"the drunk kids, the catholics they’re all about the same they’re waiting for something hoping to be saved" drunk kid catholic - bright eyes
this song just about sums up the year. last year was spent getting drunk, and this year was spent praying. quite funny but i've probably prayed to every god i've known or heard of. the christian god, jesus, buddha, goddess of mercy, some random hindu gods, allah, etc.
i was trying my luck to see which one of them were kind enough to answer my prayers. and erm seriously though, the buddhist one worked. either that or it was just a fucking uncanny concidence. next year i'll try zeus and apollo etc etc.
the similarity between 07 and 08 is that i was hoping that someone or something would save me. so yes, this song fits very well.
and now a summary of the year, with the first paragraphs of the first posts of each month.
jan the only thing more fun than watching banglas mosh and do hardcore dancing is to mosh with the banglas. that's what we did, and that's how i spent the first hour of 2008.
feb my strange mother is considering allowing my sister to bring back another kitten. then there'll be 2 cats at home and she'll definitely go mad within a month. self-inflicted misery, i say.
mar i was reading football365 forums about the 'oldest trick in the book.'
apr "bah, now everyone is like 'whooo my new school is great blah blah.' i think it's a whole bunch of shit. how come they didn't say school was great back when they were in secondary school? not many realise that it's just fucking orientation they're going through. if i were to go to 'school' and play games with hot chicks everyday then obviously school's great. when the lessons start then they'll start to cry."
may well what better way to celebrate may day than by listening to (and watching) mayday parade?
jun now that i'm almost consigned to my fate of going to army and enjoying/suffering for the next 2 years or so, life has yet again decided to throw me another SURPRISE. a funny leg injury means that i can't run and jump and kick, and i don't know how long before i can.
jul remember one year ago? how about two years ago? i was looking at the time on my laptop just now and i realised that it's july already. i laughed a little to myself as i recalled what i wrote last july and i went to look at it for a bit.
aug last sunday night in my holiday resort i awoke at around 12am after about half an hour of sleep because i was sweating. i opened my mosquito net and tried to go back to sleep.
sep remember this? i'm struggling with my standing broad jump now, even struggling very terribly to get 234cm (minimum gold standard) when i used to be able to jump 260 for fun.
oct the ns guy who died recently was my cousin's platoonmate. the way he died was so strange that it made me slightly worried about those around me. normally people die when they over-exert themselves, like while running and having sex, activities that will raise their heart rate for extended periods.
nov 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.
dec of all the albums i've heard, the following 3 are the best. most albums have a few great songs, a few nice songs, and the rest are filler, second rate music, or the songs just sound out of place for some reason or another. these albums though, are great and consistent from beginning to end. at least they are to me.
"ten seconds left until midnight nine chances to drown ourselves in black hair dye eight faces turned away from the shock seven windows and six of them were locked five stories falling forever and ever three cheers to the mirror now there are two of us can we have one last dance?" jet black new year - thursday
this is THE song to listen to every new year's eve.
5. afternoon warm showers for some strange reason, the afternoon sun causes the water supply in camp to become warm, as though the water's stored in a tank on the roof or something.
anyway it's the only time we have warm water in camp, so i always try to make full use of it and have a nice long shower after lunch. ah the small pleasures in life.
4. stroking my cat his fur seems to be getting very very soft and smooth, and now that he's not as crazy as before, it is definitely easier and more fun stroking him.
sometimes i rub the spots where he doesn't like to be touched, like his hind legs and feet, just for the fun of it and then he'll bite me. fucker.
3. escaping from camp everyone unfortunate enough to be in ns will definitely know this feeling. and this feeling is great. we always always get a sudden surge of energy upon book-out, even if we were all half-dead just a while ago.
i think it's the joy of feeling alive again.
2. friday night club for the past few months the 4 of us would meet up every friday night and start asking each other "what's next?" never having any concrete plans despite having a whole week to think about it.
but this "what's next?" has brought about quite a bit of fun in our random wanderings, trying to accomplish something to help save our fridays.
unfortunately we're down to 3 members now so it's time to start recruiting nananananananaNOW.
