Friday, June 24, 2005

argh y havent 36 sent my docket here yet???? damn it.... i need it urgently to get some paper work stuff done.... damn.... i need it man.... hopefully my FFI can be done before the end of august.... oh man... God help me man.... u know how important this thing is to me....

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ahtong signing out
@ |8:53 PM|
Thursday, June 23, 2005

sigh just went to friendster and took a look at friends' profiles... most notably those of my best buds when we were in pri and sec school... darrel and remus

well i believe that our friendship will last, though it seems that we hav lost touch due to different things n us goin on different routes after our time at cat high ended...

man i really miss those times

miss the fun and laughter we had

miss our friendship and how we made fun of each other in class 4-1

oh well, we will meet up one day... we will....

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ahtong signing out
@ |7:56 PM|

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ahtong signing out
@ |4:25 PM|

hmmm dont know y im not feeling kinda good today... maybe its becos tmr is RSM's parade, and we hav to fold the stupid taiwanese smart 4, or is it because my 'stereotype' view of Singaporeans is confirmed...

oh well, singaporeans... sigh, such a materialistic bunch of pple, always looking at the 5 Cs, education, always being so arrogant and proud when they're from JCs but only to realise that they cant find a job even when they graduate from uni... oh their egos must be so crushed.... so downright shallow pple we all are.... selfish, self-centred and just plain ignorant...

sigh, y cant we be gracious?? be a gracious society even when we're a developed country?? australia and japan has shown that its not impossible, and pls, eradicate the irritating myth that being in a JC or wadever u call it is greater than other institutions... i came from the O levels, got 4 A1s and 4 A2s for it, could hav easily gone into the JC of my choice... but now that im in the army and looking at the JC products, i dont think i would ever want to be in RJ or any other JC for that matter even if u pay me to.. y?? simple, i wouldnt want to turn out to be irritating and annoying brats that think they're 'oh so great man'... worse, when they come into army the likelihood of going into OCS is even greater.... and that is another ego trip that the guys to take to make them think that they're the best and the their ideology, thoughts and thinking skills cannot be riveled... pls, think again... u guys are just in a series of ur ego trips, wait till something in life gets u back on the ground again, wait till ur ego is shattered, the 'oh so great' mentality is crushed... oh well, but isnt it better and less traumatising to realise things urself, cos if nature needs to remind u, the way that it gets to u wouldnt be an easy pill to swallow...

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ahtong signing out
@ |4:05 PM|
Monday, June 20, 2005

came back from kaohsiung today, got shirts for my army pals back in singapore but boy was the weather hot hot HOT!!! damn....

falling sick with flu... oh well, good nites

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ahtong signing out
@ |10:32 PM|
Saturday, June 18, 2005

wah so sinful these days, keep giving into fattening n fried food... haha nice lah... taiwanese 'tian bu la'

going to kaohsiung tmr and staying over for the night with a few friends.. gotta be fun... though the budget is a lil tight.... haha argh!! $$$$$$$$ woe is me $$$$$$$$

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ahtong signing out
@ |10:02 PM|
Friday, June 17, 2005

yey we finally hav our weekends back... though tonight we hav cargo ops at midnight so thats quite a bummer... but its ok.... im gonna sleep in tmr...

its good that the weather now is fine.... can start my running routine again... hav been quite slack already... haha

oks, signing off now... 24 more days to nasi lemak!!!

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ahtong signing out
@ |6:59 PM|
Thursday, June 16, 2005

wah the weather finally cleared up today!!!! YEY!! well although it was still kinda humid n wet i still went to run.... well, all i hav to say is that the run was..... exhilarating, and liberating.... haha, esp since its been ages since i ran... like 5 days cos the last 5 days hav been rainin non stop...

oh yeah, came across this entry written by a person called spenz... so credit goes to u friend, but i just wanna share it... cos its kinda well written in my opinion.. so here goes:

City Harvest Church is moving to the Singapore Expo: a grander vision there is none: replete with rows of card-swiping tellers to ease the process of emptying your bank accounts and spiffy toilet bowls cleaner than your face. It was quite an amazing sight, really: standing from a distance, beholding lines of faithful sheeps awaiting their turns on the box-like abattoirs, I felt remotely alien and broken, as if somehow, my curiousity had betrayed me and left me to die on the doorsteps of the grandest corporation in the universe.

