sundays

i forgot: sunday is a reminder of death, mortality and heartaches, in so many different ways.

i am so affected, but there's nothing i can do.

here comes goodbye

i owe an email and an apology. life got tougher this week: tiring journeys to and from work, queer demanding superiors, inflexible office rules and work work work. i miss aftc already. i was conferred the title of 'project officer' earlier this week. and i've been ranting to the office clerks about aftc compared to mindef all week long, haha. i mean, my new place only allows one break other than lunch break: in the morning for breakfast. no breaks in the afternoon at all. theres plenty of office gossip and politics circling around as well. the tasks i'm doing now come intermittently, quite frustrating. the nature of task: menial, unproductive, and sometimes making no sense. obviously i would prefer aftc, but come to think of it, i'm grateful that i'm not in ocs staying-in. stay-out life is actually very satisfying, once you get a taste of it, you never want to go back.

now i cannot do whatever i want whenever i want, which was the big plus point about aftc. bleah. no more youtubing, ebuddying, emailing, battlefield2, falconfour. sian ttm.

fortunately, weekends exist (: soccered today, and i discovered again that my fitness and stamina have dropped, not to mention i still have phlegm. it was also my grandma's birthday today and we had our family dinner at tampines near their place. finally, i'm looking forward to a due letter and good company, sunday should be good (:

~

music like this romanticize emotion

wonder baby

i've been sounding negative here lately, but in reality it isn't as bad as it sounds. its true!

its just that sometimes i gather a train of thought, it usually comes quickly and sudden, and it seems logical and meaningful enough to pen down, i blog.

my brother discovered this:

ultra uber cute ttm

what is 19?

19 is the space in between adolescence and adulthood, is the transition between innocence to wisdom.

optimistically speaking, it stands for gradual independence and liberation from rules that we've rightfully and finally outgrown from. it represents years of tireless effort and commitment finally bearing fruit. it is the time parents ease up on the tension, and 19 years of sheltering and provision slowly slips from their tired hands. growing up is alleviating burden from our elders. it is the beginning of a journey of self discovery and actualisation. long due dreams become more tangible. everything seems to be moving in the right direction: forward. good of course.

on the other hand. the inexperience resulting from being new, alien and very much curious causes so much frustration. success, as we soon discover, does not happen on every first try. self discovery brings about the realisation of weaknesses, inadequacies and eventually ego-crippling self-doubt. being halfway out of the safety of shelter, part of our body is exposed to the good and also the extreme misery of freedom. mind wrecking decisions, emotional issues, physiological needs make up the bulk of the problem. we suddenly realise the shelter was a good place, but reality will only allow us to move in one direction: out. it is like forgetting to bring an umbrella out with you into the pouring rain, and turning back to find the door bolted and locked. we can wonder around in the compounds of the porch and naively wait out, but we can never truly return. until we finally create another shelter of our own, the rain will continue to pour and the wind will continue to howl. all that is preserving our skin is perserverence and God's grace.

circumstances also have a direct influence on the transition experience. i only wish my circumstances could have been better. 19 in general, wasn't a good year for me.

19, and i feel regrettably liberated.

change sucks

finally changed my strings. chilled at church, thought it'd be great for unwinding, then a splitting headache hit me. i tried to read my book comfortably, in vain. ruth is 19 today! reminds me of myself being 19, but what is 19? in between adolescence and adulthood. transitions sucks.

i've had brief yet frequent attacks of emotional unrest. it sucks because i can't concentrate, and my better judgement is impaired.

lately, i've been trying to:

get my christian fundamentals right
replace the strings on my guitar
work out
read a book

ups and downs, but generally heading in the right direction. still very much disoriented and unorganized.

tomorrow i tread new ground where high ranking officers and adults dominate. change sucks, because of the uneasiness and uncertainty. but i know i'll eventually get over it, and before you know it change comes again. one big change looms on the horizon. right now, i'm just cherishing the days leading to it.

what sarah said

henry on his mother's accident, from the time traveller's wife:

"But then I feel guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say I'm sorry until it is as meaningless as air.

Back on the street, I stand pondering. I don't want to go home. I want to be with people, I want to be be distracted."

awhile back, i concurred. i'm not sure about now, i'm thoroughly confused by almost everything. how nice, if life came with a manual. living life for dummies: chapter 39, how to cope without a mother.

___

"but i'm thinking of what Sarah said
that love is watching someone die

so who's gonna watch you die?"

