Friday, August 25, 2006

P O P O P O P O P O P O P!

This is, quite simply, the best of times and the worst of times.

My Basic Rescue Training is o-vah! So, yay for that!

My computer slipped into yet another coma. So, boo for that!

But let's stick to the positives, shall we?

This past week in camp is basically a technicality. Like the few weeks after exams, we have to be there or be punished even though we have absolutely nothing to do. Just imagine restless teenage boys hanging around a dorm. No TV, no radio, no girls, no booze.

I was used to that, but I was the only one. By Wednesday, some guy trying to be clever stuck 'Welcome to Woodbridge' on our dorm doors. Eh, he's probably right, all the guys were getting loopy.

But by 5PM, Thursday, it was all worth the waiting.

We, the cuckoo birds of Bravo Company, left, left, left righted ourselves away from 7 weeks of daily torture (with weekends off). I will never ever experience another moment like that again where the mood is unanimously joyous. I hope not, because if I do, it'll be because I'd be released from prison.

My fellow recruits, most of them anyway, are the most annoying, most jerk-ass, and best reasons for the existence for the word 'asshole' I have ever hoped to never meet again. But after 7 weeks together, I couldn't help but feel that I'll miss them, at least for enduring all the same shit I went through.

But that was Thursday morning. 12 hours, dozens of 'Hafizahs' and hundreds of butt pinches later (maybe they're jealous of my well-rounded posterior), the feeling was gone.

Because of one recruit's mysterious ability to remember my 3 second TV appearance, I've been asked to sing for them every single day. Rihanna's Unfaithful (YAWN) was requested often. So at the end, I was asked to sing one last time.

So I sang Green Day's Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). My most emotional performance, let me tell you.

The jerks, bless 'em (no, not really), thought it was sweet of me saying goodbye through that song. Out of curiosity, I asked if they knew what "Riddance" meant.

Too many of them said no.

I'm not going to blast them for their lack of education. I mean, one of them had to leave school by Primary 2. Lord knows the lives they went through. Having said that, I went through quite a bit myself last time. I remember throwing myself on a thankfully not so busy road back when I was in Primary 3 because I couldn't take all the teasing anymore.

I've grown up a bit since then, and the teasings in camp never reached the heights of cruelty that it did in my lower Primary School days (which is the reason why I rarely laugh at jokes making fun of me, even if by someone I truly love. Deep-rooted childhood scars and all that), but I have had it with people treating me as a cushion for all their sharpest jibes as a way of being friends with me.

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Mat: Eh, jom lah, Fiz, why always sit alone? Join us lah, talk cock a bit.

Me: I'd love to, but we both know that all these discussions will quickly descend into a "Who Mimics Fiz's Voice Best" competition. Or maybe a fascinating forum over why I'm such an absent-minded, accident-prone weirdo.

Mat: Huh? Eh, can don't speak so cheem or not?

Me: It's okay. I'll just sit here, smiling to myself.

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'sigh'

There goes my promise of not complaining about them anymore. It stops here now.

One last thing though.

Did you know: My self-imposed ban on all curse words ended when I entered National Service.

So it was with the utmost satisfaction that I showed my two middle fingers at them as I boarded the bus while they decided to wait for the next bus and shouted the biggest "FUCK YOU!" the nearby cemetary has ever heard.

The looks on their faces and the way I felt after that beats all the Mee Soto in the world.

Ok then, vocation time. Which will it be? Storeman? Driver?

Clerk?

Huh, jobs aren't meant to be enjoyed anyway.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Quick, Fiz! Think of something witty to blog!

Anything?

No?

Ok, I see you're in one of those monthly "down in the dumps" thing going on.

Fine, I'll leave you alone. But c'mon, cheer up! 1 more week until you finally leave camp!

Oh, will you forget her for now?! There's always next week, you know!

There there now, you just go listen to your new Massive Attack CD. That seems to cheer you up just fine.

Yes, I would love to make you some Milo. Unfortunately, I'm just a made-up person in your head. You're going to have to make it yourself, won't you?

That's my boy. Don't put too much milk now, y'hear?

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Sunday, August 13, 2006

S-C-D-F had a camp
E-I-E-I-O
And in that camp they had some Mats
E-I-E-I-O
With a 'butoh' here,
And a 'step cool' there,
Here a 'sial',
There a 'sial',
Everywhere a 'sial', sial!
S-C-D-F had a camp
E-I-E-I-Ooooooooooooo............

Ok, ok, no more Mat bashing. I'll be as bad as they are if I continue like this.

But it's so fun...

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August the 25th. That's the day I escape from Basic Rescue Training for good. Mark it down. August the 25th.

That's in 2 weeks. Man, time goes fast, doesn't it? But spare some thought for the next intake of recruits coming in about 3 months. My intake will be the last to go through 7 weeks of BRT. The next intake will have to go through 16 weeks.

Lucky, lucky, I'm so lucky...

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I hereby solemnly swear to fully be able to use Photoshop 7 (can't afford a newer version) to its full extent by this time next year. Being able to erase my zits away is nice, but being able to reduce the size of my nose, now THAT is a worthy goal.

