppl need guidance.

im scared too. not scared as in piss in your pants scared. im scared cos i dunt want to fuck up. im scared cos deep inside me, i dont know if everyone in the boat will go out 100%. im scared cos if they dunt go out 100% things will majorly fuck up.im scared cos i know the juniors will not go out 100%.

its a funny thing, being in a dragonboat. to row properly, you must first trust yourself. if you trust yourself and you know you are doing your best, the thought of other people not rowing their hardest or doing their best will not enter your mind. if youve always rowed your best, youd be confident in your ability and in others abilities. the trouble comes when you dunt always row your best cos other ppl are slacking or other people are complaining or not doing their part. its a cyclical arguement. its a give and take situation. its a recipe for disaster.

and if you dont know you are going to row your best and if you dunt know if other people are going to row their best, you wont do it. its really that simple. there are no two ways about it. its pretty hard to cover up in a dragonboat. sure, u can bluff everyone but you cant bluff yourself.

and so i sat there and i remembered myself shouting at the juniors. i tell them to wake up and be strong. i tell them to row as one and fire them up. i see their sluggish faces. all you have to do is look into a guy's eyes and you will nkow for certain if he has what it takes. i look at them and my heart sinks cos i know they are overawed. and theyre fucking scared.

let me tell you a secret. its my first june fest too. we didnt row junefest back in J1 cos of SARS. i have absolutely no experience as far as the conditions are concerned. does that make me shit scared as well? sure it does. but youre a senior and you cant let em see you shaking. its a policy we have. never let them see you sweat. never let them see you break down. youre something of a superhuman to them. youre mythical.

so you take comfort in your teammates. i turned to terence.

"are you ready for hell?"

and sooner than you think, faster than you know, quicker than your heart is ready, the horn goes off.

your brain goes blank. its a whiteout and animal instinct takes over. fear channels into pure need. the need to release the pressure and frustration and fear and hopes and dreams and everything in between.

there is a split second pause between the whiteout and the adrenal rush. your muscles that felt fatigued and sluggish before now kick start into action. the first pull is the most powerful one, meant to break the inertia of the boat. the water churns up and a mini tidal wave forms behinds everyones paddle. a dull thud registers. if you have ever been in a dragonboat that kick starts powerfully, the feeling of a start is something to be experienced. its like a mini explosion of power. you can hear it even cos the air bubbles driven into the water impact against the hull of the boat. the dragon awakes.

too sluggish. much too sluggish. some of em havent woken up yet...already the other boats are pulling away after the first 10 strokes or so. those are boats with men inside them and we are merely boys. but the dragonboat has always been more about heart than it is about physical strength.

the waves are high and our dragonboat rocks from side to side. steering is an art and any minor mistake is costly. our coxen holds us straight and we bite the waves. straight on, into hell, muscles burning, lungs heaving.

we're young and high, we'll never die. we're young and high, we'll never die.

when the dragonboat hits the waves, on side is pushed up and the other is pushed down. paddles dig into air and coordination is lost. this means that maximum force isnt being pushed into the water from all the paddles working simultaneously. the other side digs into the water and their muscles burn more. water pours into the boat. we arent sinking, but we arent flying either. and then it drops down and a wave catches you in the face. you cant see nuts and you have to coordinate with the fella in front of you. shoulders burning, past past the wave. spit, spit, blink hard cos the salt is stinging your eyes.

a foot slips on the slippery floor and you lose your base for a second or so. the boat loses your strokes for a second or so. fuckup. press on, it aint over yet.

a voice hollers, hang on to your paddles! dont lose em! (or well be disqualified). the paddles are new and shiny. theyre also motherfucking slippery. a wave hits, its almost wrenched out of my grasp. it doesnt fly, but it turns sideways. readjust, dig in. strokes getting shorter, people getting tired. the coach blows the whistle. kenneth blows the whistle. its a signal for a hard 10 strokes, full stretch. you fucking hate this whistle cos your bloody tired and you gotta give it your all.

1...2...10 and you wished it was all over. its on fire right now. press on, dig in. force the body to recover.

let me tell you another secret. everyone thinks of giving up. everyone. from the most incompetent amateur to the world's best maestro, everyone thinks of giving up at one point of time or another.

heres another secret. you can think all this and you do think all this but the choice is always yours to take. and sometimes, people can give up and then come back again...all in the space of a few minutes in the race.

so we rowed, with our hopes and dreams and lives and loves and bodies and soul and wishes and .... was it worth it?

cos the last secret is ... we didnt win the race. well, some of us won and some of us lost, thats a more accurate statement i guess.

my reverie was interrupted at this point of time by a security gard who asked me to get down fro the railing for fear of me falling over. into the kallang river, with my hopes and dreams and fears and lives and loves and bodies and souls and wishes...

and you know what? i asked myself if it was worth it. i did. i questioned the existence of a period of time in which i gave my all to an ideal and it didnt turn out the way i expected. not worse or better...just not the way i expected it to turn out.

life's funny right? you do everything right, or you think you do everything right and then you find out youre wrong, all along youre wrong wrong wrong, or maybe mistaken, or blinded.

and so you think about such times, again and again, especially when u visit those places where they once happened. you sit and sigh and people ask you why youre so quiet. actually, they dont. they cant be fucking bothered. but youd wish theyd ask you why you were quiet so you could tell them everything. they still dont ask, so you tell them anyway cos you have tog et it off your chest.

sometimes i wonder if we won that race. i cant remember, really. and if i told you we won itd be a lie and if i told you we lost, that would be a lie too.

but what i do remember was my juniors and they were shit scared and so was i. and we went into hell together. well, not Hell hell, but hell nonetheless.

and i remember now that i was sitting at the esplanade besides the bay on the railing remembering myself shouting at the juniors who were shit scared.

and i remember now that we won.

but hey, you cant really trust what ive said right? after all, i could have made this all up and wrote this down cos im just bored right now with nothing to do...

yea thats it.

my sis

2004-12-29T23:34:00.000+08:00

sometimes you see yourself in your younger siblings. the events which are occurring to my sister are almost a mirror image of what i went through.

well, firstly, my sis is in sec one this year, which means shell be in sec 2 come next year. shes in dunman high gep which as everyone knows, sucks. ok, im not gonna mince my words, in my personal opinion (and everybody elses i might add) the gep in dunman high is the "dumping ground" for all the geps who cant make it to nanyang or raffles or acs i gep. (hope somebody from moe doesnt read this). i dunt have a problem with dunman people, infact many of them are friends of mine and theyre all stellar human beings, just that its the programme that sucks, not the people.

so anyway, my sis's grades have been nose diving, in keeping with the family tradition and all she wants to do in her youthful life is play basketball, chill with her mates and play her final fantasy series. yea, pretty much sounds like what i am doing right about now. you know, nobody really gives a shit about studies until they finish JC and realise that theyve might have done much better.

but i digress. the point is, my mom went out of her way to secure an interview and test from St Nick's, which is like, one of the coolest girls schools in singapore. like, for some magical reason, all the girls from there have style, class and are smart. my mom actually wanted to transfer my sis to cedar or anderson but both rejected her appeal. only st nicks went further and accepted her.

but my sis apparently doesnt want to go to st nicks. she wants to stay in dunman cos well, shes used to the slack lifestyle and she has her friends with her there. all very understandable. if at sec one you told me to move from RI to say.....Singapore American School, well, i would be mightily confused. but i would still go.

i can understand the pull of friendship. after all, it wasnt easy leaving after 3 months in rj. but that was cos i was bringing 4 years of friendship along with me. my sis has only one year of friendship and come to think of it, she only has like 4 good friends that she really connects with. so in that aspect, i cant really see why she would want to stay in a losing situation.

dunman high has this IP programme. its something like the through train programme in ri in that they provide for you all the way upto NJC a levels. the problem is you have to keep your grades up to qualify fot it and my sis isnt exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. shes not dumb mind you, shes just fucking lazy, like me.

so basically, her argument is that she will make it for the IP programme and then everything will be peachy and magical. i know its pretty normal for geps to think that they can do everything and some of them can back it up with results but my sister isnt one of them. she doesnt work hard at all and without hard work, you lose.

so heres the situation. shes presented with the oppurtunity of a lifetime, to go to st nicks and get a real good class education and she is choosing to stay in dunman high, where i dunt think she will get as many contacts and where i think her social skills and deportment skills are suffering from contact with her gep friends, most of who are lazy bums and bitches.

(gep is different from mainstream in sec school. if ure a gep and ure reading this, youd understand the screwed up ness of sec school gep and how people ahve attitude problems.)

so it is with some frustration that i am seeing her reject her application and her oppurtunity. i can see why my mom is damn sian diao cos she has to push my sister. its a vicious cycle. sis is lazy and has no ambition. mom has to push her. mom gets frustrated. sis gets frustrated at being pushed and rebels. everyone blames it on the education system for being pressurizing.

but while im frustrated, its still her life and as the saying goes, its her life to screw up in and its her life to excel in. its not like dunman high is in the pits, its a recognized school. just that i think st nicks is better thats all. its like giving up the chance to drive a ferrari to drive a honda civic, but the civic still gets you places, just slower thats all.

and then again, usually when everything seems lost in sec school gep, people around you suddenly have this magical ability to turn things around. it helps being around smart(albiet lazy) people. you get things done faster and more efficiently. how many of us remember failing every single test only to get results where it most mattered? so i guess that is the specialty of geps. i only hope that my sis is special as well.

eve of christmas eve

2004-12-24T10:00:00.000+08:00

well, the past two days were a bit crazy. managed to catch a little nap in the afternoon before i got bored and called mok and the ac ppl to go lan. introduced mok to alex who is his fellow white horse company buddy.

following which i went off for muay thai and then after muay thai ended about two hours later i got a message from mok telling me to go zouk for some pageant thingy. apparently there was this JC pageant thing going on. not that i would play 20 bucks to go look at girls that dont really do anything but mok was adamant and so i went home and bathed an took a cab down to orchard to meet them.

the plan was to meet mok jianwei an jonny at the bus stop behind orchard mrt along orchard boulevard but traffic being retarded and also the taxi driver, who tookme behind borders instead which means that im about 200m down the road, which is a one way road mind you, so i got off the cab.

bad mistake cos it was mother impossile to get another cab on busy orhard road. we walked in the general direction of great world city, hoping and praying that our superb sense of direction, coupled with jianwei's insatiable need for alcohol and sex would point us in the correct direction.

eventually, we met a cabby who told us how to walk there (he couldnt drive us cos hes going somewhere else) and we started walking. its a fair way off. and mok was saying that "no matter what happens, we have to get to zouk"

its more than just an outing now, its become a singular obssession that occupied mok's mind (cos he has never been to zouk before)

as luck would have it, a cab pulled over and the driver told us that he had seen us walking "just now". in any case, we arrived at zouk at about 12. we got in at about close to 1 am.

surprise surprise, the pageant was over. we were about 5 hours off cos it apparently started at 800. congrats guys. if this was the army and they asked us to fire at changi, we were firing at tuas instead.

so anywae, went mambo night. met zhafri and howard who are regulars there. that night wa crazy. it was so packed that you couldnt even have elbow room. people kept pushing and shoving and i got damn damn turned off right from the beginning. mok agreed that zouk was a shit place and we both vowed to look for classier places next time. he also couldnt believe that zouk was voted one of the best clubs in the world. well, i guess its mainly cos fires dont happen inside the club here and people here fight less than in other places.

well, we werent gonna let a sea of arseholes ruin our night. went up to phuture where the music was a whole lot better than the 80s nonsense and we danced like spastic jackrabbits. practised footwork and weaving while dancing in line with darren's suggestion to dance at discos more in order to loosen up and gain fluidity. ended up getting horrible hip pain. well, its not exactly the hip joint. its about 2 inches below it and its the muscle that connects your hip to your leg. it hurt cos i got whacked there during muay thai and also, you use it intensively to kick during muay thai.

apprently, dancing at mambo night in zouk also aggravates it, especially if ure a spastic jackrabbit.

some songs were good, others were damn turn off. i found to my amusement that they played one song which we fought to. but i dunno the title. if u were part of that crazy night and you know the title, pls tell me so i can d/l the song. it goes like this da-da-da-da-da-da-daaaa. yea, like i bet you know exactly what song im talking about.

ate supper at 4, crashed at jianweis house till the next day which gave me about 3 hours of sleep. the funny part was that i woke up at about 945 in his house. jianwei was supposed to go hongkong with his family and so i overheard his mother saying "jianwei, go tell your friend nicely but firmly that he has to go now."

upon hearing that, i grabbed my socks and started to chiong out of the house. then his father walked into view and i gave a weak, stoned out smile and said "hi uncle". he gave me a what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-in-my-house look and walked away. so yea, humchee....run like the wind.

well, at least im not a girl. that would be worse right?

and so, with 3 hours sleep and a naggy hip on my side, mok calls me and tells me that theres field soccer and theyre short of people. i thought he was crazy. we slept like 3 hours, mok slept less cos he had to go to the temple to pray and he elft jianweis house at 615am.

but u cannot abandon your mates so i grabbed my gear and we cabbed down to sembawang to do battle.

we were playing some mat team which had the U17 national striker on their side. he was playing defence for them until the second half so we werent getting raped too badly in the first half, only 3-1 down.

interestingly enough, we were the ones to score first and it was a series of errors that allowed them to plump 3 past us. one handball penalty which was unavoidable. one was cos our defender was sleeping and he didnt know the game had restarted (yes im serious, hes that blur) and the last one was cos our goalkey kicked to the opposition, who layed off and this mat struck the sweetest half volley i ever saw in my entire life and it went top corner. sheer class and the best goal of the game no doubt.

in any case, the referee was a mat as well and hes damn funny. before the game he lined the two teams up and said "ok, i know you guys are chinese and we are malay, but please no racial things ok? this is a friendly match"

haha like wth la, say until like that. we laughed like shit.
the referee also scolds his own mat players and tells them not to complain as well. then he said marcus ow was a "bulldozer".

marcus is bloody funny. hes a nice fat bastard and that makes for lots of laughs. for a fat guy hes surpriingly fast and has good ball sense. he also complains the most out of anyone.

being our team's striker, he constantly insists that he is onside.

there was once where the ref blew for offside, marcus shouted "im on la!" then proceeded to round the keeper to no avail haha.

then he missed like 4 chances to score cos he used his left leg instead of his right haha but those missed chances were damn funny cos he was like 5 metres out and he balloons them over.

physically, we were lots better than the mats. we sprint faster and we run a lot more, which also says a lot about our skill in keeping the ball (none).

i guess that was the only thing keeping us in the game. the mats eventually played their pro striker and he is crazy man. once he gets the ball, he shoots and its on target. hes damn hard to mark cos he releases the ball so fast and accurately and if he doesnt, he shoots.
there was ocne where he received the ball like 30 metres out. trapped it and volleyed it in a very high lob/loop. it went in and we were all damn stunned. im seriously damn honoured to play against him cos he really opened my eyes as to how to play field soccer.

that could have been a premiership class goal, as could the half volley.

anyway, the eventual score was 6-4. we keep scoring one, then conceding one. kinda frustrating especially since we had a wealth of chances to score. lots of one on ones but our strikers just kept the ball for too long. we even hit the post once. sian man.

but still, a right good match and i was surprised that i could even last 90 minutes in the hot sun. if this continues, i will be as fit as when i was in canoeing again.

mok got hit by a ball in the ear and now he cant hear properly in that ear. hope hes all right and not like a burst ear drum a la augustine.

the field was damn shit.ok so we didnt pay for it but still, its a health hazard. its sandy in some areas. very grassy in others (as in grass up to your shins and prickly) clayey in some areas and there are mud patches in other areas. i bet if we look hard enough, wed find snow as well.

the ball bounces damn bloody high and has this annoying tendency to loop over our players. and when u run into the mud patch, all sense of balance is lost.

