End of Life?

Everything has an end to it. An event has its end, a year has its end, a month has its end, a day has its end, an hour has its end, a minute has its end and even our life has its end too. Our world will end some day too. Nothing is eternal.

But when exactly is our life’s end? The day we die? The day we are of no use to the society anymore? The day we give up on ourselves? Or the day when no one no longer remember us? I guess the answer to this question is subjective and as for me, I belief in all 4 answers.

• Death marks the end of life’s exam; no more writing, submit the paper.

• Being useless to the society is like not knowing how to answer a certain question and we just stop there. So, we should move on, be it in life or in exam, do the next question; do something that makes you useful to something or someone.
• Giving up on ourselves means not trying at all, so long there is still time, so long our heart is still beating, there is always a way, just keep trying.

• Ever thought of immortality for eternal life? For me, I do not crave for that, I guess that is a little too scary, to have everlasting life. One day, we will lose interest in everything, and life will become meaningless, and ‘giving up’ is the only option left. Sad isn’t it? So, the kind of eternal life I want is for people in the future will still remember me. In order to make that happen, is make history (positive record, NOT negative ones).

I feel that life is a joke; that is why we have to laugh more and be happy while we can. Doing what we can during this short period of lifetime and receive our result upon death. The more I look at this, the more it is like examination. Education is the preparation for the exam, working is the exam, retirement is the marking period of papers and death is the collection of exam results. Oh, I miss out one more part, National Service is like IS modules, though essential but is irritating and breaks the momentum of everything.

Therefore, when there is a start, there will be an end, a finishing point, a goal.

This is then the REAL last post…

End of storytelling…

Start of life…

REAL start…

Let’s move on everyone, history is waiting for us to make…

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Meaning of Life…

In life, we meet different people, during different time, at different place, under different circumstances. During forced circumstances, we might meet good people, whereas under voluntary circumstances, we might meet people whom we don’t like. We meet and then we part. Sometimes, we part temporarily. Other times, we part permanently. There are times when we find ourselves doing something we do not like and have the urge to do something we want. But when we do something we like, we end up hating it. Then what is the point of pursuing our dreams? What will the result be? Pardon me for starting this post with such an emo feel.

There is a chase for something every time. Remember years ago when there is this Hello Kitty craze? People queued up at Mcdonald’s for these cats, making it national news. ‘I see you have, so I must have too’ is the kind of mentality many people have. Hello Kitty is never this popular in Singapore. When the last pair of Hello Kitty is to be obtained by prior booking, it loses its value. How many people actually booked for the cats and end up not redeeming them from Mcdonald’s? We want something not everyone have and we want things that others have that we don’t, even though we do not need them. ‘Needs’ and ‘wants’ is an important issue, but how many people actually give thoughts to it?

Look around us, when we see other people, we start to compare with our mediocre life. We see their good life and oversee their tough work. But when it comes to other people’s behavior and personality, we can see their bad points more easily then their good points. When we talk about complains, we have many. However, when it comes to complimenting others, we find ourselves caught in a tongue-tied situation. Years later, when we look back, only then will the good points become dominant while the bad points subside. Like the situation of when we are envious of other people leading better lives than us, we actually know, just that we refuse to acknowledge that. It takes time for such cruel truth to be embedded in us – there are other people who work harder than us, other people who are more well mannered and well behaved than us.

Why strive for something we like, and end up hating it someday? Why do things just because other people are doing it? Why compare with other people to make your life look bad when your life is actually rather good? Why do we want to be more superior than the others when we are really not?

Why do I want to write this post as my final post for storytelling module? I do not know. Perhaps this is the true meaning of life – a thing that is full of ‘why’s and very little ‘because’. Is all a dream? Is reality surreal, or is real surreal? What is all this? Why is it happening? When will it end? How does it even start? Where is the start? Who am I?

Whatever it is, let’s just live our life to the fullest and be happy. That is the least we should do.