Why? Because I hear the call of deviantART. No, I won't answer it. I'm not screwed-up enough. (Kidding!) But really, all those deviantARTists, and I know quite a few of them, are really, really good with their Photoshop skills, and I don't feel worthy of joining their ranks just yet. But I am aiming for their standards. Maybe, just maybe, one day I can consider myself good enough to stand toe to toe with them. (D7 in O Level Art notwithstanding. Oh, the shame...)

What can I say? I'm starting to like taking photos and messing with them.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Mood - complete utter boredom, flipping through iTunes finding that one song to make my day and finding nothing, nothing to blog, nothing to chat about, nothing to watch, nothing to interest me, nothing to make me sleepy, nothing to piss me off (or on), nothing to make me feel anything, nothing, nothing, nothing!

doodle doodle doodle dee then. Ennui makes me do.....weird stuff.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Ready for a post full of metaphors that makes me look smart when in truth it just makes me look silly? Ok? Here we go...

Take a chocolate chip cookie. Nice, isn't it? The fried golden brown dough and the dark brown chocolate chips combining as if to say, "Screw the calories, eat me!"

Now imagine the cookie without the chips. It's just an ordinary cookie, isn't it? Now how would you think it tastes like? If it's cooked properly, it's still marvelous. But mostly, it's just plain. Close to tasteless. Boring. Ah, but it's healthy for you.

A good, wholesome, boring Life.

Now imagine the chocolate chips, by themselves. Full of sweet delight. Once you pop one in, you need another. And another. And another. It tastes so damn good now, but later, it'll catch up with you. Few zits, extra kilos, the works. And you know what? It tastes great, but leaves you feeling that there's something missing.

A Life full of tasty moments, some bad for you.

What am I trying to get here? My point is, my life has been a plain piece of cookie, with only one or two chips here and there. It's a good, wholesome life. It's also an empty life. One, I'm sorry to say, that I'm sick to death of. My parents mean well, but their efforts to raise a good boy and complete reluctance to to acknowledge my real age instead of the age they think I am has resulted in me being frustrated, angry, bitter and full of headaches.

Yep. Now with my regular allowance, I suppose it's finally time for me to go against my parents and assert a little independence for myself. Should be fun.

I don't want a cookie so full of chips, it may as well be a whole chocolate bar. I believe people whose lives are like that are currently sitting in Changi Prison right now. No, I'm just going to add a few chips to my cookie, a bit at a time, avoiding the ones that look rotten, until I finally get the right mix. A healthy cookie, filled with enough chips to make things interesting.

Well, I'm hungry. Chipsmore, anyone?
Happy Fireworks Spotting, everyone!

41 is nothing. 42...now there's a good number.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

The boy was just sitting there, minding his own business. It's part of his life really. Because of his schizophrenia, he's done all sort of horrible things because of "those voices". Or at least he knows this, because he was told he did all sorts of horrible things, because all the medications have left him without any memory of his past.

His was a tragic history, so you may say the amnesia is a blessing.

The boy was just sitting there, alone, in the middle of the SCDF's Basic Rescue Training Center. He's gotten used to the looks he's getting from the other recruits. They were wondering why he had carved the word "HELP" on his arm, among other things. Maybe he does too, or maybe he doesn't want to know. The recruits, most of them anyway, were giving him a respectful distance. Schizophrenia may be beyond some of their minds, but they know enough to know that the slightest aggravation might set the monster in the boy's head off.

But, always, in a large gathering group of boys, there will invariably be those few, that gang, who has the utterly useless talent of not knowing when to shut up.

They get interested in the boy.

They ask questions. He answers.

They ask more questions. He answers.

They ask even more questions, which really is the same question, framed in a different way.

He grows tired of them and stops answering.

They call him arrogant. He ignores them.

They call him names. He continues ignoring them.

One of them shows him the middle finger. He ignores it.

But the monster doesn't.

Two minutes later, the inciters of the monster were being held back by the rest of the recruits, shouting all manner of French words, while the boy was lying down, suffering a fit, getting attended by the Sergeant who arrived just in time to prevent a potentially bad confrontation.

The boy, with his life a sad blank in his mind, convulsing, while the gang kept chanting, "Bedek! Bedek!" (Fake! Fake!)

The parade square was full of recruits either gathering around the boy or the gang. A few were on the stands, standing, trying to make out what's going on.

MSF just sat there, knowing that the medics will take good care of the boy, and finally realising that the girls were right after all.

There are too many idiots with dicks in the world.

The order was given to fall in. So they did.

Among the many trying to look back at the fallen figure, a few, MSF included, looked straight to the front.

So that the boy would have a few less stares.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Computer OK

Well, Blogspot, how did you find that post I made two hours earlier? Was it delicious? No? Hmmm, so it was probably a crappy post anyway then. Nah, no thanks, you can keep it.

Anyways, I'm a little too lazy to recreate that last post which dear old Blogspot chose as its night snack, so I'll just say what that post said in three sentences: My computer's fixed!

For only 20 bucks, I might add. Thanks to the CyberActive at West Mall (probably the smallest neighbourhood shopping centre you'll ever find in Singapore). I buy my games there. I still will, even if one of the shopkeepers look disturbingly like my Corporal. -shudder-