1. 2009 i've always been known to resist the new year. "fuck the new year!" i thought. i just didn't like the thought of having the years pass me by so very quickly.
this year i'm not going to fight. i shall welcome the year with open arms. 2009 will be a good one. after all, i don't think it can get any worse than this year.
yesterday i was looking through my father's old photo albums again. he looked quite a bit like me when he was young. i wonder if i'm going to look like him when i'm old? i could definitely do without the belly though.
there were pictures of him and my mother on holiday on a beach somewhere. they were in their early 20s, still youthful and with a life ahead of them. i look at them and think, if they knew how life is going to be like in the future, would they be content? or were their dreams so much more than what they have now?
ordinary life, ordinary children, and sad to say, almost no romance left in their relationship. i wonder if there is still love or has that fire been extinguished too? my mother was quite a pretty girl back then and i think would have no difficulty in finding someone, but there was something she saw in my father i guess. something special about that very normal guy which caught her eye.
she used to tell me that my father was such a boring person even back then. they met during a dance lesson i think, she was with her girl friend and my father was with his friend who happened to know that girl.
their courtship lasted 7 years, from when she was 21 till 28. i don't know how many boyfriends she had before, or maybe even during that time (HAHA). she said he would just go over to her place almost every night and have dinner with her family, and then watch tv till it was time to go home.
she said, and i don't know if it was in jest, that she couldn't just not marry him after 7 years. my mother is a funny woman.
i think i should ask her more and delve deeper into the causes and reasons behind my being. after all, if something went wrong during that 7 years, i would most definitely not be around today. and maybe in the process gain some valuable knowledge on just how this strange thing called marriage works.
i shall show you a photo of my father someday. see if i really look like him.
ok now that i finally managed to get myself semi-drunk, all's well. almost.
this is my evaluation of the year, in my semi-drunk state.
what have i done? i have gone to NS, to serve the nation, to waste, WASTE almost 2 years of my time. i'm serving the nation. i should be proud, right? anyway i got into police, which is like the best thing that happened to me this year, because i know that i'm going to be free soon, much better than almost every other person.
what have i achieved? i graduated from poly, which is almost a non-issue because i didn't do enough to get into any further education. and seriously i feel like a fucking failure because i have no idea what's the next step in my life is going to be. good to know that i still have over a year to figure this out. that's like the one good thing about NS.
highlights of the year? i think the only fun thing i've gained this year is our Friday Night Club. yes thanks to whoever who has been in or been part of the club. your companionship is greatly appreciated.
now it's time to sleep. reporting to camp in the morning.
and so the heavens finally opened up yesterday and it rained and rained, probably to make up for all the time lost. good thing it did and gave christmas a little more christmassy feel. better late than never, they always say.
and i've also come to the realisation that the things that used to be fun have now lost their appeal. i think i'm getting old.
"you'll be doing all right, with your christmas of white but i'll have a blue, blue christmas" blue christmas - bright eyes
2 days to christmas and i still don't feel any festive joy at all. this is terrible. if not for the holiday i wouldn't even care. when i'm out in the city and see all the decorations up, i think why are they there? it doesn't even feel like christmas this year.
i think it's got something to do with the weather. it's bloody december now and everyday the sun is blazing down. the earth is messed up because of us and this is its revenge.
merry christmas, hope we all live to see a few more.
(no, it's not just because of the weather. it's because i'm stuck in here too much but you already knew that.)
it feels so nice to be able to sit here by the river early on a weekday, doing nothing in particular and watching people go about their lives. it feels different out here in the real world. i like the unpredictability of life outside, like any time something big or interesting may happen that can change my life.
in camp everything is so staid and stagnant because i KNOW that nothing is going to happen. i know that how i was when i woke up is how i will be when i go to bed. i look at the office workers having a smoke break, the tourists talking about the fat bird sculpture, the random people going on with their lives.
i realise that all of them are trapped just like i am. trapped by their circumstances, by their work, trapped by life. it's normal, i try to assure myself.
i've never been good at saying goodbyes before, but i have come to realise over my past experiences that sometimes goodbyes can be forever.
most of the time we think "yea, i'll see you again soon," and just go on like nothing's happened. then when we find out that fuck, we're probably never gonna meet again, it would be too late to do anything.
it is in times like these that i wished i had done better, bade a better farewell because those were my last words and last words need to last forever.