Anyhow, Pastor Kong was amazing - his charismatic ways were hypnotic and pervasive, and he spoke with such vigor, passion and righteousness that you cannot doubt for a second, his sincerity in trying to move you with his proselytising wisdom. He knows best of course, for he communes with the one true god! All of you! Say Amen!! Ohhhhhh...yabalah shikalaki huggaashagaa ugguggmoanmoan shukulidicko watevermajig. And so on and so forth.

But I was not impressed.

After the enlightening ordeal (which reaffirmed my love for the god of small things, and my disdain towards the dogmatic institution labelled as a religion), a friend (or rather, my friend's cell mate - haha!) drew me away to indulge in a little heart to heart talk. Unabashedly, I questioned the necessity of so elaborate a palace, with prinstine walls and black-collered security: looking more like bouncers designed to keep the people in rather than to keep the demons out. But of course, he went on to defend the place of the Church as a home, and how it should rightfully convey the sense of comfort and such, and thus: justifying the need to fortify themselves in sheaves and layers of beautiful, porcelain materialism.

To top things off, he went on (with a sigh, no less) to address the "pitiful Pastor Kong" (exact words) who has to preach sermons four times a week, because the congregation is too gargantuan to hold in one sitting, and how he wishes that they'll have a place as big as the indoor stadium someday soon! Wow. Im pretty sure they'll want a whole off-shore island to themselves before long.

Ok. Maybe I sound prickly, but harken this: the kind of hysterical elation infused in these boys and girls is almost clinical, like an infection hopping from one host to another, afflicting them with the disease called joy (the hopping variant). But this is a joy that is based on external stimuli: seeping inwards through the pores of your skin into your blood vessels and combusting in the euphoria of your being. It is a joyous addiction, even, and I see these peeps as rapturous addicts returning weekly to get their fix.

Of course, addictions of this kind, nobody gives a hoot. I dont see any religious rehabitation centres out there, do you? When you encounter fanatics, it is usually assumed to be, O.K. and that he is merely, intense. Nobody will entertain the notion that religious rapture can be an addiction too. It be only drugs, and sex, and rock and roll that is the problem. Everything black is bad, everything white is good. We are all addicts in someways or another, but what displaces you from the norms of acceptability lies in the packaging. And thus, it stands to reason that the more an institution deigns to divert your attention with spires of gold and turrets of ivory, the more insidious the problem lurking beneath it, is.

I am 22 years old, not young, but still within the demographics of their intended market. But I believe that when churches take on the mantle of a new generation and embraces the attitudes of quantity; that is, to sacrifice rustic beauty for charismatism, to fill their coffers and stands, to package the good word and to align themselves with the forces of a new paradigm, they become something else altogether: something smaller and starts but on the surface of your skin, something that crawls amidst the comfort of numbers. They call themselves the fisherkings, the fishers of men, and in an insane race to outfish each other, they irrevocably destroyed the most beautiful river. And so, in their quest for the bountiful harvesting of souls, they deemed it acceptable to suffer the collateral damage of a few injured faiths and a few battered hearts (your faith werent strong enough in the first place!), that it is acceptable to lose a few whose faith were destroyed by vulgar and rough intensity, to control the many lost in the bosom of euphoric praise.

You see, I recall rapturous joy on the eaves, under the benign eyes of god slanting through the windows as the golden evening whiles away. I do not recall loud noises blasting into oblivion my senses, leaving a soul so empty it cries to be loved. I do not recall visions, so narrow in ambit, that it demands but the endeavours of one church. I do not recall such pomposity, that when I lay myself humbled, all I hear is the collective drone of their voices. Mayhaps I am still, atad traditional, and though no longer in tandem with the doctrines, still believes in the quietness of christmas nights, in the memories of a warm, and gentle church bathed in the heady afterglow of a perfect noon-day shower, with soft piano and sandalwood, with me and god and a beautiful peace, with a joy and warmth that arises from deep within, like fingers of god reaching outwards of me in a gentle sunburst, like I was waking into a dream.

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ahtong signing out
@ |6:35 PM|
Wednesday, June 15, 2005

MTO decided that everyone should hav 1/2 day off today so im now slacking on my bed, with the rain pouring outside... damn... like that cannot go and wash clothes already.... hav to wait till evening then see how....

anywayz, signing off now, gonna slack.... haha...

tata

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ahtong signing out
@ |1:45 PM|
Tuesday, June 14, 2005

You Are 26 Years Old

26 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

hmmmm.... ok.... haha interesting...

