Saturday, December 30, 2006

After a long long wait, Cornell finally tells me that "they will postpone a final decision on your application". AHHHH. What a heartache. I will only know in mid-April the FINAL FINAL FINAL decision.

The effort, is it worth it? Sometimes, it can get quite tiring, to be honest. All this scholarship and university application. Am I to APPLY for another UNI ALL OVER AGAIN!??! Scrambling to boil teeming personalities in a small pot, hoping that it all condenses into what is the essence of one's character.

Now, how would you introduce yourself? If you'd skipped a beat, thought for a while, or stuttered, then maybe you still don't know who you really are. Or what it is about you that makes you you. That's why I think, what am I going to write in my essay, what is it that this piece of writing is going to show? O, I skip a beat, think and stutter and WORSE, I still can't quite figure it out.

Have been hanging around, waiting at tables and cooking a storm in an Ang Mo Kio coffee shop this week. I kind of like this humble life, the feeling of never being very consequential, the feeling of freedom to mingle with all walks of life. The Auntie with the backache problem, the Uncle with decades-old Army stories to tell,
the cynicism surrounding life and the impending end, the latest gossip about the most recent folktalk. But there's also the diva cook, the drugs in the toilet (real!) , the drunkards who makes out at the back alley, the all-too-demanding customer. There's lots of excitement in the mundane, and the story of the coffee shop tycoon that started his franchise is especially inspiring.

But I also kind of miss the high life. The feeling of being kind of consequential. Like the actor's self-importance, the officer's shouldered responsiblity, the emcee's stronghold in an event dominated by an audience. It's kind of like a whale's life, you can stay beneath the water, but sometimes, you wish you could flaunt that plump body to the world, or take in a breath of fresh air, to use your lungs instead of your gills if there ever is such a thing.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

It scares me, this thing about abundance.

Every festive season, we just can't seem to get enough of the resplendent lights along Orchard. It kind of gets blinding after a stroll down the busy street, dazzling, but still dizzying. And if my memory served me right, the government had recently plumped a plan to rejuvenate the night lives of duller crannies of Singapore. Yes, that's right.

But somewhere else, say flood-hit JB, mud-awash Indonesia or energy-deprived Laos, people just WISH for more lights, or maybe just for some light.

Every now and then, we ask the cookhouse auntie for more fish, or for another slab of mutton, and she kindly accedes to our request. The next moment, I see the same auntie pushing a trolley filled with buffet trays of food, still tantalising and piping hot, and conducting the daily ritual of throwing excess food into the bin. Not to forget combat ration which seems to have increasingly diminished opportunity cost, or the heap of night snack left untouched due to a nights off or something.

Let's take this opportunity to feel for one minute how FORTUNATE we are. I must.

Having been an officer for what? 2 weeks?, and I've had so many encounters of abundance. There was a session where we all were forced to drink far beyond our brink of sobreness, in what they call "MESS INITIATION" to welcome us into the 5 SIR family. Perhaps, wastedness takes on a double meaning here. Then 2 days later, we had this officer-only Christmas celebration, where we, guess what, drink merrily and eat happily again! I also remember the huge Battalion year-end celebrations, the OCS Commissioning Ball, the post-parade dinner, ACPC... All very lavish.

There's nothing wrong with an abundance of happiness. Who doesn't want more than less!!! But it's getting to a point where I think, from (perhaps a cynical) viewpoint of an economist, that we are trading it with an abundance of sadness somewhere else in the world. We are going to build big hotels and increase tourist spending, but are Malaysia and Indonesia, already poorer than us, going to suffer? We are trading stylish red Motorazor phones for a conscience that justifies our spending - we manage to squeeze onto the glamorous social rostrum, yet at the same time, we can aid in alleviating the AIDS epidemic, but are we more concerned with the glam or the glum - of the helpless caught in poverty.

As I sit in the computer room, taking a break from duty, I BEMOAN this state of society... but still, I am enjoying the aircon and the TV still blares, still I'm munching a cookie, still life goes on. How wasted.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

5 SIR is like an old primary school. The walls are beige, the canteen is full of soldiers queueing up, the atrium is a sort of common area reminiscent of where kids play their five stones or hopscotch. S1 to S4 offices are located on one level, just like the staff room level. There's the rusty gym, the dreaded dentist, water coolers positioned strategically all around. There's COMMANDING OFFICER (CO) sir, the principal of the school, mingling with the restless youngsters, smiling sternly.

