shite.

But screw your courage to the sticking place,/ And we'll not fail.
Damn man, 'ayner you're pathetic. Get a fuckin' life 'cos it ain't gonna come to you.

It's hard to say how these two thoughts are connected. But they are, in me.
I feel like shite.

^^

Why do I love White Russians? 'Cos they're a marriage of two wonderous and beautiful things (but I could well have said wonderful and beauteous too O.o) - coffee and alcohol. And they make me see the world with a groggy but charitable blank gaze.

As you might have guessed I've just had one.

-----

How was my week? It passed by pretty quickly; we got our blue berets (big deal ^^) so we're "half-commanders" now. Bullshit. Yes it's just 7 weeks more till I'm released into the wide army world to wreak my havoc on a section of what? 6 men. I'll be an atrociously lousy commander.

I went to see an eye specialist on thursday about floaters and my degree (yeah all you guys are thinking downpes now ^^) and all he told me was to go make new specs. The irony isn't lost on me, not one bit. (I mean irony in the sense of incongruity between expectations and reality.) I did see Kenneth Tiong and Faii there though heh, which was a surprise.

What else? SOC - nearly passed swing trainer this time. Nearly. I'll be back.

Bookout! I downloaded a couple of movies... being a dumbass I got Amelie without checking if it had english subtitles (as it turns out, no, it's en francais all the way, bugger). That pissed me off, it took me 3 bookouts to finish downloading it. My saturday plan went haywire. Sorry Remus! Otherwise Kungfu Panda was damn brainlessly funny. There's no price for awesomeness haha.

There's no price for friendship either. (cue warm fuzzy feeling)

That alcohol's getting to me.

a bit of moralising

Yesterday was a fun day. Dropped by YO and went along to Ms Yeo's barbecue. Manned the fire and did a bit of cooking and all that. The potato salad was pretty good stuff. And the beef. And the drinks and company. (Although the kids didn't know how to toast marshmellows -.- kids these days...) w00t!

Uhh but I got myself pretty drunk by the end of the evening. On G&T, no less, wtf? ^^ I think I had about 3 shots... ugh big mistake. [Kids, don't try this... ever.] Oh for fuckssake what was I thinking. One is a good way to end an evening, two is stretching a point, and three... is a good way to end an evening, in a different way. By the time I reached the third I just got stoned and kinda queasy. So I ended up sitting quietly self-conscious in the YO group while everyone was having a good time. And when my mom came to pick me up she could smell alcohol immediately - I thought the charcoal fumes would've saved me already but she's sharper than a breathalyser -.-

It sucks being drunk. And what's more I woke up mildly hung over; it felt like my brain was trying to escape the skull cavity and run away from my ears. Well on the bright side I've never been hung over before so that's a first.

Shite. I'll never get myself drunk again, I swear.

Well... At least not too often.

And defintely not on gin.

(Damn. I'm not even kidding myself xD)

wtf.

zomg lol. thanks ZH...
The 9 most devastating insults from around the world.
(absolutely not family-friendly, nor work-safe.)
enjoy.

ftw.

aww shucks man, peck... don't you grow my ego for me xP

-----

lol I have to say that this week wasn't boring at all at the engineers' training institute... For me it literally started and ended with a bang: we had live firings of explosives on mon and fri. Which means lots of TNT and plastic explosives and stuff. Today I got a chance to fire off a 2kg bag of TNT tied round a (fake) tree - a log we carted to the live firing site. It's supposed to simulate some mission or other. Obviously the details would bore you. We had 3 firers going in together, setting off the fuses and then running like siao for cover before the things blew.

Real life explosions are brilliant. First you see a huge flash of light and a plume of black smoke, then soil and rocks and debris flying, then you feel the ground shake and hear the explosion (yes there's actually a delay, damn cool), and finally there's a shock wave that hurls through the air and messes up the camouflage netting on your helmet. I've got to say, it is fucking cool shit.