needless to say, after this intense piece of shit, i couldnt walk properly home either. its better today, hopefully with more rest it will heal fully. but yesterday was crazy man, i couldnt even raise my leg or squat down or walk properly. and cos of the sand in my boot, i now have a healthy piece of skin missing from the front of my toe.

meanwhile, im looking forwards to sunday's game with ben's church.

both junyuan and me agreed that astro soccer now hold little appeal for us cos its so unrealistic and....its very pussified. seriously, once you start playing field soccer you wont want to play other versions (with exception of beach soccer which is mroe hardcore)

in the meantime, merry christmas to everyone who is bothering to read this uninteresting entry. and have a happy new year before we all go into shitty tekong.

waterloo sunset

2004-12-22T01:41:00.000+08:00

seems like nowadays its a different ballgame. i cant help but get the feeling that everyone around me is slowly but surely getting into the money game. people are working for money. people are talking about money and power and well all that is well and good but somehow i dunt feel the same way or share any of their youthful exuberance when it comes to money.

i mean, sure, money is needed in this world and we should all be comfortable with it. but somehow.....its like people are engrossed with attaining it to the exclusion of everything else. power and money. money and power. to have loads of cash means you can afford the house of your dreams, the car of your dreams, the girl of your dreams. having loads of cash is always fun i guess, who wouldnt want to have loads of cash? i would.

its almost like playing one-up except that its on a larger scale and the stakes are higher. and somehow something inside me is already tiring of this endless race for making more and more cash to buy more and more stuff.

i went out with a girl last week and she told me that she would never consider marrying a guy who earns less than her cos she wouldnt have the necessary respect for him. well, if this represents the average singaporean girl than id say that they should marry the rich ang mohs that come here and that local guys should start buying brides from china or vietnam (which they are already doing haha). we might even be in trouble haha

seems like love is becoming an equation rather than an...emotion? ironic since the girl herself was talking about how emotions and feelings are important in a relationship and how she needed to have "chemistry". so i guess that means that love is something that has requirements but is also something that is equally boundless and abstract as it is then.

i wish i had loads of cash so that i can stop worrying about small, seemingly insignificant things such as car, house blah blah. i know you feel the same way as well. but, its all a lie, isnt it? and isnt life all a game? the girl was offended when i told her that life is all a game. in fact, i insisted on it.

much as people like to believe that they are in control of the situation and that they are calm and rational people. that they have a future and they are going to continue raking in big bucks or whatever they are doing, one day life is going to give them a right good shot up in the ass.

in fact, this doesnt just happen to people who are consumed by their pursuit of power. it happens to everybody. the point is this: life is a gamble. it rolls a dice all of its own and some people seek solace in religion cos it is a great stabilizing factor but i think that the fact remains, no matter how secure you may feel, its totally random all around you.

people have a problem with randomness. it unsettles them. hell, it unsettles me. god does not play dice with the universe eh? everytime i see someone make a statement that he is in control of everything and everything is smooth sailing, i laugh to myself and think that person is mightily insecure for stating this to the whole wide world.

why state your achievements? i think that you should be proud of them yourself, but humble in front of other people. what is the point? to fuel your own ego? to show the whole world that you are great? yea, maybe you are great in your own right, but still.....that is so american-trash-talk like (sorry im a bit racist) Americans (or at least those i see on the telly) feel a need to reaffirm to themselves and the whole world that they are great. just watch any episode of Fear Factor or Survivor and you will know exactly what i mean. the participants constantly state that they are the best and they will win everyone and marmalade them.

ok, maybe i should be more culturally sensitive here. like maybe confidence to them is being an arrogant asshole to me. after all, i am chinese and im supposed to be filled with filial piety, hardworking ethics and unshakeable belief in the Confucian system.

i used to have a problem with uncertainty. i still do sometimes but it helps when i remind myself that it is all a game. does this sound mightily flippant to you? its not, its deadly serious, yet everyone i tell this to doesnt get it. everyone i tell this to thinks im mad and risky.

how mad and risky can someone get by acknowledging the fact that randomness is a part of life? that it is life. to do so otherwise would be foolhardy and setting yourself up for severe shocks to the system.

"how could this happen?"

"oh, fuck"

i bet you are a bit confused as to the real issue of the post. it really is two issues, although both are related. one has to do with randomness and the fact that life is a gamble. the other has to do with my disdain for power and money, yet the fact that i am beholden to it irks me to no end. the fact that if i wash out and i somehow do not make uni and get a degree, that i will be relegated to the have-nots in society (screw whatever potential or big word they use to describe kids in school) irks me to no end.

the fact that although there are other alternatives to uni, such as striking out and doing your own business and getting rich doesnt make the situation any better cos they also involve working for and the pursuit of money, which if you recall is also one of my pet peeves.(although i have a friend who considers it a game as well, in which case, fair play to him and i hope he succeeds)

life's a gamble, so which way do i roll the dice? do i go for money and power? i suppose i could make it if i work balls to the walls. sheer determination does pay off.

or i could roll the opposite way, the way of my dreams. the way which opens up untold hardship and the fact that i may never ever return to Singapore or see my family and kids grow up. sounds extreme right? but if you have little savings by the time you are 40, dont think of retiring and living in Singapore, which by then would boast an extremely high standard of living.

and yes, though i hope to pass through the world, cataloguing, indulging, learning about it all. the feeling of uncertainty still pervades. im damn bloody paranoid about getting shot and killed by racist skinheads, for some reason. also, the fact that i will be a second class citizen or maybe even third class or outcast member of society also enters my mind.

questions like how will i survive (not live, mind you) and of course, the eternal question.....Is It Worth It? and What Is The Point Of Screwing Yourself?

people call me masochistic but what they fail to realise is that everything is but a matter of perspective. they see things from their angle and i see things from mine. we cannot change each others' perspective, not without a lot of friction and unhappiness. the trick, ive learnt, is to understand and accept the perspective. its a bit like window shopping. sometimes you see a good that looks really good but on closer glance has flaws. sometimes you see an ugly good but its very useful. but in the end, it is up to you to go back home and get the cash to buy it.

from my perspective, this is what i see. i see that i am some one who knows much too little for his own good. i see someone who is weak and who is inexperienced. i crave, if that word can be used, for knowledge and guidance and frankly speaking, i will do whatever it takes to get it.

by staying here and pursuing the rat race, i am letting myself fall into a trap that is older than mankind. i feel that i am falling into a situation where an endless cycle prevails, that of societal conformity and societal conformity bringing acceptance and well-being.

i am NOT saying that this is all bad and you should not strive for it. please dont come and blast me by saying im naive and that human beings are social creatures blah blah. i know this already. but from young, there is a prevailing sense that i have always been on the fringes of society, looking in. its almost as if i am an observer travelling through time and society.

that desire in me has only grown stronger as i grow older. i do cherish my friends very very much and i do hope we continue to keep in touch. what is more enrichiing than good talk over a cup of coffee or beer late into the nights. that is a future i hope to realise with all of you. that i can bring back stories to share and you too, can tell me your stories and maybe we will all feel a little bit better, a little bit more secure about the future.

even though it is a sort of illusion, feeling secure about the future, it is still worth it, isnt it? i truly believe in the saying that ignorance is bliss. i cannot imagine a time that i was happier than when i was a child. i think you might feel the same way too.

and in the end, before i die, i hope to remember everything. because, i really am a traveller through life, as are you. that is our triumph and that is our tragedy, as Gaimen would put it. what makes life so sweet is cos of its finite nature. for all our philosophical ramblings and inane talk, we are all travellers in an airport.

if i met you, then we must have met in the traveller's lounge. sometimes we part and maybe you fly off to zimbabwe and i go to paris. our routes diverge and connect, again and again. sometimes routes never connect ever again and then i have lost a friend but not the memory.

if you or i walk out of the airport, then we are never seen again and yet the airport continues, with its bustling activity and its constantly glaring lights.

we meet many people along the way. some are travelling the same way as us and we welcome them. some go in opposite directions. "i hear that india is a great place to holiday!" "oh heavens no! theres a bloody civil war going on there!"

its funny, cos those going in opposite directions still go even after they tell each other their opinions.

when you look out of the windows of the airport, what do you see?

some see planes being refueled on the ground. they see baggage being tossed and lugged around. they smell the acrid scent of airplane fuel and the anti-bacterial wipes.

but others, when they look out the window, they see planes taking off, soaring into the night sky.

where do you want to go today?

ocean's twelve

2004-12-18T13:53:00.000+08:00

went to catch ocean's twelve yesterday with the 4Q peeps. well, at least a few of them, kaicheng, KO and elgin. i must say this is one good film. the plot is very well developed and if you are a fan of convoluted plots that at first glance dont make any sense but on further thought makes perfect sense, then youll love this one.

grifting is truly an art form to behold and the way these professional thieves play out the game at such high stakes is mind boggling. the way their minds think, they way they work so well together...everything fits in seamlessly. there were points in time where we didnt even know what the hell happened but after some minutes of hard thinking, the ingenuity of the whole plan strikes you and you think .... WHAT THE FUCK???!!! that was great!

granted, there are a few loopholes, like how ocean's twelve always seem to have endless supplies of resources and how they always manage to procure high tech bits of gadgetry at a moment's notice. but i guess its all about connections in the world of professional thievery and the fact that they had robbed like 170 million bucks in ocean's eleven a few years back.

the acting as usual is spot on with so many stars in the cast, how can it not be? my personal favourite must be matt damon's character. hes goofy and seems slow witted but at the same time, you find out later that hes actually as smart as the rest of them but i wont say how it plays out.

lots of comic moments add to the overall feeling that this is one masterpiece. the effortless implementation of their plans and the fact that the twelve never seem to be down and out also reinforces the notion that they are truly untouchable and at the peak of their art. there is something wonderful about the grift. it is an act of creation. the grifter is an artist, a creator, an actor, a director, a psychologist, a psychic, an inventor, an engineer and your best friend all at the same time. to be able to portray such subtlety of emotion is not beyond characters like clooney and pitt.

inspired by the movie, i went back home to research scams and grifts. maybe youd like to check out the Ponzi scams as well as the more contemporary internet scams. from the pigeon drop grift to the simple but cunning grift of mailing a free parcel.

christmas seems to be a great time for movies. there's Constantine coming up. some graphic novel character spanning series such as the Sandman, Hellblazer and Books of Magic. in the movie, hes on some crusade against the devil and god or something like that. keanu reeves is playing him and it seems laden with special effects. evil has never seemed so cool when it can suck you through an entire building.(ooops spoiler)

another movie that seems rather interesting is A Series Of Unfortunate Events. its one of those quirky, Tim Burton kinda masterpieces. i dont think burton wrote it but it sure bears his hallmarks. its a dark story not unlike cinderella and one of the things which makes it watchable is probably Jim carrey, who plays 3 different characters. watch out for carrey's new depth in acting. apparently, hes more of a serious actor now, coming away from his Mask and Ace Ventura escapades so its interesting to see how he has matured and grown since then. the trailer promises an ending that is Not Happy at all. in fact, it warns of it haha. so much so that i dunt know what to expect from it. delicious.

and then there is the timeless Phantom of the Opera. er, im not really into these theatre adaptations but ive never read the story, neither have i seen the play so i guess from a literary point of view it could interest me. looks the least exciting of the three to me i guess.

merry christmas guys. start saving to watch movies.

had a rather refreshing talk with elgin over dinner after the movie. somehow, my feeling of depression lifted after that day and i feel much better since. thanks guys for watching that movie with me. somehow, something inside me stirred again which was a bit restrained for the last few days and its time to start living and dreaming again.

funny isnt it, how good friends can spark that off inside you again. i dont think any of them noticed or realised the impact that they had on me but yea, very often it only takes a small effort to get someone out of depression. i guess what i was craving was some heart to heart talking and some bonding intellectually. so hard to find that nowadays with everyone being so busy and suchlike.

the thing about ocean's twelve that really accentuated the feeling of friendship is how the twelve of them are so together. theyre the best of friends and they would never sell each other out. they stick by each other and well, if there is a moral, it is that if you stick with your friends, at the end of the day everybody gets rewarded in their own way.

elgin tol d me that the best friends that he would probably ever make would be his secondary schools friends. somehow i find that statement pretty true, not to say that i havent made great friends in JC as well, but yea, secondary school friends will always occupy that special place in my heart.

cos after all, we all learnt to dream together back in that dusty, non air conditined classroom; we all learned to dance on the astro, and we all learned to believe from our teachers.

my dad

2004-12-15T23:16:00.000+08:00

i think as you get older, you tend to see yourself in your parents. its like you are unconsciously playing out the same game that they once did and try as you might, you just cant stop it. true, you might have a totally different character and totally different outlook to life, but its uncanny how the decisions they make and feelings you have are so much of a similar nature.

i see my mother in myself and i see my dad in myself too. im sure you do as well. in some ways its pretty interesting cos my parents are such contrasting figures. my dad is a loner, my mom is a social person. my mom is a perfectionist, my dad is very happy go lucky. yes, i am both, as close friends of mine would know my slack streak and my perfectionistic streak, both of which are oxymoronic in nature when placed together.

its funny. i came home today at around 1030pm, after my muay thai class and i went to bathe. after which i went into my parents room to say hi to my mom (for some reason its some ritual of mine, saying hi to my mother when i get home). well, apparently she wasnt home and only my dad was at home alone. my sis went for a stayover or something.

my dad has no friends. i say this with conviction because he never ever goes out with anyone except my family. he doesnt really make an effort to contact his brothers or sisters either, only seeing them at family reunions and stuff like that. its a ....well....i dunno, its strange cos i feel sad for him. should i? i dont exactly have the right to feel sorry for him but i think that if i was in the same position, i would feel bloody sad. its strange, cos i hardly talk to him. my sis hardly talks to him as well. its like....hes in the house but i never really knew him as a person.

i mean, when ure younger and you have school and friends, you dont really think about stuff like this. i mean sure, ure aware of it, but you dont do anything about it cos .... youre just lazy. or even worse, you dont care. is it like some older generation thing? where dads and their kids dont talk and they just bring back the bacon? it feels very empty, like there never was any father figure in my life. its like, all my life, ive had to learn things by trial and error. usually more error and error again and again until it gets drilled into my head.

people say im risky and that i have a high risk tolerance. i have to, there is no other choice. what other way can a person possibly learn then by screwing up time and again and learning the hard way. roll with the punches eh? but sometimes its a little too painful, just a little too painful and you wonder why why why doesnt some father or some father figure come along and tell you what you have to do. and guide you, for god's sake cos you just so so tired of screwing up again and again. its like its drains you and you get sucked dry no matter how optimistic you try to be theres always one punch you didnt see coming and you just cant roll with it.

if i had kids, i would teach them how to live properly. but again, its hard isnt it? how do you teach your kids when the best teacher is life itself. you gotta let them get hurt right? so theyll come back stronger and all that bullshit they feed you in the movies.

i bet you feel the same way too. somewhere, somehow, you just needed a little bit of guidance. i dunno, it might be for the simplest things you know....like how do you talk to someone you just met. or how do you treat a girl? or stuff like making someone feel wanted and part of the group, or what do you do on a date? how do you find balance in a relationship?

or it might be about the difficult things as well. like should you always pursue your dreams to the exclusion of everything else? why would you wanna get married? how do you stay humble, loyal and retain your integrity in a shitty world?

you know, stuff like that that nobody ever really talks about cos everyone thinks everyone should know what to do but really nobody has the clearest, faintest idea what to really do. sometimes you wish it was like the movies and you are the young whatever with a sensei or whatever guiding you and moulding you. like obi wan kenobi or james bond or whatever macho hero catches your fancy.