"A nude model resembling the Virgin Mary on the cover of the Mexican edition of Playboy magazine, published only days before a major Mexican festival dedicated to the mother of Jesus, prompted the company's U.S. headquarters on Friday to apologize.The magazine, which hit newsstands on December 1 as ceremonies began leading to Friday's pilgrimage to the Mexico City shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, showed a model wearing nothing but a white cloth over her head and breasts.She is standing in front of a stained glass window with the cover line, "We Love You, Maria" in Spanish. The model's name is Maria Florencia Onori." - from yahoo
i was thinking if this same thing happened to muslims, playboy's headquarters should be expecting to be bombed anytime now. luckily now they only need to issue an apology and everything should be fine.
so anyway a while ago i went out for a walk in the lovely cold post-rain weather and bought a slurpee to freeze my insides. while walking i saw a young man in office-wear with a pet mynah perched on his shoulder. oh, and the snake we caught looks something like this.
it's a paradise tree snake, according to my friend the snake-catcher. paradise tree snakes are also known as the paradise flying snake because it has wings and can fly.
saturday night i went to the cineleisure groundfloor toilet to take a piss. as i stepped into the toilet, i noticed that it stinks of shit so i decided to go to the urinals behind, thinking that it would be further away from the smell. then as i walked towards the back, i realised that the shit smell was getting stronger and stronger.
i thought to just fuck it and continue with my pee, so i went to the 2nd last urinal and started peeing. the smell was really getting to me by this time, and some other guys were complaining about it too. it smelt salty and almost as though the shit was already decomposing. i'm sure that if i stuck out my tongue i could have tasted it.
at first i thought it was someone taking an extremely large shit, then i realised that it's probably something worse. so as i peed, i looked around behind me, and fuck! FUCK! to my left in the last cubicle, there was a fucking shit-explosion.
EXPLOSION! i swear it was an explosion. the entire toilet bowl was covered with diarrhea, both inside and outside. the WALLS above and beside were covered too. the floor wasn't spared too. it was as though someone stood at the cubicle door and his ass exploded backwards to the toilet bowl.
i have no idea how his asshole managed to generate so much force, but it did. i just hope the poor guy didn't shit on himself too. so i stood there, still peeing, looking at the carnage behind me. seriously it was such a sight that i considered calling some strangers over to take a look, just so that such a nice thing wouldn't go to waste.
but in the end i didn't, and i went out and told my cousin what i saw just as he was about to eat his dinner. i think it may have affected his appetite slightly. i tried to convince him to check it out but he wasn't brave enough.
AND IN OTHER NEWS, my braces are finally definitely coming off this tuesday, so if you haven't seen them then too bad. or maybe you could arrange an appointment tomorrow (sunday) for your final chance.
last week was only a 4-day week, but it felt like the fucking longest and most painful week of my whole ns life. i think it was even worse than the 15 days of confinement i had when i first enlisted.
and it wasn't even as though we had a lot to do. it could be considered quite relaxing even by our standards, yet i already felt like dying on the 2nd day. i just couldn't wait to book out and it was the only thing on my mind all day long.
so because i was thinking about friday all the time, the seconds started to stretch into hours and the hours into days. i got so damn bored during drill lesson one day that the instructor asked if i was alright because my face didn't look well.
now i'm quite worried that every week from now on will be like the last, and then i'll most confidently say that i will be dead before long.
in past years whenever they put up the christmas tree in my living room, i'll feel funny for a few days when i look at it because i'm not used to seeing it there. like there's something wrong with the living room, because i'm too used to the 'normal' view of it, and the sudden addition of the tree makes things seem out of place.
last week the tree was up again, and it took me a while to realise this, but i didn't feel anything. i just saw "oh, tree," and continued with my business. it's because i'm away from home so often that i don't even feel it when something's out of place.
i don't know if you really understand what i'm trying to say. maybe everyone feels something like this at one point or another, but it's my first time and i feel so out of place too.
anyway after 3 long nights of fun, it's time to go back to the shit that's awaiting. i think it's another 23 weeks left, but now it doesn't feel that long anymore. i can smell the end coming.
of all the albums i've heard, the following 3 are the best. most albums have a few great songs, a few nice songs, and the rest are filler, second rate music, or the songs just sound out of place for some reason or another. these albums though, are great and consistent from beginning to end. at least they are to me.
3. the city sleeps in flames - scary kids scaring kids the keyboards are very prominent in their songs and i think that's what made them so special. too bad in their latest album they decided to become more normal and blend their keyboards into the background. such a waste of talent.
2. nightmare of you - nightmare of you go listen to them and you'll see why. their entire album is just excellent, every single thing in it is great and not a damn waste of space and time. there's really not one boring bit in it.
1. a vacant affair - a vacant affair it's only an EP but oh my, it has everything that makes an album great: fast songs slow songs fast songs that turn into slow songs slow songs that turn into fast songs screaming sad lyrics angry lyrics wonderful guitar parts (3 guitarists!)
i didn't like it at first, but now i've grown wiser. sadly one guitarist left the band so now there's only 2 left, and it always sounds like that special something is missing when i see them play. they're releasing their full-length album soon and i really hope that it'll be as good for my own aural pleasure.
