Monday, July 02, 2007 -

Well Folks….its been quite some time since my last post and lots of big-ass changes are coming my way so its Update time!!! General feedback seems to indicate that my last post was my shortest post since…EVER…hahhaha…..well Please allow me to correct that oversight with this post…..hahaha….

Like I said the wind of change is blowing right now……my new batch of juniors have graduated from their course and completed their two weeks On The Job(OJT) training at my RP headquarters side……and actually My OC promised Pass office that the new batch of personnel picked to go pass office would come to Pass office for their OJT straight after graduation and did not have to go through the two weeks OJT at the HQ side first…….but once again my OC went back on his word and said that their performance was so poor that he wanted them to stay for one week before coming to Pass office for their two weeks OJT……but WAIT……that Mole-ridden ass changed his mind again and said that he wanted them to finish the two weeks there before coming to pass office for another two weeks….(1 ENTIRE MONTH!!!)….well my OC not keeping his word..….. WOW…Ain’t that a surprise ?! hahaha…

So anyway because of the delay…..All my RP friends can start clearing their leave on 26Th June because the newbies have finished training at their side….but I can only clear my leave and off days on mid of July instead of 1st July as originally worked out by my superiors…..and my school starts on 2nd July…….which means….instead of attending classes peacefully….for the first two weeks of school(where I have classes 6 days a week) I would have to attend classes in the morning and then rush to camp for duty and go home late at night and go for class in the morning and report to work after that…so on so forth…..for two weeks…..hahah…But whatever……The end is nigh…..

When Bad shit happens to me in camp……I’m not surprised….I’m really not….I’ve learnt that Whatever that can Possibly go wrong WILL most probably go wrong in my camp….I’m not being cynical but when bad shit happens to me….I always kinda expect it to….and I’m really genuinely surprised if things go according to plan for me as far as my NS is concerned……Case in point:

Less then a month or so ago, just as I paid all my School fees and accepted my place in SIM….3 days before the day that my school fees would be non-refundable in the event of pulling out of course…My CO announced that a new SAF directive is being passed that states we would not longer be able to clear our leave and off days in order to study……..which means we can clear our off and leave as planned….and sit on our asses and watch tv and shake our legs all day long BUT we can’t do anything productive like work or study and if we study during this period we would be hunted down, charged and sent to the detention barracks and would thus no longer be eligible for any University at all upon finishing our term in military prison……

A Mad scramble ensued of course….those who already confirmed their places were stuck…….BUT those who attended NUS,NTU,SMU have the option of Disrupting the last few mths of their National service and go for their studies? Those in SIM like me……well they said that SIM was not recognized as a local university and we don’t even have the option of disrupting or national service even if we wanted to…………so I had the best of both worlds…..I couldn’t clear my off days and leave for the purpose of studying and I couldn’t even disrupt my NS to study like those in the other Unis can……..and I already paid up and was days away from having all my fees forfeited……I had 3 days to pull some kind of plan outta my ass to get my money back since my Co broke their news so late………My mum said that I lead a Cursed NS life when I told her the news…….I’ll be hard pressed to disagree….hahaha.

So within that 3 days……I ran all over the place….I approached SIM about switching to the January BMGT course in case my CO wouldn’t back down from his stand and allow me to continue to study in July…..I had to call the department heads, draft an e-mail pleading my case and give them a solid reason for pulling out of course and transferring to another…..I told her I will try to work it out and give her a final answer soon and she said that by Wednesday I HAD to e-mail her an official letter seeking full refund of fees, the reason and the course I wanted to transfer to and it has to reach her by 7.30 pm on Wednesday otherwise my fees would be forfeit under their rules….

