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Solace of the Shadows
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Nothing much to recall from this week...except that we have a criminal law exam to study for and as usual i've fallen back on my old ways and laid off studying until the last minute. Caught the movie An Interview with a Vampire in camp for the first time and i think its an intriguing story...it made me go borrow a book from the Vampire chronicle's the Vampire Armand. The dark elegance with which vampires lead their lives...shrouded with so much deep passion and compelling grace, what would it be like to live like a blue-blooded immortal. In comparison, this life seems so much more trivial. The mundane proceedings of my days serve little purpose, yet i cling to it because the security and knowledge that there are things for me to do provides a counterfeit sense of purpose and direction, yet i know that it is merely like trying to run out of quicksand, thinking you're going somewhere, but only going deeper rooted to the same spot.
Been feeling a sense of ambivalence lately, so much so that they seem to cancel out each other and leaves me devoid of any feeling. I just feel...stoned. Blank. Like being awoken from a dream. That brief period where you wonder which world you are truly in. With no sense of belonging to either one. I don't know what to look forward to and neither do i know what i reflect upon. Why the fuck i subject myself to these things i have no idea. I don't really know what else to blog about because i realize i am rambling so i'll stop here.
I need some of those pills. Placebo or not.
Til the next week.
Saturday, September 20, 2003
Its been quite a tiring week, mostly due to a few events. On Thursday, we had this squad thing planned to cycle overnight around the island from 11pm to 7am Friday morning. Once again, i couldn't take part in it. I hate having to sit at the sidelines watching the rest going on with the activities and i hate even more the fact that people might think i'm trying to skive the physical training and all but the plain simple fact is that as much as i want to cycle 78 bloody kilometres i can't do it with a healing broken leg because if i were to it wouldn't "serve to prove any point" as my field instructor put it and i would never be able to keep up with the pace. It looked pretty fun though, but some of my squadmates ended up suffering from the aftermath of it considering we didn't get much sleep on Thursday itself, one of them fell pretty sick. He looked completely stoned; no idea how he's doing but hope he's getting along fine. Another was said to hallucinate a bit after cycling quite a distance, he started talking to himself and all. Pretty freaky. Maybe it was because we passed Chua Chu Kang cemetary on the way. Hmm
Even though i didn't get to cycle, it was exhausting sitting in the safety van watching them. It was hell when the paikahs had to switch vans and it was too cramped to lie down and sleep so it got really boring then. At around 12am before the streets became empty, it was pretty amusing to see the reactions of people by the roadside and passing motorists as they watched 37 guys on bicycles in white and two police vans as escorts. That must have got them pretty awake heh.
After we got back we had our Senior Term bar presentation ceremony almost immediately after, so we had no sleep at all after the cycling expedition. Somehow i landed myself the accursed task of being the emcee so i had to do the announcing in a zombie like state.
Ok today was the part i would like to rant about. We had to book back in to camp and attend a Racial Harmony seminar at IPAM at the Civil Service College which turned out to be a complete waste of time and more like a circus fiasco. Some of the speakers were pretty unprepared and as a result became incredibly longwinded and directionless. Then came the speaker for Eurasian culture, who hardly looks Eurasian, this pompous arrogant middle aged woman carrying a handbag, proclaiming herself to be an executive member of the Eurasian society or something, who proceeded to rattle off in a monotonous drone. The screwed up part was she began to deviate away from the topic (if she ever had one to begin with) and starting bitching endlessly about her grievances in a outstandingly condescending manner.
Pompous lady : "Sometimes, when i go to restaurants, i've encountered this problem which has irritated me for sometime. The waiters will comment that i look Malay or Indian without realizing i am actually Eurasian; and when i order a dish containing pork or beef they will question why i am ordering such food" (Implying she is highly insulted when people call her Malay or Indian)
"I do not live in an HDB flat. I sometimes find the residents there very rude and there have been many occasions when i have visited my friends residing in such places and many a time when there is no one in and i go over to the neighbour's to inquire about their whereabouts, they slam the door in my face" (Gee NO SURPRISE why there lady!)
and finally the big one
"As Police recruits, i hope you will learn a few things about attending to complainants. I realize that they take a really long time to respond to a call and it is highly inefficient to wait 15-20mins for them to arrive. They should show a greater sense of urgency in their investigations" (Isn't this supposed to be a friggin talk on RACIAL HARMONY??)
After hearing this, its really disgusting how some members of the public view things about the police. 15-20mins to attend a complainant is a pretty quick time. You can't expect to have an NPP or Police Divisional HQs stationed below every void deck of a HDB flat or just beside every row of terraces so obviously there has to be a reasonable time interval for them to reach the complainant's house.
