The Post which is the Tip of the Spear

One of my favourite songs. Just popped up this afternoon and it's been playing in my head. Haha

The Post which is in Autumn

Caught 500 Days of Summer (like finally) in a rather sparse Cineleisure theater.

It's the kind of film which is neither too spectacular or long. Not extremely hilarious or action packed (hardly any action now that I mentioned it), nor with any notable movie stars. But in a sense it made you think about how little details in the story mirrors your actual life.


















My favourite bit in the movie was when the main character Tom sinks into depression after the breakup and has to go to work one day.

Facing all the cards and other cardmakers, he declares that their jobs were to provide a service for people who cannot express their true feelings, and have to rely on "words put into their mouth by other people" .




















It took me a while to realise, to some crooked extent, this was somewhat true. Now my statement is rather vague, but I always felt that people are never as honest and truthful as they could have been at times, even when it's a good time to let other people know they feel.

"It's okay", "Nevermind", "It's fine" and "Anything" are the common phrases people use everyday. Sometimes it indicates a lack of preference, but I guess it's getting used more often these days when one wants to avoid conflict or making a decision.

Think about it, how many times have you seen in your friends or in other couples, when such phrases are used as an excuse?


















Some of the best talks I had with my closer friends are often made face to face. No MSN, no eBuddy, no handphone messages. No emoticons, no firewalls and no time to draft, edit and publish a correct answer.

My friend Sean, during a sleepy chat on a duty night, once asked me what was the meaning of friendship, and I answered with "when you can look someone in the end, strip away all false pretense, cut the crap and tell him what you think."

I often find I learn more about my friends during such chats (or the popular euphemism heart-to-heart-talk). I can see them thinking, see their raw emotions, watch them cast aside their caution and, as Tom puts it, "stories you have to earn the right to hear".





I'm definitely not a "card" person, I try to be as honest and open as I can possibly be without treading on others' toes. But as with any grownup, I'm bound by societal conventions and niceties and cannot afford to give everyone a piece of my mind without serious censorship.

That's why I'm a little envious of little kids, untainted and oblivious to the outside world, having the right and excuse to say whatever's on their mind.





Anyway as you can see, plenty of thoughts in my mind, so I better end it here before I lose track and delve into another topic. Haha.

I end with the final and my favourite quote of the movie:

The girl of my dreams would have a big bodacious rack, blonde hair and perhaps good at sports. But Robin is better than the girl of my dreams, she's real.

The Post which was So Hot that it Melted

Let's waste time,
Chasing cars.
Around our heads





If I lay here,
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world.

The Post which is the Big Yellow Bag

It's a Sunday. A quiet Sunday, like the many ones before that I've spent in the medical centre, with a book, a PSP and my bed to accompany me for the day.

But unlike the Sundays after this one, it's my last duty in this place, as I'll be clearing my leave /off from next week onwards till ORD.





My NS journey has been really different from what I first thought it would be before enlistment. I envisioned it to be 2 years of running around in jungles, eatting crappy combat rations and becoming fit and strong.

Instead, with one crocked knee, it somehow managed to metamorphasize into what I'm doing today. Still, I can't complain.





I've been somewhat of a nomad. I've been to different courses and units, usually for 2-4 months at each go. I met many types of people, usually those that I've never personally interacted for my pre-NS life.

I've met drug abusers, people with horrendous family problems, car racers, gangsters, teen fathers, smokers and other variants of people who crossed paths with the law.

Strangely enough, I do relate to this people (much better than I thought I would), and if you take your time and effort, strip away their exterior appearances, you do realise that underneath we're all human, that we all deserve respect and care.

That being said, some deserve a lot less respect and care. No names will be mentioned. Haha.





Anyway as a result of my drifting lifestyle between units, I made loads of "temporary friends".

I define "temporary friends" as people whom you meet, become extremely close friends in a short period of time, see and talk to each other everyday till the time frame expires, then pack bags, shakes hands and is hardly seen in each other's lives again.

Given Singapore's small size, this distance between "temporary friends" is more psychological than physical.

The thing is about such friendships between guy is that they usually don't have to catch up unless it happens coincidentally. It hardly matters to us, and we don't pretend otherwise.





In view of this situation, I would dare say I didn't make any true friends in these two years.

It's a bit like a cheap B-grade American action flick: you make allies, you go through shit together, you fight and forget, and live to fight another day.

Until I got posted to the medical centre, my home away from home for the last 5 and a half months.




First of all the medics are mostly from the same background as I am. JC and polytechnic students who completed their studies, viewing NS as another phase in life to get past, gazing working life or university life as a greener pasture on the other side.

Needless to say, I clicked pretty well with the medics. Even though I must have a perpetually sleepy figure who lives in the medical centre half of the time, I managed to talk personally to most of them, had decent intellectual conversations that address issues which matter to us.

It's not as though I would have voluntarily extended my service or deprive myself of leave and offs to stay longer, but as Jerry once said, there are genuinely nice people in the medical centre, and I'll miss them.





Vernon- our endless PES battles, debates on the prettiest actress, cooking instant noodles together.
Jerry-san- learning the guitar songs from you, watching you getting raped by Vernon all the time and earning the title of Qing Ge Xiao Wang Zi.
Sean-san- our laughing fits when we dramatically describe silly stuff, a drifting Honda Fit, long and meaningful conversations and our epic Cloud duels.
Fang- surviving NDP together, having our Victory Maggi, and making it through all my duties with me.
Ernest Slinslizel! - playing games and laughing our asses off whenever stupid things happen during those games, pronouncing every damn name wrong

And of course all the other medics whom I've spent duties with, talking about life and cursing whenever a case comes.





It's been a good run. See you guys on the other side.

The Post which Questions the Schrondinger's Cat

There's this little blue book that all SAF drivers should be familiar with.




