An important note-to-self

Took a lot of wrong turns the past weekend, and said a lot of things that were better left unsaid. But as much as it's too late, sometimes it takes impetuousness to get me thinking and reflecting in the way I usually would once again. For all I know, this scenario will one day repeat itself, and out of my forgetfulness and the influence of emotions which may seem so overwhelming at that point in time, the same old ugly thoughts will once again flow out from between my lips with a lack of restraint, confident that they would hit the right notes and send the right blows, only to die abruptly and vanish with all their energy spent on nothing. Yet at least I'll know that I've been there before, that with every mess comes the responsibility of cleaning up. At least I'll be able to see a little more clearly during those brief moments when my eyes are clouded by selfishness, regardless of how little a difference that may make. At least that view won't seem so futile, much less foreign.

It's such a shame how I still need to constantly remind myself that I can surpass the sum of my parts, if only I allow myself to do so. Am I that atrociously forgetful? That Friday night when I returned home, I once again sparked off that weary war of words with my mother – that rant about how I feel so trapped in this particular stage of my life with nothing fulfilling to look forward to, and how most of the people I know just seem to be absorbing brand new lessons and experiences, just because there's rightfully nothing to be afraid of when you're at the cusp of adolescence. I blurted out my mind without considering that she's already had to give up a lot in her life when she was just my age, and most importantly, without realizing my privileges in spite of how I may have felt. I forgot that there's virtue in patience, in the wait that will strengthen one's heart, and that even now, I can still take ownership of my own life, because the right attitude from within is precisely what plants one's feet firmly above all that's happened to him.

As I tossed and turned on my bed last night, I also thought of that Sunday afternoon, when my mother happened to bring up the issue of my A-Level results, telling me that as someone who performed so well in secondary school, I haven't tried my best in JC at all. My reaction to what she said was predictably unpleasant, like that of someone who felt wrongfully accused in an argument gone awry. At that point in time, all I could think of was, "great, just when I can't feel lousier about myself already, you had to go and make things worse". It was all just about me – that bitter taste in my mouth, and about looking back and regretting every single decision that culminated in this spectacular mistake that was A-Levels. Yet as I'm typing all of this out, I have to say that I'm done. So what if I have regrets? Instead of denying them like I always did in the past, I'm gonna have to wear them proudly on my sleeve as I move the hell on with life, and they're gonna have to be the tools that pave my way forward, not the weapons that I use to hurt myself. So what if I might actually be naturally incompetent compared to the others? I'm complete with my own limitations, and I'll simply have to make full use of whatever that's been handed to me. And as simple as it should have been, I will now see my mother's honest words as an encouragement.

For the first time in what has seemed like ages, I'm gonna tell myself here that yes, I believe in myself, in spite of everything that's happened and everything that's fallen apart. And to whoever's reading this, you should, too.

The Ponds

“Still, what I want in my life


is to be willing


to be dazzled –


to cast aside the weight of facts





and maybe even


to float a little


above this difficult world.


I want to believe I am looking



into the white fire of a great mystery.


I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing –


that the light is everything… And I do.”

– Mary Oliver, The Ponds

No such thing as enough breaks

This week has been a really refreshing one - probably because I'm only booking in tonight. Requested to clear Monday to Wednesday as off-days, because I figured that there's gonna be nothing much for us to do in camp (I'm probably either right or lucky for this, because it's really either nothing or something we wouldn't deign to do, i.e. SAIKANG). Anyhow, I've been resting out of camp for the past three days, and that's honestly all that matters.