___

time's like this, tearing away at my guitar would have cheered me up a little, but the strings are rusty and gone. i'll make do with a bed and bad music.

its super weird,

when a stranger adds you on facebook, and tells you she knows you from primary 1 when we used to take the same school bus together. after wrecking my brains for quite awhile (more than a day), looking through her photos trying to produce a vague recollection, it suddenly strikes me. isn't that the girl i confessed to back when i was 7?? i did it in the school bus! i don't know how i managed to salvage this memory back from the thrash section of my brain. then again, i cannot remember what her reaction was..

oh my.

psalms16:8&9

the 12 hours time lag is a funny thing. it's like parallel worlds running simultaneously but in different time frames, which is precisely what it is. but i can't explain this fascination i feel. day in day out i wake up in the morning and then people halfway across the world get ready to tuck into bed. when i go through my afternoon's activities, they are soundly asleep dreaming great dreams. i knock off, they get up, and when i sleep their day has barely begun. it's just an amusing novelty of a thought. you should think of it too, and be enthralled, especially if you personally know someone who's living 12 hours behind you!

today

was pretty much the same as every other day. BUT, i am finally freed from a lurking uncertainty over my new near future.

i was just looking through the unsw undergrad entry requirements for IB students. 28 points for bachelors of engineering! i don't know what to feel. for one, i know i can get a spot in any of the coveted uk universities, but here i am settling for the 5th best university in australia. that makes me bitter, like i'm being deprived of what my merit deserves. not to mention, i did apply to anu earlier this year and i got a place for double bachelors in econs and finance for july 09. although i try not to feel this way, it just is. in the end, i tell myself, a scholarship is a scholarship. whatever the nature of the scholarship may be. my dad encourages it, and rightly so. a scholarship alleviates whatever financial burden he may have as a result of paying for my tertiary education. he's happy i got it, thats enough for me. mostly, the thought of me being paid alot just to study and suffer abit of regimentation is more than sufficient motivation to pull me through and do well. still, sometimes the bitterness just wouldn't leave. my grand dreams of studying in the uk ultimately failed to materialize.

then again. what are my plans compared to the will of God. if He wills it this way, theres no way anything else is going to happen. so someday, one day, i'm hoping i'll be in total peace with His decision to see me study in australia.

that aside, i have suppressed something for far too long. i can't seem to get it out of my chest. time, space and circumstances were never in my favour. why why why? i'm afraid of so many things. the ghost of previous encounters come ahaunting. it's so obvious yet not obvious enough, ah who am i kidding.

__

john is posted to mindef starting next monday. goodbye aftc.

singapore warrior: an advocate of peace

war makes a good part of history. if you'd just think about it for a moment, history's war is all derived from the original sin of greed and self-centeredness. a hunger for expansion and conquest, coercing upon others ones ideals and political agendas. this conquest brings about more land, resources and riches, of which serves as a larger platform for more war and conquest.

i was reading up on the vietnam war, and browsing through war photos. war is terrible. in this day and age, most people are born embraced in peace, some see war on their televisions and papers, but most have never experienced it, its no wonder we have no regard for this defiled thing. it is not complacency, but merely self-indulgence and ignorance. we think peace is our birthright, and naturally so because we have no experience whatsoever but the words and tales of the generations before us. but is it really a birthright?

fortunately for us war-deprived people, diplomacy has become the predominant solution to conflict. however, the truth is that the foundation for effective diplomatic efforts rests on a nation's possession of viable and substantial war assets. if you want to talk, you better have big guns backing you. it fits in with every conflict. so in truth, war assets have not decreased since world war 2. should world war break out now, it'll be the biggest one yet. The primitive atomic bomb was enough to level a city. its already been more than half a century since the first nuclear bomb. with the development and advancements in guided weapon systems technology, planes don't have to be flown above their targets, ballistic rockets can travel between continents, and human lives effectively become mere statistics.

singapore has been on the receiving end of such grotesque conflicts not so long ago. it has been the highlight of social studies textbooks and other materials of propaganda. it must have been tough living in the day and age when singapore fell to the japanese. thinking about it makes me grateful because i am much more fortunate, and because our forefathers have since established a nation that can effectively protect itself, thus building the foundation for individualistic pursuits of its people.

this brings me to my final question, the one that i resolved before i signed on to the RSAF. why did i associate myself with the armed forces?

i don't ever want to be involved in war, but should it ever happen i want to play a part in seeing an end to it. singapore is a small country, and in the history of mankind, what are the odds of a small country surviving competition and conflicts with its larger neighbours? virtually none. so why this anomaly from the trend? you tell me.

it's only natural

soccer tournament tomorrow!

i'm going to be posted to mindef the following week, which kinda sucks since it means i need to wake up earlier in the morning to travel further.

i really liked this video for some reason, even though its about puppy love and attraction:

truly madly deeply

i'm a jackass! ok maybe i'm not meant to be a business person. super depreciation! i still remember last year i bought the zen x-fi, and then the ipod touch 2nd gen came out 2 weeks after that :/ now i bought the 2nd gen, the 3rd gen comes out! bugger, apple should give rebates for those who bought their old products recently (:

fortunately there's like no major technological revolution in the new gen ipod touch.

