And so it has come to pass. One whole month - okay, 25 days to be exact, but yeah that's already being pedantic.
As usual, most of my thoughts that I wanted to type in here have long since vanished, so I shall put in what is pertinent here.
Firstly, is Chinese New Year: I don't know for you, but the magic has decreased significantly for me this year. I used to wake up to a feeling of euphoria on the first day of CNY (or Lunar New Year, to be politically correct), but this year was just... normal. Doing the same old things, seeing relatives, filling them in on which stage of life I am at, so on and so forth. The few of us younglings meet regularly so this is yet another meetup somehow. I even don't care about the red packets anymore - if the relatives want to give it to me, fine, I'll take it with their blessings. If not, then whatever, it doesn't matter. Adding to the gloom and doom is the fact that I've noticed a lot of my relatives look older now. My Dad, my uncles, both grandmothers... my aunts, so on and so forth. Sigh.
We cousins met up to watch Kelvin Tong's "It's a Great Great World" on Day Two of CNY. Suffice to say, it was just a normal movie. Nothing really special. Too unbothered to review it now.
Enough of the bitching and whining. Time for some good news.
I PASSED IPPT AFTER PHASE ONE! 8 sessions, netting me $88.80 worth of half-day pay from MINDEF, and the $100 incentive for "PASSING WITH INCENTIVE". It took me some effort to actually do it, because my muscles weren't ready somehow (!) and I managed only 7 chin-ups (8 would have made my time a whole lot easier), 219 cm standing broad jump (whew!), 10.4 seconds shuttle run, 41 sit-ups and 12:06 for my 2.4km run (my fastest in a long while!). The pain lasted me the whole of four days before I recovered. So much for not warming up and cooling down at all.
Next would be school. I feel like I've been slacking a lot and once my body hits the bed... I fall asleep for hours at a go. I can't take no naps now and its heavily impacting on my productivity. At the same time, I feel my memory, both short- and long-term has been decreasing - am I seeing the onset of dementia at this age? God I hope not. But I've been feeling really dumb these days and taking longer to recall things.
Speaking of dementia, my 4th Uncle (paternal) went missing recently. He's only 50ish, but he retired early. Then came his dementia. But it struck in the worst possible way because he drove out (I suppose the wife couldn't argue against his stubbornness?) to meet a friend, but never made it. Instead he went missing for approximately 48 hours. He doesn't remember where he parked his car, but later claimed he drove around and 'saw big ships'. The cops found his car at 4am the next morning in Loyang. He was found a few hours earlier in Hougang in the vicinity of his former primary school. It saddened me to see this happen, and I realise dementia is one of the shittiest illnesses you can have in old age, because it robs you of your personality, and your memories, of experiences and of all the people around you. It's very very sad... and makes one a shell of their former selves. I hope to hell I don't get this, only way is to keep working. But, as I mentioned above... it seems like my intellectual faculties are losing their efficacy. Or maybe I'm a hypochondriac.
For Council, it's been up and down. The biggest thing is letting go and letting my subcommittees run their thing. I don't know, but I feel incompetent sometimes. I think I need to reinforce my psyche with this line from Starship Troopers: " 'So? Well, that's not what you are accomplishing. You are stirring them like a nest of wild bees. Why the deuce do you think I turned over to you the best sergeant in the Fleet? If you will go to your stateroom, hang yourself on a hook, and stay there!... until ‘Prepare for Action' is sounded, he'll hand that platoon over to you tuned like a violin.' " (Heinlein, R.A., 1959). Which probably means to hand it over to my VPs while I worry more about decisions at command level. But it's been hard to do it, and sometimes, I procrastinate... gosh.
And lastly, on matters of the heart:
I've got something I want to confess. I still have some feelings left for _____ that goes beyond friendship. Someone once said that a friendship between a male and female usually involves some sort of repressed feelings from one or both parties, and it is certainly true. I do have it. Both of desire, and of... admiration. I sort of wish we could be together but I don't think it will work out even if I bend over backwards - it takes two hands to clap. I get all possessive for no reason and I spend time - I just suck like that. It's too bad, it's just too bad, and I need to get this off my chest so I don't care if you see this.
Blah. Yet another eye candy that I cannot go after, just like the many others that I could only watch from a distance.
Okay. So leadership camp was over and there were several touching moments, plus I learnt a tad bit of new stuff. I finally slept in the classroom, managing to keep warm only because of my towel and Vicky's sleeping bag which I shared. Although I'm insecure about myself and keep my barrier up, it feels good to see my work reaffirmed through such testimonials. So this wasn't a useless exercise after all.
End of post.
