Sunday, February 25, 2007
I was still feeling moody today and didn't feel like doing anything. Played a few games on my computer and smashed up the old HP 840c printer with a hammer.
I actually wanted to salvage the stepper motors from the printer, but was irritated with the stubborn screws. Normally in any other circumstance I would have patiently removed the screws one by one and gently remove the electronics that I want inside. But I wasn't in a patient mood today. Even my power screwdriver didn't seem to work, so after struggling with the printer for a while, I reached for the hammer.
Even tough ABS plastic is no match for a fury-fueled Stanley hammer. I smashed up the whole thing and eventually the entire plastic body came apart. The PCBs and steel frame sustained significant damage. Then the ink cartridge started leaking and the whole place was a black inky mess. That just guaranteed further destruction. Just imagine a scene from "The Texas Chainsaw massacre", but replace the human bodies with a printer and the blood stains on the wall with ink splotches. The motors stubbornly refused to leave the metal chassis even after I ripped off the pcbs and the cartridge carrier, so I smashed it all up at another go with the hammer.
Wasted 1 messy hour smashing up the printer without achieving anything and I dumped it all into the trash.
Booking in soon. I've already packed my bags and ready to go. Another wasted weekend. I might as well just confine myself in camp.
12:48 AM
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Early in the morning I was irritated with dad over the car issue, whenever he wants me to buy something or fetch him or someone, he would gladly lend me the car, but now that I want to borrow the car to go out with my friends, he refused to let me have the car. That was really infuriating and I had to bite my tougue to keep myself from lashing out whilst forcing down the bile in my throat listening to his bullshit and agreeing like a mindless drone.
I left the house early in the morning after a heated arguement with my dad over the stupid car, met several of my friends for lunch. Turns out that from them, it is a phase in life. When they wanted the car initially, their parents refused to eventually they relented. Maybe it's just another phase that I'll be going through. But it's just as irritating. Their parents will lend them the car if they needed to do errands or get groceries for them or even pick them up, but if they wanted to go out with their friends, access to the car would be refused.
After I left them, today I felt really down and bitter, maybe it was the car issue in the morning, or it could be the rain.. Or it could be the Nights out that we were given on Thursday but I didn't have the mood to go out at all, Nights out so what? Where can we go? What can we do?
Or it could be the bad dream on Wednesday that I went bankrupt in life, it would sound really stupid, but to me it's a really bad dream if I've failed in life and that is enough to spoil my mood for the rest of the day. After the car issue, I was just moody.
It could be the moodiness brought over from last week, or the suppressed irritation during the CNY period, or it could be the piece of news that I learnt recently. 43 students in Singapore were awarded the prestigious Australian UNSW Golden jubilee scholarships. To even be eligible for that scholarship, you need a bloody gold medal or be the top or 2nd student in your course during polytechnic. I have a friend was awarded that. Her GPA was only 0.03 points away from mine. Of course coming fourth doesn't help at all. What's the point of studying so hard when you're just so near, yet so far? WTF is the point of getting that gpa when it doesn't get you anything at all?
That's enough to make me feel bitter. Of course, she's happily studying in UNSW for a double degree now and just left a few days ago. Right now, the current count is 4 friends who have left overseas for studies. Maybe I should do the same and follow suit. Leave this bloody place for several years to simmer down.
Or maybe the reason to my current tumulous emotions could be the fact that I saw an old classmate of mine, Ting Ting and her bf. Suddenly I felt I was invisible. Or maybe I really was went to passed right through me like apparitions. Just seeing her opened old wounds and painful memories. If I see Yahloon today I will still KILL him.
Okay, maybe I've matured a little since secondary and armed with more deadly skills, I could maybe just paralyze his sister or father by snapping their vertebrae column, and let him live those wounds for the rest of his life. Yeah, that would probably be more painful.
But at least she's happy with her new boyfriend. I've got other friends who have gotten attached recently and happily too. I am happy for them, but that only means I'll probably lose contact with them as well. It's an inevitable process of life.
I went home running on a short fuze. This weekend has been dreadful, and I can't believe I am longing to head back to camp. You mean even after coming home from camp I've got to endure such bullshit!? It's been already 6 months, and I've got 3 more months to go. I am emotionally weary and worn out. I've got 3 more months to go. In the blink of an eye, 6 months of bone-exhausting training has gone by. I am just tired.
