I'm gonna look for you. I don't know how resilient I'm gonna be, but I'm making my first attempt. Maybe my effort will just seem ridiculous and pathetic, amounting to nothing but wasted time, but I'm making the move anyway. Maybe I'll regret success, maybe I'll scorn failure, it doesn't matter. I have given it too much thought, maybe much more than I should have, maybe less, but these thoughts have been persistent nonetheless, and they need to be translated into action, and every action has a reaction. Whatever this reaction may be, I shall brace myself for it. Whether I'm giving up or not, making it or breaking it, I'm going to look for you.

I sometimes wonder if it was plain foolishness that I threw you into the dirt.
I sincerely do hope you're happy, because I'm happy enough.

This is not good riddance, and I have no regrets. I will continue to recall the inglorious days when mud and sweat blended in perfectly with the grunts and yells to move quicker, to go deeper, to get dirtier. Every reminiscence will trigger the nostalgia and the tears which will never flow until the perfect day for weeping comes. You people have become a part of me, and I have no complains.

I will miss every single one of you like I have never missed anyone else before. I will take with me the closeness of our souls, our strength, our minds and hearts. I will enter the next phase of life with as much fear and trepidation, but armed with these weapons of life. I will be alive only to live. I will miss everyone of you.

Against All Odds.
For Honour And Glory.
2nd Coy, 1st Commando Battalion, SAF Commandos.
11 Jan 2008 - 10 Nov 2009.

An accident does quite a bit to change our perception of life, the things we value, and those of which we would rather leave behind. My guess, though seemingly unjustified, is that sometimes, such things include people as well. In my case, it was a car accident, and the irresponsible, careless, reckless and unreservedly stupid driver could be none other than me.

It would be blatant deception to be convinced by the fact that because nobody got hurt, no harm was done. It is not my pride that got punctured, it was not my wallet(at least not entirely) which took the hit, and it is not the time wasted and the inconvenience so artistically arranged. It is my conscience. The guilt plagues my mind the way H1N1 does to our world and like HIV it looks incurable. It clouds my thoughts and anchors my will. Time and time again the memory of that regretful moment reminds me of the four other lives I put at unnecessary risk, and the trust that I had so easily shattered. All these managed with a vile moment of inexcusable irresponsibility, for the lack of a better description.

Perhaps it is because punishment refused my indulgence that I am so guilt-ridden, perhaps it is because of the lives that I risked, the property I had damaged, and the inconvenience and disappointment I had caused. Whether it is the former or the latter, I have not learnt my lesson. Guilt is therefore my punishment, and I shall indulge in it completely, making up to the people whose lives I had toyed with, paying back the money I should owe, and the inconvenience and distrust I had induced. Only then I can say I have learnt something valuable, only then I can promise to be better. And though the wounds will never heal completely, the scars will remind me.

Guilty as charged.

People make it sound as if we have the most glamorous jobs in the world. They talk with honour and valour about us soldiers. They think they feel like we feel. They know nothing. They don't see what the leaders don't show.

They don't see the pain, the anger, the frustration, the suffering, the dirt, the broken, the unglam. They don't hear the complains, the whines, they don't see our faces contorted by endurance, they don't feel our morale disappearing, weakened by past endeavours. But we know, and its okay as long as we remember. We don't like our jobs, we despise the situations that we've been in, and we curse the terrains which we have crossed. But we've done it, for our friends and our family, and I wonder what will push us to continue.

I don't care for honour, I don't care for glory, it is the dirty and tired face, which mirrors mine, beside me. We are the unglam. We hate it but we do it. The rest will never know, they will never feel. We few, we ugly few.

RUN GENE RUUUNNNNN!!!!!!!

I've been thinking about the time I spent both in secondary school and jc and a stark realisation has taken hold of me by my neck and flung me against a wall of uneven stones with pointed ends.

After very careful dissection, categorisation and analysis of the little bits and pieces of memories fogged up in under-used brain cells, it is unfortunate and burdensome that I have to conclude that I was a very mean, insensitive and sometimes insecure person.

I never really thought that I would look back at my life one day and have such thoughts occur to me. In fact, I never really thought what I did was wrong. I mocked people blatantly by showering them with my blessings of vulgarities, I cared little of other people's feelings so long as they were a little different from me, and I tended to walk all over people if I felt that they didn't deserve to live. I had no apparent reason to treat people the way I did. All it took was a pretentious person or somebody with different beliefs or likings to show up and I would be fired up, ready to go, armed with poetic insults written by the hand of fury, with the most unpleasant vocabulary.

