I met my doctor this afternoon. After a brief inspection of my body, where she confirmed that the two white pustules on my upper left tonsil were merely infections and not some vile strain of cancer, we talked. I have not seen her in some time; she only works in the mornings now, when I usually am asleep or at work.

Dr Chang has practically watched me grow up. She has seen me move through three houses, three schools, eighteen years.

Our meetings were always brief, and I was usually suffering when they occurred. I was, and still am, a rather sickly child, falling sick every three months or so, so when I meet her I’d either be sniffling away my flu, or shivering from the cold of my fever. She never said much about the sickness, except to elaborate briefly to my parents about the medical aspect of it. None of that excessive cloying concern that I get from some acquaintances at camp, just a simple “take care” and “get well soon.”

After diagnosing my illness, she’d talk to my parents about issues of the day. I remember that I’d get restless in the brown chair, the same plastic brown chair with metal legs they use in classrooms nowadays, and start asking for sweets. She always smiled at these childish requests, and offered me orange-flavoured fruit-tella that she kept in a small container. She knew I loved orange indiscriminately, whether it was on clothes, shoes, or my sweets. Once she gave me two to take home too, one lemon and the other strawberry, telling me that I should try new things and that I might like them.

On the door to her office she frames up pictures painted by her other patients. Often hand-drawn with crayon on a piece of drawing bloc, they carried messages like “I like Dr. Chang”, and “Thank You for making me well.” The boys often drew dinosaurs, while the girls were a bit more sensible, drawing her flowers or a portrait. One boy sent in a mess of red circles. Not the most aesthetic pieces, but they carried a whole lot of heart.

I don’t know why but I’m always comforted by her presence. She exudes such wisdom and knowledge, such a motherly aura that she’s almost like a grandmother to me. I talked to her today as an adult, no longer asking for orange flavoured fruit-tellas. She asked how school was, and I reminded her that I was doing my National Service now. Bemused, she remarked how quickly time flies. She asked what I was in the army and I whined. Smiling, she said her sons had mouthed the same phrases too. In that instant I felt comforted, I felt the same kind of understanding and concern that I’d felt years ago when I took her sweets home.

It seemed as though she had not aged one bit.

On a wall above the weighing scale was a clock that she must have made herself. It was a piece of cross-stitch, with the clock handles placed in the center. A flock of ducks flew around the dial, and at the top left was a short bible quote from Matthew. There were always simple paintings of scenery hung around her clinic, and once there was a great massive patchwork quilt that kept me enthralled with its interlocking patterns and motifs. They were not polished to perfection; if one looked closely one could still see spots where the paint clumped together, where a bit of red ran down just a little more than it should, where the patchwork was a bit loose; but nevertheless they were beautiful. I never saw her working on any of these pieces, but I knew they were hers. I just knew.

Here I am at home, on an MC, away from work. I’m settling on my applications for university, and reading The Glass Menagerie.

Two years. What Spartan endurance Tom must have had to work in that warehouse for as long as he did, when I, only at the ten-month mark, feel like I cannot bear it anymore. My superior (I hate that word, in what aspect are these insipid bosses superior to me?) reacted quite grumpily to my decision to report sick, and now I feel torn, torn between the knowledge that such an impression will not sit well for the next two years, and the burning desire to have no need for that impression at all.

What an exciting life an AWOL fugitive must lead. To defy the institution that has locked up robust young men at the peak of their years, and transformed them into nothing but MC haggling desperados.

I am angry that no one believes my MCs, and have to weave a web of lies, deceit, and false sympathy before they do not question its integrity. We all fall sick, how is it that the big dumb blokes get away with it? Is it because, in being bigger, they invoke more respect? More faith in their diligence? So is it such that I, skinny and not quite well-built, of an agile mind and glib tongue, am unable to be actually productive in the workshop, and hence am undeserving of my MC?

They value lumbering obedience over wit and intelligence. A tank is after all, more important than a soldier.

All I talk about now is the army, and the psychological impact this foul conscription has caused. I take myself far too seriously, which is a bad sign. I devoured The Glass Menagerie in a day – I confess that I am rather deprived of such material in camp.

