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Solace of the Shadows
Thursday, July 31, 2003
So school is beginning or has already begun for a number of people (mostly the gals). It'd be quite a weird prospect if i were forced to start school now as well. On one hand i'd be excited at the idea of beginning a new environment in a new school with new people and all, but on hindsight i'd just loathe the fact that i'd be subjecting myself to all the damned stress and school work again so quickly. Especially when jc had been a horrible experience for me, i still haven't shaken off the past trauma and there's no way i'd be able to turn myself around to face this and take one step up the ladder to begin with. I've just been so drained during the past 2 years that i've been so sickened of this education of ours. Its funny because i brought it all on myself anyway, i put myself through all the pain, i dug my own grave; although i was lucky enough to find a way out of it again. But i'm definitely not ready to start the same old crap again, i fucked up my jc life and there's no way i'm going to do the same for uni again (yeah, so damned easily spoken). How badly did i screw up? Well the mentality of the jc i was in is such that if any of them were to chance upon this they'd probably go "so what if you think you screwed up, i messed up way more than you!" just like if one were to say "damn i didn't study for this test" they'd argue "you think you didn't study? oh ho ho i was watching tv, playing on the comp and talking on the phone simultaneously! i didn't even touch my notes!" , and yeah that whole thing compounded to my frustration during my 2 years (this doesn't extend to the people i know in that jc heh). Maybe i wasn't used to the environment. I sure as heck miss secondary school times, but then again not many people don't.
So yeah here's to the government or whoever incorporated NS into our system, i gratefully shake their hands for providing me with 2.5 years of "rest and relaxation", and get paid for it too!
6 more days
Friday, July 25, 2003
13 more days
Yet another milestone has been set in the wonderful world of NSPI. Today's lessons reached new heights in terms of slackness. What i expected to be a relatively serious lesson on Ops Management turned out to be more of a squad outing.
Basically the previous lesson we had to learn how to handle and create solutions for potential scenarios and big events like Millennium Swing or whatever and go through methods towards ensuring control over the situation. So the instructor created a fictional scenario whereby we would have to come up with a plan as to how to deploy men and create cordons and all the hypothetical crap, and in order to do that we would have to go down to the place and survey the situation. So we were split into 4 teams each controlling a different sector which spread from Tanglin Road all the way to Marina Square. My team got the sector between Scotts and Meredian.
So here's what we were supposed to do :
1) Survey the area
2) Plan our aims
3) Plan the course of action based on what we observed
So here's what we ended up doing :
1) Drop off at Lucky Plaza, go to Taka Food Court to grab a bite and sit at the fountain
2) Walk to Heeren, look at cds at HMV
3) Walk to Orchard Emerald, grabbed a bite at BK
Well admittedly we got the job done in the end but i didn't see the purpose of going all the way down to town to do it we could have done it in our barracks NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING hahaha!
Oh man classic, as ASP J drove us in the police land rover, he drove into an alleyway beside Lucky Plaza to park the rover. Most of the parking slots were taken so he happily parked the vehicle in one of the reserved slots.
Darrell : "Eh sir, how come so good can park in the reserved space?"
ASP J (sarcastically) : "Who's going to saman me man?"
Everyone : "HAHAH"
After going back to camp...i changed and went up to the mess to watch Twin Effect...looked like a lame show but i didn't get to watch it because i came home early. Thats like the second movie i've seen in 3 days...like what the hell?!
Well off to sleep...Later folks
Saturday, July 19, 2003
Sometimes i come across something and it triggers some sort of lost memory in a crevice of my mind. Hearing a song i haven't heard in a long time, reading old emails, watching an old movie, it could be anything. Its a funny feeling, often leaving me feeling a sort of emptiness, wondering where all these forgotten memories have gone to, what has become of things, how different things would be like if i had taken a different path. I think songs have the greatest effect on this, different songs tend to associate themselves with different memories, and usually when i hear these songs i never want to hear them again because it leaves me with that sense of emptiness and a feeling of having lost something i can never get back again. Its amazing how something like that could make one reminisce about memories which had seemed to have left the mind so long ago. Often it leaves me with a tinge of depression. How things seem so transient in nature, we can never hold on to something long enough to remember everything of it, instead we fleet from one phase in life to the next without really establishing any clear direction, just following a path which manifests itself as we walk along it. The feeling sucks, especially when its something i wish i could have had, something i would have liked to have continued to do, or someone i wish i could have held on to. But even though i know the feeling will subside and fade away, the period of time where i'm suddenly reminded of a lost memory tends to leave me thinking about the present as well, whether things happening now or people i know will merely become something forgotten in a few years or even months, whether there will be anything which i can take away and remember distinctly upon. I think maybe thats just me, floating around from one event to the next, discarding the previous like an old t-shirt, and i think someday i'm going to find nothing more in front of me...and only then i would've truly realized that i have nothing behind me to hold on to either.