its like, they always seemed to know what to do all the time, which is why i think that good teachers are so hard to find cos teaching isnt baout giving them the knowledge but also imparting wisdom as well. you arent really a teacher unless youve changed and touched people's lives and theyve changed or opened themselves up cos of you. if it were that easy, everyone could become a teacher. hell, even i could become a teacher.

hanging by a thread
with gossamer gentle; light
but heavy inside

the strongest gales cannot
unpick its strings
but a single stab of a branch
is enough to rend asunder

still, look!
the spider weaves again
it is no more sad than the raindrop that falls off a leaf
nor the tree whose
shadow runs away at night

depression

2004-12-14T15:38:00.000+08:00

we were talking about the subject of depression in church today and its strange how people get so affected by it. just by mentioning the topic, normally cheery ppl started becoming silent and sullen.

apparently, more people get depressed during the festive season (merry christmas) than at any other period of time during the year. so whats the story? some said its cos these ppl dont have families and friends and thats why during the fetive period, they feel it all the more and get jealous of the ppl around them who are so happy its frustrating.

another reason that was raised was cos these people dont have the means to celebrate the festive season. so they feel left out.

i personally think that people have an innate need to be fulfilled in their lives so when it comes to the festive period and they have a bit of time to reflect on their lives, they find it awfully meaningless and thus fall into depression. if ppl had noble causes or worked for a cause, they would be less depressed than they would normally be.

the cumulative effect of the holidays could also be part of the depression. like, you would normally be already depressed, but during the festive period you feel even mroe depressed cos of the positive energy around you. this is kinda true cos being around immensely postive and happy people makes me sick. its like, theyre so bubbly its almost unreal. how can anyone be so happy? its almost like a front, but you cant really say that cos they might actually believe it themselves.

so anyway, to cut things short, the group leader provided us with words of wisdom. we all know human beings are social creatures. very often, people are let down by other people. if u think about it, when was the last time that you were depressed and it wasnt because somebody screwed up on you? its all in the relational aspect of humanity and i guess thats why zen monks are permanently happy cos they dunt give a shit about the rest of the world. asceticism has its perks i guess, along with not worrying about where the next lay is going to come from.

i just thought that the relational aspect was pretty intriguing. its like, there but you dont really see it and you dont realise it until someone points it out to you. hmm, which also brings to mind the reason why i have little trust in human nature for so many years. theres just too many imperfections for it to be anything else other than a big screwup, myself included.

i think it gets even worse when ure working cos ppl act according to their own self benefit. like some warped version of Hard Times and utilitarianism or something like that and that is seriously damn sian diao.

was talking to mok today after gym and he was saying something like our lives have become more open and complicated nowadays. i kinda agree. you goto uni, you come out, get a job or run your own business. you have kids, you die. such is life. how sian. just thinking about it makes me sian. its not like im jaded or anything cos i do see the beauty in parts of life but....it just makes me very very tired. especially the dying part. its seems to negate every aspect of your life, every single useful (you thought) thing that youve done in your life.

now now, not all is gloom and doom. i suppose if we all found a cause to dedicate ourselves to we would be really joyful. and i suppose the trick is to get to the stage where death is no longer a thing to be feared but to be embraced. until then, keep on walking, as johnnie walker is so fond of saying. life's a journey, we'll help you pack (samsonite or deuter?)

and of course, keep the faith (some pastor)

fight club

2004-12-08T22:31:00.000+08:00

you know, every once in a while, you get epiphanies. every once in a while, you realise something more about life than you thought possible. its my pleasure to continue training in mixed martial arts cos the past two classes have brought up many epiphanies, all thanks to this guy in my muay thai and grappling class named Gallen.

see, even he has a cool, knight in shining armour name. ok, lets stop being gay. Gallen is from the states. i am a bit unsure of his past, whether he is a singaporean now living in the states, or he is an american chinese with singaporean roots. in any case, gallen will be gone in about a months time to china cos he runs his own business. if my hearing and slang deciphering equipment served me well, i think gallen is also the son of some minister here, which also complicates matters.

needless to say, all you need to know is that gallen is an absolute gentleman and he and his lovely wife go to darren's dojo and yes, they do fight each other. (hows that for marital problem solving)

i met him last week during grappling class. prior to this, i saw his photo on darren's wall with the caption "thai sex boys" over it, so i assumed he was one of the sinewy muay thai instructors that help out here. but yea, he sorta clarified with me on that one.

incidentally, gallen is also a (relatively) good muay thai striker. he lives for the fight, literally. hes like an excited kid whenever he fights. when he takes me down, hes smiling like a maniac. but the main thing about gallen is that he is absolutely helpful and informative. he goes the extra mile to make sure u get the moves and teaches you new stuff. like ive learnt the muay thai elbows, hooks, uppercuts and slightly more advanced footwork from him. (now to go and practise like a madman)

he actually stayed back with me like 45 minutes after class to work out these things. he says its cos he likes my "gung ho style" and the fact that im "earnest".

"youre very powerful for a small guy. very fast. you could be a good fighter." (say this with an american-chinese slang)

so yea, i guess im hooked again. there is life after canoeing after all. i never thought i would look forwards to dedicating myself to another sport in which i can probably learn a lot more about.

ok, so far, no epiphanies yet. wait la.

the thing that struck me when i was going back home on the mrt was this:
darren's extending his classes by half an hour. thats a 50% increase at no extra cost. hes doing this cos apparently the fight team lost out cos of not enough practise on takedowns during the recent tourney. its not about the money in this system. and even though people dont really talk and arent that chatty, there is a sense of togetherness especially when you look at the fighters who fight in tourneys. they all know each other and theres respect going on here.

gallen:"i once fought this guy whose arms were twice my size (his are about 1.5 times mine) and he was much taller than me. (gallen is about 1.8, give or take 2 cm) *laughs* wow, we fought all right, but after that we hugged each other and said 'good fight!'"

gallen:"no other sport is as exciting as this. you see two advanced fighters going full force at each other. that is very exciting. very very exciting."

gallen:"if youre fighting me, and we both look at each other in the eyes. thats scary. *laughs* its very exciting.*laughs again*"

gallen:*referring to my slack guard* "dont worry, when you get hit, youll learn. i did."

ok, look, maybe the way i put it makes gallen sound like a retard but you get the gist of it. and hes no retard. hes got the scars to prove it. his chest has been broken before. he once made the mistake of looking down when he was fighting. he got a knee to the face which shattered his nose bridge. theres a bump there now, slightly more brownish than the rest of his face tone. if you have ever seen a muay thai knee, you would know how vicious and brutal and punishing it is. it can drop a horse.

but even after all this brutality, fighters still stand up, laugh and pat each other on the back (after returning from hospital).

its strange behaviour isnt it? if you are on the outside looking in, youd think all of us were retards and crazy idiots who place their bodies on the line for nothing tangible. my whole left arm is bruised from blocking shots to my head today. better my arm than my cranium anyday.

there is a certain purity to a fight. have you ever fought a friend? or even a stranger. no, i dont mean street fights, those are lose-lose situations and those are life or death situations. a lot of ppl lump them together with fightsport but the reality is vastly different. dont ever get into a street fight. its a matter of who loses more and nothing else.

going back to the question. have you ever willingly fought a friend? you know, hes your best mate, you both put on gloves and you step up toe to toe and slug it out. its a different feeling. youre scared. of course you are. hes gonna bloody fucking kill you. and you know what? youre gonna do exactly the same thing to him. its scary, isnt it? now who do you feel more scared for?

the adrenaline kicks in somewhere in between and you go into a primal state but its balanced by a higher order form of thought because the best fighters use their brains. its a mighty tricky, keeping the primal aggression, tempering it, moulding it to your whim. it allows you to take the punishment and it blanks out just about everything else. for a few moments in time, its just you and your very best friend.

you need the higher order thought processes as well. when ure tired, and you will get fucking tired more fucking fast than you ever realised, its gotta kick in. efficiency, gotta keep the guards, read him, footwork, defence, offence, strategy. its like playing chess but its harder cos any mistake gets you punished. im pretty lucky. i havent taken a full force punch yet. ill try my best not to. but eventually i will, someday, and then it still has to carry on, gotta keep functioning, keep moving, keep staying alive.

its all a game, isnt it? yea, a game of life i guess.

can you see the purity of the sport? maybe yes, maybe no. just imagine: what could be purer than a sport that defines you. its about character, it really is. you cannot be a weak character in the ring. and its not about winning your opponent. thats so american-trash talk. some can win even by losing. if you dont understand that, you dont understand anything about this sport.

i really hope i become stronger, in character and skill, not strength and speed an stamina or whatever nonsense that goes away when youre 40 plus years old. you want the important things. you want them to serve you all your life. keep on fighting cos life is one big fight after all. somehow, by getting it on in the ring, you just might be better prepared for more shit the world throws at you. maybe.

the learning curve here is steep. there is no other way. the best way to learn is to get hit. im serious. if ure an idiot (like me), once u get hit, you become magically smarter. its a tried and proven formula for dummies.

epiphanies. haha, the purity. all these are mere words. if you want the purity, you hafta work for it. you have to sweat and bleed (literally) for it.

you be crazy you know. but yea, youve got a bunch of crazy purists on your side.

what could be worse?

compromises

2004-12-08T04:46:00.000+08:00

well, today marked my prom and i guess it was ok, didnt turn out as well as we had hoped cos of well...a few factors relating to the band and the lack of atmosphere. i guess prom was nice but kinda boring, but yea, managed to get photos of my time in acjc (realised i have none as of this point) and my autograph book signed by important people to me so i guess it was worth it.

then it was off to zouk to break my virgin clubbing cherry. you know what ive always said but not ever going to clubs cos i think the place is damn shitty and you cant really have fun? but tonight is prom night man, the night where everything goes crazy. so i went to zouk. and i ....well, lets just say its not up my alley at all. felt like a fish out of water and in boiling hot oil in a stir fry pan.

firstly, lets just say that in singaporean clubs, the girls are kinda picky. yea well, im not that good looking, neither am i that tall or well known so its pretty hard to get people to dance with. ended up dancing with my class girls which is like dancing with your sister haha. think i freaked out one of my classmates cos i held her waists. i mean, if u dunno howto dance and you need ppl to show you, the most natural thing is to hold their waists right? haha guess im quite new to this whole thing. apologies to her if she felt like....violated or something i dunno.

so most of the time, i ended up dancing with guys, which is all well and good and fun but it gets kinda sian after a very long time, like say 1 hour of dancing with the person of the same sex, unless youre a homo i doubt ud get lots out of it.

it might be different for the girls but for the guys i can say that a large part of clubbing is to do with....well, the fulfillment of sexual desires. ok, im gonna get lots of flak for saying this but yea, what else does a guy go to a club for? to drink? they can do that in their own house with their mates and over a soccer game. to dance? i mean theyve gotta dance for someone right?

maybe another part of the whole letdown was that i envisioned zouk in my minds eye to be a classy, dimly lit place with rNb sounds and people chilling out and talking. instead, it turned out to be a dimly lit place with majorly loud sounds and thumping beats that will either turn you on or give you a major headache. you cant hear yourself speaka dn you have to shout like all the time, which is hell on your throat. there was ringing in my ears after the music stopped and hell on my throats. nicely done.

also, for some reason my libido went off on holiday. so many hot girls around me but i just wasnt turned on. must be the cigarette smoke working on my system. not very resistant to that yet, but i guess NS will prove a vital training ground. also, i think there must be a certain art to sliming people but i havent foun out what that is yet. you must be of a certain bastard calibre to slime properly and im afraid i respect girls too much, to my detriment, and was unable to derive any male-testosterone fuelled pleasure from this activity.

its like, i was with my friend and he grabbed like 14 asses (yes we were counting) and the funny part was that since his back was towards the girls, they all ended up thinking it was me. so i was a bit amused and a bit embarassed. but yea, i think they also knew stuff like this would happen la. i also think i have a very dead and sian like gaze. its like the moral equivalent of the evil eye or something cos when i look at someone they will be inevitably forced to look away. its happened like this all my life. i suppose my gaze is a little intense so i look like im gonna beat someone up or something. rest assured thats not the case.

heh, but not all is gloom and doom. managed to dance with a girl i fancied and she was well, ambivalent haha. i mean, she was ok with the physical contact and all but i kinda got the feeling that she would rather be somewhere else. i blame it on my lack of rhythm and lack of know how in terms of proper...progression? hmm yea but she still made my day cos shes the most polite person ive danced with . how many girls would dance with you for like about 30 minutes without saying you suck or just moving off somewhere. yea well, you gotta take some light from whatever darkness surrounds u in the club haha.

all in all an enriching experience. hmm, ive always wondered what it would be like. now that i have gone, well, lets just say that i wunt be going back that soon haha, will stick to soccer and mma like im used to, unless of course theres another compelling reason.

yea, i guess there will be one when NS comes along.

polaroid pictures

2004-12-05T14:05:00.000+08:00

church was kinda interesting today cos i had to take a bunch of kids and sell some tickets for my church's christmas carnival.

i didnt exactly volunteer for this cos well, im crap with kids and i hate selling people stuff cos i hate people who try to sell stuff to me. but somehow i ended up tagging along as a "big brother supervisor" kinda person.

the game plan was that we'd go up floor by floor and the kids would give their most winsome smile and hopefully melt the hardassed muthafuckers into parting with their money. then i would come in at just the right moment and aid the parting process.

well, my group of battle hardened veterans was made up of three primary one pupils. a girl called Dana, and two guys, wee kiat and Joseph. i think girls really do mature faster than guys cos dana was the one who kept them in control (not me). she kept telling them to stop fooling around "or else people will think we are playing and they wont buy from us".

sensible indeed.

in any case, we failed spectecularly because we managed to sell a grand total of 0 tickets. yes, its not even funny. most people arent home, or pretend not to be home on Sundays. a few tried to bullshit and said theyve already bought tickets but we know better, dont we?

in desperation, i even tried to sell tickets to an Indian-Muslim family. the kids were pretty interested i could tell, but the father wasn't very amused. i can safely say that i experienced a few drops of fear when knocking on their door. they practically owned the whole floor (cos relatives blah blah were living together) and nobody would miss 4 young bodies.

even dana got exasperated. imagine, a primary one girl getting exasperated with a JC 2 guy who's just left school.

"we havent even sold ONE ticket yet!"

yes dana i know that.

that was accompanied with a disdainful look away from me as she turned her head in mockery. kids are so cute.

the only other girl who gives me disdainful looks is yina so i was half surprised, half amused, half sheepish cos well, the tickets refused to be sold.

in any case, im crap with kids so i generally let them do whatever they want. these were pretty good cos they gave good suggestions like going up to higher floors to sell tickets. for some reason, they reasoned that people who lived on lower floors have less money and so were less willing to buy. maybe it has something to do with the fresh air as well.

dana: "what will happen if we cannot sell all the tickets?" (for some reason this reminded me of the singaporean education system. theres always a penalty if u cant do anything)

me:"er...well, i dunno, maybe we'll be crucified or something."

i hope she got the humour. her face remained pretty straight though.

and also, the kids were quite afraid to talk to the parents or other kids, so i ended up doing all the talking. this is quite bad cos i cant speak chinese and so we lost out on that account. from an educational standpoint, this was also quite bad cos i mean, youve gotta develop interpersonal skills on trips like these. i notice a lot of kids are shy or apprehensive towards meeting strangers. maybe its in our culture. we teach our kids to be wary of strangers in a country which has the lowest kidnapping rate in the entire world.

in any case, all disdainfulness was thrown away once we went down to the play ground (meeting point). as i watched them play, i cant help but wonder what challenges will face them later in life. innocence is so hard to preserve in a day and age like this one. some say we live in the age of Kali, the age of destruction. an innocent corrupted is perhaps the most unforgivable sin ever.

dana can see ghosts. i know this cos her mom told me last time but i didnt ask her about it. it would be interesting to know how they look like and compare it to my own experiences but somehow i didnt ask her. maybe next time.

the children playing in the playground. if you could take a snapshot, a polaroid picture of innocence, perhaps this would be it. a girl turns cartwheels on the floor. they fiddle with wheels on the structure and run down the slide. they catch each other and laugh.

if you could take a polaroid picture....well, after some time the picture fades right? Right?

as we trudged back to church, it started to drizzle just a little bit. you see the line of children, row by row, holding hands walking back. the rain frames them.

in the end, i guess they made my day in a special way. its always nice to get away from the world every once in a while and touch some purity again. children are naturally friendly, children are naturally good hearted. they dunt judge as much as we do and when they do its usually cos they can differentiate good from evil.

heh.