Interest…

I am always caught within this struggle every week when I write a blog post. To write something I want to write or to write something interesting? I apologize for those who find my previous post too long and boring. Think my age is catching up. I am beginning to nag…

Enough of crying over spilled milk; let’s move on to this week’s post – interesting posts. I am not trying to say that this is an interesting post, but rather, this post is about interesting. Men are curious and are always interested in something. Men are also fickle minded. When we pick up a certain hobby, we might switch to another one very quickly at times. Not many people can stick to one hobby for life. When we are doing something over and over again, we get sick of it. Take me for an example, when I was young, I collected almost everything. Erasers, key chains, stickers, stamps, phone cards… you just name it; I might just have them hidden in a corner of my cupboard. When I grew slightly older, around secondary schools, I start collecting other stuff like Pokemon Trading Card Game. Hey! Why can I feel that you guys are laughing at me?

So you see, people will have a tendency to collect things they like. Are we humans over possessive over materialistic items? When we have one from a set, we have an urge to collect the rest of the series, like that nameless guy from Fight Club collecting IKEA furniture. Just imagine one day, when love become extreme, someone might preserve their love ones to collect… *shiver* ok, this is getting creepy.

Apart from collecting being a hobby, doing something can become a hobby too. Playing musical instruments, cooking, playing virtual games or even playing sports like any ball games (can somebody please tell me why did Mavis appear in my mind when I was typing out the words ‘ball games’? hmm, I wonder…). To me, playing something is a healthier kind of hobby as compared to collecting stuff. I always link collection to that over possessive psychological problem.

I used to help out in cooking when I was in secondary school. Not just home economics, but at home too. But I guess I was only interested in the knife rather than the ladle (too much Chinese kung fu novels back then). I also played basketball during my secondary school days, but only until I injured my right arm. I woke up one morning and realize my right arm wasn’t responding to me very well and that made me turn to a more ‘scholarly’ hobby. This hobby that I turned to is something that I had long wanted to do. It is di zi (or in English, the flute). I remember when I was in kindergarten, I watched this TV drama about the eight immortals crossing the sea. Among them is an immortal that uses the flute as his celestial weapon. Yup, he is Han Xiang Zi. (I thought of putting a picture of them here, but well, since they are part of the Taoist religion, I shan’t use their pictures any o’ how)

So this music instrument I picked up as an effect from the causality of injuring my arm by the basketball, it changes my life totally. Perhaps it’s because it was something like a dream come true. I never got a chance to learn it. As my mother forced me to some organ lesson and I refused to go (perhaps I was already a ‘D’ personality [refer to ‘The One’]), and my mum uses that as a reason to not let me learn, saying that my passion can never last for more than 3 minutes. That was weird, I never remember me saying I wanted to earn organ. So, I gave it all out (like oh Desu giving it all out on Mido after 15 years… darn, why did I even link my hobby with that traumatizing show…) when I touch the di zi and you guys probably can guess that this caused the turning point of my life, but that is another story and it has more or less been told.

Men just take things for granted. We will only cherish things that were hard to come by. So girls, play ‘hard to get’ with the guys you like, so that they might love you more, but do not over do it. Some guys might end up cherishing you so much that collecting becomes the only option…

Human’s minds are just so interesting aren’t they?

screen shot taken from anime: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. Good stuff, my favourite anime.
coherence: 0/10 unless finish watching the entire season 1 n 2…
intensity of effect: 10/10
originality: 10/10
complexity: 10/10

score is ridiculous, well, it’s my favourite, so cant blame if i’m bias. Go watch it when you are free.

blood and gore warning!

The One…

The One Left

Everywhere we go, there is this one, many ones actually. When in a group there is always people with different traits such as the most commonly seen bossy one, noisy one, quiet one and the complaining one. The magnitude of these four kinds of people will definitely defer from one group to another. When people become over bossy, and controls every single thing, they will look like a tyrant. The noisy type of people lighten mood all the time but when they start to talk nonsense and never seem to be serious even when doing work, they will tend to get on other people’s nerves. The quiet seldom talks and are generally easy going. However, if they are quiet all the time, he/she will look more like anti social. Complaining helps getting the rights we deserve but there is always a limit. If we complain about every minor detail, we will start to nag and of course this is not a good thing.

