3.16.2003

 

not much time to blog today, no thanks to my stellar time management capabilities. ran up bukit timah hill a few times on sat am (training for the punishing cross-country event coming up on the 9th) then had brunch at beauty world centre before taking the bus home (score one for public transport!). i actually have an ez-link card, you know. but after mid-day on saturday everything becomes hazy - spent mostly playing unreal 2 (and i believe im somewhere towards the end already), watching Die Another Day at long last (Samantha Page (i think), the actress who plays Miranda Frost is just sooooo pretty.. quintessentially british. in a kinda modern way. gush), and tidying up my inbox. well not exactly tidying up my inbox per se, but settling some long-outstanding mails. i guess this entire weekend has been an exercise in wasted time once again.

i also realise that inspiration for posts strikes most often when im out and about and nowhere near a computer with a net connection. maybe i should start blogging on my palm again, but then that's if i do bring my palm around. until i get that silly LOA (letter of authorisation) its just not going to happen. in the absence of that this post will be awfully dry and descriptive rather than contemplative..

turnout din happen last week, so its definitely gonna happen this week. i think. and there's this huge 3d exercise, followed closely by DO duty on thursday for me. to quote the 8 days horoscope, getting thru this week will be a challenge. or was it you should give yourself a huge pat on the back for making it thru this week? well, if i make it back in one piece ill blog it down.

interestingly enough Royksopp's "Eple" is on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide now.. and well its a decidely quirky tune, but it does remind me of an apple.. dont know why tho. its kinda tangy.. if you can imagine a *sound* being tangy. and a tad sour - i believe that corresponds to being in a minor key.

Blazin' Squad - Reminisce

---

[Chorus]
Reminiscing about the time,
back in the day when you
were mine, wish that i could
press rewind, reminisce
about the time.

[Rocky B]
Chillin wit my clic on da beach,
remember when you walked by, eye locked on ya cheeks
you just smile, i ran for a few
yards and finally caught up
with, the opening line, wha
gwan love, spent a day just
chillin and talking, playing and
walking, you and me for two
weeks, just striaght falling in
love we had fights in the sand,
kissed in the sea, passionate
nights, on the beach you and
me, rubbing my hands up ya
smooth brown legs, kissing
ya body, from ya toes to ya
head, the memories that i
wanted to always last, not
the future the present, was stuck in the past, the best
thing, you didn't know i was
a star, spending late nights
chillingout at the bar, the last
day we had spent kissing,
talking bout missing, and now
i'm reminiscing, bout you.

[Repeat chorus x2]

[Flava]
I wish i could reminisce, but
it's just a mist of memories, ny
thoughts are deep, engraves
like headstones in cemeteries,
i never dwell in the past, the
pain is too much, i keep my
head in the future, even plan
my lunch, but this one click
maybe remember bout, how
we used to do those things
yo can mention that, hold up
rewind, to the times when we
loved it woz unusual how did
i just find this, woz it just luck,
or woz it just me, or woz i just
down for the, a crazy night
involved us 20 girls in the back of a truck,'theback of a what?'
yeah i said the back
of a truck parked on the beach
blocking off the back of the
hut, where we chilled coz back
in the day, we never did much,
made love i never done any
thing of the sort, it's just such a
shame how we can't we're
underage, that woz then now
i made it to 16 wid my nine
best friends, now i'm.

[Repeat chorus x2]

[Krazy]
Got me thinking about ya,
every single day of the week,
what i would do just to have
ya, back here with me,
girl you're my fantasy.

[Melo-d]
I sit down think back to days
we were alone we were so
warm together missing the
dayswhen we had fun,
but we lost each other now
it's too late, memories of
what's been and gone,
they'll always be in my mind,
i reminisce things that we've
done, i can't give up my love
for you was so true, i can't
stop thinging about ya
dreaming, i don't know waht
to do, i reminisce days when
you looked so fine, come
back into my arms into my
life coz you should be mine.