After observing and listening to some of the things the instructors tell us, its pathetic how people have come to regard the purpose of cops. They have to attend every case because it is a must, no matter how meaningless and trivial, as long as members of the public call, the police have to go. And they call for the stupidest things, as in seriously. Cat and dog making noise in the neighbourhood. Who do they call? Police. Some moron takes a piss in the lift. Who do they call? Police. Family member accidentally locked at home. Who do they call? Police. Neighbours quarelling over potted plants in the middle of the night, a member of the public finds his potted plant missing, call police. There are numerous more of these really trivial cases which i will try to recall the next time. But the point is people expect quick response to such pointless calls they can so easily settle themselves if they used their brains more or dialed the proper administration or authorities to handle it. As a result, resources are severely diluted and unescessarily despatched which makes it difficult to concentrate on the MORE RELEVENT cases like robbery, deaths, housebreaking, rape, kidnapping, drug dealers or whatever. Consequently, Investigations Officers who have to work 48 hour shifts dealing with over a 100 investigation papers in a single day are unable to clear all the stupid complaints coming in relentlessly and become more and more weary and incapable of directing their energy to more serious matters because members of the public in Singapore complain about every damn thing possible out there. Granted however, that there are quite a number of officers out there who are incompetant in handling their job, generally very few people know what goes on behind the curtains because the only policemen they see are the ones on patrol.
I'm not promoting the police force or praising them or anything but people can be really ignorant and their attitude towards the police is really unforgivingly ungrateful. When high profile criminal cases are dealt with and resolved well, no one gives a damn. But when a policeman fails to arrive quickly just because their neighbour's pet dog took a shit on their lawn, they get pissed off. Its so senseless. Thats one thing i'm really going to hate facing if and when i go for my one month attachment.
I think i've talked too much. I had more to say but if you're at this part of the entry reading this then wow, i'm glad i didn't bore you to death.
Til next time, take care folks.
Friday, September 12, 2003
Its back to the slowcrawl of camp life again. For now that is. Its always good when the accursed course manager is not around.
Quite a number of things happened but its all one big tangled ball so its all a little blurry. I think i've been watching too much TV in camp. Chinese movies. Southpark. Various other shows. You know you have too much free time when you find yourself highly entertained playing RISK and Chess in the evenings and usually an audience gathers around to watch. But its good to slowly taste the familiarity of what once was. I went for my first Wednesday walk-out in a long couple of months and i bought durian back from Taka's Cold Storage. 5 bucks for D24 woo it was bloody good. I managed to eat 3 seeds before the smell wafted everywhere around and one of my damned big mouth squadmates opened his pie-hole and alerted everyone and then it was all gone. I hope they still have it next week.
Ah i feel like some haggard old man now. I've got four different medications to take a day. Glucosamine sulphate for my cartiledge. Calcium pills for my bones. Sodium Chloride solution and anti-bacterial cream for my stitches and some moisturizing cream for my skin. I had another very rage inducing appointment at the Skin Centre on Monday with the doctor but fortunately it was placated by the second appointment on Wed when i was going to let fly and give them a piece of my mind after tolerating it for so long. So then the doctor cut a peice of my skin from my back for biopsy and now i have a peice of string sticking out of my back for the next two weeks. Feels good. Why don't i just donate my body to science, its like some carnival of creation spurning freak shows every now and then.
So thats about it. I'm happy to spend the day at home sleeping. Caught Pirates of the Carribean with a few of the squadmates yesterday in town. Johnny Depp is genius, like he always has been. I hardly give a damn about movie stars but he is amazing. And he's 40. It'll be sad when he gets too old to act.
Well, maybe i'd get some more sleep later, so later folks.
Saturday, September 06, 2003
Ok i don't know why but i always have this tendency to completely erase certain things from my mind. Like these past 2 weeks of hell i've had to endure, i can't really remember why i hated having to go through it so much anymore.
But basically, my squad had been away on attachment for the past 2 weeks to various divisions and everything to taste the experience of being a real life groundwork cop, and of course my ingenius course manager decides that with my injury i'm in no position to go for it. And, as always, his astounding display of logical reasoning and common sense never fails to amaze me. He can force me to go and endure 5 bloody days outfield in Pulau Ubin staying in a friggin tent every night WHILE i am still on crutches but he won't let me sit in an office or patrol car in an NPC which is probably a whole lot less demanding on my leg??