I also went to my S1 (in charge of manpower issues and leave)day after day to ask her plead my case to the SAF manpower branch, talk to my CO about the matter because I was very near the deadline …..my S1 promised that I would get an answer ON the final day where I could still get my money back which was wednesday…..since I had work on wed itself….I drafted a letter on Tuesday night before I booked in to tell the Lady in charge of the Marketing course that It was really with great regret that I have to pull out due to circumstances beyond my control and would like to seek a full refund and thanked them for their kind understanding on the matter and patience……and told my dad that since I was in camp and could not send the e-mail myself, I will tell him whether my S1 convinced my CO to allow me to go ahead and study and if he did not……I needed my dad to help me e-mail my letter using my e-mail acc to SIM immediately so that it would reach them during office hours……

On that day I had to ask my S1 to set up a meeting with my big boss about this matter because I was literally going to lose $6000 if I didn’t get an immediate answer……..so she told me my CO was on a holiday now (Of all times!!) and that she would schedule a meeting with my S3 who was a Major and second in command and a MUCH nicer guy…..I went to see him and told him about what is going on and apparently my incessant bugging of my S1 had resulted in her pleading my case to my CO and she actually convinced my CO to allow me to go for my studies……and he passed down that instruction to my S3……..so my S3 told me that my CO is not os Cold-blooded as to see me forfeit my fees since I didn’t have the option of disrupting my NS……and that they would allow me to study on “Grounds of compassion”……but to never forget who we really belong to……we’re SAF property….they have us on a short leash…we have to Pick SAF over School if the situation arises…we would be charged for any failure to do so….YADDA,YADDA,YADDA………BUT bottom line….I could study on my leave and off days!!!.......when I called my parents ….they damn were relieved that I finally got a concrete answer…..so was I….

I forgot what week that was…..I think the same week Huiling, Wenjun and Gerald were supposed to get their results…..but I really ran myself ragged that week…….had to spend all my rest time in camp running around and pleading with the right people, compose e-mails when I was back home, calling dozens of people in SIM up, skipped meals cos I was running around or just did’nt plain have the appetite………….by the end of the week I lost like 4 kg…from 65 kg to 61kg now and worse of all………on the Sunday that week….My mum found a single strand of WHITE HAIR on my head…..man…my hair is Black as hell and very thick and dense and I’ve never had any white hair before…..my mum said that it was because I was probably stressed out for the whole week…..Hhahaha……but PHEW…..I was so glad it was over……..(see this post is already longer then my last post and only after my first Rant!!hahaha)

So anyway the new guys just arrived this Wednesday after my OC’s constant delays and now I’m training them to take over us so that we old birds can F.O from P.O…….hahahha….but this bunch has got to be one of the sorriest bunch of Ne’er Do wells I have ever seen……but in my time, only the best were given the opportunity to work in Pass office but now? They are whatever rejects my OC choose to throw our way…..These 9 guys were told to write a composition about themselves and hand it up so the Sergeants could gain a better understanding of them……anyway my shift SGT told me to read their compos and have a good laugh….and have a good laugh I did……hahahah

Man…..this was one bizarre batch….not a single Poly graduate in the entire group, most are from ITE or are poly dropouts and some of them are truly bizarre………there’s this guy who was a skin-head gang member and has a police record after being jailed for a couple of days for doing some stupid stuff, there was this guy who said he had a picture perfect family except for the fact that his brother was a Jehovah witness and had to be jailed in DB because of his religion, that was this guy whose first line in his compo was:” I’m 22 yrs old this year, I live with my parents and my sister. She is 24 yrs old and is a butch……which means she doesn’t like guys”……Err…DUH!!!!.....and there was this guy who said his life was “all about skate board and sex”…and goes on to say that he first started having sex when he was 18yrs old and has done it over and over and over again with dozens of different partners before falling in love…….and how older women are the best sex partners and blah,blah……..man I was telling me colleague that based on this guy’s compo he seems to have had more sex then the entire pass office combined including my staff sergeant ….who’s married with 2 kids!.....hahaha…..so I was anxious to see who was this amazing sexual God king that women threw themselves at……did he look like a cross between Brad Pitt and Louis Koo??.........well I saw him…..turns out that he was this small ,half-thai, dark skinned chubby guy who’s smaller sized then me……….man….I could’nt believe it………I wanted to walk up to him and ask him “How come ur getting so much action? You look like crap man…..err…What’s ur secret?” hahhaha…….