When these traits of anyone become unbearable, they will become the one, the ostracized one. This is also a phenomenon that occurs everywhere. Like a joker/old maid/donkey card or whatever card games you play, this person will be seen as the extra one and no one wants to keep it in your hand. We will try our best to avoid them at all cost.

However, there is this weird effect resulting from the irritating aura emitted by the ‘outcasts’ – the uniting of the class. The mystical power will somehow unite the initially scattered class. I suppose that with a common target, people unite. Then, among the united clan, a leader will rise… OK, before moving on, i really hope that this poly class can proof to me that this phenomenon does not occur every time…

The One Leading

In a group, someone has to lead or else, the group will be heading nowhere. Leaders will change time-to-time, just like emperors of the past or ministers of today. In small group context, the change of leader may or may not be due to incapability. For instance, when deciding for work related problems, person A will take charge whereas person B will take charge when it comes to recreational events planning. In some cases, all members of the group might have a chance to lead at different times unlike the governing system of a country where leaders lead and followers follow (let’s not go into political issues here shall we?).

Like we have different kinds of irritating people, we also have different kinds of leaders, but its much simpler as there is only 2 types – the good ones and the bad ones. Good leaders lead by example and are open to suggestions. They are assertive when it needs be, speak only the necessary, commanding respect when keeping quiet and never complain about how tough being a leader is. Bad leaders are simply the reverse. I have seen people who literally cannot lead but are being assigned a leadership role (you guys can guess where I saw them right? That’s right, during my 2 years of ‘jail’). They do nothing when they are required to react and complain about how difficult it is to be leading. ‘You try to be in my position then you will know how I feel’, ‘You so good then you be commander lah’, when people say something like that, they fail immediately. These statements actually harbor tones of despising and undermining. When superior look down on subordinate, the trust between them is gone and nothing can work out. The worst statement I have ever heard in my life will be ‘If you do not respect me, respect my rank’. I will always reply back in my heart, ‘Like you respect my rank. It’s not high up, but I take pride in my rank.’

Many a time, leaders forget that their authority lies with the people underneath. If there is no one under them, what do they lead? So the higher up someone climbs, the higher tendency for them to neglect this fact and even good leaders will become bad ones. Whenever we lead, just keep this in mind – commanding respect and respecting command (perhaps this is the only good phrase SAF can ever come out with).

Moving back to the ‘leader’ leading the united clan against the ostracized one, this type of leader belongs to a slightly different type. Some call them comrade leaders while others call them peer leaders. Basically, they are people who lead fellow people of the same level. This kind of leaders can only be one type, the good ones. They will understand the importance of support as the ostracized one will act as a constant reminder for them. Furthermore, if the group is unhappy about this leader of theirs, they can talk to him/her immediately and problems can be trashed out and sorted out quickly. So in this united clan, different people take turns to lead for different issues, while some others will enjoy playing the supportive roles and never take charge. Among the group, we will also have a small group who are in the clan because they do not want to be ostracized like ‘the one’ just because they are all right with him/her. Peer pressure comes into the picture as silent as ever.

We want to be something and do not want to be something else. We choose our own path, but the outcome will defer from others. Everyone is unique and is the one and only.

The one and only

Everyone belongs to a certain story. We are the protagonists of our own stories. People whom we know will appear in our story as supporting roles. Though we are in the story, we are able to play a part in writing our story. Some people like their story to have something big in it, while others enjoy having a peaceful story. In this world of ours, we perceive and react to things in way that others done. This is called personality.

As I have mentioned about the bossy, noisy, quite and the complaining kind of people around, there is actually a personality categorization them – DISC (dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness). Actually, that categorization was taken from a quiz I had taken before.

• ‘Dominance’ refers to those that can be described as a bulldozer. They do what they want and getting rid of those in their way. They are forceful and will do anything so long the goal is achieved.

• ‘Influence’ people are easily recognized by their power of speech. They are able to talk through people and change their decision. However, when it comes to hands on, they might not be as good as their talking.

• ‘Steadiness’ will be a nice word for those ‘quiet’. They will not do much talking as most of the time and will usually play the passive role in a group. They enjoy staying neutral during arguments and are generally peace loving. They are also the easiest going group and the most co-operative kind.