Yeah obviously that was the highlight of my week. Uhh what else? I got a silver for IPPT; thank goodness. It was funny in itself 'cos the only station I screwed up last time was shuttle run and no one, for crying out loud, no one screws up shuttle run. Usually after the test's over they ask if anyone wants to redo chin-ups or broad jump for a better score, but no one ever asks if anyone needs a shuttle run retry... It's my technique, and my general gangliness and not quite knowing where my feet are supposed to be I guess. So this time they made sure I got as many tries as I needed (only 2, in the end) - 11 seconds on the first try and 10:19 on the second. 2.4 timing was 10:18 so I'm back to where I was in BMT, shucks. Still it's a silver, I'm not complaining.

-----

Lots of people are disrupting NS on 25th June for medicine and to take up the PSC Overseas Merit Scholarship. Grats to you guys... cool.

Yeah it does rankle slightly that I wasn't offered the OMS, but they're obviously looking for leaders, not muggers, and when during the interview they asked me if "you are more comfortable with books than people, is that true?" I instantly replied yes and refused to elaborate.

And it's true, I've never been comfortable being a leader (but hell no, not a follower either). I feel a terrible fraud, sham, liar, trickster, standing in front of people and demanding respect and attention. Why on earth should I deserve it? Yes it's probably an overweening sense of humility; but I'd rather shut up and stay in the shadows than be a bastard attention-hog.

True, leadership is much more than just that, but I'm afraid many people often lose sight of what it really is about, and a bit of my faith in humanity dies in the process. It isn't about being the loudest voice, the biggest mouth, or the best actor, though it's often confused with these. What it really is about, though, truly escapes me. It's undefinable, it's a je ne sais quoi that some people have and others don't. I probably don't, and PSC was probably right not to give me the OMS, all things considered.

I've accepted that there're things in life that aren't mine to have, and for good reason. Oh well screw that ^^ It's not a "know your place" or "be content with your lot" thing. I know if only I put my mind to it I'd be off and away, flying high; but well, other people have a comparative advantage in leadership (whatever that may mean), which I seem to lack. That may well be a social handicap but it's certainly not going to prevent me from living my life with good grace and seeking out wisdom (as opposed to information, or even knowledge).

The scholarship - indeed, the lack of it; the inability to get it - doesn't define me as a person, doesn't define me as a success or failure, doesn't make me any less a human, any more a sinner. It doesn't affect me or my conception of who I am. It used to be my life goal, but since then I've grown a sense of perspective and an appreciation of what really counts.

It's lost its final power over me, in a way.

ha'p'orth of thoughts

I'm bored with my life. It kinda sucks. (I know, this is bound to provoke a kind of you think your life sucks? competition amongst all of you out there, but still...) NS is a mindless tedium, mostly, and I only really live for weekend bookouts and going out with friends. Yup I've gone slightly hedonistic but I guess that's what happens when you're driven to the brink; that's what NS inevitably does to you.

On love - we're all around that point in life when we're inexorably, inexplicably buffeted by love, and when rejection comes it feels like the carpet's been pulled from under your feet. I've seen lots of friends go basket-case over this. I'd hate to admit it, but I've gone basket-case over this. -.- That's almost saying too much already. But yeah, it happens, life goes on... I'm trying my best to stick to caritas for now, till I get the mess in my life sorted, which may be never. Love is dangerous - especially so for me; caritas is a nice wholesome feeling, a kind of universal self-sacrificial fellowship-friendship-humanism that encompasses all, and is all. It's hard to be charitable sometimes, but I try my best.

Hell, Mr Purvis had this killer cheem quote about love... which I can't for the life of me remember, fuck! Back in J1 when he said it I just inwardly went ^^ yah cheem lit shit, but it now faintly seems to make sense. Something like there is no such thing as love, only loves, and their... what? something. differences? By whom? Can't dig it out from my memory now. Help me, anyone?