Bizarre man……….oh well……two more weeks and then I retire………one phase of my life is almost done…….one more phase is beginning…such is life…..the one thing I really want to do when I finally ORD?
I want to have a LONG good sleep…….I want to take a nap in the afternoon and not wake up feeling that I lost so much precious time…..I want to be able to watch TV regularly again and follow some tv series, day after day……..but really I just one to get a Good, long solid day of rest………

I haven’t had a decent night’s rest whenever I’m in camp, due maybe being a little mentally affected and paranoid after the constant turn-outs and countless days working the grave yard shifts…….I sleep like a baby at home literally the moment I lay down on my bed…but in camp? I’m a super light sleeper…I can only sleep up to 3 hrs at a time……and I keep waking up throughout the night due to being ultra sensitive to disturbances after all the training…..So that’s what I want….A good solid day of rest….I don’t want to wake up every morning knowing full well that I’m not fully rested…I don’t like the fact that scientifically an average person needs 6-7 hrs of sleep but my body can make do with 4hrs and proceed to do 12 hrs of continuous duty……its very unhealthy……….when normal people are awake, I am sleeping….when normal people are sleeping…I am awake doing duty……….two more weeks and I’ll rest peacefully without feeling guilty that I’m squandering the little time I have out of camp….cos I’ll have all the time in the world…

I also wanna just slow down my pace significantly…….after joining NS…I’ve had to learn to maximize my time and multi-task by necessity ….so any day that I’m out of camp….I will be back home, trying to get myself ready to go out again, watch parts of a dvd and surf the web all at once…….and once I’m out of the house…I’ll be meeting my friends for movies, meals, chat sessions or speed-walking from one side of town to the other then to bugis, city hall and maybe Marina and sometimes all in the same day……..and if I reach home earlier…I’ll go for a 1 hr jog, try to have dinner with my folks and thereafter I’ll be back packing my stuff, watching some tv (jumping from channel to channel mostly) and surfing the net concurrently and before I sleep…..I’ll be doing a couple hundred crunches wile watching a DVD in my room….try to read some comics maybe and I should be in bed by 2 am and ready to wake up at 5.30 am for duty the next day………….When I ORD…..I wanna burn one entire day just sleeping at home and watching TV….why??…. cos I CAN afford to that’s why!!! Hahaha…..No longer need to be dangling from puppet strings and getting manipulated by some outside source……. Hahhaa…..that day is soon….

Well enough army talk………when I’m out of camp….nothing gives me more satisfaction then watching a movie with the company friends or even enjoying a excellent new DVD at home……….and since this season is chockfull of big summer films, three-quels and new DVD releases….here’s a short review of all the big summer films I watched for the past few mths…………..

1.) Spider-man 3 – I’m a big comic fan but that also means I’m a whole lot more critical then your average movie Go-er……..Spider-man 3 is probably the worst of the trilogy man…….the first two were really good comic book films and even my parents enjoyed them a whole load when I watched the films with my parents prior to the opening of the 3rd film….but the third one ain’t that good man……..the CGI stuff is top-notch but the love dovey aspects of the film were really draggy, Mary Jane’s screaming and damsel in distress act is getting DAMN old and having 3 villains was overkill and neither got enough screen time as a result,( Venom looked cool but was the worse villain of the lot(He’s a 1 dimensional cypher and doesn’t have the necessary motivation brought on by personal tragedies like Dr Octopus, Green Goblin and even Sandman)………the worst scene? When The evil Peter Parker started dancing in the jazz club with the use of his spider-powers….I though I was watching Jim Carrey’s The Mask instead…..2.5/5