• ‘Conscientiousness’ people are on high alert mode most of the time. I dun mean that they are paranoid but they have a high tendency for that. They are usually cautious, meticulous, calculative and curious. They prefer to do things in a systematic way and sadly, have the highest tendency of irritating other people.

However, one will not belong totally to a certain category, i.e. A is dominant, B is steady etc. Rather, think of it as attributes, like attack, defense and speed. So, everyone will have a core personality supported by one or a few sub-personalities. For instance, take my result. It was something like D 44, I 28, S 8, and C 20. That would means I am very D (back then) and followed by ‘I’ and ‘C’. And I am so not S. Personality change with time, so I wonder how will my result look like if I redo the test.

There is no such thing as the best personality of the four. What we need is balance. Group with a good mix of people of the 4 personalities can have things done efficiently as each of them fill in the bad points of the others. When ‘I’ talk too much, ‘C’ will pull them back. When ‘C’ makes too many alternative solutions for something, ‘D’ will choose one out for them. When ‘D’ is getting tyranny, ‘S’ can tone them down. When ‘S’ is too quiet, ‘I’ can ‘lure’ them to speak up.

In conclusion, everyone plays a part in life, no matter how in significant it is. We are all different; different personality, different IQ, different EQ. Being different, we are unique, we are one.

Ok, this picture brings us back to the 1st topic of my post- the one left. I urge everyone reading my post, be a good leading one, or be a co-operative one, but never, the left out one.

*feel free to leave a comment about your views about me being D,I,S or C*

free online DISC test: http://www.mtselect.co.uk/testing/DISC.htm

Keep Left Please…

Ever been caught in a human jam when shopping? And when you are in a hurry, there’ll always be this ‘lump’ of human beings blocking the entire path in front of you? Personally, I feel that this phenomenon is caused by the very fact that many people do not know how to walk properly. Walking is not just about standing on two legs and start moving forward by placing one leg before another. There are some unsaid rules to follow to make us look like courteous ‘walker’:

1. Keep left when walking slowly and allow a path on our right for incoming human traffic
2. When in groups, do not walk SLOWLY in a horizontal line and block the entire path
3. When shifting out of a line of people, ensure to check for any people coming in your way to prevent bumping into them
4. Do not stop suddenly or in the middle of the road, always check back
5. Do not walk too close behind someone in front of you

Oh, for those who had passed their driving basic theory test, you would have noticed that these rules are very familiar to these:

1. Keep left rule
2. No road hogging
3. Always check blind spot before changing lanes
4. Do not stop abruptly
5. No tail gating

At first glance, it look like they are present for safety reasons, but then on a second look, I feel that they carry more weightage of courteousness in them. These 5 rules, be it walking or driving, basically tells us to think for others; spare a thought for others who might be in a hurry, don’t go walk ‘ba-long-long’ on the road as though it is your grandfather’s road, etc.

We all know that according to law we need a license to drive. Why? So to prevent selfish people on the road causing accidents i.e. you cannot drive properly but still insist on driving on the road which is hazardous for other road users. Perhaps one day, walking license will be needed for us to walk. Let us now throw ourselves this question→ why are such laws created? I remember some years ago, a TVB drama said something like if all men are less selfish and think more about others, the creation of traffic light will not be needed. That is very true. Humans are getting more and more selfish as the days go. Using walking as an example, we can already see that many people do not spare a thought for other people who might be in a hurry and some others even walk in a way that put other people to harm.

Who think that other people are more important then themselves?
What makes one more superior then others?
Where will this degradation of human lead us?
Why are there people who just refuse to spare a thought for others?
When a task is given to the group, who will actually volunteer to do the toughest part?
How many drivers will actually give way to other cars driven by drivers who just passed?