When I returned home after lunch, I found out that my dad was going to fetch a relative, giving her a lift to the airport from M'sia. Wtf? You don't want to lend me the car and now you want me to drive you again?! WTF. Most likely wanting me to drive and give em a lift to the airport.
I left the house.
It took me 3 mins to change and leave! Never really changed and left the house in such a hurry before. Just didn't want to see them before dad got out of the bathroom. Slamming the door did bring about a slight gratification. I didn't exactly know where I was going or where I wanted to go but I just wanted to be as far away from the house as possible. So I hopped on the first bus that came by, 111 to Orchard road.
Turns out that today is the Chingay parade and the bus routes were diverted. Okay. So I thought, "maybe I can see the Chingay parade to cool down", and I got off at DFS, braving the throngs of people through the underpass over to Wisma. There I got myself a slight vantage point sitting ONTOP of the Mrt shelter. (don't ask me how I got there, it wasn't exactly too difficult) moreover my decision making and consequence processor wasn't working perfectly. I felt as if I could have easily taken on 4 armed cisco auxiliary police guards patrolling the area. You know that familiar feeling of rage and vengeance? It was coursing through my veins that moment. I needed something to vent my irritation and pressure valve that was waiting to blow it's top. I just wanna hit something.
The bloody parade was so slow. Progress was non existent and the performers seemed to be milling about on the road more content with chatting with one another and moving up and down their elaborately decorated floats. I felt more irritated just watching them as if I was waiting for something to happen, obviously nothing was happening and what a joke of a parade this was. So I left and had dinner alone at pepper lunch at Taka. It was mildly gratifying, but I wasn't fulfilled. So I had another meal at Yoshinoya just opposite. It was strange, I didn't feel full, so I had another meal at MOS burger just opposite. 3 meals! I don't know how I managed to eat it all but I did.
I left, it was depressing to eat alone, depression seem to ease a little bit of the anger and irritation and I was slightly calmer, so I walked around. So this is what it feels like when you just need to be alone. Actually it's not my first time I am walking around alone to cool down. But now I am doing just that. I was just moving around making decisions on the spot. I walked around taka and wisma atria looking at mannequins and displays through the shop windows, but not mentally registering anything.
Mindlessly I left taka and walked over to the bus stop where I'd usually head home. Then I just remembered that 111 was diverted because of the Chingay parade, but that didn't stop me, the first bus to come by was the Great World City shuttle, and I hopped onto it and before I knew it I was at Great World City. The place was just as crowded as Orchard. After roaming around for a while just wasting time. I went home. My parents had already left. I chatted on msn for a while before I hit the sack.
It has been a lousy day.
11:46 PM
Monday, February 19, 2007
To all my friends, and those visiting this site, FX wishes you...
祝你：
新年快乐
身心安康
心想事成
万事如意
恭喜发财！A Very happy Lunar New Year!
7:02 AM
Saturday, February 17, 2007
AS A SPECIES, we've hit the bedtime barrier. You can eat at your desk, socialize in the break room, and answer text messages on a date, but sooner or later, you're going to have to sleep. After 18, 19 hours awake, your brain function starts to fail. Coffee might keep you up, but you're not going to be focused. Coffee? You might as well be commuting by buggy.
Old-school stimulants like caffeine, amphetamines and the drug Ritalin are about to be marginalized by eugeroics. This emerging breed of "wakefulness" pills promises to keep the workers of tomorrow not just awake, but alert, on-task and feeling fine through the night and well into the next day.
Remember these names, because they're your future: Modafinil, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 for the treatment of narcolepsy and marketed in the U.S. as Provigil, is already giving a competitive edge to everyone from Air Force pilots on 40-hour missions to (less legally) college students cramming for exams. The drug's maker, Cephalon in Frazer, Pennsylvania, is awaiting FDA approval for armodafinil, which promises even longer periods of wakefulness on a single dose, and Irvine, California–based Cortex is working on its own drug, code-named CX717 and developed with funding from the military. The drugs are targeted at sleep disorders like narcolepsy, but it's their dramatic potential influence on the workplace that has researchers and efficiency experts buzzing.
Scientists understand how the drugs work only broadly. Unlike traditional stimulants, eugeroics don't simply jazz up the whole body. Instead they tweak specific sleep-related mechanisms in the brain, so users don't feel jittery or wired, just alert. And in experiments with CX717, sleep-deprived rhesus monkeys on the drug often outperformed their own wellrested but undrugged best efforts on mental-performance tests. Modafinil, too, is definitely a cognitive enhancer. Studies of alert human volunteers, the drug improved planning, concentration and impulse-control skills, and even boosted some forms of memory.