I can't quite get enough of the many bizarre stories of Unit life. Just last week, someone fell off a double deck bed and was sent to hospital. We hear of how new young second lieutenants (YSL as we are called) are always pinpointed to do DUTY OFFICER duties because we are young and quite innocent. We hear the Sword of Honour sometime ago was stripped of his Platoon Commander appointment because he simply couldn't click with his men.

That's quite enough.

This Monday I get to see my men. The people whom I'm gonna spend 2007 with. It's going to be exciting! I know it's going to be a challenge, it sends adrenaline down to my ass, really really, but I'm going to rock it seriously. I guess it's mainly communication:

1)People who can't speak Mandarin or English (There's even a Japanese who doesn't speak Mandarin, English or Japanese, so I wonder what I can speak with him in)

2)People who have tattoos all over (I was quite surprised to realise that most tattoo worshippers aren't exactly the stereotypical MUDs or BENGs. Some speak so gently and timidly. At least 40 percent of us at 5 SIR have tattoos. Amazing huh)

3)Married men (Just wondering how I'm going to advise on marital issues...)

4)Chao Keng warriors (It's going to be rampant, this one, challenge, challenge)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Really, I have commissioned.

It's funny how we all die for this day to come, and when it finally does, we want to wind back the hands of time. I wish that toss of a cap froze in time, that all glory that we celebrated could be preserved in whatever preservative is deemed suitable. Of course, that's wishful thinking.

"Sir, sir, sir," someone calls for me. An awkward sense of pride intermingled with an uninvited sense of heaviness. It's such a defining moment, this thing called commissioning, but with great powers do come great responsbilities. The Officer's Creed goes, "I ANSWER FOR THEIR TRAINING, MORALE AND DISCIPLINE" No, I won't dodge this responsibility, but it seems all too fast, this process of growing up, of necessary transitions and forced inductions.

This morning, I walked into 5 SIR, Bukit Panjang Camp for the first time. How should I describe it?

I hope it's all part of the apprehension syndrome all young second lieutenants face, after we are displaced from the idyllic and ideal world of OCS and thrust into real, new multitudes. Life hasn't presented many surprises of late, maybe this is a fresh new change waiting to pounce on us.

It can get quite frustrating to be getting an ambivalent feeling towards a change. Hope that somewhere down the road, this feeling lands on one side of the fence.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Two weeks into JOINT TERM (to the uninitiated, JOINT TERM pulls back the reins that hold on to people from different arms and reunites us in an over-crowded congregation in SAFTI MI), and it has been a hectic period. Parade rehearsals are revving up our engines but far from raring to go, we're all so washed out with fatigue that we just want to go back to bunk, chill in ice and bathe in milk. The sun doesn't help, the monsoonal toll on the weather rendering it erratic and ironically predictable (baking heat in the morning and showers in the afternoon).

I just got my sword yesterday and the phrase "vested with powers" suddenly takes on a new meaning. The certificate says "you are declared an officer". I'm now responsible for lives! I'm going to do so many things that will reach out to people. I think that's the most exciting part about officership - to be able to touch the lives and hearts of others.

OCS has actually changed me, to be honest. I'm very very very glad. I notice people around me who lament the unfairness of life, the hypocritical politics, the fabled delusion that the Army gives. I think I used to be like that, thinking that someone out there owes me something. But I guess there's really no point in complaining, because ultimately we all have the power to control our lives and steer them the way we want them to turn out. Block out the noise, keep working, and as OCS proved to me to my amazement, things will turn out for the better.

Though I missed out on the Sword of Honour and landed myself with a silver bayonet instead (armskote has hundreds of them haha), I am thoroughly grateful. Of course, being the underdog is always a good feeling because when you outperform, you make yourself happy and there's a general sense of a desire to improve. There's less stress too.

One week to commissioning and I just can't bloody wait. :)

Tags

Archives