But now that we're on this topic of me being glad that I'm out of camp, I have to say that sometimes, I catch myself wondering whether I'll actually look back at my NS journey in the future with the sense of having accomplished something. I would want to feel bittersweet about the experiences I've had, but seeing how until now, I still seem like a work-in-progress when it comes to reaching a couple of my short-term goals regarding the kind of character I want to have while I'm still an NSF, I'm not really sure about it. Occasionally, my mind nags at me to be more proactive and involved in my work even if it's not something I would choose to do (if I had the choice that is), and until now I still find it a huge struggle. Besides the fact that it's hard to always gnaw at the bullet, do what needs to be done despite the dread and inconvenience and have the right attitude of willingness while on the job, I'm guessing that I'm impeded also because of this diminished sense of pride that comes from always working under someone and being at the bottom of the hierarchy. But from here, I just want to learn to complain less, and to accept that it is the way it is. It's already too late to rewind and change the entire trajectory of my NS journey. Even now, with a considerable amount of time left to go before ORD, I'm already looking forward and thinking of what I would want to do for the next stage of my life. I guess you can say that an imaginary split runs through me and cuts me in half, with one half pushing forward, and the other half stubbornly choosing to stay put. Until I really grasp the idea of being willing and also of being humble when so many others can claim the privilege not to be will I be able to tell myself that yes, I've improved as a person. Ideally, I would want to look back at my NS journey with as little regrets as possible - I'd like to ironically actually miss the times spent in camp, while acknowledging that I wouldn't want to go back.

Grim thoughts aside, this break has been a rather chill one, with some days actually bordering on boring. Lol I guess that no matter how strongly I believe myself to be an introvert, when I really need good company, I need it, and when there's really nothing to do sometimes, damn right there's really nothing to do. Everyone's busy and barely keeping up with their own lives, and though I see myself as privileged that I haven't had a lot going on in mine lately, I'll admit that sometimes, I feel lonely. And I'm also stuck between not wanting to waste my time on company that wouldn't be right for me at that point in time, and hesitating to ask if the person whom I want to meet is free (unfortunately still pretty averse to rejection). Regardless, I shall try to better plan my me-time schedules in the future.

During nights-out on Wednesday, I headed to the Kinokuniya at Jem and got myself two more classics - 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Flowers for Algernon'. I'm sounding more and more like a pseudo ex-Lit student here, but lately I've been interested in modern classics for some reason, probably sparked by '1984' I guess. I still have a slew of non-fiction books (Nick Vujicic, an LKY biography, self-help books etc. etc.) waiting for me to read after I'm done with these two, as well as the 'Divergent' series and probably a few more other series if I'm interested. I'm also intending to get 'And The Mountains Echoed' in paperback from Bookdepository since I can't find it anywhere for now, so this year's probably gonna play out as one of intensive reading. I shall mark this as an accomplishment at the end of the year then!

Managed to spend more time than I usually would with my family this break. Had dinner with them on Friday at a usual 煮炒 place, and on Sunday at yet another usual haunt - Golden Mile Thien Kee Steamboat. If you're part of my family you'll know that there's only so many places we will go to eat - if it's not zhi char or that restaurant in Golden Mile Complex, then it's either Beach Road prawn mee, the famous yong tau foo and bak chor mee at Simpang Bedok, alternating between two or three dimsum restaurants, or Changi Airport. On birthdays, we'll probably have black pepper crab. So I guess all I have to say about us is that we're just simple people like that.

Yet speaking of our tendency towards being rather simple, I'm compelled to relate this to a recent survey result which painted Singapore as the world's most expensive city. As much as it's expensive primarily because of land/geographical constraints that can't be compared against other major cities, there are indeed a lot of things that remain out-of-reach to ordinary Singaporeans. What I'm trying to say is, it's a little lazy to simply dismiss Singaporeans as a bunch of people who 'enjoy a different basket of goods' and who are easily satisfied by the kopi and kaya toast breakfast set at the coffee shop below their HDB block, according to what a few ministers have alleged recently. I believe there are a considerable number Singaporeans who continue to pine for the lifestyles of our country's (filthy) rich, so, with so many government figures going by that argument to defend their stance that Singapore isn't that expensive, I hope they notice that they're actually admitting to inequality and confirming that yes, Singapore is indeed the most expensive city to live in. And while I was typing all of that earlier, I realised it may also be assumed that most Singaporeans are actually happy with a rather simple lifestyle of cheap hawker/coffee shop fare, heartland shopping malls with casual wear brands, etc., which is something I'm not really sure about.