[Repeat chorus x4 to fade]

---

seeya!

timestamp: anonymous 12:28 0 comments

3.09.2003

 

for once im kinda proud that i idled a day away, particularly since i was in camp whiling time away cos i had to understudy the DO for the umpteenth time. (hm im exaggerating a bit.. but you catch my drift). i really do mean idled, since i spent the morning catching up on sleep - more on that later - and the rest of the day watching tv and a vcd of taxi. thankfully yesterday just happened to be the kind of day that just makes you want to curl up between the sheets or hide in some corner with a warm drink and just read, cos it was overcast the whole day and raining the other 60% of the time. and there actually was a cooling breeze blowing thru the room - i distinctly being uncomfortably hot on thu nite cos the air was just so still. for the record, my current bed is next to the window facing the parade square, and we have these nice blue curtains which are just thick enough to block the light from outside (and give *me* a little privacy since im right next to a relatively high-traffic corridor) yet light enough to billow whenever theres a gentle breeze blowing. and i absolutely adore having to bend a little to get out of bed, past the curtains filling up like sails fluttering on what we'd assume to be a normal day at sea. ah, the little pleasures of life.

anyway it transpired that on thu night i found myself 'invited' by my big boss to a signals dinner the very next day.. much to my chagrin, since 1) i specifically answered on behalf on all of my frens that we'd be caught up in UIP and hence be unavailable to attend the dinner, 2) it was a self-funded dinner, $75 a head, at the conrad, 3) i only realised earlier that morning that we'd be coming home on fri night (first time EVER, may i add) and since i was to bum away sat in camp that made fri nite particularly valuable. so on fri i find myself in the conrad, in a particularly smoke-filled reception (this is an army function after all) attending the dinner on behalf of my good old course commander from SOCC. and 10 mins later he shows up!! it appears that his 2nd-in-command couldnt come but they already indicated that they were coming.. so i became a seat-filler. and a self-paying one at that. lucky i had the foresight (heh) to bring along enough cash to pay for my own dinner. all said and done it wasnt too bad since i caught up with some old frens - about 5 actually - and picked up the only photo taken during commz pde rehearsals. it was a full dress rehearsal, too.. will scan it maybe next weekend. =)

started on jared diamond's amazing guns, germs and steel, the tagline reads "a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years", and its kind of a synthesis of history and archaebiology and.. hmm. i should quote from the preface, but im too lazy to do so. whatever it is its one of those fantastic multidisciplinary works. i stayed up til 0200 this morning to read (nowhere near finishing, its that thick) but its really that much a page-turner. and i felt compelled to post it here despite my usual misgivings about saying anything about whatever im reading before im done with it (actually i have no idea why i do that either. maybe im just really insecure and dont like to have my ideas challenged. i should grow up..) because of this game that's just come out - American Conquest - where, rather unsurprisingly, you play as various old world explorers from history trying to take over the new world. and im pretty much nonplussed by it since the book does portray the gross technological disadvantage the natives were at - not to mention how naive and innocent they were, or how vile and despicable the conquerors were. can you imagine - using the oldest trick in the book to meet with the Inca head of state Atahuallapa (mind, when i was in scouts, however briefly, i was from the inca patrol... heh) and then hold him hostage for vast sums of gold. and then reneging on their promise and executing said hostage.. well you can read up a bit on the Conquistador Pizarro and his exploits on this PBS website. im thinking of this along the lines of what i was mulling over last week (and did indeed share with pris) about how we were all un-ready for life in the real world. in the loosest sense of the word, Atahuallapa could have said to lack the street smarts Pizarro had - but that's only because we have grown up and lived our lives in a world descended from Pizarro's, not Atahuallapa's. am i losing you yet? that's not the point of the book, of course - its about how varying resources and natural environments shaped the way civilization turned out differently all over the world, rather than innate (ie genetic or racial) differences being responsible. as an ironic counterpoint to that - get a load of this: grandson of one of the original sherpas involved in the everest expedition to open an internet cafe on everest. wait, i think i lost my original point...

audioslave - like a stone

---

on a cold wet
afternoon
no room for love and emptiness
by a freeway
i confess i was lost in the pages
of a book
full of death
reading how we'll die alone
and if a god will lay to rest
anywhere we want to go
in your house
i long to be
room by room
patiently
i'll wait for you there
like a stone
i'll wait for you there
alone

and on my death bed
i will pray
to the gods and the angels
like a pagan
to anyone who will take me to heaven
to a place
i would recall
i was there so long ago
the sky was bruised
the world was black
and there you led me on

in your house
i long to be
room by room
patiently
i'll wait for you there
like a stone
i'll wait for you there
alone

in all i read
till the day was gone
and i sat in regret
in all the things i've done
for all that i've blessed
and all that i've wronged
in dreams till my death
i will wonder on

in your house
i long to be
room by room
patiently
i'll wait for you there
like a stone
i'll wait for you there
alone
alone

