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…