We tend to take things for granted and seldom think about others. We are no sage. There is no way for us to put others before self but still, just thinking for others will make us a better person. We are all equal; we are not ranked by our wealth, skills or knowledge. We all eat with our mouth and shit with our ass. Unless one can eat with his/her ass I’ll admit that he/she is superior. However, for those who can shit with their mouth, it’s no talent; I had seen many already. We need to take initiative as well. When a tough job is given, split it up equally among the group and everyone suffer a little together. If everyone just wants to learn the art of ninjutsu, evade, then one poor soul will have to take the full hit of that shit. As for good stuff, everyone fights for it. If only we can share the goodness and give a chance for other people, I will not need to ask the above ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ questions.

Everyone should be courteous, spare a thought for others and work hard to build up our EQ. Say a simple ‘thank you’ to whomever for whatever little things done for you. Smile, nod or wave to drivers who give way to other drivers or pedestrians. When friends’ birthday comes, say a ‘happy birthday’ to them or give them presents to build up the friendship.

Speaking of birthday, my 21st birthday is coming this year. By sparing a thought for others, I had come out a wish list for my birthday so people who are buying gifts for me need not squeeze dry their brain juice just to get a present for me. =)
Wish list:

Ferrari

BMW

Peugeot

Porsche

Jaguar

I am not greedy, so i am not asking for all… Just buy me anyone will do. What you guys can do is gather together and split the total amount so everyone will only need to chip in one portion (remember the splitting of workload i mentioned above). Spare a thought for the others as after buying me a car, its not just me who will be happy. Serene and DJ will be as well (i know they are just waiting for the day for me to drive to school and they will just hop in…).
NOTE: The above paragraph is written solely for effect purposes only. Please DO NOT mistake me as someone who is insensitive and just blurt out nonsensical stuff from my mouth thinking that it is funny. But still, if you guys really want to be generous and give me a car as present, I’ll gladly accept them. =)

Back to the main topic again. Now, we know the importance of walking/driving properly, all that is left, is to put them to practice. Here, I urge you guys to join me; always bearing in mind to keep left allowing people to overtake from the right and never choke up the walkway when walking in a group. LONG LIVE BASIC THEORY!!!

I’ll be waiting for the day to come, the day where everyone keep left…

Deciding Factor…

Decision-making:
Life’s all about decision-making. Ever chose a route that takes longer for you to reach your destination where you could have chosen a shorter route? Ever see a bus arrive at the bus stop and you start to think whether you should chase for it? Or when a girl pulls out a sword and slash at you, you think of whether to sacrifice one arm to save your life or just die there? For me, I chose to sacrifice an arm. Or rather, I didn’t have a choice…

Making Decision: Sin Cinema

All thanks to Winnie, we, the guys, got super high. Erm, before you readers start to think dirty, especially you Mavis. It all happened like this:

Our dear big sis Winnie told me about the presence of a cinema called Sinema located at somewhere around Dhoby Ghaut. So I went there, pulling my army friend to go with me to search for this place after we watched ‘Harold & Kumar 2’, a show that is so wrecked, stupid and idiotic that it is good. By the way, this place is not a sinful cinema ok? Its ‘sin’ is from ‘Singapore’ and it’s a place that shows all films that are made in Singapore. Regardless of how good the film is, as long as it is local, Sinema will screen it.

Check out their website: http://www.sinema.sg/oldschool/ oh, er, some of their links isn’t working properly…

Decision that make us HIGH:
Ok, so we watched HnK2 at The Cathay (near Plaza Sing), and the location of Sinema is in the vicinity. We know that it is situated at a place called Mount Sophia, so the search begins. We came upon this long flight of stairs beside a construction site somewhere behind Cathay building and if you have read Winnie’s blog, yes, this is the 140 steps stairs (or 138 steps to be exact). However, me and my friend felt that it doesn’t really seems to be the correct route and so we made our way back to Cathay, walked from the other side, followed the sign that says ‘Sophia Road’. (well, Mt Sophia shouldn’t be too far from Sophia Road) The road is actually up slope, and the distance we walked was around 400m until we reached this ulu building that says ‘Old School’ at its entrance. At last, we reached our destination, but instead or rejoicing, our face all turned like this>>> -__________-”’
There is this awfully familiar building under construction, and we made a detour for that building to confirm our doubts. In less than a minute, we saw a flight of stairs going down in right front of us. Guess what? It is the 138stairs…