today i ran. yes i did.

i knew i loved you

payday! in like an hour.

ok maybe getting paid so much to do nothing is a major plus point of my job now.

taylor swift is my age! so is yoona! she's younger than me. and aarom ramsey is my age too. the list goes on. i just find it amusing and slightly unbelievable that people my age are out there making their mark somewhere in the world. me? i'm like everyone of you average joes. but yeah, i'm pretty happy like that (:

a blessing! my medical appointment got pushed forward to next monday, hopefully the problem will be resolved asap.

i was helping my boss type some paperwork today. he's in charge of trainee development and training curriculum planning, stuff like that. so i was just typing like the syllabus and course synopsis for what we call the Air Engineering Officer. apparently, only degree holders can apply for this vocation. i remember last sunday i was just talking to wilfred about how he can try for AEO because in my opinion, it is definitely much better than becoming a senior techie. you know, making the right decisions now can make so much difference in 10, 20, 30, 40 years to come. i found out that diploma holders alternately, can apply for the vocation of Air Maintenance Officer, which is a less managerial but more technical vocation, as compared to AEO. obviously the pay range is less, but it beats being a senior tech hands down. so i called him up and updated him on my new found knowledge. i felt that he could really get all the help he can get to make up his mind, especially when these type of choices are life determining.

for one, this small incident made me ponder on my decision to sign on. being a pilot with the RSAF is definitely a financially stable job, and believe it or not, it pays pretty darn well. i read up on the salary scale and various components of allowances a pilot draws and will draw as they progress in seniority, back when i was in ocs air wing, i was surprised alright. very very surprised.

months ago, i decided on the reasons for which i'm going to slog to earn a living for. i'll say that i'm not aiming for riches. my reasons are actually very simple, mostly with comfort and family in mind. if i can live comfortably and my family is living comfortably, i'm about contented. i'm not really feeling the crunch now, but according to my mum and dad, when the time comes i'll finally understand their pain. i certainly hope that when it comes, i don't reflect retrospectively and start regretting. at that time, regrets will be in vain and foresight will be what i wished for in my younger days. i hope what i'm intending to do now is a product of good foresight, i hope!

then again, what if i find myself unwanted 10 years down the road. my oh my john the bachelor.

what is the chief end of man?

amidst the amassing of knowledge and technical know-whats, innovative conceptual ideals and structural revolutions, my mind got lost.

which was fine, until i realised so were my soul and heart.

who gifted the capacity of thought to our physical embodiments? i mostly forget.

who gifted us the capacity to cry, laugh and get all frustrated? i mostly forget.

.. somewhere in between thinking and acting.


internal resolution issues aside, i enjoyed sunday very very much (: really.

old promises

which reminds me, if i do get the 5k my mum promised when i do well, i'd probably spend it on a mac and a camera. OR if i do extra well, which is highly unlikely (imagine 44, 45), i would keep the 5k and rely on scholarship funds to get my desires.

.. from 12th august '08, more than a year back. i was so motivated then. by the adrenaline of wanting to excel, by incentives, and finally the strong urge to prove my worth. i eventually did just that.

looking back, i never did get that incentive. i never got the chance.

she was so happy when i became a pilot, and when i finally got my diploma. she was also delighted when i got my platoon best. i like it when she smiled. even as i type this, i feel a strong sense of injustice towards her. do i just move ahead like that? life resumes, but things have changed so so so much. i can't even explain how much has changed.

moving along. to forget and put behind. she doesn't deserve this does she. i'm stuck here wondering, what could have been. how things would be like now had the coin toss gone the other way. tears grip me, they do sometimes, quite uncontrollably. but in doing this, i feel human again. to mourn to cry to vent my emotions against the four walls. and maybe when she see's me like that, she'll know i still miss her and she'll smile because i miss her. don't want her to see us moving along just fine, she'd get the wrong idea.

whenever i'm reminded of this whole predicament, life seems like an eternity, a slow and long eternity. it really sucks sometimes and i wonder whether my family feels the same. how i wish she was here to comfort me and perhaps drop me a kiss. i'd love that. its almost cruel, almost unfair, whoever tossed me into adulthood just like that. i'm already earning my keep, but for whom? i don't want to keep everything to myself, i really don't. there's just no meaning in that. none i can conceptualize. maybe i used to think material possessions were everything that keeps me going, right now that view has never been so wrong.

dad was happy when i finished with best knowledge, he was happy when i got the scholarship. you know, from the bottom of my deformed heart i hope he'll continue to be happy. i hope he'll continue to be able to be happy. i really don't know how i'll take things should anything else happen. please don't let anything happen to anyone else. life is already hard as it is.





i miss you so much mummy.

UNSW@ADFA

many thoughts, little actions, sleepy.