things ive been missin'

to tell the truth.
ive nvr been actually online in a long time. being immersed in a different world altogether doesnt count rite. but i do master a few things, like actually typin without the need to see the keyboard. cuz it may in fact cost me my life ;D

lets see. my year all began with the enlistment of army. 7 jan. a date i wld always rmb as dat is my dad birthdate. i started out like any other 18 yr old, trying to get a grip of life, taking thgs for granted, havin plain fun without ever thinkin of the underlying consequences, nt childish bt just nt yet grown up. almost a yr later, i transformed into someone who actually cares abt the ppl ard me and i feel like an adult finally. taking care of my finances, my bills, and yea ownership of my men.

it has been a long year? not without exams n stress of trying to be the cream of the crop in sch or tryin to impress girls half the time. time flies while ure out having outfield training. 5 days seem like nthg. n weekends feel like eternity. the three stripes i wear on my arm really means a lot to me. all the blood n sweat ive been thru. it might be peanuts compared to ocs trainin. but in fact im rather thankful. it feels so different when u sit down in a theatre n watch those cliched themed army adverts. inspired u may seem but its bullshit. soldiers arent heroes. certainly nt symbols of idolism. but juz normals who want to stay on the front n fight with their brothers in arms without fanfare or glory. *sigh.

stranger than fiction is one of a kind. it seems so corny as it starts out as "This is a story about a man named harold crick. And his wristwatch." yes. he begins to hear his life being chronicled by a narrator only he can hear. and the narrator, a autor of tragic novels is unaware that her protagonist is infact alive and uncontrollably guided by her words. yup his life is determined by wad she writes. n she doesnt realise it until one fine incident occured. its cool when u see reality n fiction collide when finally harold realises that he is gonna die like the charactor which it might eventually did. an ingenious film indeed.

well 2006 has been a year of truths, deception n even sorrows. several of my friends lost somthing so dear to them. hope they stay strong knowin' that their frends would always stand by them in these times of crisis. life is unpredictable so live it yr fullest =) seeya nxt yr peeps.

blind

I was young but I wasn't naive
I watched helpless as he turned
around to leave
And still I have the pain I have
to carry
A past so deep that even you
could not bury if you tried

After all this time
I never thought we'd be here
Never thought we'd be here
When my love for you was blind
But I couldn't make you see it
Couldn't make you see it
That I loved you more than
you'll ever know
A part of me died when I let you go

I would fall asleep
Only in hopes of dreaming
That everything would be like is
was before
But nights like this it seems are
slowly fleeting
They disappear as reality is
crashing to the floor

After all this time
I never thought we'd be here
Never thought we'd be here
When my love for you was blind
But I couldn't make you see it
Couldn't make you see it
That I loved you more than
you'll ever know
A part of me died when I let you go

After all this time
Would you ever wanna leave it
Maybe you could not believe it
That my love for you was blind
But I couldn't make you see it
Couldn't make you see it
That I loved you more than
you will ever know
A part of me died when I let you go
And I loved you more than
you'll ever know
A part of me dies when I let you go

the brief history of the dead.

Many african societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha and the zamani.
The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead.
They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote.
When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalized ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many... can be recalled by name.
But they are not living-dead.
There is a difference.

"island in the sun"

Hip hip
Hip hip
Hip hip
Hip hip

When you're on a holiday
You can't find the words to say
All the things that come to you
And I wanna feel it too

On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain

Hip hip
Hip hip

When you're on a golden sea
You don't need no memory
Just a place to call your own
As we drift into the zone

On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain

We'll run away together
We'll spend some time forever
We'll never feel bad anymore

Hip hip
Hip hip
Hip hip

On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain

We'll run away together
We'll spend some time forever
We'll never feel bad anymore

Hip hip

We'll never feel bad anymore
No no
We'll never feel bad anymore
No no
No no
No no

makes me high on a rainy sat evenin'. haha.

thinkin' wonderwall.

so. yea i finally went out with yunnie. it was a nice afternoon spent. i really wld miss her when she leaves for uk in 12 days. take care babe =)

take a chance with me.