*snap*

get it before it fades.

grappling

2004-12-04T18:02:00.000+08:00

well, today was my first grappling class and its pretty different from muay thai. like muay thai is more of explosive power and grappling, as of now, is more of technical ability.

was damn blur as usual cos its my first lesson so i really didnt know what to do. learnt a few takedowns an locks and holds.

and then came rolling. which is like you start on your knees facing your friend and then you both try to take each other to the ground and submit each other.

was pretty furstrating for me cos i didnt know nuts and people werent really very helpful but i guess the main focus of rolling is to get the natural feel of leverage and all that. besides, nothing teaches better than being owned.

so basically, my grappling class today was pretty small. like only 4 people kinda thing. one skinny guy, one normal sized guy an one big sized mat.

so we took turns rolling with each other. being a greenhorn, i used force as opposed to skill and there was one notable moment when i was wrestling the skinny guy when he moved on top of me and he was actually holding my neck rather loosely. so i bridged and benchpressed him off me and he sorta flew off cos hes so light.

haha than darren looked at me in shock and said "dont do that! if he held tighter your neck could have snapped." oh yea, guess i almost screwed myself eh?

but really, grappling rewards brains and skill , not strength and so i was throughly owned by the mat, who is slightly taller than jianwei and about his size. thats about 80 plus to 90 kilos of meat and when its on top of you and choking you, theres not much you can do but to tap out and be owned.

like, even though hes big, hes fast (relatively) and he knows where to go and how to lever so fair play to him and bad news for me cos of all the times we engaged (about 3 to 4 times) , each time i died like a pig.

then when darren asked if there were any questions at the end of the lesson, i asked him all sorts of questions haha like my kancheong self and then he told me not to rush it and take it slow.

i mean, yea, i did enjoy this lesson, even though i got owned and the biggest lesson i learnt today was that fighting is like 90 % using your head and 10% using your body. if you ever thought fighters were brain dead killing machines you should revise that opinion right now. genius fighters are on the same level as einstein and two great boxers fighting together are like two ballerinas dancing, except that your dance partner is trying his best to kill you. now thats philosophy, if i ever saw it.

anywae, to address the problem of being owned, theres nothing like good ol fashioned practise. the more i get owned, the better you get (assuming you learn from mistakes) so i am going to join my old coach nik at NTU on fridays to roll around and kick some pads. for like 3 hours or so. anyone want to come? it would be a good workout. from 630 to 930 on fridays. good way to learn grappling for, dare i say it, free as well.

-------

on the way back from being owned and getting lightheaded and neckache, i saw a troupe of guys an girls on the mrt and their t-shirts said something like

"Le Parkour Singapour"

looks like the yamakasi are in town. never knew that singapore had a parkour troop of its own. i wonder how they practise without dying. we dunt exactly have 2 to 3 story buildings littering the place.

for the uninitiated, le parkour is an urban sport that was invented in france by a certain guy called David Belle.basically, he got bored with his surroundings and so the sport involves using the urban environment as a sort of obstacle course and jumping, flipping and bounding your way through it is the name of the game. add gymnastic flips and somersaults for style points and better effect. rinse, wash, repeat.

pretty exciting stuff and if you are the kind of person that likes a cross between gymnastics, rock climbing and ninjitsu, you might want to check this one out.

remember, you read about it here first.

perserverence

2004-12-03T20:39:00.000+08:00

how do you know you are addicted to DoTA? well, when ure broke by the end of the week with like 30 cents in your wallet and its not even saturday yet. when last time you got headaches when you stared at a pc screen for more than 2 hours at a go and now strangely enough you feel pretty darn fine after hitting the 5 hour mark.

when you've spent like an estimated 25 bucks on mindless, albiet fun lanning, you know you are addicted.

damn, im addicted. and i dunt know why cos im not exactly a pc geek kinda guy but hell yea, the idea of chopping your mates into pieces via cute, fuzzy like "heroes" is so appealing to the male ego. just like gambling, you get your addiction and high not from winning but from losing. everytime you get zapped to death, or some cheap shit sneaks up behind you and backstabs you, it fans the flames of revenge and a burning desire to make him pay for his sins.

you know you are addicted when you name the title of this blog entry after an artifact in the game cos you cant think of any other title.

DoTA anyone?
---------
that asides, was supposed to play soccer with my 4Q mates today but most of em couldnt make it (for some damn well better be good reason) so anyway joel, his bro an dedrick an me went to orchard to like chill out.

i guess we've all started to grow up haha, ded's got a gf and so does elgin, liangzheng, wee kiat, philip an blah blah blah. my whole ex class is getting a girlfriend.

was out with mok the other day (yesterday) and he remarked to me on the RJ phenomenon of getting a girlfriend.

"everyone's chionging girlfriends now cos, you know, NS"

yes guys, its that period of repression and isolation from the female race. even my cousin agrees

"NS guys are the lowest form of creatures known to mankind"

its kinda funny cos, well, i mean sure its nice to have a gf on the weekends but you have to wonder how much effort can be put in like 1 and a half days a week. and according to a report i read online, if your girl-buddy is between the ages of 18 to 23, then attraction is based on the amount of time you spend with her.

so its like while your rotting inside tekong with a bunch of retards, shes out there trying her darn best to be faithful to you while that third year uni bastard is trying to get into her pants.

and the best part is that you cant do nuts about it. ok look, maybe im being just a little bit pessimistic and defeatist here. maybe that third year guy just wants to take her out...you know, as friends only.
---------
suddenly, im getting the after exams syndrome. days blur into night, there are no goals set. there is no structure and im becoming the creature that i used to be in secondary 2 and 3. a person whose life derived meaning from going out and .... interaction. if you're like me and you are sometimes an introvert and sometimes an extrovert, then you can imagine what a pain in the ass it is to be in a situation like this.

on one hand, your extroverted character is saying, go out, meet people, have fun! and on the other hand your introverted character is saying what the hell do you think you are doing you shallow bastard. you think half of them even gives a shit about you? what happened to self examination and introspection?

its a war of the worlds, literally and one that has seen periods of dominance. just like the Meiji era hailed the end of the traditional japanese way of life and the modernization of japan, so too does my characteristics undergo periods of dominance.

its like, you figure out you're , you know, really like this. and then you find out that each side has its pros and cons. eventually, the cons outweigh the pros and so you switch back and forth. this reminds me im still an adolescent, for some strange reason. my mom never seems to have this problem.
--------
somehow i guess sometimes you win, but you dont really win. i made a .... vow? to throw myself wholly into canoeing cos i didnt want a repeat of softball and the failure again. and so jc began and my whole life was canoeing, literally. for a while i thought that this was what i wanted, total dedication to an aim. but along the way, this aim got chipped off and blocked by so many obstacles. i mean, yea sure, we did triumph in our own way in the end but at what cost? there's always a cost isnt there? theres always something unseen in the equation that comes around the stare you straight in the face and then you wonder why you never saw it coming, in your blind fortitude.

canoeing was great, but i failed again because i failed to realise that people do things differently in other places. and then when it more or less got sorted out it was too late. what could have been was not. such a pity cos i truly believe that we were made for much much more than we delivered. it is very difficult to remember the one greatest joy of your jc life and find out that it is also one of your greatest sadness.

and i guess its at times like these, when the days blur into nights, that you fully have the time to....regret. i think i know why i want to keep busy now, so that i wouldnt have time to regret fully. you know how it feels like when theres a wound somewhere...you bite yourself to take the attention away from the pain but theres still pain, and now its in two different places. bummer eh?

the distraction becomes hateful and you still cant forget about the past. why do i hold on to the past so much? why do you hold on to the past so much? something thats gone defines us so much its almost unfair.

guess i need an artifact that grants +4hp per second and +100% max mana.

Perserverence.

muay thai

2004-12-01T21:57:00.000+08:00

well, to put it rather simply, today was my first muay thai training session. felt a bit apprehensive cos i didnt know what to expect and yea, the thought of getting beaten up crossed my mind a few times.

i arrived pretty early, about 20 minutes before so i could limber up and stretch. i had rowed in the morning with the juniors and so i was aching already and the groin strain from soccer two days ago still hadnt healed yet. well no pain no gain.

step into the dojo and what do i see.

one big bruiser of a guy, a few sinewy, lanky guys and all looked menancing. all men an all taller and more muscular than me. fuuccckk.

eventually i took a look around and it wasnt so bad after a while. yes, ther were the muscle-heads and the bruisers but there was also another beanpole of a guy and a skinny guy, so it wasnt gonna be a beat up session.

warmups was...well, more intense than canoeing warmups but much shorter. lotsa running and twisting motions repeated in sets. shuffles, jumping jacks, stretching...

then we were told to pair up. i met this woodlands ring secondary school teacher (the skinny guy) and we sorta paired up cos well, both same size what.

then darren came in and told me to pair up with Dave, an ang moh.

Dave looks pretty young, like about 20 plus and hes about 1.8m tall, a full head taller than me. hes also muscles galore. so well, ok, no pain no gain.

i think darren purposely did it, somehow...

anyway, darren has quite a few quotable quotes.

"if you hit a guy full in the chin and he doesnt move----run."

so it was Dave with which i started hitting the pads with. we donned gloves and practised the jab and cross. sounds simple but the technique behind it is majorly hard to grasp. especially the footwork, very the unstable and unsure.

darren added to the excitement by asking me to hit him a few times, then throwing me off balance to make known my sucky stance. well, at least i got a small tap to the head and not a roundhouse.

"open up your stance. too narrow. come on, you have big balls, open up!"

in case anyone was wondering if we actually did any real fighting. no, we didnt, but we didnt have to cos even when holding the thai pads (thai pads are thick pads with handles and straps so your partenr can punish you), i could feel the force of Dave's blows mightily. almost threw me off balance a few times. and when we mvoed onto roundhouse kicks, my forearms took a severe beating. you can literally feel your bones taking the impact.

imagine what a full kick to your stomach feels like....oh man.

to kick properly, your knee must be on the other side of the target, meaning you chop through the person and cause massive damage in between. so , do the math and it all adds up to pulverised muscle tissue and bone.

there was this once where dave miskicked a slight bit and while most of the force fell on the thai pads, he contacted my upper abs a little bit. and yes, you can feel it man. *grunt*

so, it was basically an intense "technical" (not physical, mind you, they have those as well) session today and everybody was Owned. (Darren is owning!)

haha, i punched so much (relative to my sedantary lifestyle) that i split my skin a bit on the kunckles. and when i kicked the heavy bag, my bone felt like breaking. guess i need more toughening up. yes i am a wussy.

its kinda like a blur now, but i kinda enjoyed the session, only that i couldnt continue with Open Mat after that cos of the groin and split kunckle and my legs were bruised a bit already.

he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.

meanwhile, shall work on my shadow boxing so tim can Dominate.

a typical blog entry

2004-11-29T18:44:00.000+08:00

hmm, i mentioned a few days ago that i would write about the whole a level experience and so i finally found time to do it.

the A levels is just like a shadow. you see it looming over you and its immaterial. youre scared of it and at the same time you cant run away. and then after it starts and then passes through, you feel as though it was nothing at all. not easy or monumentally difficult---the feeling is just that you've mugged so hard for something thats over before you know it and your life is once again empty.

for the guys, i guess this strange but joyous feeling will last for about 2 years, after which its back to the books again.

its funny but everybody thinks that the moment your last paper ends and you walk out of the hall, you'll scream in joy in all that shit. the actual truth is that you open the last paper and think "aiyah fuck la, sian ah, last paper liao, dont feel like doing"

and then you throw such detrimental thoughts aside and put your pen down and start grinding away. time flows and the pen ink runs onto the paper almost automatically, pro war stances, anti war stances, war dehumanizes, war illuminates blah blah.

you finish the first question and theres still the second one to go and 1 and a half hours left to kill. you imagine yourself finishing the paper and grinning like a maniac. the reality is far from that and you think to yourself "ill soon be seeing myself celebrating" and right at that exact moment, you wonder if you could just put your pen down and hand up half an exam paper.

your rational self strikes you again and you pick up the damn pen and start writing again. its almost like giving birth. push push, breathe, push push.

the final elation occurs when you are writing your last paragraph. yes guys (and gals), the elation begins when you are almost finished. i suppose that this is only logical cos after you finish it, you experience bathos, or an anticlimax of emotion. you feel.....fuck, you feel flat, when everything in the world says that you should be the happiest person on Earth.

it is pretty strange huh. just something i noticed and that people around me confirmed. theres nothing like anticipation to rev up your engine.

looking back, i cant really remember what the a levels were like. it was like part of ben's house, jianwei';s house , joseph's reading room, the school, movies, soccer and gym all rolled into one.

its like colin mcrae, winning eleven and GTA and a blur of field soccer. somehow there seems to be less memories of studying , which i think i will pay for once the results come back. damn, its gonna suck real bad and i say this not becos eventually my results will magically become AAA and people will think i am some smartass but from someone who has never passed a single econs test in his time at acjc and didnt know what the fuck he was writing on his exam paper.

but still, that aint gonna destroy my holidays, which i find pretty fulfilling right now. am doing all the things i wanted to do and its been pretty good. simple but good and i dont think i would have it any other way.