In other news, on Saturday I attended a distant relative's baby shower, but honestly I was just in it for the food, haha. I was also rather fascinated by the use of ang ku kueh, deep red hard-boiled eggs and colourful agar-agar as symbols for Chinese baby showers. Although I'm aware that it's long been part of Chinese culture, I have forgotten this particular aspect for it for quite a while, so it was rather heartening for me - I felt like I was learning more about my history somehow.

Saturday was also the day of Sheryl's NTU hall production at (ironically) NUS UCC, for which Sheryl was the uh... receptionist. Kinda strange and 'no link' but yeah, that's just how it was.

Also really that I made myself available on yesterday night for Clarence's 21st birthday party at NSRCC! Had an enjoyable time and yes, the food was good. HAHA.

So tl;dr: basically, I'm back in camp after a good break, yet I'm already smelling the weekend ahead. And I just wish that every week of my NS life could be like this, though this is but an example of wishful thinking lah.

Back to bored

Finally. A proper entry after so long. For the past few days, I've been reminding myself tirelessly to find a good time to sit down and write, before I forget all the things in February that I want to remember. After all these years, I remain a professional procrastinator. Old habits die really, really hard. They may even be immortal, for all I know.

There won't be anything much for us to do in camp for this week and the next, because most of the company's currently away in India for military exercises. Before they left last weekend, I was half-wishing that I could join them, yet I dismissed that thought almost immediately. I guess this ambivalence stems from the fact that I will no longer be flying overseas with the army during my 2 years in NS. It's good because India has never been a place I've been itching to visit anyway, let alone getting posted there for military exchange. Also, I've been to India before (and I consider myself very, very lucky to have had a great experience there). Nevertheless, the flip side to all this would be that 1. they will be visiting the TAJ MAHAL, the architectural wonder I unfortunately didn't get to see during my last visit, and 2. with the news that we won't be flying to Australia near the end of the year, I feel kinda sad that there'll no longer be an all-expenses-paid trip to Down Under, though I keep telling myself that Queensland's where we're going and there's probably absolutely nothing there besides deserts that stretch in all directions as far as the eye can see (and even farther), and an unhealthy abundance of kangaroos.

Moving on, I went for my first ever running event on Sunday - the 2XU Compression Run. We ran the half-marathon (21.1km), and I have to say that I was pretty glad with my timing of ~2 hours 31 minutes. It's really slow compared to my usual pace (my fastest so far is a timing of 9 minutes 18 seconds for 2.4km, but that's 2.4km after all), but considering the fact that I haven't trained much at all leading up to the run (the farthest I last ran without stopping was 5km during TJ days, and for my trainings this time I clocked at most 4.5km distance-wise), it occurs to me as a reasonable timing. A main reason behind why I didn't really get to train properly was the field exercise in mid-to-late February, but it's mostly because I didn't have much will to. Condemn my logic if you must, but I've never really wanted to focus on cardio because of how skinny I am. I guess I signed up for the 2XU Compression Run this time because I was just in for the experience. I know it's kinda bad to not take it so seriously, and even now I'm questioning myself if that was the right thing to do, regardless of my physical circumstances. All I know is now, I really need to lay out for myself a gym regime if I want to gain the much-needed couple of kilos. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I feel lousy for eating like an average person and not gaining weight. And on another note, I intend to try for either the Adidas Sundown or Standard Chartered full marathons next year, and this time, I'm gonna train up. So yes - from now, I'm gonna go all (moderately) fitness-crazy for the weekends where the weekdays were pretty easy.