All this while I sit here and create my future, plan for it, pay attention to every detail, delighting in the fantasy. It is no different from Silas Marner, counting his gold, for I too am paying attention to the hard outlines of letters, emails, and petty applications. I count them, go through them again and again, and vet my emails twice over. These little things are the light at the end of the tunnel, they sustain hope, yet all I seem to be doing is sustaining hope for the sake of sustaining hope. I try desperately to evade the truth, that I actually get to go home everyday, that I have the whole weekend to myself, that Cambridge is not the only place where I can live out my dreams.

There is time now yet. Time now to create things in the present. I need only summon the strength and focus to do so –

But I am such a lazy fellow.

I have already planned out my first lesson of my teaching career! When I walk into class, I will take up the whiteboard marker and write slowly, deliberately, in light cursive strokes the words:

"Only Human"

I can only hope the brats don't roll their eyes.

Life hasn't been particularly inspiring as of late. I think it has something to do with me spending my weekdays in a workshop fixing vehicles that the SAF dares not show to the public. No, I am not working on top secret classified military vehicles, on the contrary, I am servicing relics from World War II that would make the SAF blush with embarassment like a woman.

There is nothing new to NS life. I cannot find anything new to write about it. I have written about meeting new people, I have written about opening perspectives; but as it always is with the SAF, I find myself running around in circles.

The politics is mildly interesting, but more distasteful than anything else. I cannot believe the amount of power invested in these crooked stripes and bars, but it is enough to keep so many in servile silence. I already know the price for breaking it, but perhaps I should do so anyway. I have two years to screw up my life, after all, might as well experiment with clawing my way around.

The people are boring. Singapore needs to find ways to produce more interesting individuals. I make few friends - I don't count those that I politely smile at and engage in small talk while squatting in between the wheels of a land rover twice my age.

Nostalgia is still cheap. I don't miss anyone as I move from camp to camp - If you catch me saying I do, I'm probably paying lip service to the generations and generations of fools that have come before me.

And Love is as it always is - indescribable and wonderful.

I don't know about everyone else, but no, none of these so called life-changing moments have really stayed with me throughout my life. BMT, Orientation(s), OBS, etc. etc. I only remember them as vague stretches of time where I where I finally completed these rites of passage, rites that everyone else completes too. Its all very nice and peachy to say that this experience will stay with you through your life, but it really sounds like a load of sentimental bullcrap to me.

Really now, Pre-emptive nostalgia is such a load of crap.

I’ve just finished re-typing out an anti-establishment play written by my friend. The issues brought up are familiar issues, questioning the practices of authorities. A tad bit angsty, but it hits the mark.

To administrate successfully is to inspire efficiency and productivity. But must efficiency and productivity come at the expense of what it means to be human? To be efficient and productive simply means to produce results at an accelerated pace. To be human is to experience – fear, hope, accomplishment, disappointment, joy, sorrow. Two seemingly separate issues, yet almost every anti-establishment book/play/novel seems to point its finger at efficiency in the de-humanizing of the masses, either as a cause or a symptom.

Let’s take the opposite of what efficiency means then. To be inefficient means to waste time away, to be unproductive means to fail to show results. It is possible to draw the link between idling time and emotions – after all, they say that a busy man is a happy man, and to be human means so much more than to be just happy. But my experience in the SAF has been far from that; I have a lot of idling time, but I feel like an empty vessel until I step past that green camp gate.

I don’t think the issue is as simple as cold efficiency versus warm emotion. On the contrary, I think efficiency can inspire emotion – the sense of achievement at the swift completion of a project, the cutting disappointment when a tried-and-tested measure fails, the joy in knowing that your team works cohesively, the (imagined?) similarities and sense of understanding one feels with one’s team in assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Efficiency itself can be an experience, a swift, explosive experience that can form and break human bonds, because efficiency manifests itself best when there is a bright, burning objective that everyone works towards.

Bright, burning objective.

An objective with no compromises, no shady edges. Bright, sharp, and burning. An objective that can fill one with the fire of idealism and hope, an objective that inspires altruism and decision that cuts through all doubt like a lance.

Authorities pervert this. They strive for efficiency without a purpose.