NS is coming soon. i found out that Mok is on the same day as me haha sow e might be in same platoon or company!!! (for your info, mok is in same reporting time as alex the white horse so good for you mok!)

i am currently trying out the new endurance formula that i purchased. Its from GNC and its called Endurox. supposed to boost muscle recovery and energy retention. we shall see if it stands up to my schedule and the fact that i am injured all over the body due to my playing style for soccer.

haha, looks like this is a typical blog entry. i fucking hate blog entries like this cos it implies the person writing it wants you to know about his life and also the fact that he has nothing better to talk about shows through. its like, who the hell wants to know that i bought Endurox??!!

well, thats what 4 hours in the sun does to your brain. you cant think. and you certainly damn well cant write properly. i actually has this idea for a metaphorical description of an MRT tunnel and its reflections on life but i cant remember what i was going to write. so too bad. everyone has off days and this is one of mine.

shutter

2004-11-26T20:44:00.000+08:00

well, the a levels are finally over and whew...but thats gonna be another post cos today's post is about the movie Shutter.

its been a while since ive watched a horror movie cos im damn humchee and im always scared of ghosts and whatnot but today we (the guys) decided to be men an watch shutter, some thai horror movie.

well, it might come as a surprise but i enjoyed the show. i think its truly deserving of its title of horror movie of the year because shutter is not just a ghost story but a love story as well.

the gist of the movie is that one night, a photographer an his girlfriend hit a girl on the road. its a hit and run and soon after wierd things start happening and making visitations.

yea, pretty standard ghost stuff huh and i could even spot when the ghost was coming out and how it was gonna come out so the first few minutes were pretty boring cept that alex kept making me jump cos he was sitting besides me and he kept screaming and grabbing me whenever something creepy came up. as you all know, im very sensitive to the human touch cos my body interpretes it as an assault on my well being so i guess alex was the scariest in there.

what seperates shutter from the rest is how the story unravels after (spoiler alert!! but fuck it, you wanna know, dont you?)

soon, we learn that the photographers friends have been committing suicide by jumping off buildings and that the photographer actually knows the girl that they hit on the road.

we also learn that she's been dead for quite a while (after jumping off a hospital building) after he visits her house for answers. and also that she had a love thing going on with the photographer, whose name was so forgettable i cant recall it now.

well, apparently one night (when she was still alive), the photographers drunk friends came onto her and raped her and he was ordered to take her picture so she wouldnt blab. the pussy did it and so now we have a revenge thing going on.

well, this was actually the point that shutter both lost its horror and element of fear but also the point which elevated it above the rest of the generic the-ghost-is-bad-its-fucking-us-lets-fuck-it-back storyline. when you start to feel for the ghost, especially since the ghost is a pretty young lady(albeit with bad makeup), you start feeling a curious mix of fear and pity and a touch of anger at the loser as well.

so there i was, shaking with fear (literally) and having cold feet and a warm stomach but yet in my mind is wasnt scared, cos i felt the pain of the girl, especially in the scene where she cuts herself repeatedly and screams. shrill and high and neverending. it pierces your ears and you want to flinch and cover your ears but on the other hand you dont cos you have to hear her sorrow and watch her despair.

its almost untearable, each scene draws you in and you cant look away because really, to fully appreciate a horror movie you must look fear in the eye and watch it touch your soul.

two scenes which really struck me were the one at the opening where the photographers girlfriend jane goes into the darkroom to figure out what had rattled the doorknob so vigorously (cos she was looking for her bf at his flat)

the ghost appears from the sink and shes scared shitless and tries to open the doorknob, which suddenly becomes locked and shes rattling the doorknob like crazy.

this is similar to the rape scene, in which the ghost (name is Natre or something like that) tries to escape from the drunk bozo friends of the photographers but shes caught by them at the door when shes frantically trying to open the locked doorknob. it rattles too, with chilling horror as she is pulled back and pushed down onto the floor.

its this kind of clever analogical directing that again seperates shutter from the rest of the one dimensional films.

which brings to mind the question. is the fear of being in the same room as a vengeful ghost the same as the fear of being raped?

think about it for a moment, let your imagination run wild. youre in a darkroom. its redlight all around you and the dripping sound of water echoes in your ears. the sink is full and photographs are floating on the water surface. to your left is a heavy black curtain which hides....well, a few pieces of equipment i suppose and to your left is a table, messy with photographs. Negatives hang messily above your head and the light is blurry, as if seen from a camera lens tinted yellow.

youve just seen a shadow walking behind the door and the doorknob just rattled vigorously, like someone was desperately trying to get out. and for some reason you decided to investigate the noise, cos , well, youre curious arent you?

well, curiousity killed the cat cos when you draw back the curtains.....

nothing happens. you sense something is seriously wrong. this kind of thing only happens in the movies.the sink tap is running. the basin is overflowing and water trickles on the floor. drip drip drip.

you step forwards to turn off the tap. the room is small, claustrophobic. stifling, like you could choke on the air here. and just when you reach forwards to cut off the tap, something bubbles and you see strands of hair floating up. they coalese into the top of someones head and suddenly hands shoot out and grab the corners of the sink.

fuckfuckfuckfuck. youre rushing, spinning, you ram into the door. its just behind you; the door i mean. you grab the doorknob and you turn it. its locked and you cant fucking get out. you tug at it, you know...you dont know whats gonna happen to you cept that it involves blood and one pissed off ghost. you rattle it hard and it wunt budge.

you tug and twist and its not moving. youre not moving. you feel a hand slither up your shoulder....

ok, now for the rape. ok, look, im not gonna write the rape scene out cos it disgusts me. but imagine you were a girl and you were getting gang raped by 4 guys and one guy was your boyfriend and hes not gonna do anything about it except take your picture.

imagine the anger and hurt you would feel. imagine the fear as they grab you from behind and throw you to the floor and strangle you so you cant resist. imagine how after the act your bf breaks up with you and he doesnt give a shit when you cut your wrists with a butchers knife. and how all the pain inside cant seem to go away, even when you catch the edge of the butcher's knife and pull it. pull away your fears, pull away your sorrows baby. do it for me.

i guess its a different kind of fear, on different levels and you really do feel both in the cinema. the rape is a physical fear, it starts low in your gut and clenches your throat. you cant breathe and you squint and flinch and tighten up cos youre so damn scared.

the other one is a spiritual fear. this one, well, only a few ppl feel this kind of fear. its different. its icy cold and it shoots up your spine and spreads throughout your body. youre throat doesnt clench cos its not there anymore, is it? neither do you squint or flinch. you open your eyes wide and you take it all in. oh god oh godohgodohgod. sometimes you might even hear a low voice speaking if you dont try hard enough.

how....clever. that a director can aptly convey this to the audience. maybe not everyone saw it in the same light as i did but then again a movie is a very personal experience.

another moment that really struck me was the period of time when he was trying to find the ghost in his house by snapping pictures of his house so it would show up on the polaroids(poloroids?)

he snapped everywhere but it wouldnt show up. guess its not inside the house eh?

the scene switches back to one where he visits a clinic for a checkup after the accident (cos he hits the "girl" remember?) and has been having neck pain. we see that he weighs 120 kilos, astoundingly heavy for a slim man.

almost as if it was the weight of....

and then we see another scene where a young buddhist monk. a child; stares at him wide eyed and shocked.

hmm, it has been said that children and monks or spiritually advanced people can ......

and then the scene shifts back. hes standing in his room and hes holding his camera in his hand...

and the ghost is sitting on top of his shoulders.

wow. thats neat. i would never have thought of that.

what a burden on your soul eh?

the ghost scratches him and he flings himself out of thw window so he can die like the rest but he survives and becomes mentally withdrawn.

the ending scene is that of his ex-gf, jane (who left him when she found out the truth about the rape) visiting him in hospital.

she sees him through a windowed doorway and goes in. the door flips shut and swings with inertia and in the reflection...we see the man, bent double, and his vengeful lover sitting still on his shoulders.

it is a heavy burden to bear indeed. i think she didnt let him die cos that would be too easy, wouldnt it? hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. if ive taken any moral away from the movie this would be it.

but let us not detract from the masterpiece of horror storytelling that has been presented to us. to love and lose and hate and fear and so many other emotions.

you dont exactly feel pure fear in the movie but then again this is because it is laced with a myraid of other sensibilities and in the end, you feel...sad. because thats what it is. its a sad love story.

and once you understand this you understand why she had to come back. its about unrequited love, its about false promises, its about being left high and dry and stabbed in the back.

its like a spine of ice and a touch of cold air mixed with black dread and soft embers of fire.

i wont watch it again. cos its fucking scary and im humchee. but yes, catch it if you can, because some stories have to be told.

and yes, its a love story.

joseph and tim go to White

2004-11-12T20:23:00.000+08:00

every once in a lifetime, a man develops a desire in him so strong and so compelling that he cannot help but answer its call. its siren song is entrancing, irresistable.

the place is known as White. White is the source of dreams, White is where angels go to die, White is purity and White is what is good. White is knowing that you've lived a good life and White is like having yourself bathed in the most soothing and cooling healing balm ever.

White is a hairdressing salon in upper tanjong pagar.

and today, joseph ting and i were determined to get our hair cut.

we met at 11 in rabid anticipation, but like harold and kumar, we were inevitably made to wait till 130 cos they only opened at that time. apparently joseph forgot they opened late today. we were made to undergo a myraid of difficulties on the way, like learning our A & C notes and discussing Shakespeare in Love.

but no matter. all that inconvenience pales in comparison to the eventual prize. a trip to White.

the first thing that hits you when you step in is the heavenly scent of lavender mixed with a tinge of vanilla and topped off with a tangerine scent. the base might be anything from sandalwood to musk, i couldnt really tell cos i was assaulted on all fronts at once.

the decor was minimalist in nature, the jet black ceilings juxtaposed nicely with the silver, egg like designer chairs. black sofas crouch in the corner, beckoning you to let them caress your ass. the glass white counter presides imperiously above all and christmas decorations are spread out along the room, with silver glass balls and snow kissed, frost dusted leaves of mistletoe making love to the mirrors.

if there ever was a heaven on earth, then White must certainly be it. The lady who owns the place has an angelic name called Kel and she must have one of the softest hands ever known to mankind.

they softly caress my crop of hair as she whispers into my ear and asks for my request. following which she seizes a pair of ice cold, silver handled scissors and motions them through my locks of hair. softly, gracefully, they part the rough, dark sea of hair and it soon begins to fall---dark snow flitting across thefront of my eyes. some catches in my brows and Kel gently flicks them away with her perfectly manicured fingers, sparkling silver with a rosy tinge.

there is no pain here, only joy. where other scissors are coarse and literally pull your hair out in clumps, there is no such ignominy with Kel's. her skilful hands part and brush, search and caress, ever fragile in their deportment yet possessing such assertiveness and surety that i felt like a baby all over again, unable to move for fear of ending the moment. her scissors obey her every command, like her magic wand, which she waves and says "it shall be done" and it is done.

but the experience doesnt just end here. oh no. to end like this would be nothing short of a sin. during this period of ecstacy, i was presented with a glass of sparkling clear mineral water (upon request) by one of the most magical girls i have ever seen.

as soon as the haircut was finished, she then proceeded to render her services to a back massage.

"let me give you a back massage"

it was not a request. nay, it could not be denied. no force on earth could possibly deny this girl her wishes. there is no such thing as customer power in White, only gentle obescience to them and they will reward you greatly.

let me attempt to describe this girl to you. She is of the same breed as Kel, a race of angels long lost to mankind. she is Kel's sister (as i found out from joseph ting later)

her face is like a faerie's. sharp, angular eyes that pierce into your soul and root out your darkest desires. her perfectly rouged cheeks add warmth to her otherwise cold demeanor, much like the way warm blood would give life to an ice queen. her beauty was in her aloofness. she is obviously superior but yet surprisingly human and fragile as well.

her high angular cheekbones accentuate her thin, softly pink and luscious mouth. her hair is tousled and messy, with long spikes that curve softly and caress her shoulder blades softly. the shoulders themselves are ramrod straight and of an aristocratic manner. her figure is wispish and she is waiflike like a faerie is. she wears the whitest flat sloe shoes that i have ever seen. the pattern on them understated yet classy. smooth dark pants hug her firm thighs and gives way to a simple yet commanding white tanktop with a messy scribble design.

the first thing that strikes you about her is how much you want her. strange, considering she isnt outright pretty or sexy, but we all know that faeries can shroud themselves in glamour and they play with men's hearts like a hungry wolf rips out a deer's.

the second thing that struck me was how strong she was, considering her appearance. her back massage was firm, her fingers unyielding, running the length of my shoulder blades and meeting at my neck and running down the spine. i experienced an electric tingle in the base of my spine which ran up and down. she looked all around her, as if bored and then looked straight at me. i found myself quite unable to hold her gaze.

and from then on, there was no going back. it was on to the washing of hair and the massage of the head.

her firm but soft hands supported my head and cradled my neck as she scrubbed the tangerine shampoo into my locks.
her sharp nails scratched all over my head and i stifled a gasp at the intensity of the assault. it was midly painful and disconcerting but yet at the same time exhilerating and immensely pleasurable.

from there, she went on to slide her fingers firmly, sensuously down the back of my ears and onto the back of my neck. pure bliss. im the kind of guy that likes the back of my neck massaged i suppose. hits the spot.

opening her hands in the pattern of a sensous butterfly, she then proceeded to kneed my head. first, the front of the top part of the head then progressing backwards. with each press i experienced the tingling sensation down my spine again. my hands were clenched and tight against my body in a sharp contrast to the pleasure above and i found myself hating myself for not being able to enjoy the sheer purity of the moment.

circular and anti-circular movements followed as she rubbed my head (yes, that head) hard, squeezing it for it was worth and working up a nice froth as well. she patted my head like one would to a dog and if she had leaned over and licked my lips i would have died.

but she didnt. instead, she asked if the water was too hot as she washed me off, like a mother would wash a newborn baby. i nodded....i mean i mumbled a reply that was faintly in the negative and then it was over. the last thing i recollect was her gentle fingers towelling my hair dry and her sticking her fingers into my ears and rolling them about, which felt strangely erotic.

and then it was all over.

sometimes when you want to stay in a dream it chooses the most appropriate time to kick you out, screaming and yelling.

and so it was that my visit to White came to an end. there was no fuss, neither did i cry, cos i knew that it would only be a matter of time before i managed to go through the same door into White again.

someday, someday (just before prom to be exact), i will be back to the paradise that is White.

you should visit that place too, if you want to know what pleasure is like. it will be a journey that is long and ardous and frought with peril, but it will be well worth it. what is a little discomfort and pain for just a split second glimpse of heaven on earth?

never fear, my friends. take heart that you will be able to find the steely determination inside you and the passion within will hold you through as you journey towards salvation.

PS. Joseph Ting got a guy for the massage and bath (haha!!) but i bet he likes the guy's touch as well, dont you tingky winky?

neverwhere

2004-11-11T10:33:00.000+08:00

you know, sometimes its funny. you go to sleep and then some dream comes along and its so vivid that you remember almost every detail. those you cant remember you are able to make up so perfectly it seems as if it really happened as well.

and then once you wake up you wonder why you remembered the dream at all. and then you realise it was important that you remembered, cos its after all a part of you and if we didnt remember ourselves, then we wouldnt be ourselves, would we?

so yesterday i found myself back in kallang again. the dreamscape wasnt kallang, not by far. too narrow, too few boats, the banks of the river were wrong. but it felt like kallang. down to the wind and blade of grass, it felt just like kallang. im sure you understand what i mean when you visit a place in your dreams. on the outside its seemingly different but yet the essence is undeniably the same, undeniably so alike its midway between haunting and exhilerating.

and so it was really kallang that i visited, and i remember myself talking to people on the pier. pek hong, terence, zhenghao was there and so was sulynn, yina, even kenneth and nik who was coaching again. haha how quaint, that people who are supposed to be dead and gone can still come alive in dreams again. nik doesnt coach anymore but yet in my dream there he was, imperial as ever, the big brother, ever watching, ever sure.

i rowed a K1. it looked strangely like Cepheus, although it could have been Bloodhound because it was thin and sleek and bloodhound was always my favourite K1, even though its rather old and rickety. i rowed bloodhound/cepheus and pek hong was besides me cept that he was playing around and was rowing a T2 with one person only (himself). i remember he was in front. and we were rowing side by side.

and usually i suck in a K1 cos my balance has not evolved to a high standard (im a K2 rower) but here there was nothing the waves or currents could do to tip me over. it cut through the water like a knofe through hot butter. i swear i even felt my muscles aching and burning from the exertion. abs burning, lats heaving, shoulders under the strain, all while the paddle went swish through the air leaving the trademark trail of water droplets behind it.

i remember thinking to myself that was pretty darn unfit and it would take some time to retrain myself again.

and then it hit me. i woke up in my dream. it sounds strange but it really can happen. you realise you're in a dream and that its so called only a dream. and that i can never really go back to kallang to train again. that that path has been closed to me forever. yes, i can go back to row ya, but somehow the feeling is different. youve become old and youve past your prime, you will never compete again. i know i will never compete again. i made that promise to myself after my last race. maybe its to preserve the memories because they really are beautiful and they are bourne out of so much sacrifice on everyone's part.

i woke up feeling...like my insides had been squished. if you never had something you really loved and pursued with all your energy and heart and soul and something you really believed in taken away from you (gently i might add) at the end of a period of time, then you can never really understand what we all felt and still feel. its the feeling of loss that came with the dream that was haunting, but in the end you learn to move on.

and so i thought again about yesterday and the religious debates with ben, jianwei and joseph at dinner until 940pm (basket, we got a levels you know). im going to hell, and so is jianwei for certain. sometimes you do get really scared about going to hell and other times you brush it aside and hope the material world can make up for it, and that tim can save timmy's life with more stories and dreams again. but perhaps, deep down, you do really believe and you do really want to do what is right but it is difficult.

i really hope that one day an angel or something will come into my dreams and then somehow i will miraculously believe. ive always been a dreamer. how apt that it should be in my dreams that i finally touch an angel (assuming he can be touched).

well, i dont suppose that its going to happen just like that but as long as we all have hopes, we can still dream, and who knows, sometimes dreams do come true, for those who search enough.

the battle of gan eng seng

2004-11-07T19:45:00.000+08:00

in keeping with my dream of failing my A levels, i decided to join my sunday church team for a field soccer game today at 330 pm. the stage was set....and so i met my cousin once again for the inevitable battle to come.

well, actually it was supposed to be a "friendly", but hell, if i know these things, they are NEVER friendly in nature.

now, lets take a look at the opponents, from Grace Methodist Church, all 20 plus years old and in the army. most of em in OCS, which means theyre all fit, nasty bastards. and they wear a team jersey, which means they play together regularly.

now lets take a look at my team.

strikers: my cousin thomas, a pint sized sec 2 guy. and when i say pint sized i mean pint. with a small p. hes like about 14 something cm and hes skinny as a broom stick.

the other striker is this guy called Sim, hes 23 and hes pretty good. good shot, lean and mean. he works for Energizer batteries corporation. he's my cousin Jonathan's friend.