2.) Pirates of the Carribean 3 – You know why sequels make big bucks? Because of good will generated by the first film……..in subsequent films, the audience is already emotionally invested in the characters after the first film, they love the characters and want to find out what happens to them next………During the opening scene of POTC 3… I remember thinking………man I practically like the whole cast except Orlando Bloom…..Jack Sparrow is great, Davey Jones is a good villain…I even like Mr. Gibbs, the Dumb guy with the talking parrot, the midget pirate, the Two dumbbells(one with a wooden eye) even the monkey…….but when I continue watching the film, whatever goodwill I had seem to slowly disappear………..the film is draggy and convoluted, everybody seems to be double-crossing everybody else multiple times, the CGI was really overkill and Jack Sparrow’s novelty as a character seems to be wearing thin………and Orlando Blooms ends up looking like he walked right out of the cover of a Danielle steel romance novel………..Dammit…..2.5/5

3.)Shrek 3 – Things took an upswing after I watched Shrek 3………it wasn’t as funny or original as the 1st one or second one and a lot of the tried and tested gags are recycled but it’s a hell lot of a better then Pirates of the Carribean 3 and Spider-man 3…….the animation is good, the characters are cute and there’s enough funny bits to carry the movie and it doesn’t seem to take itself as seriously as the other big blockbusters which is a good thing……..Its nice albeit forgettable… light-hearted fun…..3.5/5

4.) Ocean’s 13 – This movie is GOOD……at last…..the final chapter of a trilogy that is actually quite solid……expectations for this film were definetly lower then those big movies like POTC 3 and Spider-man but it’s so much better…..it’s a nice, entertaining, caper movie…..I was especially excited that Al Pacino was going to be the big bad guy in this movie….and he was quite cool……I love seeing this same gang of likable rogues back in Las Vegas doing what they do best…..robbing some asshole blind and having fun…..hahaha….and the fact this time they’re pulling this heist as payback for one of their friends makes you root for them even more……all the gags are funny and the dialogue is sharp and the film looks great…….Best three-quel of the summer in my opinion….not as good as Ocean’s 11 but better then Ocean’s 12…..4/5

5.) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer – I detested the first movie…….but surprisingly I kinda enjoyed this film……this film is designed to appeal to kids,the plot is thin and the villains are as 1 dimensional as all hell….but as long as you turn of your brain and don’t think about how great a Fantastic Four movie could be with a better director and cast……..it kind of works……The Sequences with the Silver Surfer is good, he was wonderfully translated to screen and looked damn good…..but you don’t actually feel that the Fantastic four just emerged from the greatest fight of their lives at the end of the movie after going up against a God….cos silver surfer’s big boss, the planet devourer, Galactus looked more like a Cosmic Fart that was swirling above Earth’s atmosphere…haha…..its a fun enough movie though……..3/5

In addition to all these movies…..I also managed to catch an assload of other movies on DVD or vcd during my free time …..Here’s the movies I caught in no particular order: Something’s Gotta Give, Ocean’s 11,Ocean’s 12, Sea of Love, Frankie and Johnny, Free Money, Wag the Dog, The Awakenings, City by the sea, 15 minutes, The Last king of Scotland, Rocky Balboa, Letter to Iwo Jima, Blade Runner , Dick Tracy, Dog day afternoon, Carlito’s way, Primal Fear, Protégé, Simone, The insider, Insomnia, China Town, Robocop 2,Troublesome Nights IV……….now that the HMV is having their big sale….I foresee me getting my grubby mitts on many more movies……….hahaha…..Mine, mine, mine…..ALL MINE!!!

I’ve also been reading more books nowadays, in an attempt to diversify my reading habits and branch away from just reading Comics alone….in the past few weeks I’ve finished reading Marlon Brando’s Biography, Robert Deniro’s Biography, Al Pacino’s Biography, Stephen King’s Dark Tower volume 1:The Gun slinger, Stephen King’s The Shining, Giles Forbes’s Last King of Scotlang and I’m now reading Dashiel Hammet’s (the Originator of Hardboiled detective pulp fiction)The Maltese Falcon…….all good stuff…..

