Marshmallow

I guess I'm a little late for my twice-a-week blog updates. In fact I skipped the weekend update the previous week, was a little busy being in between places to have the time and energy to blog. Let's look back at what had transpired during that period of time fondly shall we.

Xin came to stayover on Friday night. Met her at AMK Hub to watch Terminator Salvation before heading over to my place. That movie kicked ass in my opinion although Xin said she didn't really enjoy it, a little too noisy for her liking. I think generally for guys any movies with lots of explosions, guns, machines and well, loud noises would make a good movie. Besides, is it possible for any male to dislike terminators? The beast of a man Arnold immortalized the goddamn show with his bulging muscles and corny "I'll be back" line to the extent that any shows that has anything to do with the word Terminator would be a success, regardless of what the critics think.

In a way you can say that the stayover failed. The objective was to get Xin to give me a well-deserved massage and facial after my guard duty on Thursday but she simply refused to give me anything other than a fair amount of physical abuse. Nothing to do with relieving my bodyaches or smoothening my 'moonrock' complexion. Another thing that failed is our smoke-free campaign. In all honesty, it probably didn't even stand a snowball's chance in hell. We both cheated on our 1st day into the week and by Friday night we were sneaking the ashtray into my room sharing a cigarette. I used to think it's darn easy to quit. Guess I have to think about that again.

Non-smokers be warned. What they say about the nicotine addiction stuff is true afterall. There's 2 parts to it I guess, the physical withdrawal symptoms and the mental effects it'll bring unto you. The physical part is easy to deal with, all you got to do is keep yourself busy or put yourself in a position whereby cigarettes are inaccessible and you'll pull through somehow. It's the mental effects that's the killer. You'll understand it when you feel it for yourself, but of course I won't wish that upon you.

Went down to Evolve on Saturday afternoon for a trial lesson on MMA. I really enjoyed the class man. The instructor taught me some basics punch-punch-takedown-armbar combo which got me panting after a few tries. And then how to counter if someone grabs me from behind. He didn't give me any chance at all when he was demo-ing for me to see and I got the shock of my life when I got slammed onto the mat for the first time in my life. All in all it's a darn shiok experience but sadly, the classes are too expensive for me to enrol in. Sad huh. I'll just wait for other chances to pop up. If you guys can fork out $250 a month, I highly suggest you head down to Evolve at Parklane and have the time of your life.

At night met uhm, her, and went to Night Safari for the first time in my life. Now I would highly reccommend you guys to take the tram next time you go there. No doubt it's more interesting to walk, but it's also a shitload more tiring. We're both sweating and panting by the time we're done seeing all the bats and hunting cats and whatnot (or am I the only one? hahaha). It was supposed to be a pretty nice and romantic night, but we were both too tired I guess. She was stoning alot and fell asleep on the bus ride home. I myself am stoning quite a little after enduring the frustration of not being able to see all animals who seemed hell bent on hiding in the bushes away from me.

Now here comes the most important part. I was walking her home when her sis came down to pick her up. All fine and normal, but I can almost guess with my ass that her sis doesn't like me very much. The funny thing is her sis smsed me last night and called me a marshmallow. A marshmallow? Hahaha that's the first time anyone called me that, or I heard anyone call anyone that for that matter. She did clarify matters with me this morning, saying that she doesn't think I'm a bad person. She just thinks I'm someone who looks tough but is actually a marshmallow. Is that supposed to be a good thing? Hell I'll just take it as a compliment anyway. I've been through the whole disapproving-elder-sister thing before and yea, it's always a losing battle so I'm more or less prepared to walk away.

Anyway, it appears that I might get some form of answer next week. Perhaps that'll shed some light on what direction I should be heading towards because everything's still a little muddled up. In the meantime, it's back to the drawing board for me on the promise of smoking that last pack/stick which just isn't working. It's impossible to quite smoking while you're in NS, not when you don't have to surrender your cigarettes. I'll bet my ass on that one.

Marshmallow out.

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Change

I somehow have the feeling that a little change is due in my life this week. My NS life has hit a bottleneck so far, with Wilson - my upperstudy not ORD-ing until July and my promotion not happening until October, I couldn't take on much responsibility and in turn not having really much else to do in camp to make myself feel useful. To make matters worse, my battalion is involved with the NDP wushu performance so Live activities on Monday and Friday were replaced by the practice and sometimes they slot in SOC training which I cannot take part in. I've been sleeping and sleeping and sleeping and sleeping everyday in my store, from first parade to last parade. Sleeping, eating, smoking, eating, sleeping and eating again. Every single day. It gets a little better at night after dinner, when sometimes I would play basketball with my bunkmates or go for runs, and then get back to mess by 9pm to watch TV and sleep. But that's as good as it's gonna get. Is this your idea of NS life?