Midfield:kumar(rrrr). some indian guy, hes tall but he cant play for nuts. keeps giving the ball away. has nice blue eyes, ladies would like him. but there aint any ladies on the pitch, are there? (we'll see)

daryl. another small sized guy. thinks hes ronaldo cos he keeps dribbling and delays passing and as a result gets zhammed. real bad.

Keith. my 47 year old pastor. built like a horse, hes an old warrior and he can turn pretty well. physically strong but his stamina has left him long ago. he attacks most of the time.

Me. yes, i was playing defensive mid, aka Roy Keane. my favourite player. too bad im not like him. but yea , i try. im skinny and im short, but i can cause a few ..... difficulties shall we say.

Defence: Jonnie. my other cousin. ex commando sergeant. works at sports council nowadays. avid sportsman. hes kinda stocky, from his commando days and he played centre back. kept us in the game quite a few times with well timed tackles.

Xiong. some guy one year older than me. xiong is in the army now and hes good, but today he was nervous on the ball. maybe hes rusty. i dunno.

soem guy whose name i forgot: yea he played defence too and hes good. good attitude but stamina failed him. he cramped both legs and was out late in the second half.

Mark: some guy who went off later cos his toe was bruised in a tackle. was replaced by a phillipino-indian bystander who happened to be wearing boots as well. we called him "Mat". has silky skills and is a right good defender, as befitting his Indian nationality. all indians can play a good game of soccer. as can all Mats.

'Keeper: Clement. a right good keeper. he made lotsa good saves and kicks and tackles. all credit to him.

the other team was wholly chinese. i dunt suppose many indians or mats go to church.

so well, you can see that we have a jolly good (fucked up) team. we were a motley crue. and yea, i suppose thats what makes the game fun. sorta like david vs goliath kinda thing. gets your juices flowing.

so anyway, we kicked off (we even had a referee and hes quite pro. controlled game well. even blows for offside. hes the other team's worship leader. nice guy.)

immediately, we got a defence splitting pass. fuucckk. luckily the guy couldnt finish and so we breathed a sigh of relief.

i was sucking wind in midfield. everytime we forayed forwards, the ball would be taken off us by force and thus i had to backtrack to help cover ass. coupled with the hot afternoon sun, this kind of thing can seem almost sadistic.

but hey, we had a pastor on our side and so God answered our prayers. i lofted a hopeful ball towards cousin thomas, who transferred it to mark who was overlapping on the wing. mark somehow lost his marker, more by mutual bewilderment ratehr than real skill and he chopped a cross in. two bodies flew for it, the pastor and the opposing defender. i suppose you can guess whose side God is on. 1-0 to us. against the run of play. now i know how Greece feels.

the battle was focused mainly on the wings. midfield was aptly commanded by cousin jonnie and i helped out in whatever way i could by booting the ball away whenever it fell in he penalty area. we were holding them, somehow. they got a bit frustrated after two of them collided together following a ghost-move by Sim. i tried a few chips and lofted balls towards cousin thomas but hes just too darn small. got muscled off the ball always. bummer.

and then the hand of God came again. winning a free kick just outside the box, pastor keith promptly floated one in. i peeled off my marker and headed for the ball. dammit, too much curl. it was floating away from me towards the far post. that is, until Sim completed his run from outside the box and with the marker's attention on me, promptly slammed a grasscutter past the 'keeper. 2-0.

the other team was shocked. as were we. and we were all gasping for breath. i needed water badly to quench my parched throat but the bloody whistle just wouldnt blow.

so i guess you could say that half time is one of the best feelings i ever had in my life.

the thing about the other team is that they have a much larger squad than us. we had exactly the number needed for a full team. so they could afford substitutions that kept them fresh and us pussyfied.

it soon began to tell cos once the second half started, they came at us hard. they subbed off some guy and replaced him with a tricky one. and they could now get on the end of defence spl;itting passes. one thing though, for some reason their finishing sucks big time. with only the keeper to beat, they missed three times. but hey, they plumped 4 goals past us to win 4-2 in the end.

two were laughable. one from a free kick at a sharp angle and the other from a direct corner. Kumarrr left his boots at home and let the ball go in when he was guarding near post. argh.

the other one was a defence splitting pass. noting much u can do if your defence is ball watching and your keeper is outnumbered 2 to 1. i guess we were all tired.

they even got awarded a penalty cos Mat got overenthusiastic with a two footed lunge. placed it bottom right corner, just like henry would.

well, to our credit, we battled hard. it was stud on stud, shin on shin. had my feet go for a stud imprint when some guy slid in and another one aided me in my muay thai training by imprinting his shin into mine when i cleared a ball.

i hauled a few guys down and after the match my shoulders and lower back were aching along wit the shins and legs. yes, soccer is a total body workout friends.

tried to loft the team by screaming at them. and i tried to run all over the damn pitch cos holes were opening up everywhere. by others as well as by me cos i tried to cover. inexperience, inexperience. most of em havent even stepped onto a pitch, let along play field soccer so it was pretty bad positioning all over.

once the final whistle went. i went over to the goalpost and i puked out the Milo i drank (fortified with Actigen E!)

yea, even though i feel like crap now, it was worth it. even though we got thrashed 4-2. it was worth it. cos when you play with your heart and soul and youre right in the middle of things hitting and whacking and getting hit and whacked. somehow it feels good. but hey, my head feels like shit now so i wouldnt recommend it to everyone.

its a bit of adrenaline mixed with a bit of macho honour and topped off with a desire to kill the friggin opponent at all costs. i suppose i can sort of understand the romantic beauty of it all.

maybe there's a reason why its called the "Beautiful Game" and its not just cos of the silky skills. its about playing with your heart and never giving up even when the opposition is breathing down yer neck and youre half dead and holding the ball up.

its about bone meeting bone and taking the pain and giving it back. cos thats the only way you can stop those bastards.

and its about holding the back line and looking out for your mates, sorta like a mobile siege kinda thing.

yea its all this and more and i cant really do it justice through this description. lets just say im looking forwards to more games after the a levels.

just hope my shins and foot heals fast enough.

some short stories

2004-11-02T22:02:00.000+08:00

hmm, my friend jianwei likes short stories and so he suggested that i write some (specially) for him. now, im not particularly a good writer so read these stories at your own hazard. if u are the sort of person that has no imagination, cant take things with a pinch of salt and have no sense of humour, then please, go back to your room and continue mugging for a levels.

if you are boliao and like laughing at pathetic excuses for short stories, then continue to read on please.

a boy sat on the bus. he likes riding buses home cos they make you think. one long journey, almost identical roads, almost identical signs and nowhere to go but where ever your mind takes you. the buzz of the bus as it rumbles along the road. the buzz almost translates into a gentle massage of the senses. no wonder people find it so easy to sleep on the bus.

it starts from deep down in your spine, then onto your insides and they vibrate and thrum with machinery-given life. and then it hits your brain, like a rush of blood to the head. its not like the feeling you get when you stand on your head for too long; neither is it like the feeling you get when youve been hit by a softball on your head. somewhere in between and not so rough, my dear.

and then it flies. god, it flies away. and suddenly you see endless mountains. its just like in the movies. your movie. right down to the smallest detail: the snowy peaks, the white expanses of snow. no grass grows here cos its much too cold, much too desolate. men have tried for years to traverse this mountain pass but none have succeeded. no animals come here either, theres no food, no way the snow can melt into water.

if there could ever be a blanket of the whitest white, and if instead of warming you it could cut through your bones with the coldest cold; if it could envelope you and your senses and cover you with a tinge of despair, a touch of loneliness and a whisper of sorrow, then maybe you could come close to experiencing what this mountain felt like.

even though its white all around you, there is no sunlight. whatever sunlight there is is reflected, from god knows where. its white all around you and you can just barely make out the jagged, cruel shapes of rocks and boulders, stiff and unholy. they look so innocent, clad in whitest snow but they could tear you limb from limb and rip your heart out with a single rocky breath. they might even take your soul for good measure.

you look all around you. no living soul has ever passed this way before. in a sense, its pristine. its pure, like a firstborn child born under the northern star, and it has never known love or hate or any emotion from any living being been passed on to it.

except you. you are the only one who has ever been here.

the exultation begins in your heart.

i cannot quite describe the feeling that you would feel at this moment. you have just been to a special place where no one has ever been before. its deep inside you and no one can take it away from you, ever. not while you live and walk the earth still. and those around you will walk for days and weeks and years and centuries and millenia and they will still never be able to find that place in your heart.

its as innocent as you were the first time and as white as your soul when it first uncurled like a blossoming flower.

but yet, it is desolate. no one dares to tread so deep here. no one can. its closed up to the rest of the world and yet it borders on the brink of reality. its like trying to cut your own shadow from your skin so you can share it with the rest of the world. sometimes, others can see glimpses of it (if you let them) and sometimes its fuzzy, sometimes sharp and piercing. but none can go there, except you and that is exactly why you are all alone.

and you look all around you, once, twice, three times. you can never get enough of this place, like it can never get enough of you. it replenishes you, but yet it takes you away from reality. dangerous, you think. if you ever let yourself stay here for too long...

it blurs again. reality shapeshifts. it always does, just that people dont pay attention. this time, it catches you in the eye with a sharp blow. you reel and gasp and the surroundings blur and focus.

the boy realises its time to get off. you cant stay here for too long. and its been much too long already...

the boy gets off. he walks down the steps, half shaken, half panting from the exhileration. his feet touch solid ground again. such a vast contrast to the soft snow that caressed his ankles just a short while ago.

the boy gets off.

he stops at the bus stop and he turns around. he's trying to find the place again but somehow he also knows that he has already found it and its inside him; but that doesnt stop him from turning around nonetheless.

he stops. and thinks. sometimes you cant have too much of a good thing ya know. give and take. someday i'll be back. and then will you stay?

oh no. ill come, but ill go. its nice, yea, but ive got other mountains to climb and besides, its much, much too cold out there.

the boy smiles to himself, and notices two pretty girls walking along in front of him.

reality check.

yea, thats for you, jianwei. cos you special request whattt. now stop bugging me.

sex and shitting

2004-11-01T20:49:00.000+08:00

you know, ive realised, not for the first time today, that sexual desires and shitting are actually pretty much the same feeling.

ok, ok, waitaminute. i know what you guys/girls are thinking...tim's off his rocker now/what the faaakk??!!/damn youre one disgusting prick....blah blah insert vulgarity here.

but think about it man. they really are two sides of the same coin.

take sexual desire for one.

say youre in the Hub (this studying area in my school) and you see this damn kickass girl with the legs and the short skirt and the tits and shes spreading em for you....just for you baby.

so what happens? you look at her and your eyes take in the lust like some sexual chocolate melting and oozing into your pupils. your breath quickens and you imagine her beckoning to you. in some dark corner of your fantasy mind she's looked up and seen your lustful gaze. and hell, she thinks youre hot too and you two just wanna fuck like rabbits now.

so you walk right over and take her hand and make for the nearest abandoned classroom (on the 7th story). as the lift goes up, you cant wait and you grab her ass, like a kid grabbing candy and it feels as soft as the softest candy floss on the outside but inside you know its hardcore firm, just like that Snickers Bar you ate for recess.

your mouth locks with her and forms a vaccuum, crazysexycool sucking like you both wanna suck the breath out of one another. whoever breathes first is a rotten egg....your tongue on hers like two liquid slugs making slimy love, pushing and shoving like Japanese men wanting to get off at a train stop.

she tugs at your shirt button and rips off the flimsy material. you stifle a groan and give that bitch a slap. she smiles and slaps you one back. now we're talkin'

lift stops and we both out together as one. barge into classroom and its onto the tabletops baby. what pos first? fuck the muff diving and the blowjob cos thats only for foreplay losers (please note that tim advocates foreplay as a loving form of emotional connection with your partner) and its onto the mish. then maybe a reverse cowgirl backed up by some solid doggy style. she moans, her eyes half closed, her mouth half open as you thrust into her. each thrust punctuated with a hard 'thomp!' of approval as your groin slaps against hers. you gyrate your hips and she grabs your arms and you cant help but bury your face into her hair and grunt as you cum. (im cumming!!!)

ok, thats like premature ejaculation or something. but you get the idea. on to shitting.

youve just eaten fried beef rice and its the oilest muthafucking fried rice uve tasted. and you down it with sliced red chili and a cup of iced milo. potent stuff.

head back to the hub with yer mates and just when ure sitting down to study, it begins. a flutter in your stomach. your heart beat quickens and so does your breathing. you feel your insides churning like its alive. the desire builds and builds until you cant take it anymore and you just have to be released.

march out of the door (play it cool baby, we aint going nowhere) and up, up the never-fucking-ending flight of stairs (cant wait to play baby) and you see the holy grail. the fucking toilet door. push it open and you just cant take it anymore. you just wanna grab a roll of toilet paper and get down and dirty.

insides quivering, tingling. half crazed by excitement, half numb from the sheer though of release, you push open the cubicle door. faaakk! some muthaasshole cant shoot straight (as always). theres pee on the lid and you dunt wanna dirty your virgin ass. so you plunk the toilet paper, hard earned from the roll (you begged for it baby!) onto the seat and you wipe the friggin obscenity off. damn, you need more paper. back to the roll and its desperate now, your insides, they want you to make love to them. they want to make you feel good. they want you to release right now!

you groan and hold your stomach. give it a good slap (just a while longer baby) and it slaps you back. bitch. im gonna show you who's boss you cunt!

rolls in hand. rush to cubicle. bang! the door. fuckfuckfuckfuck. slip open the button, down goes the zip. the underwear, almost torn, roughly done. nicely done.

you thrust your ass onto that seat and fuck it like youve never fucked a toilet bowl seat in your life. ohmigodddd im cccumminnng. you hold your stomach and your breath comes in short gasps. your sweat stained shirt throbbing to your heartbeat. you clench your teeth and feel it sliding out of you. it loves you baby.

so, as you can see, sex is somewhat like shitting. keep this in mind the next time you shit/have sex.