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ahtong signing out
@ |8:04 PM|

well from the latest weather report the current storm will last till the 18th... so i guess it means no running till after that... cos its been pouring down non stop for like 3 days and counting already... sigh.... the rain stops and comes... but always at the wrong time.... when its time to do area cleaning in the morning, the rain magically stops... from about 7 to 8am... so pple like me doin the area cleaning outside hav to go out and sweep sweep here, clean clean there.... but when its in the evening.... right before falling out, the rain suddenly gets bigger.... damn.... so that means i cannot run... argh....

well wadever it is, i hope this period quickly passes cos lots of places are flooded and some cases of mud slides are reported... oh well, right now we just hav to stay in bunk, in our lil burrows and hav our lappies as our company.... ^_^

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ahtong signing out
@ |7:12 PM|
Monday, June 13, 2005

man its been raining for almost 2 days straight now.... dammit.... havent been running for 3 days already... cannot like that man... tmr hav to go run already... cant wait for my homeleave leh.... still hav wad?? 28 days.... hope the time can pass faster so i can go back and see all my friends and food... haha



those army dudes i know in 36 would hav already orded by now... but we will still meet up... haha good friends man... miss the times when we would bitch about all the idiotic commanders and share all our gossips and complaints... haha... miss our usual hangouts at wala's every friday night, listening to the band, drinking n just having the time of our lives, chilling out n unwind after a hard week's work.... missya guys...

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ahtong signing out
@ |7:47 PM|
Friday, June 10, 2005

sianz... alrighty, at 2 am in the morning of June 10, there was a call from the training troops training out-field that there has been an injury to one of the OCS trainees.... so ambulance and everything was activated while most pple are still sound asleep...

it was only this morning that the perm staffs learnt that the guy will be paralysed from the neck down because there was injury in the spine at the neck portion... man, paralysis from training in taiwan, because he fell down on wet surface (it was raining throughout the night) and it was in a mountainous area so he didnt fall off a level surface... still, this got us into quite a low marale because its such a sad and unfortunate thing that happened...

imagine, someone that went from primary, to secondary education, getting and studying his best for his O levels because he is full of hopes for his future, then finally going on to JC or poly and continuing his studies... after that its finally time for NS, and behold, with such a good record, he went into OCS, being trained to be a future commissioned officer... then WHAM!! all these hopes and aspirations are dashed... he is paralysed from the neck down, n will remain a vegetable for the rest of his life... all his dreams and plans on the future are destroyed at that very instant... and not to mention his parents... who would be so proud the day their son announced that he made it into OCS, and hes going on to be an officer, hes probably counting down the day to his commissioning parade... this is the guy which they have been working to support for... for his education, exams and everything, all in the hope of living a life better than theirs... but now, only an impossible dream....

its so sickening, so wasteful.... its really such a waste.... yet, it serves as a reminder to all of us as to the extent of human life fragility.... i mean, we can all plan for the future, oh after army im doin this and that, going here and there... but seriously, life is full of unexpected twist and turns.... who would have imagined that he/she would become paralyse the next day?? y isit that wadever we hav planned for the future, might just remain only as a dream at the very next moment?? i wont deny that this incident has served to reming me to live life to the fullest everyday, becos u just wont know wad will happen... not the next day, but the next MOMENT... i will treasure every moment when i can feel my legs ache from running... and experiencing sensations through the touch of my fingertips.... these might be small, but nonetheless very important lil sensations that make up our experiences from day to day...

and theres really nothing much i can do for that guy (i dont even know him) but just to pray... pray that he will be able to come to terms with his state and with the support of his family members, overcome the emotional burden.. though i know its really very hard to do that... imagine how screwed up he must be feeling at this very moment... not being able to feel anything... just emptiness... and how he must be so longing the times when he could just do simple things like wriggling his toes and moving his fingers... i really do feel for him, he must be willing to pay a million bucks to be able to go back in time and avoid the fall that he had... my god, i really sympathise with him.... God pls help him.... I feel so much for him only becos he's about the same age as me, nsf oso and he must hav such wonderful plans for his future.... our surroundings are all so similar, maybe just waiting for each phase of the army to end, to be able to ORD and enjoy life as a civilian finally.... life's fragile isnt it??? so very unpredictable and frail... -carpe diem- -seize the day-

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ahtong signing out
@ |9:59 PM|

today is not a good day... something not very good happened in the middle of the night lah... sigh, low morale and hav been thinking a lot the whole day.... will update more later when i fall out later...