---

fyi - i originally intended to post like a stone with the entry i posted on the 5th at 0402 - but i decided to put cochise with that post instead, since it just felt more appropriate. same goes today - like a stone feels more appropriate today; im in a rather contemplative mood today and am thinking about all the things ive done (mostly bad!).. sometimes i just feel like im so bad. sigh.

oh, and turnout's coming this week, plus heavy running almost every day. will be an achievement surviving this week..anybody for lunch next sat? (must have some positive inducement) - sms me. =)

timestamp: anonymous 13:09 0 comments

3.05.2003

 

there i go again - just idled another day away. pretty soon ill be heading back to camp to start unit induction (shudder) and i still havent done anything. run? nope. read? nope. pack room? nope. just moped, idly surfed, and played the day away. i dont quite know what im doing with my life - sometimes its so much better being in school where there are at least some semblance of goals, both long and short term, you can aspire to, plenty of pleasant diversions and above all the freedom to do most anything you want to. somehow the grass always seems greener on the other side, tho i don recall having ever thot this way about ns. anyway what have i done? ive just moped again.

deleted a few paras worth of stuff cos it din come out right. strangely i always get the inspiration and e inclination to blog whenever im away from e com. havent got e authorisation to bring my palm into camp yet, tho im not quite sure whether ill take to blogging remotely on my palm - tried it once and its kinda weird putting a timestamp on the thing (yes indeedy theres a palm shortcut for that) and then having to post it only at e end of e day. or week.. tho im hoping its day rather than week.

starting to shrug off the downs already - cant afford to have it while going thru UIP. by right my job scope means that i shouldnt be going thru it, cos the OO is quite definitely needed (or so im led to believe) and theres only me right now, my upperstudy having disrupted to study already. but my boss says he'd like me to attend the lessons (im presuming this means go thru UIP in no uncertain terms) but he'll pull me back to the office as and when im needed to do stuff. its another one of those gray areas that life just seems to be full of. heck, tmr ill be working on a debrief for the recently-concluded 2 wk exercise again, despite it being the 1st day of UIP. cant complain - that beats running around. =|

evanescence ft paul mc coy - bring me to life
(from the Daredevil OST)

---

how can you see into my eyes like open doors
leading you down into my core
where i've become so numb without a soul my spirit sleeping somewhere cold
until you find it there and lead it back home wake me up inside
wake me up inside
call my name and save me from the dark
bid my blood to run
before i come undone
save me from the nothing i've become

now that i know what i'm without
you can't just leave me
breathe into me and make me real
bring me to life

wake me up inside
wake me up inside
call my name and save me from the dark
bid my blood to run
before i come undone
save me from the nothing i've become
bring me to life

frozen inside without your touch without your love darling only you are the life among the dead

all this time i can't believe i couldn't see
kept in the dark but you were there in front of me
i've been sleeping a thousand years it seems
got to open my eyes to everything
without a thought without a voice without a soul
don't let me die here
there must be something more
bring me to life

---

incidentally - \Ev`a*nes"cence\, n. The act or state of vanishing away; disappearance; as, the evanescence of vapor, of a dream, of earthly plants or hopes. interesting..

timestamp: anonymous 12:37 0 comments

3.04.2003

 

had a rollercoaster rush of emotions in e past 24 hrs starting sun evening- but to be more precise its more like acute mood swings.. um, make that acute swings of emotion, from sun pm til now, actually. been home since mon nite but always felt too tired, lazy or down to simply blog, not that its a must to continually blog but i do try to do so as long as im home, which hasnt been very often ever since i started fanzine in e first place. before we go further i think i shd qualify my 'acute swings of emotion' - all internal, mind, other than a mild case of generally feeling down which ive unconsciously been showing e past few days.