hullo.
yea. ive been pretty lazy for the last couple of months. my table's in a mess. my comp is like frikin slow nw. defragmentations unheard of. everthg is out of place. so many thgs had happened in the last 4 mths. the worldcup has been sponsering my newly attained psp n clothes =) so many of my female frends has become attached. save for a few spinsters-to-be. heh. my bridgin course has finally come to an end. all the late into the night upstaking, 4am reveille, tons of stores, tiresome maintenance, boring lectures, comets, boats. n save for the many xtras ive served. for a month of sats i havent been returning home. due to a careless me. nw the posting awaits me. i am hoping to get into survey. then its back to a 10 wks course. bt more or less im getting into a ops coy. either alpha/bravo/boat in seletar camp.

nt too bad. time has been passing pretty fast. my short stint in the army is gonna be over soon. albeit its still like 15 more mths before i ord. well at least i got 4 days of break before my postin on wed. my stupid eye keeps hurting. while washing the comet on fri, zap(frikin' strong liquid used to remove grease) accidentally went into my eye. duh its fucking pain. bt ive washed it down with plenty of water alr. supposed to go for a YEP lunch today as several of them are leavin for overseas studies soon. just my luck la. hopefully it gets better tmr n by monday i can party again =)

Hallelujah

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this...the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall
The major lift,
The baffled King composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you.

She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne
She cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.

I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?

And remember when I moved in you
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.

And it's not a cry you can hear at night
it's not somebody who's seen the light
it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

standstill.

abt a year ago i was still a young naive little boy who cares abt his looks, always wantin to get attention and wasnt really thinkin abt his future. i was still in tt live-a-day-by-a-day mode. i didnt put in hard work for my As. nw it has all come back to me. those bldy days whr i skipped lectures or even dinner for dota battles seems ridiculous. those days i fought with my friends after a mere kill-stealin reflects childishness. doesnt matter dat i was born just 9 days before 1988. mayb i wasnt mature enuff.
it all suddenly came to me. at the strike of midnight of the last day of 2005. 7 more days n i wld become a soldier. who knows wad lies ahead. studyin was put to a standstill. i made a whole lot more of friends. Friends whom i guess i wld keep in contact for quite sometime. it has been lucky for me i guess. i wld occassionally mit up with my khakis or girl friends. then the flurry of university admissions came. everyone seems to be gettin wad they want. i had always wanted to be a doctor. to make a diff into other ppl's lives. bt i had lowered my expectations. definitely money takes precedence over interest for most of us. inclu me. moreover entrepreneurship excites me. bt hey my D for biology cldnt get me into a business sch. it sucks i tell u. thr might be a chance for me in economics in smu bt its slim. i know it. of cuz, i can choose to fly over to aussie / uk to pursue wad i want. i always had the fantasy of living the 'american dream'. those parties. those hot chicks. n college seems more like a long vacation haul. the oc =) bt then again the money issue comes into place.

juz came back from 4 days in tekong. yupp its a degree hotter than in mainland and the mossies thr are like 10 times more and 3 times bigger. they drained like 5% of my blood when i was proning or slpin. apparently the insect repellent attracts them. frikin hell. the rest of my friends only spent like 2 days for 'grandslam'. it has to be foxtrot. we had gypsy 3 unheard of in other coys. navigation in a semi-open terrain was easy cuz we can walk on the tracks. bt the distance from one checkpoint to another esp at night was like 5-6km. imagine a rocky path, hot sun, carryin a saw and no end in sight. well that was only the first day. we slept only for 5 hrs in quite thick vegetation with our sbo on and gun slung. only a groundsheet tt separates us from the soil. sentry duty was on for 2 hrs with helmet and in prone position. the nxt 3 days was hell. we did fighting patrol and ambush missions for abt 7 consecutive times only holdin diff appointments each time. i smell worst than a rotting corpse of a skunk. oh hw can i forget the camo on our faces for the whole 72 hrs n the yucky combat rations. in warm-glowing camaraderie, we endured. we fought on. finally on the last day, i felt a drop of water. we all felt it. it turned into a drizzle and mins later a downpour. it was a sign dat it was all over. i took off my helmet. the camo came off. the dirt on our no4 were washed away. laughter came back. we did a celebratory rain dance. at last war was over. We were victorious. =))

orange alert.

oh no. my left eye really hurts. it started last week but i shrugged it off cuz it wasnt obv and that bad. bt rite nw it really hurts. ive been starin at the mirror for the past 1 hr n my left eye looks redder than the right one. thrs like also a small cut there. also when i put on my specs, my left vision is slightly blur red like as if a thin mist is coverin my eye. f*** up mann. i need my eyes. thrs juz too many things i havent seen yet. damn. wad a waste if i lost sight in one of them. i guess a visit to the doctor is the first thing i wld do when i wake up. im too tired nw. and my eyes are too pain if i keep them open for too long. argh. bless me.

insomnia.