Maybe it's the battalion, maybe it's the battery I'm posted to, maybe it's my vocation, maybe it's my PES status, whatever it is, it sucks. And it makes me feel that I suck too. Hasn't it been said enough times in books and magazines and whatever, that all men has a dying need to feel useful? SAF has so many men and trust me probably more than 80% feel that they are just wasting time and effort and are not making any contribution to the organisation.

Let's talk about changes. I had my long overdue first driving lesson yesterday and yea, it's really really fun. Except for the part when I U-turned onto the kerb, or when I got horned because my car stalled on a public road. Otherwise, I suppose I didn't do too badly on my first try. Damn I want that car license bad. One more goal to achieve.

Next thing on my radar is the AHM. Was wondering if I should volunteer to run 21km... 1st-year soldiers only need to run 10km and I had no problem hitting that distance. Ran 5 rounds on Monday night which is more or less 11km already although timing is another issue altogether. I think I took like, over an hour? But seriously I will just fuck the timing because I'm already uncertain when and where my legs will give up on me already. One step at a time. So yea, I think I'll ask them to put me down for the 21km. That'll give me another goal to achieve and some training regime to fill out my nights with. Chu Heng ran the Adidas Sundown Marathon 42km last night in 5hour 33mins and I was quite gian to go try also. Still got the Stan Chart one at the end of the year. The AHM could act as a stepping board to that one.

Btw, you should've realised how bored I am when I'm talking about wanting to pay good money to run around Singapore.

Here's one for short-term gratification. I made this pact with Xin that we'll go smoke free next week. We'll finish up our pack by tonight and not buy any cigarettes for next week. I think it's gonna be easier for me to achieve this because all I gotta do is not bring any cigarettes into camp and that's it. We don't exactly have a very vibrant cigarette sharing culture over there. As for Xin, she's gonna owe me a real big one if I find out that she cheated or broke our pact. So there you have it. A self-declared smoke-free week to go with the gazillion anti-smoking campaigns they've got running suddenly in SG.

Some teachers from some Spastic Childrens' Association and School came over to our camp last week to give a talk on Cerebral Palsy. Kinda reminded me of my stint of volunteering in SWAMI old folks' home back in Poly, and how long has it been since I last did volunteer work. I guess I'm not really suited to do the front-line 'sales' type of volunteering, because it's really depressing when you come face-to-face with people who are either really very unfortunate, very sick or very helpless and you know there's nothing you can actually do to help them. Well maybe people will say that just being there and talking to these people you're already bringing some happiness to their lives. But I just don't have enough strength, or maybe faith, to believe that what I'm doing is enough. These little seeds of doubts always gets magnified out of proportions by my own insecurities and lack of sense of self-worth.

Anyway, I've been thinking that maybe in the future when I have the chance or money, I'll travel all over the world to those underdeveloped countries and maybe help build a school or basketball court or something for the underpriviledged. I think that actually laying a brick down or painting a wall will somehow make me feel more useful. 1 vote for instant gratification eh?

Does that plan sound unrealistic? I did a couple of quizzes on Facebook and it says that my plans for the future are often unrealistic. Let's see, I want to travel all over the world that's for sure. Okay unrealistic. How about travelling all over the world doing volunteer work? Unrealistic x 2 right there. I want the world at my feet. I want to rise to the top like cream of the crop, because I know I've got what it takes. Or do I? Hmmm. The quizzes are right about 1 thing though, and that's that I think that luck can't buy class. In fact nothing can, not even money. One look, one conversation, is enough for you to find out if that person has class. And once that impression has been formed it can seldom be successfully altered. I know what I've got, but do others know?

One last thing, I've been checking up on classes on MMA for entry level because I've never had any experience or sorts in any form of martial arts. Not even BCCT cause of my PES status. Suddenly had this urge to learn and upgrade myself. Like I said, change is in the air. I would've wanted to try out rock-climbing if my shoulder doesn't pop out as regularly as it does, but then again isn't MMA more dangerous? I'm sick of gym. Besides I've got no access to gym in camp anyway. So I'll just wait for the school to hit me back with the details and we'll see how it goes.

I want to do so many thing and yet I have neither the time, nor the money and perhaps the capability to do them. Someone help me.

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