After recovering from our grief and sorrow, we went back and entered the building. Upon entering, we see nothing but a few people (they should be human…) and the place was practically empty. The search for B1 commence and we walked up and down the stairs, trying to figure out which level is which and finally, we realized that the level we entered is B1 (once again -_____-) and we also managed to find a sign saying ‘this way to Sinema’. Our long journey finally ended as we reached this ulu office in an ulu building located in an ulu place, but something feels awfully familiar again… We walked out of the building and we saw the entrance of Old House:

If only we had walk straight and didn’t turn in, we would not have wasted 10mins circling the insides of the building. And so, the search for Sinema left us once again… ‘High’ isn’t it?

Alas, we made it to the movie screening theatre. Sinema only had one theatre and it has a very homely feel to it. It had sofas (though the back rest is kinda low for me) instead of those individual seats and it is free seating. Another thing which i felt was rather unique is that the guy who sold us the tickets was also the one who checked our tickets upon entry, and it is obvious that he remembered us as the people who went to watch that screening was like less then 10. And so the film started after 2 local production’s trailers screened there (alright, i need not see those stupid advertisements that seem so ridiculous on the big screen). During the midst of movie, a thought struck me. How will I feel if there are less then 10 people who came and watch my film? At first, I thought that I’ll fell sad, but no. So long there is one person that came and support me, i should feel grateful; regardless of whether he/she love or hate it. And if only one person love that film of mine, I think I have succeeded, to a certain extend that is. 1 person’s support is better than none and a small improvement is also better than none. I belief this trip to Sinema made me realized something more indepth in film-making; not so much on physically making the film, but on an emotional level of realization.

Lessons Learnt:

1. Routes that seems intimidating may actually be the easier way.
2. Not every turns are meant to be turned.
3. Film making is a long journey, no matter how much detour we take, so long we keep moving and come back to the main path, it doesn’t matter.

Decision Made:

I may not have the talent, but I shall strive on with my passion. It is not about how far I am from my goal, but how far I have moved towards it. I shall wash away the insult of losing one arm two years, whatever it takes. Yang Guo faces many obstacles and made many detours in his life. Yang Guo is neither just a character in a novel, nor is he just an idol of mine, he is me.

Great, now I am suffering from an identity crisis…

this is not a random picture, it is here because i like its arrangement, imagine naruto(left) and sasuke(right) is me and yang guo, and the fight in the background is my internal self’s struggle. Red depicting my passion, blue representing my dark past… OMG, i think i am thinking too much, lol!

Life and Deaths… plus The Forbidden Kingdom…

‘The Call Home’ actually reminded me of my army days. During my combat engineer vocation, i was actually a plant trained engineer, which is, to operate plants. So, these are some of my toys in NS:

motor-grader excavator bulldozer

so what do my toys remind u of? Yup, a construction site worker. We were actually issued a yellow helmet for one of our construction course where we complete projects such a road maintenance, river bank preparation for bridge or amphibious vehicle landings, and even making drainage systems(i.e. to make drains, this is the worst construction as it’s very hands-on… Heavy plants are of not much use here). We also obtained licenses to operate these plants, but they are just military license, i.e. only valid in military grounds, so we can’t just go to any construction site and start operating them. =(

I would like to bring your attention to the 2nd picture of my toys, the excavator. That long arm extended from its body is beautiful, isn’t it? Something like this happened: I was the ground guide for my friend who is operating the beauty, then i was using hand signals to guide him as to how he should dig (the engine is actually quite loud so we had ear plugs on, we will need to yell in order to communicate through voice). However, it does not seem like he is happy with my plan, so he signaled back to me. Guess what? His hand hit on the lever by the side of the operator’s seat, and the entire cabin swerved, resulting its arm to swing towards me. Before i know it, the bucket of the arm is right IN FRONT OF ME! LESS THAN 30CM AWAY!!! It took me some time to snap out of it, and the moment i came to, i was already hurling vulgarities to that friend in the cabin. At least i know that he felt rather happy to be scolded as when the arm swings, from his point of view, he thought the bucket of the arm had hit me, and that would also mean kicking the bucket for me (yeah, this is how scary parallax can get) Well, the most important thing from that accident is, I AM STILL ALIVE. Not a good thing to happen, but well, this would be the best that had happened.

