hello 09

it's gonna be december in a few hours' time, and i was just thinking "where has the year gone?" it's missing from my memory now. i try to think of 2008 and it seems like a big gap. i remember 2007, i remember new year's eve at esplanade, i remember going to thailand, going to every polytechnic in singapore, going to tekong, going into police.

i only remember the big events. the rest of the days are gone, melted and flowing into one big river of my life. i can't see them anymore. maybe i could if i tried very hard, but for now i'm not trying to remember any particular incident and nothing is entering my mind. where is the year?

the festive season is coming, but i suppose it's not going to be very festive to all of us poor ns men, with the thought of returning to camp surely destroying much of the fun. it's gonna be out on wednesday evening (christmas eve), in on thursday evening (christmas day), and out again on friday evening for the weekend. same for new years'.

but in the meantime, excuse me while i go search for 2008.

hissss

my new maid was 52kg when she first came here about 4 weeks ago. now she's gained an amazing 5kg to reach 57. very soon she'll be fat like the previous one.

on the other hand, the previous maid went from 60+++ to 58kg since she's been in spain. good that she can earn so much money and still have a weight loss program for free.

on tuesday (i think) we caught a snake in camp and put it in a container that was previously used to store washing powder. my friend took a sniff and said that the snake smelled like an indian shop. anyway the snake was maybe around 20-30cm long, and it was colourful as fuck.

black, green, yellow, orange, it was quite a beauty. somehow the container ended up in my room and i was considering either bringing it home or to bring a tank to camp and keep it as my permanent pet there. then as i was looking at the snake, i felt very sad for it, being trapped in a small container that smelled like an indian shop just for our selfish needs.

i thought it was quite contradictory that we were doing such an ugly act just so that we could admire its beauty. the more i looked at it, the more wrong it felt, until i couldn't take it anymore and brought the snake down and passed it to the guy who caught it.

and he brought it home on friday, so i hope it'll like its new home. at least it wouldn't smell like an indian shop.

part of the process

my father's side of the family used to speak hakka when my grandmother was still alive. i didn't understand a word of it. my mother's side of the family speak cantonese. i only understand bits and pieces of it.

all of my grandparents only speak dialect and a bit of mandarin (and english and malay for my grandfather). this means that we have quite a lot of trouble communicating, and so i am not particularly close to any of them.

i have a better relationship with my maternal grandparents than my paternal, which is in part due to both my paternal grandparents being dead, but unfortunately i seriously have never EVER had a proper conversation with any of them.

when we talk it's always the same things like how are you, have you eaten, etc. i have also never EVER taken the initiative to speak to them before, partly because i have no idea what to say and also i lack the linguistic ability to do so.

i think it's quite strange that my parents never really tried to teach myself or my siblings to speak in dialect, despite knowing that their parents speak nothing else. maybe they didn't think it was important or they thought we'd just pick it up along the way.

but as the story goes, this didn't happen so we're all handicapped in a sense. the only dialect we know is hokkien, and even so, only the words that are truly important like nahbei cheebye etc.

it has been said that dialects would disappear within a generation or two, and that it is quite sad for this to happen. i think that dialects will definitely disappear but it wouldn't be sad at all because they would be quite obsolete by then and it's just part of our evolution.

this evolution is expected to homogenise the human race into a group of brown-skinned, black-haired people who speak only one language. no one knows what that language will be, but i doubt it will be hakka or cantonese. hokkien stands a big chance though.

a field camp diary

i had my field camp from august 10 to 15, and this was what i wrote in my pocketbook, word for word.

day 1
8km route march was way more terrible than i thought it could be. nice way to start this field camp. i just tried to keep good and keep my morale up. after all it is not everyday that i get to sleep in a tiny tent on uneven hard ground with my dear buddy. sounds fun, innit? in spaces so cramped that we can't sit up, can't move around. just lie still and try to sleep.

hard to imagine it's a sunday. i spend my time thinking about what others are going at each moment. my family, friends, ex-friends.

5 more days, one good thing is days here are short, 12 hours at most. good times ahead.

day 2
today passed surprisingly quickly. there's really nothing here that really bothers me or that i am unable to accomplish. me and my buddy woke up at 12.45am last night and thought it was already morning and time to get ready. we didn't believe that it was still night and even thought that my watch was spoilt. how strange.

there's really nothing much for us to do here except wait a lot and wait more. sometimes they go crazy and start fucking us around but it's fine, just take it and go. such is the sad life of a recruit. they say we're fucked up, we say YES SIR. smile and move on.

day 3
oh we're already halfway through this. nice to know that i still don't miss home, just the comforts of home. quite sad, don't you think? i was trying to think of something that would make me feel happy but i drew a complete blank. in the end i just gave up and went back to turning my mind off in order to let the hours pass faster.

we moved to a new campsite and tonight was cold, especially after rain. i think it's much more miserable to be in the cold than heat.

anyway heat rash is here and it feels great, like many ants biting my back. it comes and goes without warning. my face is also starting to rot so it'll be interesting to see what i look like when the weekend comes.

day 4
dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig.

dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig dig.

they said we were supposed to take 45 mins but it went from 3+pm till almost 10. feels good. i didn't really feel tired until after sundown when it began to feel like shit, but i didn't have any complains or negative thoughts because there is really no alternative. either dig or dig, no need to think or feel anything.

itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch.

heat rash and digging is the perfect combination. almost everyone is inflicted with this joy, like an inevitable part of field camp. i'm worried that it'll stay even after this is over, then i would be a happy soldier for a long time to come.