I’m also thinking about re-arranging and classifying my Trade paperbacks….instead of dividing them into 3 categories; Marvel Comics, Dc Comics and alternative Comics……..I’m going to divide them into 4 categories……Marvel, DC,alternative and Frank Miller….hahaha….That’s right!!!! I have so many Frank Miller books that starting next month, Frank Miller is going to get his very own category……..I have the complete run of Sin City, all his Batman stuff, His entire body of work on Daredevil, and various tpbs of his other works like 300, Ronin, Hardboiled, Martha Washington, Bad Boy, Robocop and various other are Frank Miller oddities and interview books that I’ve managed to uncover over the years………..hell I trawl the aisles of Kinokuniya’s graphic novel section trying to find works of Frank Miller that I haven’t read or missed out previously…….and sadly I don’t think there is any….hahaha……imagine if my future kids or nephew and nieces start becoming big fans of Frank Miller works and one day the old fart version of me tells them: ”I have something for you”……..”Issit the keys to a Ferrari??”……..”NO! Better!!!! Its a whole box full of Yellowing Frank Miller comics that encapsulates his entire body of work for the past 25 years!!!”…….I can already imagine them lining their bird cages with my treasured comics…..hahaha

But on to other things…….. Talking with a very old friend of mine the other day and going with My parents to my old neighborhood in Jurong West for dinner…… helped raised some very interesting questions for me…like Just how much of a person’s likes and dislikes, attitude and basic core principles from their childhood remain intact decades later when they’ve reached adulthood??……..I realized that my very likes and dislikes , attitude, personality traits and principles remained pretty much unchanged up for the past 2 decades.………..

The moment me and my parents went to our old neighborhood for dinner….I immediately gravitated towards ordering from the same old stores I ate from nearly 13 years ago when I first moved from Jurong west to Bukit Panjang…..I bought the same popiah from the same stall and the same uncle who I have been buying from since I was in primary 2……..I remember bringing my mum to that store and buying two rolls of popiah everyday after school without fail, rain or shine….and 13 years later….I’ll be damned if I dun still love the hell outta his stuff!!.......and I can’t believe its been about a good 12 years since I last ate there……

Whatever Food I loved as a kid……I still love now, whatever food I won’t touch when I was young…I still don’t touch them now……..whatever guiding principles I followed back then…I still adhere to now……….My old friend was asking me….”since the day I know you…you’ve never smoked, drink or gambled….what the hell man….you would have been better off moving to a monastery and becoming a monk!!!”.....

I dunno why my sec school friends think that there is some great mystery or fantastic reasons or some complicated back story as to why I don’t do all this stuff…….the reason I don’t is simplicity itself……….I did’nt smoke, gamble or drink when I was young….and twenty years later I still don’t see the need to….its not so utterly difficult to undertsand......

I don’t Smoke because when I was a kid…..My mum told me that smoking is harmful, that only bad kids do so and that I should never become heavy smokers like my mum’s brothers………and she went through all the hazards of smoking with me using my Health Ed textbooks…..so I believed that and promised her that I would never touch a stick of cigarette…………and its as simple as that….a child’s promise……..I hate smoking then and I hate it now…….and boy have I had the opportunity to start smoking………My sec school friends were like 75% smokers and when we hung out after school…..there would be literally 6 of us sitting near the overhead bridge and all of them were puffing away except me…….when they offered me a stick and I turned them down….they always looked at me like I just landed from mars……hahaha……..and even in army, goddamn so many people pick up smoking because of the stress or whatever……but I’ve never had the urge to……I hated the smell ,the smoke, the wear the scent clings to your clothes……..still do….

I don’t Drink because when I was young…..my family and I would go for dinner at the coffeeshop near our block and on many occasions……..there were always some groups of old, sun-bitten looking old farts, chinese and malay folks, who would get drunk and start yelling hokkien expletives, create a scene and start getting in fights right at the coffeeshop………and the police would come and separate them or even take the rowdier ones in……and this did’nt just happen once……….it just seemed dumb to me,getting drunk and behaving like a complete ass in public………..further more back then, My dad was only a sales executive and no sales manager so his boss always sent him to entertain overseas clients and he would have to take them out to dinner and drink with them to the wee hours of the morning to close whetever business deals…..and on occasions my dad would come back, not very sober, try jangling his keys for 5 mins before he could open the door and he would be real quiet and just crashed and slept at our sofa set once he was in………and neither me and my mum had the strength to get him to the bed……….and the stench of alchohol was helluva bad……….so I never really liked drinking….I always felt it made perfectly sensible people do perfectly senseless things………I don’t mind the occasional drink for social purposes but I prefer to generally stay away……….