So that sums up my worst death encounter (yes, i experienced it more than once… how unlucky can i get? But i’ll be skipping the rest of the experiences, kinda boring.)

Apart from the ‘job’ that i did in my NS is similar to a construction worker, the life is actually similar, far too similar. They have ‘Foreman VS Worker’ while we have ‘Commander VS Men’. Same scenario in both place, superior doubting the subordinate for feigning illness, subordinate taking extreme measures to escape from working (remember what ‘redpants’ mr Leslie said about someone falling down the stairs and breaking his leg, well, i also happen to witness something like that during my time. Guess that is something that will not change with time.)

Adding on, we also have all sorts of temptation and distraction around us in camp such as smoking(again, same as Kasi). Good thing i loathe the smell of cigarette and didn’t pick up this expensive habit. There was this one time when a Staff Sergeant, who happens to be our instructor, needed to demonstrate to us how we should use the excavator (yup, the arm of death again, haha). He happens to be smoking at that time so he passed me the cigarette for me to hold on to it while he demonstrated, since our safety regulation forbids smoking on plant. So here i am, holding that THING as far from me as possible until i return it back to him. When i smell my hand [Note: i was wearing glove], the smell is still there! I quickly removed my glove and smell again. NOOOOOOOO, it smells too! And the smell stuck with me till the next day, even after i wash it thoroughly with soap… So guys, please, don’t smoke. If you smoke, please don’t do it near me. >.<

Thinking back of my enlistment day, the feeling sucks. I went to a place i never knew, not knowing what to expect, not knowing who i will be meeting and worst of all, I do not even want to be there to begin with. I believe Kasi also feels this way after seeing the condition of his room. Then as the days go, we (Kasi and I) got use and blend in with our new life. Many feelings, many thoughts and even more complains i will like to say about NS but i will not do it on a blog (i still have a clear mind on where i was heading to), it’s too dangerous to do that (now everyone should know where i was heading to). But who cares to complain now, Mr Leslie, together now, ORD LOH! Don’t remind me about reservice and ippt… i know… haha -_____-”’

Movie Reflection: The Forbidden Kingdom

***SPOILERS ALERT***

Well, a weird show. We need not know why they can suddenly switch their language from english to chinese, so long it is funny, everyone will be happy. A rather normal and expected kind of story and ending, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad film. It also reminds me of ‘Wizard of the Oz’, without the singings of course.

There are 2 parts in the show which i really loved them. Firstly, the part where Jackie Chan n Jet Li fought over the staff. Being the first time co-acting in a show, that is an essential scene and i am quite
touched by that. 2 famous action star finally gets this chance to share the stage together at their old age (they are quite old actually…)

The 2nd thing i liked is the Golden Swallow acted by Crystal Liu (not because she acted xiao long nu ok?). It is the way she addressed herself as ’she’ instead of ‘I’. Only at the very end when she finally avenged (sort of) her parents death, then she addressed herself as ‘I’. I almost teared then, though hard to imagine, as the underlying meaning is so rich. It is like she finally regained her identity which she gave up for revenge long, long ago. Then she died, and i stopped feeling the tears in my eyes. Guess her death was too expected. =)

My journey so far…

Finally, i chose my own path. My life so far is kind of different from most people. Putting aside my life starting from birth to graduation of my secondary education as they are so mediocre that no one will stand reading them, my ‘interesting journey’ begins after getting my ‘O’ level certificate. 

 

I went JC(Tampines) after my ‘O’s. One word- disastrous. Oh, and just for information, i took double maths n physics. Alright, i know, that is a combination not to be trifled with but then, i was not thinking much. As a matter of fact, the reason for why i went JC is that there was no reason. I just went there for the sake of going there. When i attended school, practically every lessons ended by leaving a big question mark on my head. This is also the time when i started to run away from reality. I put in all my efforts in some other not so important areas like my CCA(chinese orchestra), hosting various programs organized by the chinese department(ok, i know i am ‘cheena’). Seems like once i have no interest in a certain thing, i will just neglect them totally, so actually, i kind of admire those people that could say something like “I didn’t want to be a doctor, i wanted to an artist. It’s just because of my parents…”blah, blah, blah. 