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ahtong signing out
@ |12:28 PM|
Thursday, June 09, 2005

well time to update my blog....

ok first things first, the taipei trip was alright, but spent alot of $$$ and had to do a lot of admin stuff... we left heng chun at about 11 at night, together with two pple that are EOT (end of tour)... so, we arrived at CKS airport at bout 5am the following morning and waited with those guys to see them off.... after that, we went to the singapore trade office and that started off our admin 'tour'....

haha well, because we had to go to the district court as well, we had to stay over at taipei for one night.... so becos of budget, we had to book a room with 2 double size beds, then we joined them together then 5 guys just slept there for the night... army lah so its ok, at least we had a hotel to stay... but around evening we went to the 'shi ling' night market where chief clerk's friend treated us to a restaurant something like seoul gardens.... wah, me and that guy are the only ones that eat beef so he ordered a lot a lot of beef for the both of us especially!! haha cool man, it was so delicious... after that we went to shop at the night market, where i bought 2 shirts...

after we went back to the hotel it was basically knock out man... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

ok then the next morning we went to the district court and did all the rest of the admin stuff, and started making our way back to heng chun at 2 in the afternoon... the journey back to kaohsiung took like 5 1/2 hours... so we had dinner at bout 8 in the evening, and took another 2 hr plus bus ride back to heng chun... wah, by that time my butt really was literally going to give way already man.... luckily i took off the next day.... really this kinda journey is tiring and exhausting... but it was quite worth it lah, considering we get to tour a few places in taipei and managed to see taipei 101, the current tallest building in the world....

ok now to today.... just got news from my MT 2I/C that i was selected to represent HCC to run a relay at the upcoming starlight cohesion day in november.... wah!!! even though i run 5 k everyday but i think i still hav quite a way to go man, and the training schedule is so demanding oso..... dunno whether my legs and my will can tahan or not... haha but wadever it is, i will tyr my best.... infact today i ran with my warrant officer and i was quite happy with wad i ran lah, but then again i still hav to improve... oh yah the training include running upslope and normal 5 k run and static stations etc etc.... WAH!! cohesion day my a**... looks like we're gearing up for some war or something..... haha... actually im glad i got chosen... gives me more motivation for my normal routine run..... haha

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ahtong signing out
@ |7:01 PM|
Saturday, June 04, 2005

a lil change of plans, chief clerk wants us to leave for taipei tmr night... taking a 6hr bus ride through the night so we'll arrive in taipei in the morning... just in time to start all the leh che procedures....^_^

first time going to taipei.... haha quite excited actually.... alrighty, will write about how it went when i come back.... seeyaz!

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ahtong signing out
@ |9:05 PM|
Friday, June 03, 2005

argh feeling terrible....

didnt sleep well last night,

no appetite to eat lunch this afternoon so i skipped it,

a lot of thoughts rushing around in my mind...

couldnt concentrate at work oso...

argh... this feeling sux...


oh btw, i will be going to taipei monday night to make all the necessary statements n procedures for the lost passport.... prob will be back on wed night...
and a typhoon is on its way here... woohoo.... my first experience of one... cool man... :)

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ahtong signing out
@ |12:09 PM|
Thursday, June 02, 2005

hmmm will be going to taipei prob sometime next week to make police reports and stuff for the lost passports.... that will prob be the only thing good thats coming out of this whole incident... going to taipei for free.... wahaha...

ok but wad they are asking us to do now is to go back to singapore during our homeleave and make our new passports ourselves.... WAH!!! machiam its like our fault to lose our passport and hav to take our own precious homeleave time to go make a new passport!! ARGH!!

anyway, things hav been pretty alright, OCS n the commandos are here.... so its goodbye to the weekends again.... guess i'll be pretty busy at the end of this month and the beginning of next as i do my last minute shopping for my homeleave....

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ahtong signing out
@ |8:31 PM|