Hang my head, drown my fear
Till you all just disappear
Black hole sun
Won't you come
And wash away the rain
Black hole sun
Won't you come
Won't you come
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Things have more or less dissolved into a slow monotone of events, and i guess maybe i don't really mind it at all. Camp has been really really slack. Other than an exam next week on Criminal Law 1 the rest of the time the squad is sleeping or playing volleyball or soccer or basketball.
Went to watch the Swimming Nationals on Tues. It was a pretty good meet, alot of close fights and all. It was just nice to slip in quietly sit down and watch and then leave. Met a couple of people in the process of course. Seeing all of it just makes me more impatient to finally be able to get into the pool again. Although i've more or less submitted to the fact that i am a cripple for another 21 more days (that sounds like eons away). Do i sound nuts or what?!
Didn't have to go to camp at all today because the rest are doing their NDP practice. I think nobody would believe me if i told them i was doing my NS now because i've spent so much time doing almost nothing haha. Ok well i'm outta here. Take care folks.
Thursday, July 10, 2003
I can't think of a way to let it out. Right now i really need some way of just getting rid of this majorly fucked up feeling. Can't even describe it, bordering between the lines of frustration and depression. If i had a bat or axe or something i'd just feel like smashing everything in sight.
I retract my statement about the incompetancy of the doctors at SGH. Most of them at the specialist's clinic i went to seemed pretty alright. I just seem to have an uncanny spell of bad luck hanging over me because i am certain i have the worst possible doctor in the entire clinic, possibly in the entire hospital. As i waited outside the door, every patient that came out were muttering about how ignorant he was of all the patients. I heard a family remark, "he was so rude, he just slapped the x-ray on the wall and commented 'wah your bones very old'," and they continued to talk about how he didn't seem to give a damn about it. I went in, and i argued with him over my case. He contradicts himself to no end. The previous time i came he confirmed with me that the max i'd stay in the cast would be 6-8 weeks. Now he insists he never made such a claim and he says 8-12 weeks. I mean. The previous time he took a look at my x-ray and said for sure 6-8 and now he changes his mind because it seems he has NO FUCKING KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT HE'S DOING. I can't remember what else he was blabbering about because after he denied what he told me the previous check up, all i could think of was putting my fist through his mouth and using one of my crutches to smash every bone in his leg.
So he told me to change my cast to a new one because my current cast was becoming loose due to the shrinking of my leg. When i went to the plaster room and they took off my cast, i couldn't even recognize my leg. The muscles had deteriorated so badly it was practically skin and bones when i compared it to my other leg. It was pretty shocking for me to see. Even though the nurse reassured me it would recover. He never told me how long. Even my memory doesn't seem to have retained the ability to move my foot about. No matter how much i tried to make my brain send messages to my leg to make it move, it wouldn't. I can't imagine how it will look like in another month's time. I probably won't even be able to put my left leg on the ground and limp, i can forget about walking.
I explained my frustration to the nurses. If its one thing which kept me from exploding right there and then it would be the nurses who helped recast my leg. They were very understanding and amiable and it calmed me down alot. Even the nurse agreed with me about when i should come back and he was perplexed as to why i wasn't given another x-ray (thats right the doc didn't even x-ray me today) and why the doc based his treatment on an x-ray i took 1 BLOODY MONTH AGO. So he called the doctor and asked why and the fella personally came to the plaster room to try and convince me of his judgement and he took my foot and pressed the areas where the broken bone was located and told me that i would feel pain because according to him i still have a while to recovery. So he kept pressing and i didn't feel any pain save a few aches and when he realized i wasn't screaming in pain he shut his fucking pie hole up but he refused to give in to the fact that he was wrong and he didn't change my appointment date despite me telling him to cut the month into 2 weeks. He left in a huff obviously making a fool of himself but there wasn't anything i could do anyway. The nurses couldn't do anything either except to recast my leg and just made conversation for a while until it was done and i left.