Although this isn't the first time that I have thought about this, it is rather new that I'm putting it all into context. Perhaps after about a year and a half of thinking and attempting to forget, my paranoia would not allow me to escape my guilt. Apologetic as I am of my past actions and words, I know that I will never by guilt-free, nor do I hope to be as this is the scar I received from causing everlasting pain to a fellow human being, just like how a bee dies from its sting. If this is what they call retribution, then I am lucky. Lucky enough to escape my own tyranny.

I can only look ahead and change what is not easy to change. I know for a fact that immature, unpleasant and evil people will appear as villains to tear down the curtains and ruin the show. I must overlook such vile existence, as I attempt to be a better person. Live and let live.

I live amongst delusional characters who are constantly swimming in my head, singing and dancing in a musical which tells of unbreakable friendships. Unbreakable though, is our self-denial and hatred for one another, which slowly but surely breaks through the surface to dominate our minds and dictate our emotions. When envy as strong as poison mixes with the blood pumping through our veins and overtakes trust and fondness for each other, self-sympathy will tell us nothing else matters.

Because you are not strong enough, because you are insecure, because you sympathise with only yourself, because you are undeserving. You wreck emotional havoc with every word you utter, with your every movement you seek to destroy the very foundation of which the fraternity is built upon. You are a tsunami. You are a disaster in your own right. You are beyond animalistic. You are sadistic.

There are only so few we can believe, so few I can be fond of, and to these people I am grateful. I hold dear to me the bond that we share, and although it is not impenetrable by those bullets of envy, insecurity and hatred, it is strong enough to bleed. Amongst us there is no need for truth or lies, no need for shame or glory, security nor insecurity, there is only us, the unspeakable and mysterious. We shall.

Promises.


Things to do by the end of 2009.

1) Be able to read and write smoothly again.
2) Speak fluent Cantonese.
3) Improve my command of mandarin.
4) Get my tattoo done.
5) Win at the All Styles Martial Arts 2009.
6) Get to Level 3 at Lana Muay Thai.
7) Quit smoking.
8) Get the band back together.
9) Get my driving lisence.
10) Get my travelling plans mapped out.
11) ORD!!!
- This was my post on 28th Feb earlier this year.

Things that I've done so far.
1) I can read smoothly again.
2) I can drive now

Things that I've done in the half-half sort of manner.
1) Improve my command of mandarin
2) Quit smoking.
3) Getting the band back together.
4) Getting my travelling plans mapped out.

Things that I have NOT attempted/done.
1) Speak fluent Cantonese.
2) Write smoothly.
3) Get a tattoo done.
4) Achieve something at a Muay-Thai competition.
5) ORD (obviously)

Things that are no longer applicable
1) Get to level 3 at Lana Muay-Thai.

Honestly, although it has been more than half a year, I'm rather happy with what I've done so far. The things that I have not yet attempted or done, I'm in no hurry to. But since the need to re-prioritise has surfaced...I guess it is only sensible that my goals are altered as well.

Things that are still needed to be done by the end of 2009.
1) Get myself conditioned and fit enough(or more) to enter a Muay-Thai fight.
2) Get the band back together.
3) Get my travelling plans mapped out.
4) Secure a post-NS/pre-UNI job.
5) Write smoothly.
6) To be able to converse in Cantonese.
7) Get a tattoo done.
8) Improve my command of mandarin.
9) Quit smoking.
10) ORD

With numbers 1-5 being most important.
To be honest, I'm only quite disappointed that I haven't done numbers 1 and 2 yet.
Let's see what happens.

Laziness and sloth is creeping out from underneath and slowly consuming my weak, undetermined soul. Fuck. I've set my goals, and I was sure enough of what I wanted. As usual, in the course of trying to achieve something I lose focus and now I'm straying. It's so frustrating to the point that it makes me paranoid about every little tiny minuscule thing that goes on around me.

Have to have to have to have to move on. Can't be can't be can't be can't be lazy. Now that I realised that I've been complacent about a lot of things...its time to get focused and re-prioritise.

FOCUS.