I don’t Gamble but to be honest of all the three vices…….I don’t really mind gambling as much as smoking and drinking…….I don’t mind playing cards and mahjong and making small bets during Chinese New year for the fun of it………..but other then that I never really felt the need to buy 4D,Toto or bet on soccer matches….even though I have no problem with anybody doing so….my parents and grand parents and various relatives buy 4D regularly too……..but I always thought that instead of waiting for some divine miracle, heavenly blessing or a one in a million chance to be rich…the sure way of getting money was just getting off your ass and working for an honest day’s wage……seemed more practical…instead of building sandcastles in the air……

Hahha….Every time my mum complains that I’ve been buying too many comics…..I tell her that Comics is my one and only indulgence/vice in life, instead of relaxing or taking a break from your problems with cigarettes and alchohol……….ain’t reading comics a much more decent way of entertaining yourself and keeping your mind off things??? It’s safe, stimulates your mind artistically and you can read them again and again and they actually have a high resale value…it’s a win win situation Mum!!!

Also since I was a kid……..I never liked relying on people to solve my problems for me………I always thought that you should always work through your problems yourselves instead of making your problems your friends’ problems……….my parents always told me to “not be dependent on people, to help yourself instead of relying on outside sources….because if you don’t help yourself….who will???”………..now I don’t mind bitching and confiding about all my problems with my friends but I would never do them the disservice of burdening anyone with my personal problems by getting them directly involved……..I think you should be the one to work through all your own problems, take whatever advice or bits of info your friends can give but at the end of the day you have to solve your own problems instead of unfairly expecting people to………….

Hoho…..This was kinda a weird rant but man…….So many traits you picked up as a child practically follow you for life….. There’s an old saying: “The more things change, The more they stay the same.”…….how true….hahhaha……


Lastly……… the first day of School at SIM was Today!!! It’s feels good studying again but its kind of take some getting used to, I’m still in army mode and haven’t been studying at all for almost the past 2 years……..so I dunno whether I should feel happy, excited or indifferent that the next phase of my life has begun……….just came home from my camp, I went to school in the morning and back to camp for duty right after it……its going to be a tiring two weeks……….on a Side note , after going with Felix to Ngee Ann poly for lunch….I ‘ve observed that the dressing of SIM females is SO much better then the way poly girls dress……..man…..just a difference of a couple of years…..but their dress sense has really taken a quantum leap in quality…..hahha…its like Miranda Priestly from the Devil Wears Prada gave them a crash course in style or something…..hahaha

The best part of my 1st day of school ?? :I’ve not fallen sick for practically the past two years but of all times to fall sick….I fell sick on the day before school………just when I was thinking that I could finally clear my leave, relax and study…..just when I let down my defenses for a brief moment……I fell sick….shit………I dunno what happened …I was still chatting with Huiling, Wenjun and Felix…..then just as I was finishing up……I felt real woozy and the next thing I know I’m staring at my toilet bowl at 2.00 am puking my guts out……..had a bad case of diahorea too and started feeling feverish……….

So I attended my very first day of Uni feeling feverish, as nauseous as an 8 mths pregnant woman who was about to shit in her pants at any given second……I was walking around looking constipated,with my ass firmly clenched….because if I ever lose my concentration for even a second….there was going to be some free warm, chocolate fondue in my pants……hahahaha……Reported back to camp after that, puked twice before taking over the pass office counter from my shift mate and sat for 6 straight hours feeling feverish and giddy with an ass full of liquid fire……hahaahha…….

So anway….. I Just got home and took my stomach medicine and some panadol………so lets end this post and If y’all kind folks would kindly excuse me….I think I’ll go shit my pants now……haha….Adios!!!

9:17 AM