Here's the rub: The drugs don't replace sleep, and decades of research show that sleep deprivation prompts immune dysfunction, depression and other disorders. Sleep isn't something we should be looking to phase out of our lives. Yet the economic pressure to stay out of bed is intense. Cutting out four hours of sleep a night would free up almost 1,500 extra hours a year. That's an additional nine months' worth of standard 40-hour workweeks - plenty of time to earn a promotion or start your own company on the side (or, worst case, slog away in obscurity).
From Napoleon to Edison to Churchill, many of history's most notable figures got by on only a few hours of sleep a night. Give an entire workforce the energy of a Thomas Edison, and you've got a new Industrial Revolution. For better or worse, when the trend takes hold, there will be no going back.
Imagine sticking to double lattes while everyone else in the office—or at the
start-up down the road—is juicing on the latest eugeroic, and you'll seem as naive and obsolete as the NFL linesman who swears by protein shakes alone.
6:20 AM
Thursday, February 15, 2007
A little boy goes to his father and asks "Daddy, how was I born?"
The father answers:
"Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little Pop-Up appeared and said: You've Got Male!"
7:09 AM
Sunday, February 11, 2007
This is a very angsty entry and is the product of bottled up emotions that have lasted over a period of time till now. It's finally the end of yet another week. I don't know what exactly it is, but somehow or rather the weeks seem to be getting longer and longer. I was feeling unhappy and moody since Friday. What have I managed to achieve for the week? The end of this week marks the finish of 6 weeks of weapons training, with another 14 weeks to go. It just seems to drag on and on. There's nothing wrong with the training, but I just wish I could just do something more instead of wasting the 5 days in camp just wishing for the weekend to arrive at an accelerated pace. What is wrong?
FX tranquility? What a joke, I feel far from being tranquil right now. I feel distant, detached, unhappy, moody, defensive, aggressive, irate. Maybe pained.
Why do I feel this frustration even though the weekend has finally arrived? Is it the routine? What have I been doing this 6 weeks in weapons phase? Or the 7 weeks in basic phase? What have I learnt? What else do I want to do?
I don't know exactly what's bothering me, maybe I'll just blabber it all out in this pointless entry in hopes that my efforts in authoring this entry will help my heart find solitude and peace.
I am cooped up in camp, but every time I get the chance I'll scour the net for good articles to read and intellectual supplements for my rapidly deteriorating cerebral mass. I'll try to find blogs of my friends to try and keep up with their activities and keep up with their lives so that I won't feel so detached from reality and life. Yet..
I've been reading other blogs and I can't help but notice usage of certain words signifying the superior command of the English language and improvements with more complicated usage of words and vocabularic manipulation. Has my primary language of communication deteriorated to such a stage of dismal inferiority? I do read, I try to read as much as I can! But I can't seem to slow down the damn degenerative decomposing of my cerebral cortex. Has the command of my English become poorer whilst I've been intellectually rotting away in camp?
Every time I step out of camp, I am 5 days outdated from the latest news happening around the world. But News?
What a way to put it, the newspaper reports and tabloids are a real joke every time I open the papers I see the same old articles all over over again. The military spending of other countries to "protect the peace”, the damn terrorists blowing things up and Bush talking about stabilizing Iraq and pulling troops out of Iraq.
Then we have China's policy towards Taiwan, the biomedical debate in Singapore on whether Singapore is spending the money correctly. The gripes of the GST hike, bird flu fears all around the region, possible pandemic occurring, the NKF farce of TT Durai and his minions with the limelight now focused on the infamous Mr Richard Yong and Ms Matilda Chua, the IR and tourism targets that Singapore has set.
The political tussle and blame game over the bad weather gripping earth, global warming the melting of polar ice-caps, El Nino, La Nina effects, flooding in Indonesia, a feared drought approaching, Isn't anybody paying any attention?! All the problems we are facing now are caused by US! Caused by us! Fucked up humans destroying our own homes and blaming everyone else except ourselves. We pollute the waters we drink, filled the skies with our smog and litter the ground we walk on. Is it any wonder why we are paying for our mistakes? There is definitely a god up there, punishing those who deserve it. The flooding, the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and droughts. It just fills the papers everyday and countries blame each other for causing the dramatic climatic shift and not doing anything about it. It's really tiring to read the same old newspaper reports day after day about the effects without seeing anything being done about it to remedy the situation.