day 5
at this moment, the only thing on our minds is tomorrow. end of field camp, book out, finally. some want to eat fast food, some want to drink coke, but for me, i just want to bathe and get rid of that stupid itch on my back.

training is easy because oc is not around, and the day passes quickly. most of the time we're sitting around waiting and eating at the same time. eat eat eat, there's so much food. i'm enjoying the combat rations. i think it tastes better than cookhouse food. i ate 3 packs of dessert tonight because no one else seems to like it.

one more night.

day 6
today was all about crawling and cleaning, rushing and shouting, but it's all fine because we're going home. actually i don't feel any different or special or elated. maybe just a little relieved that i don't have to live in a shitty environment any longer, or until monday's sit test at least.

so we made plans to meet for prata later that night and 10 out of 12 turned up, which is great i suppose. it's nice to be able to wash my face and be free for camo for once in a long time, but unfortunately my face has already started to rot, especially around my chin.

perhaps, perhaps this camp has taught me to love the small things in life, like bathing and clean clothes and toilet bowls.

no life

for almost 3 years i used the same phone with a shitty vga camera. i took many pictures of my life with this camera as a sort of pictorial diary. places i've been to, people who were with me, special events, inane days out, interesting objects, random snapshots, everything.

the pictures are arranged by date, and those on my phone have the exact time the photo was taken. i find this to be quite interesting when i look through them because i can see and recall that this particular moment in my history has been captured and frozen forever.

the pictures are of things that no one knows about or doesn't mean a thing to anyone else but me. for all of them, i can remember what happened during that time, regardless of how random the shot was.


this picture for example, was from the morning of 10th november 2005. i look at this and think oh yes i was in canteen 2 with my year 1 classmates in the early morning, we skipped a lecture to go chill. i remember taking this photo because my phone was still kinda like a new toy back then, and i found it to be quite fun taking pictures of random happenings.

this is how it works for all the rest of the pictures. i think it's even more fun than writing a diary.

unfortunately due to ns, i no longer use the phone anymore, because camera phones are not allowed as they are worried that their Greatest National Secrets will be leaked to the public. this is in spite of the fact that every single male in singapore has been to ns and can just as easily leak out their Greatest National Secrets if they so desire.

i find it too much trouble to switch phones every weekend so i guess my photodiary will have a 2 year long gap in it. how sad.

20

i turned 20 on wednesday and had a very wet celebration, if that could be considered one. the weeks have been blazing by in a big blur and it's already my 8th week here. it's at least another 25 more weeks before i'm out.

i realised that it's not exactly a good thing that everything feels so fast now, because this is actually my life that is zooming past. my precious youth that is disappearing by the day, and to think i was happy that the days were moving so quickly.

in a little while we'll all be staring in the face of 2009 and that'll be yet another year gone by. i know i always say this, but 2008 really feels like it was gone by in a flash, because i only feel that i've lived for 6 months and spent the rest of the year living on weekends. that's around 70 days, including holidays from july to december. so i've only been living for 6 months and 70 days, that's why the year is so short.

i'm trying to think of something i did in 2008 that can make the year seem more worthwhile, maybe something that i've missed out or something that i did but can't recall anymore, anything that can make it seem that the year wasn't so completely wasted.

but no, there's nothing. which means that i have just under 2 months to save the year or it'll be such a shame.

sex, love, shit

in the past few weeks i've read 2 books in school camp because lectures are so boring that i either spend my time sleeping or reading. i don't talk in lectures because i'm nice.

both books include a whole lot about sex and love and shit, which i find very interesting because that's what life is all about.

last night i spent $88 to watch as i lay dying and story of the year. i do not really listen to either bands (and in the case of as i lay dying, not at all), but i still went because i figured there would be nothing else more interesting on a saturday night.

and i was right, it was fun. how else would i be able to get bruises, torn socks and jeans and bloody lips all in one night? both bands were great and friendly and the crowd was crazy, so there wasn't more to ask for. just imagine how much more fun i would have had if i actually liked the bands beforehand.

oh, and my new maid is here. she came on thursday i think, but no one told me. i was wondering who the fuck was this woman when i came home on friday and saw her talking to my father.

anyway her ironing is shit and she messed up my uniform terribly, to the extend that i got pissed trying to fix her mistakes and washed the whole thing again to get rid of her lines. now i've got to go iron them again.

goodbye.

so what for?

we were out at a chinese restaurant just now. there was a family having their dinner at another table, and there was an old man in a wheelchair at the table. the family's maid was feeding him throughout the meal, and even had to wheel him to the toilet once i think.

i've always thought that it was bad enough to be old and unable to walk, but the old man couldn't even feed himself. so what's the point of staying alive? i heard on the radio today that the average singaporean's life expectancy is 81 years, but they spend the last 10 years or so in ill health.

which basically means they live for 70 years and spend 10 years waiting to die.

i've always thought that humans weren't designed to live for so long, that's why our bodies start failing once we grow old. primitive humans would be parents once they hit puberty, and then most likely die before 25 or 30, maybe get eaten up by lions or something.

anyway the reason we were at the restaurant in the first place was because my maid is leaving for spain tomorrow night, where she will be earning 700 euros per month, 3 times as much as she gets here. imagine how rich she'd be if she went to spain instead of singapore 18 years ago. she'd have earned the equivalent of 54 years' pay.

and because i have to return to camp, i doubt i'll be able to go to the airport tomorrow ( technically today). quite weird that this could be the last time we see her for the rest of our lives, and it's really quite probable that this will be the case.

maybe i'll invite her to my wedding dinner or my funeral, whichever comes first.