There's a lifeboat danglin' from string
it's slowly swaying up over my head now
as I jot down the words that'll never be sung
and wait for my headache to numb.

And the wind sounds as if the world's sighin'
and the moon's just a torn fingernail
as the TV flickers and hums by the wall
and I wait for my eyesight to fade

So...so....so...it's so damn slow
So...so....so...it's so damn slow

And the bright-eyed choke on ambition
and the old folks circle their graves
and the young ones are busy destroying their names
and the earth's still just wasting away

I sit and watch the screen for a message
some kind of sign that says we're okay
but the screen stays blank 'til I turn the thing off
and wait for my conscience to break

So...so....so...it's so damn slow
So...so....so...it's so damn slow

And I hope you're learnin' to listen
and I hope you're learnin' to stay
and I hope you find what you're missin'
and I hope that you're makin' your way

And I'm a head case if I don't keep movin'
and my head hurts if I don't sit still
It's an itch that I'll never stop scratchin'
and it's a hole that I'l never quite fill

So...

blah.h blahhhh.

damn. its 1.11am. i'd be in camp in abt 8 hrs. dis whole wk had been hectic. i spent the last few nites either roamin the streets or at some1's hse mahjongin away. had nite cycling with my platoonmates. this clique of us had been rather close since bmt and nw we wld be separated due to the diff vocations. i doubt we wld ever mit up again. ppl say friends come and go.. but true friends leave footprints in yr heart.

dis short 9 wks i spent in bmt made me realise lots abt camaraderie and brotherhood. esp outfield and durin route marches. motivatin pushing one another. enduring the tough times tgt. flashbacks of trgs, tekan sessions rushed thru my head when we threw out jockey caps into the air durin pop. for the 1st time in yrs i felt im a true singaporean. a defender of this nation.

dis whole exp i had in tekong wld be one of the most memorable. and nw tmr marks another phase dat i wld be goign thru. new comrades. and a whole new exp. *yawns. okay. i juz managed to squeeze everythg into my duffer bag/ fieldpack. i seriously wun know wad to expect tmr at sispec but i wld be goign thr with an open mind and a chiongsua attitude. =) nite.

one step short.

Just a breath away it seems
Feels like worlds apart this day
a few minutes of chatter
it seems u hide yr laughter

Only a breath away it feels
So close yet so far away
thinking of u throughout the nights
i wonder if u do the same

Naught a breath we'll share again
one day i hope u'd change
Just a breath away it seems
dat u'd juz come back to me.

the final destination.

in death suddenly all thgs become clearer. okie. i shall ramble more tmr. im shagged. totally.

ramblings.

bldy hell. time doesnt seem to pass tt fast when im in camp.
2 more days left b4 i get locked up in some island north-west of s'pore.
without my dear comp and the tv.
without my beanie and my mice.
i cant escape.
barbwires surround me.
surveillence is everywhere.
and security is 24 hrs.
i do wad they tell me.
i eat wad they provide me.
disobedience is a no-no.
cuz it will land u in kranji.
oh mann. when can i ever get out?

the fucked up army.

why cant they let us book in on wednesday morning? arseholes. less than 24 hrs and i wld have to report back to tekong. the first three days was rather slack. didnt really do much exercising just many lectures and lots of admin stuff. plus the rain helps too. it will soon get boring after a while. everythg is all about standardisation and discipline. but i guess we wld all get used to it soon. the officers and commanders are all damn bldy vulgar and most smoke. but they are really nice ppl. oh the food there is all catered and it can be really good sometimes. most of the time i cant finished it la. the servings are quite big. sian. im nt lking forward to going back in. they said the xiong trg starts when we all book in. and plus no booking out on the following weekends. 2 week confinement. so the nxt time we wld all return back to civilisation is 21 jan. so let the battle begin. getting my M16 on thurs. =)

the 13th day of christmas.

im all geared up and rdy to go.
to pwn some real life noobs out on the battlefield.
armed with my bagpack and hopefully a gun.
no lvrs are expected and noobs aint welcomed.
unfortunately friendly fire's on and u cant respawn.
armour is minimal and u dun have 100 lives.
so gg to all and may the strongest survive.

7th jan 2006.
the countdown begins.