Since there wasn't going to be anything much going on in camp this week, I took an off-day on Monday as I was planning to stay the previous night for my mom's birthday. It turned out to be a pretty good decision because... (try not to judge) rofl I could queue with Sheryl for the Taylor Swift tickets right at the time when they started going on sale on Monday morning. Even now I'm not really sure if I can pry myself off army duties that Thursday night and take leave for both Thursday and Friday to attend Taylor's and Ellie Goulding's concerts, but screw that for the time being - it's still better to be certain that you've secured the tickets you need...!

Also, I've recently got to watching 'Her' and finishing the two similarly-themed books of 'Fahrenheit 451' and '1984'. To be honest, 'Her' was a tad too long for my liking and quite a number of parts bored me to the point where I would pause at those parts or skip over them by doing something else. I appreciated the film's premise though - the lesson learned at the end, if anything, made film-sense (if that's even a word). I feel utterly pretentious now that I'm saying this against previous Tumblr posts of quotes and music from 'Her' (I genuinely liked them), but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one around who does this sort of cherry-picking... ha ha ha /assures self. As for the books, I found 'Fahrenheit 451' pretty bland with its lack of characterisation, unnecessarily descriptive prose and markedly shorter storyline, so you can say I didn't really enjoy it, though there were a couple of takeaways language-wise. On the other hand, I really enjoyed '1984', and I recognise how it's often considered a modern literary classic. George Orwell is just amazing with his words. The final section of the book was simply chilling, and I really appreciated it for the genius that went into the construction and sustainment of this alternate society. And if you haven't read 'Animal Farm' by him either, I highly recommend you do so - it's a really good book by him as well. I'm also contemplating whether I should give his lesser-known essays a chance, but I'll leave that to next time for now.

In other (equally boring) news, smh @ how just passes so slowly in here - I can't believe it's just Thursday. Friday, just come soon and make everything alright.

Alone, but not quite

Today, we had our first and last cell group meeting for February, and I left feeling simultaneously drained and strengthened. There wasn't actually a word for sharing in this meeting - most of the time was spent looking at Pastor speaking to us from a television screen connected to a laptop. He was discussing the qualities that men look out for in women and vice versa, as well as what best and worst described us when it comes to said qualities. Initially, I wasn't expecting much out of the sharing, because I felt a little detached in the sense that the qualities were restrictive in variety, and also because I'm still not interested in opining about romantic relationships between men and women at this point in my life. But as I grudgingly related myself to the qualities which were specifically mentioned in the video (consistency, decisiveness, strength), I realised something about myself that I've only subconsciously known. I chose decisiveness as the quality that I was weakest in, and went on to share about how, as a person, I'm generally open-minded and liberal such that sometimes, I border on being a double-minded Christian who's way too easily shaken. As I shared, I couldn't help but feel more and more alone in this worldview of mine, and it occurred to me that the present interpretation of the Church and its values will always somehow leave me out of a couple of loops. I honestly don't really agree with the Church on some sensitive topics, and as much as I subscribe to the many other important values in the Scriptures, I don't want to abandon the beliefs I know to be socially right, or to dumb myself down and follow the religious masses in endorsing beliefs that are restrictive or may even be harmful. Thankfully though, there's still a couple of friends in cell group whom I can comfortably discuss this with, so I know that I won't be definitively alone in this. Perhaps it's the fact that some of my other relationships within the group would sour and weaken due to this that kinda keeps me from voicing my concerns. Of these relationships, a few remain as those that I really treasure and hold dear, so as of now, I haven't really found a way to reconcile this conflict. Regardless, I still felt affirmed in the sense that I have finally brought the knowledge of this weakness of mine into consciousness. I will need that extra dose of faith to conquer the doubt that's been nibbling away at me with every waking moment as of late, while standing my ground when it comes to defending everything I believe to be certain and true, even if it means to bear a few instances of contradiction. After all, I'm but a living, breathing, and thinking human Christian...