To produce something quickly without understanding the need to bears resemblance to that of a robot. An automaton does not feel accomplishment, satisfaction, or disappointment. Rather, an automaton takes delight in the processing of work rather than the outcome – he would rather the work continue on than to actually accomplish something, simply because he cannot envision what that end-objective is.

Most importantly, automatons are easy to control.

It is not because the automaton is coldly efficient, therefore he does not feel. It is because he cannot feel, cannot feel for the end objective, cannot feel for the partners he works with, cannot feel the altruism and determination of working, that is why he is coldly efficient. Cold efficiency is a symptom, a symptom of the perversion of the ideal that we were originally working towards.

And this is what any group seeking to retain control over its members does – it creates/perverts an ideal and forces its members to work towards it. The members try their best to believe in the ideal; after all, everyone seeks to be of some use to society in order to address the pangs of conformity. But such an ideal is not bright and burning, it does not have the fire of originality or urgency. It is synthetic, artificial, like flickering fluorescent lights.

To inspire faith without miracles, to create siege mentalities without battles.

God is to the Church, what War is to the SAF.

I'm doing a heart of darkness assignment for my friend now. I've always been able to identify that Kurtz internalizes his ideals to a point where he believes he embodies them, and thus any action he takes is justified in the name of that ideal. But I've never actually thought of it, and now I realize that many have fallen to such temptations - TT Durai suddenly comes to mind. What Smriti told me about Ghandi cheating in his non-violence campaign too.

Ideals are, thus, dangerous things to play around with and subscribe to. One runs the danger of become self-righteous, of fervently defending one's actions, of being incapable of seeing the self-element in them. Everything we do has an element of selfishness. The realization of these elements is what keeps us grounded, it is what keep us humble. But when one subscribes to an ideal and pours every bit of belief into it, one starts to believe that he IS the ideal - a dangerous belief indeed. I'm sure TT Durai could justify his actions in the spirit of giving, and more importantly, that he would actually sincerely believe in these justifications. It is a trap that one does not even see, and it will come to a point when one starts committing actions that are clearly inimical to these ideals, but seem perfectly in line with them to him. Kurtz's claim to the ivory is selfish - but to him it is upholding justice.

It's late at night again. It appears that I am only able to write at unearthly hours, perhaps I could ask my future universities to organize specially-timed examinations to coincide with these hours.

The Catholic News (My Mother's, I must emphasize) encourages christians to boycott The Da Vinci Code, and now my mother has warned me rather benignly that I am Not to watch that infernal satanic movie. I will make bookings shortly.

But on a less rebellious note I wish the church had more faith in its followers. It is rather easy to observe that the conspiracy theory in the Da Vinci Code is: a) hyped-up and probably exaggerated, b) draws very shaky links from even more shaky evidence, c) would hardly affect anyone who honestly believes in christianity. Faith is suspension of thought - Thus anyone who is sufficiently indoctrinated with faith would dismiss it as all hogwash instantly. If you ask me such a test of faith is useful in sieveing out the strong believers and also to gauge if their followers do actually understand what they believe in. The church is just scared of losing face la.

Elections are very silly. I won't put my two cents worth on the gomez issue, but Sylvia Lim sums it up very nicely when she says she's amazed at the number of permutations the PAP has come up on this. Permutations - what a lovely, mechanical mathematical methodological word. It event starts with a "P" too. She should take lit, that woman.

Last note: Ideas do not feel. They do not cry, do not bleed, they do not love. Yes I know this is from V for Vendetta. But to shed blood and tears, to tear down people's lives for the sake of an idea, to sacrifice oneself and one's loved ones and future for an ideal they cannot cry over, bleed for or love... I do not understand how there are people who manage to do so - the idea must be so captivating. Such an experience must be enriching indeed.

Ok I shall stop being boring and do what I do best - Whine.

You know how they say that the SAF is Suffering Agony and Frustration? Well you don't have any of that here in OETI, seeing how the most strenuous activity is probably the march from the monologue (What on EARTH is this anyway, how did a bunch of steel pipes that look like exhaust chimneys come to be called a monologue?) to the cook house. Which serves quite good food, fortunately. But I digress.