Today just crushed all my expectations and anticipation. I was so looking forward to being relieved of the frustration of the previous 2 months and finally being able to pick up from where i left off and now i've been dealt a blow of another month. Maybe it might seem to others like i'm making a big deal over a 2 broken bones but what the fuck hey? If i'm not thrown out of course for 3 months of inability to participate in camp then i don't know what to say. Attachment will be on 15th of Aug. My next appointment is 7th of Aug. There's no possible way i could go for the attachment because my leg will be a chopstick by then. 5 days before my birthday at that. Happy fucking birthday to me.
Someone just take a gun and shoot me.
Monday, July 07, 2003
Been a very exhausting but interesting day. Started our scenario based training whereby we have to act out real life situations we might encounter on the streets during patrolling when we go for our attachment. Its going to be a 3 day stint. Too tired to elaborate on that for now. My leg doesn't feel too good. I got a bad feeling about Thursday.
Was watching Three Kings on tv just now and its amusing the way the American system seems to work. Anyway i got this in the email which was pretty hilarious and aptly describes the arrogance of the American administration.
The following is the transcript of an ACTUAL radio conversation in
October 1995, between a US Navy ship and the British authorities, near
the coast of England. The transcript was released by the MoD on
10/10/95.
BRITISH: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South, to avoid
collision
U.S.NAVY: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the North, to
avoid
a collision
BRITISH: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the
South to avoid a collision.
U.S.NAVY: This is the Captain of US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR
course.
BRITISH: Negative. I say again. You will have to divert your course.
U.S.NAVY: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP
IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE
DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU
CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH.
THAT'S 15 DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE
THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
BRITISH: We are a lighthouse. ____ off.
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
It sucks to be consumed by the same thought day after day. I think i complain too much about my leg. Its not the pain which bothers me mostly. Its more of the the impatience of the day to come when i can finally remove the damned cast. I take my hat off to all the handicapped people out there. They have great resilience and nerves of steel. Specially so if they've been normal all the way up to some unfortunate part of their lives. If i were to lose a limb or something now (!!! not that i ever want to) i dun think i'd be able to cope with it for a long long time. Not physically but mentally. I'd probably be crushed more by the fact that i would've lost the ability to do so many things before rather than because i can't survive without it. Hell yes i'm definitely going to be paranoid about ensuring the same thing doesn't happen again. I figure every time i play soccer now, i'll jump before the person tackles me and probably reciprocate by giving him a flying kick in mid air out of instinct.
Well other than that life has been pretty much the same. Go to camp. Slack. Come home. Slack. Woohoo. Ok Foo so now i know you read this you better burn those pictures you blardy FoooOoOoO heh kiddin :). Thanks for all de help. Come to think of it i should have taken those magazines you bought that day in the hospital. I guess i was in too much pain. Lucky i brought home the Fruitella. Heh
Hmm that's pretty much all thats been happening which isn't much to begin with. Only one thing on my mind. Thursday. Exactly one more week. Please don't let me get the same blasted doctor as the last visit. Please let the x-ray show me something good. Please tell me all the milk i drank didn't go to waste!
Ok in the meantime everyone go listen to Soilwork. Their new album is gooood.
Soilwork - Follow The Hollow
I fought the forces that will bring me down
they crawl without a sound
They wake me up at night, kill the lights, make it right
No time for slumber I'm getting dumber every sigh,
-everytime I'm standing tall, everytime i rise and fall
I think we're closer now, I'm getting nearer
I can see it touching ground, it's getting clearer
can't you see I'm way behind, I'm so sincere
I believe you'll never find.
weed out the sun, under the gun
kneel down for the ricochet
my future tells no lies to a creature with no rights
as for the plans I have in mind I have nothing left to find
please show a sign, who's next in line?
I think we're closer now, I'm getting nearer
I can see it touching ground, it's getting clearer
can't you see I'm all denied faithfucked believer
I claim you'll never find a better fear
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