 

Enough said about my pathetic boring life in JC, let us move on to something a bit more drama. So time flies before i realise it, i have already collected my ‘A’ levels and flunked it. With the encouragement of my teachers, i actually applied to repeat my 2nd JC year. But something awaits me after my JC- National Service. I needed to know when will the ‘repeat form’ be approved so that i could defer my NS enlistment. So after i submitted my ‘repeat form’, i went to the office and asked a teacher who happens to be there. In order to protect her rights, i will not use her real name and i shall call her Mdm Bitch. If u have already guessed that i am going to bitch about this bitch, you are totally right. She told me “Eh, u just go in army, anything we will call you.”

 

Fast-forward again. Now, i have already enlisted into army for a week, still waiting for a call from the school as said by Mdm Bitch. My elder sister could not wait any longer and decided to call the school for me. And holy crap! The answer she got was that i could actually defer my enlistment ON THE DAY I submitted the repeat form. However, by now, i actually got used of the life in army. A world of our own, totally cut off from the real world. Somewhere deep in my heart, i have already decided to do my best in my BMT(recruit phase) so that i could get chosen to be a commander, and sign on as a regular from there, and sort of hide from reality for the rest of my life. Then again, it happens again… A joke happens again…

 

After my field camp, my left hand ring finger swelled like a sausage. I was admitted to hospital and a surgery was done. It involves cutting up my finger to allow the pus to flow out. It seems just like yesterday when I was lying in the operating theatre, groaning in pain when the surgeon is performing the incision drainage as the pus in my finger had clogged up most of the blood vessels and the anesthetic could not numb my whole finger. This unlucky event will scar me for life, and literary scar me:

 

As you can see, the left picture is my healed up ring finger with a little not so obvious scar there. As for the right picture, please do not be mistaken that I committed suicide by slashing my wrist. It is actually a scar left behind by a skin drafting (the dots around the line are stitches wound). The skin cut out was used to patch up the big cut on my ring finger. Up till now, i am still cursing and swearing about the surgeon as to why he graft the skin from my wrist and not from some other places which could be covered…

 

With the admission into hospital, MCs and the exemption from upper limb activities, i completed my BMT without doing quite a lot of events. SAF did not allow me to re-course BMT due to the fact that I have been through most of the training so with that, i lost the chance of being a commander. Eventually, i became a Combat Engineer, as a man(that is, not commander).

Let’s just TAKE IT that i went through the rest of my NS life peacefully, which is not the case, haha. But that is another story, for another time…

Well, these series of unfortunate events actually made me start to think what should I do next, and perhaps, it is a good thing that these things did happen. It is then i remembered about the major Project Work(which is part of the ‘A’ level) i did during my JC1(i purposely left this out at the beginning of my post). The topic was to investigate the growth of a industry and its changes. My group chose the movie industry. Like i mentioned earlier, I am unable to do stuff which i am really not interested in. But this project, something is different. It is so different that, i already categorize as something fun, rather then part of my sad JC life. So, a goal is now set- movie making.

 

The next question now would be, where should i go? Back to my project work again, we interviewed someone, a lecturer from Ngee Ann Poly. Yes, so that means, 4 years ago, i had already set foot on NP, and not knowing that 4 years later, i will be back. Sad thing is, i can’t remember the name of the lecturer we interviewed. I really would like to say ‘thank you’ to him as he was the 1st ‘media person’ I ever come into contact and the experience was a good one. Upon deciding the path, I simply used my ‘O’ld level certificate and applied for NP-FMS-FSV. Of course, I went through yet another ordeal this time round- psychological barrier. If not for all the good friends i met in my JC and NS, not forgetting my families members too, without their support and encouragement, I would never had the determination to start all over again. So, here i am, doing something that is finally interesting. Meeting new people, learning new stuff, my journey has only just begun…