Anyway, yes, no Suffering Agony and Frustration, only Stupidity Apathy and Frumpiness. This place can make even the most cheerful people grumpy assholes, I tell you. Firstly, it is a bleeding workshop. That means a strange assortment of grease, exhaust and petrol permeates the air. To add on to that, everything in here (and the blasted goddamn army, because they have no sense of colour coordination), is green or grey. I know camo prints are in (actually I think they're out now but I still see these Project Runway wannabes on the streets who cut up their No.4 and use it as bermudas) but surely there is no need to convert the blasted COVERALLS for to camo print for god's sake. No one is going to try and find and shoot the unarmed PES C mechanic when there are dangerous commandos and guardsmen lurking around, duh.

And because this place is commanded by Warrant Officers (Read - inflexible old penises) it is a stickler for rules. Granted, they most of them are jolly fatherly figures, but the inflexibility of the school is ridiculous. Due to the financial year (Yes, segments of the SAF actually do run out of money) we were unable to obtain coveralls and safety boots for the first month, so for the whole blasted month we had to change in and out of smart 4 just to go for lunch. Why? Oh, CO say so, vest slack cannot go cookhouse. Duh.

Side note: CO looks like a pansy. He's white, fat, and sweats alot when he runs, which I have had the rare opportunity of seeing once in my entire stay in OETI thus far.

That said though, this is probably the best one can get in the army. At least I don't have to run up the hill, down the hill, round the hill, and along any other physical dimension the hill might probably have. The place is probably collapsing anyway, judging from the state of the building, and if it does then we'll all die a young tragic death. Yep, heaven in the army is a dingy workshop with Uncle Mimi. *


*Uncle Mimi – Affectionate term used for WSM 2WO Suhaimi, who bounces ever-so-slightly when he does a sedi ya.

Being in the army has changed me, I have become less of an intellectual snob than I once was.

I once thought that the mark of intelligence was sophisticated expression of complex ideas. It was once the reason why I dreaded conscription so much; the thought of having to live with people of differing minds seemed like such a lonely fate. I was afraid that no one would think of the same ideas I thought, no one would express them to me in a way I would understand, or worst of all, that everyone would just be just terribly shallow.

True enough, this was the case when I first entered BMT. I remember lamenting how every sentence was peppered with "fuck" and "cheebye" from both the superiors and my bunkmates. Worst of all, the only conversation topic that seemed to be popular was about girls, the only humour was about breasts dicks and other genitalia (that's reproductive organs, by the way). It cemented my impression of the ugly, stupid and horny army boy, and I often retreated to the smoking point in those days so that I could mope.

After all, there is some sort of nobility to be found in solitude, the dissociation of oneself from the masses.

And yet now I find that these people have true gems of wisdom to offer. True, they may not be well versed in the art of eloquence, and they may struggle sometimes in finding a sophisticated way to express. But sometimes their statements radiate with so much truth that even bad grammar, foul hokkien and broken sentences cannot smother them. More importantly, these people have found ways to express complex ideas using the crudest analogies and metaphors, methods which some would find distasteful or low-class, but I find intriguingly clever.

Intelligence comes in two parts. First, it is the ability to conceptualize and explore complex ideas. To take a concept, twist it around in one's mind, and build a three dimensional blueprint of the hows, whys and what ifs of these ideas. Secondly, intelligence is the ability to communicate these ideas to another, through the means that is most effective and most precisely describes the idea.

The ability to conceptualize and explore an idea is not easy. Take for example the statement "God exists". From a person's reaction to this statement we will see a spectrum of intelligences exhibited. From the unintelligent person we would see a simple acceptance without any questioning: The statement "God exists" enters his brain and stays there without forming any connections whatsoever with the rest of his life and experience. This person belongs on the Stupid side of the spectrum.

As we go up the spectrum we find more complex thought; the person may accept the statement, and then relate how his life experiences and other pieces of information connect to this idea of God existing. For example, he may think about how his life has been relatively smooth sailing, and that he has had many lucky breaks. Since God exists (this statement is taken to be true here), and God by its definition is a benevolent thing, his lucky breaks are evidence of God's existence. Or he may question the statement, citing examples of terrible disasters where god seems to have failed to intervene. Further up the spectrum of intelligence we will find individuals questioning the implications of these connections; If God exists, but disasters still happen, does this imply that God is not benevolent? Or that he is powerless? Or simply apathetic? Does God exist merely for some but not for others then?

