what is in a birthday? the declaration that i have managed to survive yet another year on this earth.

maybe this is the perfect moment to make yet another blog post on this blog. reason: cos ndp is over. i wouldnt dare claim that ndp has been a breeze, or that i enjoyed in thoroughly, but i have to admit it did change my perspective towards those who take part in the preparation and those performers in the parade. now i can feel the pain of each year's participants, of 16 or more saturdays burnt, of each ever so precious weekend burnt, and of course all the hard work they have put in, forced to or willingly.

how did i feel marching, singing the anthem and saying the pledge? a simple question with such a complex answer. a mixture of love and hate for what this country represents. but the important thing is, hate isnt the opposite of love, indifference is. hate is instead an offshoot of the love towards something, of expectations and hopes and dreams not fulfilled, leading to the generation of that particular emotion. how does one love a country but dislike the acts of the people who live in it, when it is the people that make up the country? by sitting on a fence i guess. though it is inevitable i will have to fall to one side or the other, sooner or later, it is true that for now, the balancing act continues.

and lastly, life is back to normal. (hopefully)

lo and behold, i have gone into understudy at the job site. spending 12hr+ 2 days out of 4 days awake and manning a com is not exactly the most demanding of jobs, but at the same time it definitely isnt a piece of cake especially on days with night shifts. for this i recommend eating coffee beans, with the testament that eating 3 kept me wide awake for almost the whole night. and as usual, climbing up the rungs of this ladder aint easy.

now that i have more time on my hands, the question that remains is one of how should i best spend my time, besides sleeping and eating. perhaps more sleep, but what else after that? i guess i have been indulging time in cheap thrill games, as well as the search for pdf documents on various topics related to botany. wouldnt harm to start reading up, would it?

posted to bayesian, existing for many hours a day underground, disconnected from the world, disconnected from the sun, disconnected from life. but that's just how life is, at least for the next 1+ years. no, wait. i am too optimistic here. more like, 2 - years, after all, it has been only 3 months since it all started.

been slightly more than a month since i have last blogged here. why u may ask. perhaps i was just too busy trying to get a life over the 1.5 days per week of freedom showered upon us, or perhaps everything is just restricted or a secret meant to be kept, thus the emptiness of the mind, and that of the space of this blog.

Posted to the water, a place i have mixed feelings about. still undergoing what they call 'navalization', i am still learning how to adapt to the change in environment from the previous place, and more importantly, to the people that i coexist with. i guess only here would i get the chance to actively interact with people from various walks of life.

Having to march for NDP and other parades does mean one thing: 6 day weeks because saturdays no longer exist.

urged to blog for the few people who do actually happen to intentionally chance upon this site, here i am, blogging at the com.

why the silence for so long? simply cos i didnt really have the time to blog about my nonexistent life at a nearby island. island stay has been quite good actually, or to put it simply, it has exceeded my low expectations. the food is quite good, except for the breakfasts, and the sheepherders continually bark at us, herding us from point to point.

this phase of the island stay is over, but to put things in perspective, as my platoon mate told me, life so far has simply been the time it takes to train a basic foot soldier in any strategy game. whereas training a soldier on the com takes about 30secs, training a soldier in real life takes far longer than that. and if a footsoldier dies in a game, the silver hand from above can just train another one with ease, unlike in real life. 

lastly, and importantly, both the soldiers, in and out of the game, follow orders from higher-ups.

came back on friday afternoon, after 2 weeks in europe. too many memories to put into words at this point, though i doubt that i will be able to recall all of them after i enter ns. 

first time i stayed in hostels, and i must say that it wasnt that bad an experience after all. sure, some strangers are sleeping in the same room as you, and that u tend to feel paranoid about your belongings, but other than that one gets to meet people from other cultures, plus lodging is far cheaper than a hotel.

as for not going on a tour, it allowed me to catch a glimpse into the daily lives of the people living and working in those cities. taking public transport, in the form of trams and trains was rather disturbing, though enriching. an example would be the london underground, where there are so many train lines that one can easily get lost in the system. the criss-cross of lines, plus the fact that one platform can service more than one destination, the trains tend to stop frequently between stations, the lights tend to flicker onboard some of the trains, and at times train lines or stations fail to function, and one gets chaos.