It's called the Driver Record Book. It's supposed to be a record of the vehicles that we are trained in, the total mileage that we clocked in our service term and other random knowledge.

We all receive one when we are posted in as drivers. I had mine around June last year. I didn't know it was supposed to be an important record, so for my very first Record Book, I wrote and doodled a lot in it.





The other day I was booking out in my uniform (quite rare for me, I always book out in civvies) and when I got my kit out at home, I saw the book inside my uniform and gave it a read.

Inside there was a scribbled rant of some sort, which I remembered I wrote on a particular "emo" afternoon. I was a very new driver then, exposed to the harsh environment of my unit, sent off to do work I didn't want to do, suffering with people whom I couldn't get along with.





It goes something like:

3 more months to recourse,
4 more months to 1 year (to go in the army),
5 more months to 2009!

Day by day,
Monday to friday,
Weekends play,
Add a few more holidays.

Repeat four times.

Gone one month, gone three months

Back to tekong, to have some fun.
Enjoy your time, slack a bit more.
POC lo! No more REC.

Enter December. Scram all regulars.
Take some leave, and countdown 2008.

Watch your front, 10 more months.
Time seems stagnant, but slow and steady wins the race!

Gone one month, gone four months.
Wah lao eh, six more months!
Tahan a bit more, 16.6.2009
20 years old lo.

Time to "geng", don't drive much
Ambulance duty, sleep can already.
Read some books, take some offs!




It's quite long, and full of crap, but at that time I was pouring out a lot of frustration into a not-rhyming-so-well poem of sorts. But somehow I did calm down considerably after writing this down.

It's funny now that I read it again. It was in July 2008, if you read the poem again (actually, please don't, it's embarrassing), so it's bloody ages ago.

But I'm surprised, despite all the shit that happened since then, I more or less stuck to the schedule I planned for myself.





Time really passes quickly. This week is my last week of duty, next week's my leave.

So, now what?

The Post which is Secretly in Love with Red

It's Sunday duty once again.





Earlier this morning I was about to go back to sleep when I was activated to send a patient to the hospital after he "fell down" in a ship which is about to set sail. Word has it that he has some "girlfriend issues" and perhaps didn't want to embark on a month-long trip, so draw your own conclusions.

It's amazing what people can do when they are desperate enough.





Anyway, I had to wait for him in the hospital A&E department. In my one-hour long stay there were a few other casualties that came in. It's somewhat interesting to see how different family members react when their loved ones are admitted into the A&E.

Just before I left, another Civil Defence ambulance drove to the entrance. The driver rushed out and opened the back door of the ambulance as I walk past.

Inside were four paramedics, frantically trying to resuscitate this eldery man. I could see the anxious face of the female (and if I may say, rather hot-looking) paramedic adminstering CPR on the man. His hands were flopping lifelessly by his sides, as the driver wheeled him out on the Ferno stretcher and pushing him into the A&E.





It's very dramatic stuff. Feels like something you might see on the telly, but this time there are no retakes, no film cuts and rewrites, no life-saving miracle drugs and no suave Japanese doctor.

You know what they say, the brink of a life-or-death situation, your entire life flashes before you?

Got me thinking, if that were to happen to me, what would I actually see. If I were to distill the twenty years of my life, capture the essence of it and put it out on a roll of film, what would define my life up to this point?

The Post which Will Grow Back as Grass

Today is the 6th October 2009.





Rewind a year ago, on this very fateful day, yours truly created history in Changi Naval Base when I misjudged a simple right turn and crashed my car into a lamp post.

It happened in slow motion; the infinitesimal second which it happened seem to stretch out for an eternity. The car bumped right into the base of lamp post 65 of the base. It hung for the briefest of all moments, before crashing backwards with a sickening thud.





The first instincts of survival kicked in first. I actually thought, for one crazy moment, that no one had saw and I could drive and escape away. Then the truth hit me and I saw people rushing forward to help me out.

Blood was welling up in my mouth but the only thing I had in mind was that I blew my chances of going to a local university because surely, surely, the detention barracks await me for causing a bloody fucking stupid accident.





I was pretty much in a daze for the rest of the night. My buddy Aanandaa sent me to the hospital, my sisters met up with me there, there were phone calls going all around.

Then I was sent back to camp. My warrant officer was there to help me, when other investigating officers came down to grill, interrogate and question me.

I was sent home at about 11pm later. No one else spoke to me, which suited me fine. I'm not sure I wanted to talk much, having endured probably the worst night in my life.





I guess I lived under a constant shadow of worry ever since that accident. I went to my recourse BMT in Tekong shortly. It was supposed to a seven-week holiday, but there wasn't a week I wasn't calling back my unit to find out about my sentence.

Eventually, on the very last week of BMT, I finally called my Officer-in-Charge, to find out that he would be giving me SOL (basically a confinement) of 14 days in camp. No DB. The shadow was finally lifted.





The SOL was served this February. It was my second longest stay away from home. It's funny what a second of carelessness can cause.

Thankfully I had a lot of great friends in my unit, bringing me stuff from out of camp. Aanandaa (who coincidentally had an accident the very next day) was a great company for the first week, and the second week past by quickly with work and jokes.





In retrospect, it seemed to me that a certain someone up there wanted to teach me a lesson. I was young, not too experienced but getting cocky.

I also thought that I was lucky enough because the lamp post fell away from the car. Had it landed on the vehicle instead, I guess I wouldn't be escaping with just a cut lip and distended jaw.





So it's been a year. Time really flies.

I still think about the accident from time to time. Whenever I drive out of camp, I will deliberately drive past the new lamp post, reminding myself what I've done and will never ever do again.

So kids, drive safe, drive responsibly, and think of your loved ones whenever you feel like doing something stupid while driving.