To cut a long story short, intelligence is a mapping out of different pieces of information, forming strong connections between them by questioning every facet of the idea. The more of these connections that are formed, the more intelligent a person is. By itself, however, this facet of intelligence is useless, just as the artwork that no one understands is meaningless. The proof, and validation, of this intelligence lies in the ability of one to express it.

By the expression of a concept I mean using words, sounds or any other form of communication to allow another person to form these precise concepts. The words "God exists" therefore communicates the base idea, the words in the bible communicates the connections from this base idea. Yet sometimes one form of communication does not work: it is why the church employs pastors or preachers, people to select the most appropriate words to communicate in the most effective way the concept of god to the people in the church.

The Bible is an ingenious piece of literature, because it is so persuasive and yet its language seems to be deceptively simple. Using simple metaphors, simple parables, it communicates extremely complex ideas in a matter of words. For example, the concept of "Suffering" is examplified beautifully in the short story of Job, and communicates at once the nature of Suffering and God in a short, effective way.

Sometimes the most effective way constitutes of long, relatable stories. Sometimes they constitute using the least, but most relevant words possible. Prose, and poetry. Grandmother Stories, and Chinese Proverbs.

It is thus erronous to condemn a person who uses crude language as stupid and shallow. Just as it is erronous to commend a bookworm for being intelligent. The army has given me the opportunity of meeting counterexamples for both these erronous conclusions.

The old warrant officer who tells you grandmother stories is no less intelligent than the quiet bookworm who can only superficially scratch at the idea. The WO's story may be long, it may be full of grammatical errors, it may have foul language inserted at certain points. But at the end of the day the story is compelling - you realize that it is an effective example of the concept he is trying to illustrate, and it forms the connection between the idea and other ideas. Of course this is arguable if you're picky about bad grammar, but presumably the story is one that is sufficiently relatable to. Furthermore, the story alone covers most of the questions you would want to ask about the topic.

Take the flipside then, the bookworm. He will quote to you direct passages from the book about the topic he has read, but question him and he will falter. He may quote to you another passage, or worse, he will not understand what you are asking. Worse, he may try to use mathematical formulae, or sophisticated language, to cover up his inadequacy.

Intelligence, as I have said earlier, constitues of the conceptualization of an idea and the expression. The WO succeeds in both, as examplified by his story - not only is it a neat, accessible way of relating the idea, but it also covers all the connections that should be formed from that idea. The bookworm, however, fails to understand the concept in his inability to answer your question, and fails to express it in his mindless regurgitation of passages/formulae. The use of bombastic words and formulae, hence, is Not an indicator of intelligence.

Arguably, it may be true that sophisticated language is the most effective, precise and accessible way of expressing an idea. Yet a truly intelligent person will understand the need to communicate ideas, and hence to use other forms of expression at times when eloquence fails. The Stupid do no such thing.

The Stupid are not those who use "cheebye". Rather, the Stupid are the superficial - those who throw big concepts around without giving sufficient thought. They are the people who will swallow the Seven Core Values of the SAF whole, and they are also the people who will say Army Sucks. They are the ones who will tell you ScHoOL SucKs!, and at the same time say they feel a Deep Indescribable Nostalgia That Runs Through Every Corpuscle Of Their Veins Everytime They Walk Down The Memory Lane of School. Because these people are simply chanting these mantras because they are fashionable, and not because they truly understand any of it. They are moulded by the strongest ideas of the moment. And hence the Stupid are those with no personalities, no views, no opinions to defend - because the world tears each of these things down easily due to their inability to justify them.


Side note:
Coming to the realization that I don't need any more friends is liberating indeed. I love all that I have now, and I cannot afford any more.

I must confess that I have nothing to say anymore la.

I am happy now. =)

It is 1:50 AM now. I could sleep, and I should, considering that I have what nonsense reflection trail later at 0815, but I am not in the mood.

