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Solace of the Shadows
Thursday, October 23, 2003
I think everyone learns new and beneficial skills during their time in National Service whether they'd like to admit it or not. I learnt quite a bit this week. The most valuable skill i acquired this week would have to be the art of rambutan picking. Actually, it shouldn't really be called picking because the only time we picked the rambutans were after we practically pummeled the poor trees into submission of their fruits. I gotta say the best method is to take a ball, (basketball works well) and give one thunderous kick into the branches and what do you know, its raining rambutans. Do NOT, however, attempt to shake the branches by hanging on them if you are above 80 kg in weight because there's a damned good chance you'll snap the tree's poor limb.
How did we end up harvesting rambutans you might ask. Well, after we finally finished the last major exam of the course, our field instructor decided to take us for a PT lesson, which eventually turned out that the only way we'd be breaking a sweat was when we had to tear the rambutan skin to eat the flesh. The academy is populated with fruit trees, the most numerous being the rambutan trees. There're some durian trees around the place near our classroom and i realized that it can be friggin dangeous to stand under the shelter of one. The tree was practically weighed to the ground with durians but we had to wait for them to fall which prompted some of my squadmates to camp overnight in the classroom with a vcd or two to wait the while.
Its times like these which bring forth the age old question..."IS THIS NS???"
On Monday we had lessons on how to deal with death cases and our course manager presented us with an assortment of compiled photos of the gruesome deaths, none of them were due to natural deaths of course, because that wouldn't demand an investigation or coroner's inquiry. There are so many ways to die. The more popular methods we found out were hanging, skydiving from flats and industrial accidents (being the most gruesome). It was oddly fascinating though, to view pictures of contorted bodies and dismembered body parts and rotting corpses. The stark realism of it all was the most gripping fact, knowing that these things actually happened even though they seem so surreal and alien. There were many many cases, two i can remember quite vividly. One was a case of hanging in a jungle, whereby the corpse was photographed at the time when its face had been eaten almost completely to the bone by maggots, and her arms blue-blackish caked with dried blood. Seeing the body of a woman with a skull for a head, hanging in mid-air seemed totally unreal. Another case was one of jumping, where the old lady landed on the ledge of a drain, and smashed her skull onto it causing her brain to severe completely from the body and land on the grass quite a distance away from where she had landed. All these descriptions cannot even begin to paint the reality of it all, but the chilling fact that death remains so raw and brutally cruel will remain. I gotta hand it to the pathologists who handle the bodies of the deceased as if they were playing with plastic dolls. When they dissect the body for postmortem examination, they cut along the circumference of the skull in order to get to the brain by peeling back the skin so basically its like seeing a bloodied face with a mask for a covering hanging open. I saw a picture of one of them who took the shot with the corpse of a naked man in the state of rigor mortis, his body as stiff as a board. It was one heck of a sight.
I think if people want to tell others the way they should do something or correct their mistakes, they have to be of a considerable standard themselves. It is pointless to criticize without substantiating your claims. Respect doesn't come with a certain position or rank, it certainly doesn't come automatically. Everyone has to friggin earn it. I hate it when people tell others off for something they themselves have yet to fulfill. I willingly listen to anyone whom i respect for keeping a standard which warrants him to correct others because he feels compelled to improve things, not just because he feels the sudden need to make unjustified demands to make things right when he fails to fix the real problem. And yet such people can wonder with such blind indifference why they are so disliked.
I realize that it takes too much unescessary effort to hate or dislike someone. I can say that i do not hate or dislike anyone to the point where it becomes an extended issue, now i just completely can't give a damn to do so. Tolerance is something i've definitely learnt over the past year so far, and it is the most beneficial skill of all. Tolerance and ignorance are seperated by a fine line, and more often than not they go hand in hand. Admittedly, i have yet to grasp a firm hold of it, and i know my still temper flares for no reason at all from time to time, but i know for a fact that i have managed to suppress it to an extent. I am still learning things.
Friday, October 17, 2003
Surprisingly it hasn't been too bad of a week so far, and that just means that nothing really bad happened. It doesn't mean anything good happened, and i can't really remember much anyway other than that there's just one more exam to clear and it'll be a load off our chests. Not to mention my course manager finally alleviated the burden by saying that during the period when the squad would be away on their OBS i could take my revolver and t-baton courses so hopefully i won't have to recourse after commissioning. I think.
Just thinking back, i can't help feeling really irritated by certain things in camp. Do the few of them think i enjoy booking in and out of camp so often, taking gatepasses and having to get my dad to waste his time fetching me here and there to physio sessions and what shit. I don't like any of it. Its all just one big headache. Is it so difficult for them to realize that i have an obligation to myself to get back what i once had. My health and body has been in a state of deterioration for so long. It's been so depressing and demoralizing and all i want to do is to crawl out of this deep hole and get back onto where i left off. My course manager is pressing me to get back to the physical activities when he is completely oblivious to the fact that i can't fucking place an exact date and time as to when i can join back in, its not something i can predict with accuracy and so i have to deal with it, what the hell can i do about it, i have no damned choice. And still they have this misconception that i am trying to skive and stand by and mock them as they "suffer". I don't enjoy a single minute of it. All i want is understanding. But what do they know. Fuck them. It doesn't matter anymore because at least now i have some idea where i am headed after such a long time.
It felt good to run beside someone, able to keep up. But i don't know if i can live with this unending pain. It never seems to subside, never seems to go away. Always there like it never wants me to forget it all. I just hope the swelling will go away and the pain will somehow lessen.
Download this song, Spineshank - The Beginning of the End
Saturday, October 11, 2003
Another tiring week...it seems as though as the week progresses i become increasingly sapped of energy and when the weekend finally arrives all i can muster is to get into my nice bed and sleep my time away. The leg is truly hindering almost everything i do, as if adding on to the burden of my duties. I went for physio on Tuesday and the therapist made me run on the treadmill for about 15mins and at the end of it, i felt pain unconfined. I could barely walk after that, it was my first time running in a long while and the realization than something which should come so naturally has become such a difficult thing to do is unconcievably demoralizing. On Thursday, the squad got heavily punished for sleeping late and they did combat squats and all in the rain and all i had to do was stand in front of them under shelter and watch them suffer. It was not a pleasent sight. I would have given almost anything to be able to suffer like that. Any degree of physical punishment i would gladly undergo in exchange for a perfectly normal leg again.
It made me wonder how something so incredibly trivial could spawn something with such dire consequences. In that split second moment on that day, i could have so easily avoided the tackle, just a simple jump would have sufficed, and yet because of that brief inability to decide, it resulted in something so unimaginably unforseen. Would i have acted differently given a different situation requiring me to act with similar time constraint? Somehow i figure i'm just a horrible decision maker. I act on impulse, and i find myself suffering from doing so.
As the entire NSPI course comes to an end, somehow certain minor things have begun to show themselves more clearly. Certain people are seemingly nicer and more helpful, as if they have some hidden motive for their actions. I know there are those who want that friggin Sword of Honour and all, and as much as i try to ignore it it always seems like they are trying desperately to garner as much of a good impression as they can for themselves. I hate having to be wary of them. All this unescessary competition doesn't serve any purpose. So some people in the squad are better. So be it. Don't make a competition out of it. Fakes. I just want so badly to commission, but as usual the course manager remains tight lipped and never tells me anything and so i continue blindly without knowing if i might recourse. Maybe i've just become too cynical after this whole experience. Its not something i handled very well.
Too exhausted to remember anything else.
I wallow in my own decay.
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