*this piece was written based on a true story of tim sitting in the Hub today with joseph, jianwei, alex and shaun when he needed to go to the bathroom to crap.

i love* arsenal

2004-10-31T14:13:00.000+08:00

i hate arsenal. just when i thought they would stand up like men and be counted....the pussies rolled over and instead of giving Southampton (who are second lowest in the league) a damn good rollicking at Highbury, they allowed Southampton to break up their play, fannyed around on the ball and decided to leave all the tackling to Pascal Cygan and Toure.

people like viera forgot how to tackle. people like henry forgot how to score penalties, even if he did make up for it by scoring a goal later that looked suspiciously like he was offside. bergkamp reminded me of myself with his first touch flying away to the touchlines and reyes was the inimitable punching bag again.

arsenal have hurt my trust in them. its like finding out your wife has been having sex with the air con repairman when all this while your relationship with her seemed to be going fine. i placed -2.5 goals on arsenal cos i thought they would rule at highbury. furthermore, after getting eaten by Man U last week, that they would put their hands up and go "ok, no more bullshit" and set about demolishing the pretenses of Southampton.

but noooo, all they could do was cause my five bucks to go to waste. once the first half ended without goals, i was thinking "thats it man. thats five bucks down the drain" looking at the way they were playing, southampton didnt need to park a bus in fron t of their goal. their goal keeper could have took a lawn mower and started cutting the grass in the 6 yard box and still they wouldnt have scored.

thus, you can see why, perfectly, justifiably so, that i hate arsenal. May God Bless Them.

Another one is Chelsea. basket, i thought those goons cant score so i placed 2, 3 goals on them and suddenly they started becoming arsenal and plumped 4 past west brom. what the faaakk.

but seriously guys. i have learnt my lesson. i will not bet again until after the A levels. my temperament and my pockets cannot allow this to go on. i resist eating too many meals for the whole week so i have cash to bet and then....arsenal and chelsea let me down. so yes, screw them and ill go have a burger now.

*contrary to what he has just said, Tim really does love arsenal. really. if youre name starts with a J, please do not be too offended. Tim will treat you (J) to ice cream.

Reminesce (girl of my dreams)

2004-10-27T22:44:00.000+08:00

they say that people tend to reminesce about their childhood cos thats the only time when they were truly happy. maybe this is true to some extent but i think its also cos its in the past and thus it can never be revisited again; like some magical Secret Garden that has been forever sealed up to you.

one of my very first tuition centres (being singaporean, i had lots of tuition) was this one called Morris Allen. some of you may have heard of it or even been to it. i went there for English tuition, not that i needed it haha but i had lots of fun there so i wanted to stay (odd huh, having fun at tuition).

basically i was taught by ang mohs and they were good teachers. if u didnt listen they would ream you out and they were typically direct in their quaint ang moh ways. i remember my teacher was impressed that at primary 4 i knew about Adolf Hitler. i wonder why. lots of kids know lots of things anyway, maybe she came from the dark ages. its sometimes funny how the older generation fails to realise that kids are getting smarter these days. i know ill probably make the same mistake next time. like mistaking my two year old son for playing with a "dangerous" toaster when he's actually repairing it. or something.

but the real experience that impacted me at morris allen wasnt some teacher or some arsehole. quite funny, but it was actually a girl and the full extent of it didnt strike me until years later.

you see, there was this girl in my class called Phoebe. at that time i was damn swakoo (mountain tortoise) so i thought her name was pronounced "Foe-Bee" instead of "Fee-Be" (phonetically, at least)

well, morris allen has its own "gifted" programme and i happened to be in the class of "gifted" pupils, the only exception being that while the rest in reality still went to mainstream schools.
but that is a small matter, cos i guess Phoebe was as gifted as they come.

you know, its interesting when i look back in child hood and think of all the different people that ive met and how lots of them are actually gifted, or more gifted than i am. it always amuses them when i tell them they could be in the GEP. maybe they dunt believe me; or maybe they just dont see intelligence in the same way that i see it. academics is a rather small matter. only singapore makes it out to be the be all and end all of everything. sad to say.

but i digress. Phoebe...she was one spunky, fiesty girl. she was short. shorter than me, which at that time (and now still) is quite an accomplishment in itself. i wasnt used to having people shorter than me so i guess i made the fact very obvious.

Phoebe was loud. she was brash, like me. we were pretty much the same. competitive.(i always beat her at worksheets anyway) outgoing(yes last time i was a LOT louder than i am now)

Phoebe always happened to sit next to me in class. this fact was not apparent to my pre-adolescant mind until i told my mom of that "irritating girl who keeps sitting besides me in class". my mother, being the conservative, and hence perceptive chinese woman that she is, told me not to "get involved with girls at this young age". to which i replied "huh??" in any case, my mom made me promise not to sit next to Phoebe anymore.

so the next lesson i went back and Phoebe as usual was going to take the seat next to me so i just moved to another seat. please realise that i was still a staunch christian at this young age so sex and girls were no-go areas for me. besides, the hormones werent at work yet.

i cant really remember what the reaction of Phoebe was because i honestly didnt take notice. i mean, if u were in my position, you wouldnt take notice either. but the time came for "book borrowing". every week, we are supposed to borrow a book and bring it home for reading. the books were colour coded according to reading difficulty and i always picked the most difficult books. not to suit my ego mind you, but cos the rest were simply to pussy to read. no, seriously.

so anyway, i settled on this Mensa Brain Book thing or something like that and along comes Phoebe and wonder of wonders, she wants the bloody same book! well of course you cant have it, i took it first! but Phoebe wanted it, oh yea.

after class, i went to get my bag from the locker and Phoebe kinda followed behind. being short, i mistakenly placed my bag in the topmost locker and so i was having a hard time reaching the lock with my keys. Phoebe had hers on a lower level so she got her bag out pretty fast. and seized her moment.

she grabbed my book from me. that wanker.

so of course what do you do? you act like a gentleman and let her have it right? fuck no!! i wrenched it back from her but she was pretty strong for a small girl. and for some reason there was no teacher in sight. theyd all gone home or were having sex in their office or something. even the receptionist was gone. it was just me and her. mano a mano.

so we tussled and she grabbed the book to her chest and bent over a chair. and so i encircled her from behind (yes i realise that this is very graphic but hey i was an innocent kid ok) and i managed to get it free. but she came up behind and started scrabbling for it again.

looking back. that was the very first time i ever felt a girl's tits on me. (but of course in the middle of a savage fight for the book you love you dont think about this)

so in the end i was damn frustrated. look, if u want it so badly you can have it! for God's sake. so i just let her have the book and i got my bag (finally) and i started walking down the stairs.

in a moment she was out after behind me as well. "here, Take Your Stupid Book Back!!!" and she promptly flung it down the stairs. i picked it up and walked away. bitch.

Phoebe didnt hang around for long. after a few more lessons she was gone. to where i never really did find out. its strange cos i felt a loss when she left. the classroom was a bit too quiet. but i didnt think much about it. 10 yr olds dont really think about people coming and going. at least not this 10 yr old.

looking back one day on the whole incident, i wonder what made me remember, i realised that Phoebe liked me. the evidence is there. competition. outward expression of hate but with no real substance behind it. she grabbing me. hell man, i was hot.

heh, its funny how nostalgia plays funny tricks on you. ive wondered if i somehow met Phoebe on the road today....would i recognise her and she me? would i like her? i guess i would, always liked fiesty girls with a zest for life. maybe she's changed, maybe not.

i lie in bed sometimes and i wodner where she is, and what shes doing. you know, mindless, aimless adolescant wondering that probably has no use and no purpose. and i sit and sigh (i wonder why i sigh too). if only i could meet Phoebe, the girl of my dreams, literally haha

i guess its really through rose tinted glasses that i remember Phoebe fondly.

where ever, you are now Phoebe, bless you. and i hope we somehow meet again. if not for the fact that i think ud be really good in bed.

but hey man, i was hotttt

still am....OKAY?

1986

2004-10-26T21:17:00.000+08:00

why is it that we sometimes want to hurt the people that we love the most? its funny how the pain you feel is both a part of you and yet not a part of you, that when you look at the person walk silently away, that some empty black hole somehow seems to open up inside of you and it sucks at your innards, like some greedy baby suckling on a teat.

and then you think: hey, this can get better. all i have to do is ....... and then you realise that some part of you doesn't want to do it because somehow, if the memory stays painful, not pain painful mind you, but nostalgic painful, then it would somehow be immortalized inside your memory.

sometimes i think familiarity takes away that air of mystery. familiarity takes away the rose tinted glasses and the soft-spoken rememberences and leaves us with the bitter reality. somehow, by breaking the connection forever, we can both have our rose tinted memories to fall back upon. we'd always remember ourselves as those who loved and were loved.

i guess you kinda get hurt both ways, but one way is bitter reality, the other is different. its like flying away on the clouds. flying so so far away and leaving everyone behind. and though you know that you'll have new experiences and new, wonderful things happening to you in the clouds, that the feeling of leaving youre loved ones behind, leaving your life behind...its like a double edged knife that cuts through you on one blade and soothes you with its cool metal on the other side.

i bet everyone feels this way sometime or other. i bet you've felt it too, as you read this post, you're wondering what's so special about this one, what's so different?

the point is that it isnt different at all. its all the same. but then again, thats also what makes each and every experience so different.

am i making sense? i dont think so. not many people will read this post and understand what i am trying to convey, maybe you think you know but youre thinking of something else. but hey, dont let that stop you. you perceive this post as you would perceive a flower blooming. some see beauty and potential for a full life; others see nothing more than another life cycle.

i suppose life's all about cycles, isnt it? we are born, we live and then we die. somewhere in between we fit in meaning and change and growing up and all the other multitudes of things that a life can hold. such fullness, such ripeness, such pity.

the pity of it. of leaving something you love behind. love is like holding water in the palm of your hands. if you grasp it too hard, it will just flow through your palms. sometimes you just have to relax and cradle it and only then will it fit nicely.

sometimes you have to let go i guess. you have to say goodbye so you can fly off into the clouds and maybe over there you will find what you are looking for. and if you dont then i guess its a long long fall all the way to the ground...

but we pick ourselves up again and we try, like Icarus, except that we never die. there is no ocean to fall into because we've used the droplets of water to build our dreams in the skies. how quaint.

cycles of struggle and trying. isnt that what epic poets dream about? isnt that what Calliope gifts us? monumental struggles of human existence, and somewhere, between a cup of coffee and a smile to yourself, you believe that it is all worth it. and it is.

and you wake up one day and you find yourself...where? in the clouds or on the ground? another struggle to fly again, to search for that castle in the sky. it never ends, maybe thats why it fascinates us. it also never really begins, thats another reason why we are drawn to it. the whole struggle. the whole existence.

so i guess its time for us, for me, to fly. and leave you behind. but dont worry, youll never forget me and ill never forget you because we have our rose tinted memories and in the end thats all that matters.

how far do you think it is to the sky?

what i learnt about myself today

2004-10-24T22:17:00.000+08:00

i realised today, that i am a wuss. not your everyday wuss mind you, but i well bred kind of wuss. if i were a dog, i would be a siberian husky kinda wuss, not a mongrel kinda wuss.

today was the day i played soccer (field) in Bishan Park with my cousin's friends and some army regulars.

well, the army regulars played like arsenal and we played like liverpool. they had one touch passing and dribbled past our defences like nothing. and appearances are indeed deceiving. they were mostly fat, old man (lotsa indians) and these fat, old man had more strength, stamina, skill, pace, power than our team, which comprised mainly of young punks; with me being the youngest punk.

i realised field soccer is all about vision. or rather my lack of vision. i didnt know where to run, who to pass to and as a result ended up taking on people as a last resort. with the ball merely rebounding off the black wall every time. sian man. i think my team was quite sian of me as well haha.

but that does not sum up the wussiness yet. everytime the ball was with the army guys, i somehow lacked the balls to challenge for it. when they do a lofted pass in front of me, i bend down and squeeze my eyes shut.....what the fuckkk??!!

look, i also dunno why the hell i kept doing it. its like your mind keeps telling you that you should stop and youre being an ass but your body responds out of some primal-fear like instinct.

geez.

so i had to find ways to "prove my manliness" and like a little kid i set off running about. although the game was more or less not a physical one, rather one of skill, i picked some poor sod who happened to have the ball and i dived in two footed for the tackle.

"woauh lau eh!!"

and i got an elbow on my head.
then another guy came over to help out and i was bundled over. mighty heroic eh?

so let me sum up the game. i was selfish. i was an arse. and i was super-duper unfit. within 5 minutes i was dead already and panting like hell. the other people looked at me like i was some lunatic.

yea well, but i guess there can always be positive things about such situations. playing against a higher opposition will always make u improve and i guess we can all learn a few things about ourselves in the process.

see, its all about being positive!

yea right, im still a wuss.

on white horses and elitist bastards and squash

2004-10-23T11:30:00.000+08:00

the realization that we were elitist bastards came a few days ago when we were sitting in the canteen. joseph, jianwei and myself came to the conclusion that we speak in an acrimonious way concerning ITE people and poly people because of the fact that we are surrounded by people from the upper social strata. it was then that i realised that from my secondary school years, that i have been an elitist bastard. the only person who only became a current elitist bastard is jianwei.

so how did it feel? well, i guess its politically incorrect to say that it felt good but hell it did. an upon writing this, i am struck with the sudden fear that should i wash out and end up selling 4D tickets on the roadside, that i will look up one day, at the man in the posh suit and go"elitist bastards...all of 'em!"

upon learning that Alex was reporting on the same day as me, i was struck with the sudden realization....could this be it??? could i, finally, be in a White Horse Company? the holy grail of army life? there is a high chance that we could end up being in the same company and it would be interesting to see company commanders lick alex's boots, and by association, ours.

the saying goes : if you can't be a white horse, then be in the same area as a white horse.

so what exactly is a white horse. well, conspiracy theorists and friends in army selection reveal that a white horse refers to someone whose parents are prominent members of society. for example, if you're father is a diplomat, minister, or owns some fricking large commercial venture, then u'd pretty much be certain that you would be a white horse.

so what do white horses do? everything. everything's the same as normal army life except that you get a lot less abuse and cut more slack , more tuanging, more siamming, more slacking, all of which is music to our ears. who the hell wants to go dig ditches and shit in a designated shit field when you can have it all the better.*

*the author's claims are ludicrous. please do not believe them, especially if u are a government official.

acjc is a haven of white horses. you turn left, you turn right, everyone''s daddy is rich and working in the civil service in high positions. ok, thats an exaggeration but i could name you at least 4 or 5 white horses that i know of and that is no small number , considering the fact that they dunt all go in at the same time. so you could be lucky and be in the same company as one. dont give up hope. i know i havent.

i discovered the game of squash at Ben's condo yesterday. Ben's condo is tucked in a charming corner somewhere in Toh Tuck. if the alliterative nature of the name isnt enough to charm you then the sprawling (by singaporean standards) vistas and lush greenery would.

we started out by having a 2 hour game of pool in which we had much fun jacking alex. we kept putting jianwei's balls into the pocket when he wasnt looking an we kept replacing his potted balls on the table. blur alex didnt even notice, at least till we started laughing.

so after that, it was time to break my virgin squash cherry. squash is a terrifying game, i can tell you. there are so many instances where you can get hurt. i classify it as a game that is more humcheefying than soccer. if youre opponent hits you with the ball, he gets the point. how spastic is that? you experience pain but salt gets rubbed into the wound even more. so it was that alex's ball struck my arm and left me with a nice blue black haha. there were also a few instances where the returns would whizz apst my head, narrowly missing. scary indeed.

but all in all its a very tactical and fun game. but its still scary, mind you.

i am trying very hard to study but somehow it fails me. i keep thinking of life after the As. i guess my worst enemy is myself. sigh. time to get back to selling those 4D tickets....

i love new toothbrushes

2004-10-21T22:55:00.000+08:00

ive been fucked!