Life is too short to be wasted away sleeping now. Tekong may finally be over, but the SAF will never stop taking my time from me, time that has now become precious and scarce. The Army will win you over not through NE, not through the numerous talks that your officers will give you, but simply by taking your time. By forcing you to make the best out of your time in camp, you are forced to invest in a life as a soldier ; by taking away time outside camp, they wash away your life as a civilian.

Rush to wait, wait to rush.

When I book out these days I feel like driftwood when I walk down Orchard. The people seem strange and foreign to me, I walk into people and bump into them, and then I just bumble along without a polite sorry. Sometimes I forget to stop at traffic lights, and someone has to pull me back. I no longer walk with the sense of direction and purpose I once had, and by that I mean that I no longer know exactly where I want to go, what I want to do there, and who I'm going to meet. Somehow I just feel that I've lost touch with so many things, with fashion, with music and books, and most importantly, with people.

Each book out lasts approximately 28 hours, give or take 3 hours.

Social interaction with people often involves an activity. The most common of these is, of course, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Cancel breakfast due to the paying back of sleep debt, and we are left with two - dinner on saturday, lunch on sunday. These two windows are, to put it simply, insufficient. It is insufficient to meet all my friends, spend time with my family, and settle my own administrative matters. And so the solution is to cast away people - the judging process occurs, I decide which friends are be cut loose, and then proceeds to allocate priorities to those left. Right now I am able to comfortably allocate time for everyone (I hate the phrase - it is as those these people are nothing more than units that I must allocate resources to, when they are worth so much more than that), but I resent that I had to give up so many just to retain these few. I am left with less people in my life.

Admin time is 2130 to 2230

Administrative time is given every night so that the soldier can attend to his daily matters. These daily matters include the washing of clothes, bathing, sleeping, and other necessary day to day activities. It is said that a busy man is a happy man - only because he is too busy to think. Morale is high during route marches because the songs take your mind away from the fatigue. I am not depressed in camp - but that is only because I have not realized how miserable life as a soldier is, and what a shallow, unintelligent human being I have now become.

But I digress - my point is that I have too little time now, too little time for friends, for love, and for self.

Hee hello I'm back!

And very amused after hearing about chongs' escapades in new town secondary.

Anyhow, results in 1 hour. I am currently bald and coughing bloody hell up, because the disease from tekong never quite leaves you. Also, I am overwhelmed by the amount of news I missed during camp: Booking in only to find that Phillipines AND Thailand are in political booboos, Taiwan is being cheeky with China, bird flu is back, budget has strange not-so-inexplicable deficit and what not is a mental overload for me. Which is not good, considering i have a 38.6 degree fever.

Or so the thermometer says. I suspect that my body can't regulate its own temperature, hence in the sun my temperature just rises and my brain cells get fried but I don't notice at all. Until I realize that I can't quite process the simple movment of Holmar Senja Ta, (however you spell that) unless the clouds come and give shade.

Alternatively, it might just be the smoking that's causing my short term memory losses. Smoking Reds, Menthol Lights, and the occasional Sampoerna for the past 7 weeks has probably filled my lungs with black gooey tar that has somehow found its way into my brain and blotted out my memory cells.

Must do BMT reflections now. Oh whoopee.

I am very irritated.

I know its silly to be awake at 5AM. Added to the fact that I'm crashing orientation tomorrow, I really should be getting to sleep. But I am very annoyed with some people, to the point that whenever I close my eyes imaginary arguments run through my mind, and I find myself searching for truths that will hurt these people the most.

Betrayal is betrayal, wherever you find it. By betrayal I mean pretending to be on my side and then doing the opposite. I cannot believe that I wanted to trust these people - the utter stupidity of it all is more insulting than any other damage my reputation could suffer. I am hurt not so much by the divulgence of this, but rather the people who divulged it - people who not too long ago persuaded me that they could be trusted, that they were my friends, and that they would never do anything to jeopardize what I have now.

I have nothing else to say. I just hope I will not have to wade through a pack of lies tomorrow before I can assess the extent of damage and find out just exactly who is liable.

Goodnight.