Why is it called newspapers? It's OLD. The world we are living in is totally screwed up, a friend of mine told me, "don't blame everything on national service."Yes, I believe that is a stigma I must learn to get rid of. And get rid of it fast I must. It isn't easy, I feel so emotionally detached, festive occasions just seem to come and go. Countless of important dates and events I've missed. Valentine's day is fast approaching, but where is the love?
7 days a week, 5 days I spend in camp, yet making no progress on social interaction because all my fellow cadets and peers are trainees as well, unwilling conscripts in a place that doesn't promote social cohesion and there is jest and rivalry in every nook and cranny, not to mention the politics of the place, because of that, emotions are reserved and all everyone does is look forward to the weekend, training has lost it's human touch, bargains are not for welfare but for personal benefit.
The reserved nature doesn't end in camp, even when I eagerly come home in the weekend finally after a long week of physical training, I still have to maintain my forte and defensive posture because I can't even talk freely without fear of reprisal or unaccepting rebuttal of my point of view. I am tired, I am really tired. I cannot talk about my training because of it's sensitive nature, I cannot talk about my life because there is no life to talk about.
Whatever I want to talk about is met with uninterested attention, but instead their focus is on what they want to hear, and not what I want to talk about. As a result, I end up not saying anything that is on my mind at all, but merely replying monosyllabic opinioned statements that are so mellow I cringe at my own words. I cannot say or release what's on my mind and that is extremely frustrating, I can't say them to my peers in NS, and now I can't talk about what bothers me to my own family? I am not just physically tired, I am emotionally drained as well. Emotions bottled up with no path to go and pressure building without a release valve. Maybe one course of action is to just shut up. But isn't that what I am already doing? Maybe I should SHUT UP MORE.
In camp, it's all about the maintaining the image. Freshly pressed uniform, countless hours spent on grooming and maintenance for the most petty and measly tiny detail that serves no practical purpose. What's the complaint over ONE bloody crease in our uniform? Or ONE stubble of missed facial hair? Yes, we have to be neat, that's true, but when people have nothing to do, they pick on every small, slightest of petty of issues involving personal grooming that even teenage girls wouldn't bother about. Maintaining the image that the training serves a higher all-mighty practical purpose, what's the point of all the parties organized and the media involved? No matter how wide the commander's smile is, how big the cake is, how shiny the ceremonial sword is, how freshly starched the uniforms are or how glamorous and extravagant the parties held are, we are still using inadequate, antiquated equipment when the money could be better spent elsewhere.
But as an officer-in-training, complaining reflects poorly on the individual, even as humans we cannot gripe, cannot grouse and cannot bloody make any noise about our individual opinion, constructive comments or suggestions are shot down because there is a bloody hierarchy to adhere to. It's like hitting a wall with your fists and hoping something constructive to occur in front of your eyes.
I keep saying I know what I want and how I am going to get it. But what do I want? I don't really know what's with me, or maybe my hormones have gone crazy with my genetic structure being rearranged by the weather all around me and the environment that I currently dwell in or maybe it's the training that I am going through? I feel violent and destructive, it's like a damn pressure vessel just waiting to go atomic. I feel like exploding but I can't.
I blog this entry, I pray, I even try listening to Chinese music for refuge! In hopes of finding peace, but I just feel awful and really unhappy. What do I really want? Why do I feel this way? I just want to HIT something! But will that help?
Does this violent outburst of emotion result in a negative view of TKD black belts? Does sprouting profanity result in a negative view of officers in the SAF? Does complaining result in a negative view of my personal being?
I am only human for fucking hell!
I feel mildly better after blogging this entry. The time is now 8.40pm. I have to leave for camp in 20 minutes and the cycle begins all over again, I don't even know what constructive activity I had done to pass this weekend.
8:49 PM
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Sometimes, that's just life. Having the same hobbies & interests automatically qualified you as a friend. And if you "friend" somebody, then your friend's friend would be your friend and your friend's enemy your enemy.
But if you didn't "friend" somebody, he was your enemy and your enemy's friend was your enemy, but your enemy's enemy was your friend. Get it?
8:12 AM