2009

the first day of this year was spent outside, in a place near the police academy, where not a single building above one storey could be seen in any direction. the day was also spent at vivocity, where there were so many people on both the first and second storey the place looked like an ant's nest. recession? what recession? perhaps it was more of window shopping than purchases, more of small purchases than larger, non-commodities.

by this post is complete, it will be roughly about half an hour to christmas eve. somehow this year the christmas cheer seems lacking. though i personally to do not celebrate christmas, i seem to be more nonchalent this year than in past years. like a skoog, i await the ghosts of christmas past, present and future.

when is it time to start living each day like it is my last? 

over the past few days there seemed to be signs around me, 3 within the past 3 days?, asking me to accept and stop resisting. but yet i will still wait, to procrastinate, as always. matters unresolved as of yet, hopefully they will be within a few years. there is always a tomorrow, is there not?

perhaps it is just christmas, a season of giving and celebration. as this day approaches, the new year looms over the horizon. perhaps, this will be a new start.

after school is finished, destroyed, where do we head for? at a crossroad, waiting for the next transport out of this phase. one way tickets, non refundable. so where is the next destination?

when i heard 2 american kids chanting 'we are the sages, we are the monsters' repeatedly in their backyard behind your house, i couldnt help but agree. prophecies of what the future holds...

The days sail by, without the sails, and it seems so many months ago that the exams ended, though it has only been 2 weeks. been out quite a number of times, perhaps more than a term's worth of going out within the space of 2 weeks. of course that also means that cash is spent, increasing the level of consumption in the economy by just abit. (just doing my part as a concerned citizen)

a few ideas here and there, but yet the resolve is lacking to see them through to completion. maybe that is why i like plants, because they grow without my encouragement? and on the (sad) note of chicken rice stalls and queueing, one has put up the 'sold out' sign, and i have moved onto the streets, looking for the next stall worth it to queue at. nah, the chicken rice stall analogy just doesnt seem to capture the idea in its entirety. perhaps a better one would be the fried rice stall. a simple dish, easy yet difficult to prepare. and the ingredients can be so variable. from prawns to lobsters, depending on how expensive one wants to go. but a simple fried rice dish, with the basic ingredients, can taste so heavenly, often more so than fried rice cooked with pricey ingredients. where is this simple fried rice? still looking..

somehow it suddenly seems hopeless, because i see a future without

perspective, it is all about perspective this day. when having the chinese a2 lunch today, when the food could not be finished, the number one reason for finishing the food surfaced. 'think of all the hungry children in africa'. as bad to me as that line sounds, yes, that is a reason why i sometimes stuff myself with food though i have the option to stop. to not eat will be to waste food, food to be thrown away, when millions of others are still starving.

but yet, i sit here and do nothing..

how strange life is, one moment there, the next moment it just moves off. as the sheryl crow song title puts it, everyday is a winding road. always fraud with curves and bends, and yet more often than not we travel forward without the presence of a comforting blindspot mirror. in the midst of the winding road, we need divine intervention to set our paths straight. 

ok enough random nonsense that few people will read anyway. all i wanted to say here was that tonight brought back memories of a time not too long ago, where i was in the same position as a friend, except that location and religion were different. the cause of death is similar, the period of symptoms similar, and the way of ending similar. i could not feel anything except an intense twinge of sadness for him. perhaps it is just for a selfish reason, to make it seem like i am no longer alone in this emptiness few will experience.

my heart goes out to him for these few days, and perhaps in weeks to come, that he may find solace. for as i have reflected on my own experience, the day of the cremation and the day after it will be another time of intense sadness. when the coffiin is sealed the body in flesh will never be seen again, when the cremation is over all that is left is a white brittle reminder of someone we love, and the memories we keep of them. photographs serve only to remind us of the memory, but yet are unable to hold memories themselves. as such, i have long forgotten the voice i once took for granted. no vocal memory remains, as i try at times, in vain, to piece together a vocal recollection.

as the following week approaches, i do sincerely hope that peace may be with him when he needs it most. though words may fail me face to face, i hope the feelings managed to make it across the barrier of the individual.

the prom is over, with the hours flying by, but when did it actually start? time has slowed, as each hour, each day, requires deliberate action and planning.

once again, the holidays that were once anticipated and now in the process of being experienced never seem to meet expectations. sure, not studying, but what is the time for then? to eat, sleep, read, play with, or to go out? all but the rest are solitary activities, done within the comforts and confines of the home. having spent the past 3 days outside, at orchard, orchard and vivo, i have come to a conclusion that the next day and perhaps the next few should be spent at home, to recuperate.

these days, spent contemplating the future, and what possible areas of research i could involve myself with in the future, finding a niche amongst the cliche. filling up the gaps in info, the many gaps in info...

somehow, the countdown never really got started. from 3 weeks to zero days, it is finally over.