as always theres this vast emptiness lurking in the background but i think whats really worrying me is the unit induction programme starting thu, which will more or less be hell for about a month. cant quite bring myself to have to go thru yet another mess initiation (plenty of humiliation and drinking.. drinking tiger beer, of all things. ICK) and another turnout (being rudely awakened, doing all sorts of crappy punishment and tasks, maybe even SOC) and restriction of privileges, among other things. not that we get much privileges anyhow. simple stuff that mean a lot - such as having bunks nearer to the camp entrance, being able to go home every day after work (given the nature of work here, sometimes its questionable what time - sorry, whether - work ends), buying stuff from the canteen. while its true that i probably have gone thru worse times before its still worrying in the very least to have to face all these things again. and did i mention that we're all going (competitively) for tiger trail, this cross-country run that works on scoring points by reaching checkpoints.. its no joke, when im terribly out of shape and cant run to save my life.

im also worrying about cutting unnecessary expenditure - meaning no movies, probably no eating out and most definitely no concerts. not that i go out much in the first place, or that i have the time to do so - and it just had to come at a time when moby and david gray are slated to appear here. the possibility of attending my very first concert seems to have been pushed back indefinitely. superficially its kinda strange why a self-styled music nut hasnt ever been to a concert, but having sat on that thought (and completely flattening it in the process) for a while its actually not surprising given the eclectic and downright leftfield nature of what i listen to. anyway that doesnt sound right.. sounds like im being smug about it. secretly i guess i am.. oh, and dont give me that "why would you NEED to cut unnecessary expenditure" thing. ever.

cant bring myself to do any proper work. sometimes i feel like im falling apart in a thousand different ways, in a thousand different slices. maybe thats what happens when i decide im ok enuf to handle my frens problems again.. nobody in particular, at that - just re-opening the lines of communication to the very many people ive shunned since i got posted in (and sometimes even earlier than that!) and hearing their normal laments seems to be enough to get me down. din use to be that way - think im still hovering near the break-even point between being troubled (and therefore needing to be alone) and being ok (and therefore sociable and ready to listen/hear/help). there *is* work to be done, things to prepare for, but instead ive been wasting away in front of e com - vaguely surfing, mindlessly playing hitman 2. (you know its mindless when you begin to shoot your way thru instead of using your brain and coming up with some ingenious masterplan) and a large part of this huge lousy feeling stems from the fact that i just burnt one and a half days, maybe more, just doing nothing, when i have a ton of stuff to get done.

strangely enough it was the selfsame fact of getting in touch with the many people ive lost contact with along the way that really felt good - some, not all, of the people on my icq list who i just don talk to anymore, old friends and old crushes alike, some from wayyyyyy back. i guess its just heartwarming. that isnt quite enough to sum up what i felt, but im not really going to try, given my current state of mind. and a few things have only recently dawned on me - things that just make sense if only id put two n two together but somehow i missed - if only because i asked outright. on hindsight im kicking myself. at times im not quite sure *why* i stopped talking to them - these people whom ive stopped talking to - but then thats my typical stress-response anyhow.

isnt it funny how a happy day can just do an about-turn and become a troubling one before you know it?

hopefully ill just sleep it off. it hasnt worked for the past few weeks, cos every time i try to sleep it off i wind up waking around 1300 and subsequently start the day feeling lousy.. besides i have to start running. not making much sense now - wish all my posts could be nice and literary, but im not quite capable of that. mediocrity is such an awful thing to settle for.

Audioslave - Cochise

---

Well I been watchin'
while you been coughin
i've been drinking life
while you been nauseous
and so i drink to health
while you kill yourself
and i got just one thing
that i can offer

go and save yourself
take it out on me
go and and save yourself
take it out on me yeah

well i'm not a martyr
i'm not a prophet
and i won't preach to you
but heres a caution
you better understand
that i won't hold your hand
but if it helps you mend
then i won't stop it

go and save yourself
take it out on me
go and save yourself
take it out on me
go and save yourself
take it out on me
go and save yourself
take it out on me yeah

go if you want
and i'll see you in the bottom
where you crawl
on my skin
and put the blame on me
so you don't feel a thing

go and save yourself
take it out on me
go and save yourself
take it out on me
go and save yourself
take it out on me
go and save yourself
take it out on me yeah

---

ive also finally caved in and capitulated to peer 2 peer file sharing, better known as KaZaA Lite.. just couldnt stand wasting so much time searching for http downloads in vain. and sorry grace, somehow blubster was taken off zdnet and cnet's download.com so i cant quite find it anymore. growing to like KaZaA Lite.. can already find all my leftfield stuff here. =)

timestamp: anonymous 20:02 0 comments