2004-10-19T21:51:00.000+08:00

well, the title above is to do with my army posting.

but lets digress for a while.

a friend of mine called me up today to well, air his grouses. i guess he has a valid point and im glad we sorted things out. i do hope he's doing well and doing what he wants to do. i guess its not easy to hear unpleasant things about something which you truly love so much but you cant have everything in life i guess.if i offended you then im really sorry but i believe i was expressing my emotions and how the impression of the incident was applied upon myself. my reality is not the same as yours, obviously and i write this merely for myself, not as a reflection of you or your company.

so now thats settled lets move on to the larger issue, which is the army.

i have been nicely posted to BMTC 2 (basic military training centre 2) at 12.45pm on 8th January 2005.

this is bad. cos i have less time to slack away (i had hoped for an april posting) and also cos i will be spending my birthday in an army camp (9th jan)
coupled with the fact that tekong is one of the elast savoury places in Singapore and the fact that i dunt particularly want to meet other adolescant half males or macho-wannabes THAT soon, it pretty much made my day today when i found out the news from my parents.

(They allow 5 tickets for family members to Send You Off)

i never really understood the significance of sending your kid off to NS. i mean, youre gonna see him in 2 weeks time anyway, whats the big deal? i feel like a caged animal, being hauled away in a 3 tonner while my relatives smile an go "look at him! hes gonna be a man now!" yea, if sharing your private space with a few retards means youre gonna be a man then i guess army is one big Adventure! well, at least ill be tolerant. just hope no one has body odour.

i mean, theres much too much importance dedicated to such sending off ceremonies. its like suddenly, you seem to transform and rocket into another stratosphere of your life. category switched from school-going adolescant into low-life army half man-boy.

anyway, the next reason why im fucked is cos i bet on the wrong team.

now, i am , i was, a virgin bettor. at least till yesterday. i decided to try betting on football, a la Singapore Pools cos well, making more money is always good, especially if your allowance doesnt cover your lifestyle expenses. so off i went to the singapore pools outlet near my school in Dover.

upon entering the shop, i surveyed the interior with a cool eye, then directed my attention to the screen above showing the various odds and teams. trying my very best to look professional in my acjc canoeing tanktop, i saw that Fenerbahce vs Lyon appeared to have great odds of 4.65 for -1.5 goals(fenerbahce). thinking "wow! shit! are they kidding? lyon will never plump 2 past fenerbahce at home!", i went to the counter and said "champions league, fenerbahce, minus 1.5 goals"

the net effect was the woman looking at me as if i was an idiot and saying something in mandarin.

so i took a look around, and i discovered, horror of horrors, everyone was holding a betting slip with the exception of yours truly.

so thats how you place a bet. i went over and shaded in the nice circles and plunked 10 dollars, figuring ive just made 46.50 thank you very much.

i met my friend outside the shop. "hey, theyre offering fenerbahce minus 1.5 goals. why dont u bet sure win one. lyon will never score 2 goals plus."

my friend: "huh? -1.5 goals means fenerbahce has to beat lyon by 2 goals."

me:"ohoho. really?"
me thinking: "nahbei cheebye"

well, at least i can say i contributed to charity. for those not in the know, singapore pools is linked to the community chest! so do your part for society now and place your bets at the nearest local betting store!

meanwhile, the match is tonight. im a fenerbahce fan! you should be too!
we're playing at home and boy are we gonna plunk 2 past Lyon; those french wussies wont know what hit em.

the importance of being earnest

2004-10-18T09:25:00.000+08:00

funny isnt it, how people only really start thinking about their lives when they hit a crossroads. it could be at 20, 30 or 40, anytime youve got a zero behind your age that means nothing other than the fact that you havent done anything with your life yet.

or it could be at any of those "crossroads" ages, like sweet 16, or 18, or 21, or 50. you know, ages that society plays up, ages at which u magically metamorphosize into some other being.

its funny how values change as well. we both have so different values. at least youre firm in yours. mine's so unstable that one moment i tell myself that safety and security and earning lots of money is what i should do in life and another minute im telling myself that its a sell out. that they dont tell you that once you start making money, you dont want to stop cos you cant.

on the spiritual front, its another ongoing battle inside for the property of Timmy, batteries included. christianity or the new age movement? and somehow timmy still believes that both can be reconcilied even when his pastor and his devout friend have told them they are diametrically opposed to each other. timmy wonders why there are no new age-christian pastors or why there were no new age guys who became pastors or pastors who became new age guys just so he can talk to them. he doesnt think they exist here in Singapore, oh no.

in some secret recess of his mind, timmy is scared. of what he doesnt really know. maybe its hell, maybe its meeting a ghost. maybe its meeting a ghost on pulau tekong during his ns stint (cos christians cant see ghosts, or rather, they never meet them cos of the holy spirit's protection). timmy's seen some stuff before. it could be ghosts, it could be himself, he never really knew what he saw but its real guys, more real than u can imagine. and its not like in the movies. if anyone ever told you he saw clearly, a woman dressed in red or the actual face of a woman, dont be inclined to believe him. unless hes naturally gifted, theres no way ghosts look clear or solid. so maybe if he believed in God the ghosts wouldnt come anymore. what a reason to believe.

funny isnt it, how i never thought about them. no, actually i did, but i guess canoeing an school provided an apt distraction. school still does, cos of the A levels but after that, what now? firm grounds gone away, time for shaky ground to start. feels just like work again, back in sec 3 an 4. knowing your boss thinks youre an idiot. your co worker says that yea you work hard but the boss aint very happy cos you dunt work smart. all the itty bitty details of working life that your friends somehow fail to see. they all think its one big beautiful world outside where they can set up their businesses and make loads of money.

well, i guess to some extent its true for them. theyve got the contacts, theyve got the money from their parents. why shouldnt they succeed? the rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer. anyone who claims they arent rich are simply lying. the poor dont have to claim anything, they just look at you with sad sad eyes and laugh in your face.

just the other day on Sunday, ok yesterday, i was seated around a table in church with my cousin (whos 27) and some other 20 plus yr old guy. for some reason, although we could talk, i felt seperated from them. maybe its the vast difference in ages but if you think about it its not so vast. its simply cos we both belong to different social stratas. one which i am about to enter. time to start reading up about global and local issues. time to read every damn thing that man wrote.

its kinda funny isnt it, how we all try to fit into society when some of us want to et away from it and just live life far from the madding crowd.

i suppose its this innate desire to "see the world", to go places like the artic regions and the deserts, places where nobody lives, in the hope that somehow, by going there, timmy can save himself. how heroic. how empty. places are what you make of them. timmy isnt better off saving himself in Iraq and seeing the horrors of war than he is here in Singapore trying to eke out a living.

how to reconcile? when a part of you wants to go away an grow and touch the stars, maybe come back alive and with a little knowledge and the other part of you says stay here, contribute to society like you should, its ok to take the beaten path that everyone else takes.

there is no way that these two things can be reconciled. not now, not ever. timmy is dead. long live timmy.

graduation

2004-10-15T10:27:00.000+08:00

as of yesterday, i am no longer a student of ACJC. its kinda funny, cos people are supposed to feel sad when these kind of things happen, and a few of my friends and teachers did the customary crying during the ceremony and afterwards.

for me, well, i guess you'd only cry if it really impacted you. i mean, my jc life has been so short that there has been almost no emotional stake involved in it. im not some guy who has been through 12 years of ac education like the rest. ive been to different schools so i guess ive always been more of a wanderer rather than a stayer.

another reason would probably be because there is a time lag involved in these kind of things. maybe next year, when you wake up at 7 o clock in the morning and you go "oh shit! im late for school!" maybe then it will strike you that you have no more school and that its never gonna be the same again.

right now, nope, nothing's stirring inside. the only thing ive really felt is a sort of relief, that it is finally all over and we can get down to what really engages us in life. jc in a way was stifling. jc was also damn fun. jc was short and that is good cos you cant be stifled all the time, even though youre having some of the best fun youve had in your life.

maybe it could also be explained by the lack of friendships i have in this school. hey dont get me wrong, i do have some really good close friends but when u look around and people all around are taking photos with each other, well, you cant help but feel a little left out sometimes. i mean, theyve known each other for 8 to 12 years and youve only known a few people for 2 years so i guess theres a vast disparity in terms of familiarity.

the valedictory speech told us to reach for the stars and live our dreams. how cliche, even though it sounded good. not many of us will really live our dreams. not many of us will reach our stars. we might get bogged down with a day job that never seems to go anywhere. we might get bogged down with family committments (unless thats your dream). we might work so hard that we sacrifice everything else in life. so yea, i guess that its easier to say such things than do them.

so, with the cliched speech in mind i walked out of acjc. not for the last time mind you, i still have to come back an take the a levels. but deep inside, the feeling is that of a business deal. theyve given me so much in terms of life experience an oppurtunities and ive tried my best in return to give some back.

so i guess ill thank my teachers for their wonderful support and those friends that are true to me here.

and after that, what happens? maybe sometimes we'll meet up, maybe we'll drift away. maybe ill come back to serve the school, although that is highly unlikely. everything seems so transient, at this transitionary stage of our lives. no angst i guess, theres nothing to be angsty about. its just that, its a combination of jadedness and excitement, if ever such contrasting emotions can come into play together.

the knowledge that u can do absolutely whatever you want after jc life. and the knowledge that you too, are pretty tired of jc and pretty apprehensive about going into the real world, where politics are paramount and image is just about everything, as is connections.

ive always hated ac for the image driven aspect of it, but i realised that its what makes its people so adaptable and well liked.

haha, like a naive child that learns there is no santa claus, i step towards the real world. i leave behind more naivety and i take with me more hope that somehow, i can survive all this.

thanks for all the great times guys.

a time long forgotten

2004-10-11T19:01:00.000+08:00

you know, it almost seems funny the way we met. i thought you were a nice, cute girl and you are a nice, cute girl.

and somehow it also seems as if we both knew it was just waiting to happen. couples that don't talk aren't very normal i suppose, even if we are both cordial to each other.

and so it happened today as i took the bus back to school from holland v, a nagging feeling plagued me that this was it, that it was gonna end today. was i scared? yea i guess so, you're always afraid of these kinda things, always afraid you wouldnt be strong enough to withstand it.

somehow the image of a roller coaster came into my mind. the moment just before you plunge into that dark dark tunnel, the wheels screeching, the coaster bending, turning like a deranged animal, throwing you around and around and you dunt know when its gonna end.

just waiting at the top of the drop, waiting for hell to break loose, i guess that was someting like how i felt just now. but somehow, i guess i also remembered that roller coasters had seat belts.

so i went back to school. thoughts in a flurry. went to the hub but my friend told me she was in the gym, so i guess there was where i went next. how ironic, that the place where i spent most of my time would be that place.

we talked. i cant remember about what exactly, details elude me, only the vague references to she needing stability and security and i being immature and playful. also something about her being cold naturally and stand offish.

well, i guess the only real words i heard came after i asked her a question:
"so, youre just waiting after a levels to end it lah?"

what does it feel like to have something which youve dreaded confirmed in front of you. yea sure, youre prepared for it but it still gives u a tingle, it still zaps you some.

i guess the past few months have been something like a premonition. what does it feel like to continue living in a relationship that you know is doomed to end one day? do you continue to put in effort in the hope that things might change? i guess i did this. do you just heck care cos its gonna end anyway? i guess i did this too.

ambivalence is well...a hard to explain sensation. its almost like a crush kinda love. sometimes you feel as if ure on the most absolute high when we both verify our feelings. sometimes, when tings dunt go so well, you feel as if its gonna end right now.

i guess tings arent very ambivalent anymore. but i hope we both left with fond memories. i know i have. things are hard for her as well and i hope i can be there to support her.

i think that it is pretty hard to convey just what i am trying to say right now. the feelings are all around me. its like a mini windstorm thats unfurling around you but you feel nothing inside.

perhaps the best way to remember this would be by feelings.

it felt like the sun on a rainy day
it felt like a moon on a cloudless night
like the trees on a stormy bay
like the fire that burns in the night

so i guess this is really it then. i dont think we'll ever go back again. i don't think we would want to be together again

its like two horses pulling in two seperate directions. one that wants to run far away and one that hopes to fly.

maybe in another world we could have been together. just maybe. how romantic.

two horses running away. two horses pulling astray.

i guess when we do look back on this 30, 40, 50 years later, we';d both laugh and think "was i really that silly? pwah!!"

or maybe it will be a time long forgotten. who knows, as time passes and we never see each other, maybe we'd be relegated to the dusty corners of memory....

but hey, i'd always have fond memories of you

spider sense tingling

2004-10-10T14:28:00.000+08:00

about a few moons ago, (yesterday night) i went to a "recognition dinner" that was held in my friend's honour. apparently he works for some company and he had invited a few friends and myself for the company sponsored dinner.

so like your typical singaporean guy, hard up for free food, i went. well, actually, the main reason was to support my friend cos he's an old friend. i actually had better things to do.

so anyway, once i was there, the moment i stepped through that door to the company office, it felt wierd. i couldn't describe it. it felt as if it was a very poorly masked attempt to try and catch as many new heads into the company as possible.

"oh no, this dinner is not about getting new people to join" ---my friend

so it struck me as mighty strange once the company bigwigs started going up one after another and impressing upon us slogans like

"you set your own limits"
"6 people working in a room half the size of this can make 120,000 US dollars in 2 months!"
"do you believe that i can make 60K a month? its possible! cos i just said that infinity is the limit!"

ok, so this isnt about getting people to join, more of lure them with prospects of get rich quick schemes, "success" (do you want success? YES!!), and "friendships" (we have a lot of fun here! most of us dont even want to go home!)

its pretty ironic that they couldnt smell their own poorly thought out and executed rhetoric.

coupled with the fact that they made a lot of hoo-hah about the importance of grooming and impression, (look at this young man! when he first came in, he was ..... now, he's ....!!!) assuming that there was a drastic change of extreme-makeover type. well, what change i could see was that my friend was wearing a 150 buck suit from Topman, which is a middle class range brand for young adults with little cash to spend.

also, one of the MCs was this guy who spoke broken english, paused a lot, made funny jokes (ohohoho), and changed from jovial to serious when the business side of the company started to express itself.

so well, i guess they made a great impression on me. i promptly walked out with my other friends once a lull in presentation took place.

"i hope you live your dreams"

was the last words i said to my friend as i shook his hand. i dont really know how much hes making or whether he was enjoying himself or whether he himself has been fooled into beliving his company's philosophy of them being caring towards their employees.

u have to be caring i suppose, cos i think the more employees you got, the more money u make.

i really do hope he can "retire by 25, latest!!" and that his pursuit of success gives him happiness (and a lot of cash)

strangely enough, when they were all harping about success and how HongKong people went out and took it while singaporeans were flaccid, i thought about the book Kenneth let me read just before we went down for Junefest.

"you cant aim for success cos success is what comes after, it is a result, not a goal. aim at success and you'll just miss the point"

hmm....

well, i guess i will never be successful like them. not by a long shot. working 13 hours a day and not being able to see your kids (which is what their CEO does) is not something i would wanna do.

maybe im just lazy.
maybe im not ambitious.
maybe i just want to be a bum my whole life.

yea, i guess thats it.

this blog is back

2004-10-10T14:21:00.000+08:00

about some time ago, i had deleted my old blog and the reasons were that i had outgrown it, that it was nothing more than an egotistical representation of my online self. yes, i still hold to that view, but as a result, this blog will have as little links as possible and only those that i trust will have access to this blog, my mind, possibly my soul.

the reason for its demise was that it was egotistical.

the reason why it has revived is because i have a gut feeling that i am about to go through an intensely difficult period of my life.

we all know how its like when its 18. with the world supposedly at your feet, with the world waiting for your entrance....

this has come with a few new issues, and more than a few challenges and i can only hope that somehow, by writing it out here, that i wil somehow comprehend the truth of the matter, not to make a decision of myself, but to maybe see a little more clearly where i am headed.

why not write in a diary? hell, i hate writing and my handwriting sucks. i do enough essays in school already. typing is faster and thus i can keep my own stream of consciousness when i type. dont believe it? why the hell am i explaining myself to you anyway?

so here goes...right back into the rabbit hole of my own mind, here we go, down the hole.