So, with the subservience of the typical NS man, i have no choice but to comply with his demands and show my face in the academy every day for the next 2 weeks from 8 to 5. If it weren't for the fact that i just want to complete this course and commission with my rank and pay, and hanging on a loose thread with my injury threatening to downgrade me to boot, i'd have exploded and whipped his ass into subversion. Once again, the common sense he shows is mind boggling. He demands that i come to camp, which is ok with me, but then he promptly decides to leave me in the office staring at the cubicle wall doing absolutely NOTHING at all, when he should have the responsibility to assign me something to do. It was a complete waste of my time. The first two days i sat in the office for a good 4 hours looking at the paint peel off the walls, then go off to lunch before coming back to the office for another stoning session of 3 more excruciating hours. Then, on Wednesday i took the liberty to stay in the barracks for a while because i figured it'd be a better use of my time comparatively, and when i went back to the office he made the grand assumption that i was not being responsible. The irony of it all was so clear it could almost manifest itself in some way. I was almost on the verge of shoving my crutch up his fat ass but by doing so it would only serve to prove his point plus i didn't want to dirty it anyway. Even my OC was wondering what the hell i was doing, doing nothing. I could be at home happily resting, letting my leg heal faster, but i had to waste my time coming to camp to do something i could probably do with more conviction in the toilet of my house taking a crap. Plus, i was still on MC at that time, and when my OC asked my CM whether i was on MC, he denied it saying i was on light duties. Argh the frustration of it all i can't even begin to describe. But in brief that is what triggered the last entry, although i seem to make it a whole lot more trivial now, probably because its over and done with.
So i went to town and met up with Noel yesterday, whom i haven't seen in months, and after some thinking i realize that its really sad that the general population is oblivious to the absolute hell that some of the people in NS have to go through. I stress on the word some. Noel's in NDU (Naval Diving Unit), and after listening to all the stuff he had to go through during his Hell Week, i've gotta respect the man for coming out of it alive. For 5 days, he's had probably around 1-2 hours of sleep A DAY, with the rest of the hours devoted to crazy physical training like carrying a boat with the tyre of a tonner on top endlessly, running 21km, given the "luxury" of sleeping sitting cross legged holding an oar upright with your platoon mate sitting opposite you (so imagine if you were to fall asleep you'd inevitably hit the other person's head with the oar), diving up and down a pool continuously of 6m depth to search for your things (because of course in the water its impossible to read something so one would have to surface to read it only to find out its not his). Well the list goes on and on, you'd have to hear it from him to get the full effect.
But my point comes back to this; that so few people actually realize what people like Noel have to endure during NS. Specially the girlfriends of his platoon mates. I mean, what kind of fuckin excuse is it when girlfriends complain about their boyfriends in NS not being able to spend enough time with them, and consequently dumping them because of it? Its fuckin pathetic thats what it is. When i met Noel yesterday he could barely walk around more than i could with me being partially crippled, and all he wanted to do was to spend dinner treating his parents and sister so selflessly. And girlfriends think they have the fuckin right to demand full attention on them without the slightest idea of the kind of torture their boyfriends have to endure in camp. Its mind boggling. The boy has to spend the entire week enduring hell, feeling immensely exhausted at the end of it, only to have to endure the mental anguish of listening to his girlfriend bitch on and on about how he's being selfish not spending the time more with her. Men are scum. Men are always scum. But usually when i observe the girls who say this, more often than not they're the type who are attracted to the kind of guys who are always jerks from the start. They mix with the type who would definitely play them out, cheat on them, and subconciously they KNOW this, yet they hopelessly fall for such kinds of guys. They want the cool bad boy character, and when they get hurt by it, they immediately assume all guys are scum. Fuckin typical. The real nice guys are out there, just that girls are too damn blinded by materialistic wants to know this. I'm neither, i don't care much for all of this, i merely observe and this is why i'm likely to be "condemned" single for a long long time. I guess maybe they have their own reasoning for this and this is probably the reason why i've never come close to being attached, and i'm risking getting my ass kicked by all the girls who read this, but i'm just voicing my opinion. I'm ready for the criticism and comments but i just wanna say Noel my man, i'm proud of you for going through all of it and i hope you commission as a diver and kick some ass. Hope you read this because this one's for you brudder.
(Note : (1) the above does not apply to all NS guys because a portion of them do alot of slack vocations and (2) there are quite a number of sensible girls out there but they are almost always all happily attached to sensible nice guys already. this in turn does not apply to all couples)
Until the next time, take care folks.
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