Another quote, this one for Zhaohan now:

"Love [agape] is patient; love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (NIV)

I know, I know, me quoting the Bible ranks pretty highly on the improbability charts, but there's lots of wisdom in there as long as you take it right, I guess. So take heart, pal. And for fuckssake dig yourself out of that mess.

woah.

Anna Netrebko, Meine lippen, sie küssen so heiss, from Giudetta, Franz Lehar,
Last Night of the Proms 2007.


Kristen Chenoweth, Glitter and Be Gay from Candide, Leonard Bernstein.

I screwed up my PSC interview.

I feel extremely lucky to be able to say that without too much regret. Yeah I didn't prep; I haven't been paying attention to current affairs or developing my lines of thought (of which there are many), but the bottomline is that I didn't really care about it. Well, I don't need it, it sure doesn't need me, and I've only a tepid interest in working in the civil service.

The main interviewers (there were 8 I think, but only 2 asked anything while the rest frowned) were elderly gentlemen, true civil service mandarins, who given a subtle change of context and clothes wouldn't look out of place at a void deck playing chess at a senior citizens' corner and drinking tea in singlets, shorts and slippers on a Sunday morning. But their minds are incredibly sharp and I got pwned in a really wide-ranging discussion.

There were a lot of things that got thrown up, and a lot of arguments that I didn't bring up or couldn't remember in time. I probably came across as extremely opinionated and something of a crackpot - my arguments were provocative and unfortunately not very well-supported. Didn't think through my stuff. Also I've picked up a habit from Zhaohan: speaking in subclauses. Sentences that meander off the tongue. Extended paragraphical monsters of gothic construction that incorporate masses of mini-sentences, commas, semicolons, and end up contradicting themselves. Ugh. Yeah ZH I shouldn't have called you up last night haha.

So yes, I won't be too surprised if they end up opening an ISD file on me rather than giving me a PSC.

-----

Just two of the issues we talked about

Public service remuneration: Yeah I brought this one upon myself. As usual I argued that tying ministerial pay to private sector salaries was misguided; according to economics, the sole aim of firms is profit maximisation, and private sector management is paid based on the fulfilment of that aim. Thus pegging ministers' pay to private sector pay is akin to paying ministers according to how profitable Singaporean firms are, which makes no sense to me. (I believe there are further intricacies in which doctors', lawyers' and engineers' salaries are also involved; that makes even less sense). Of course, they were kinda bemused and stunned, and they asked, if not private sector salaries, what then?

Well I have no answer to that, frankly. I'm not prepared to be drawn into value judgements and messy ethical and moral stuff. That's both the beauty and the downfall of economics; economists hover above the fray, ready to pass judgement based on the framework of economic reasoning, but never to decide anything. There are many answers to this type of question, but they all follow either of two forms:

• It depends; and (my favourite)
  
• There is insufficient data to reach a conclusion.
  

So I smoked something out along those lines, and they were obviously unsatisfied about it. Oh well.

My beliefs: This one was about my application essay in which I wrote about secular humanism. The main interviewer (I can't remember his name) equated this to 'human rights activist', which in Singapore and in his tone of voice, was something of an accusation. Well, no if you, sir, mean human rights activist in the sense of long-haired hippies picketing City Hall, I'm not a human rights activist.

But to me, the term 'human rights activist' is kind of tautological. I mean, all activists are human, and if you were human wouldn't you be interested in your rights? After all, all humans are interested in their well-being. So in a sense, everyone is a human rights activist. Of course the problem is in defining what those rights actually are. Well, shucks.

-----

Yeah ok those were really tedious arguments. Other stuff... the main interviewer asked stuff like if I'd consider going into politics (no f-ing way) and if I'd ever migrate (uhh probably not, despite all that I say/dream about). Anyway it was all over in half an hour and it didn't go as deep as the EDB interview.

The thing about economics is, it never gives you straight answers; it just forces you to dig deeper and think more. That's what I ended up doing, I guess, and it backfired. lol oh well nvm ^^ I think I've lost a bit of my mental faculties.

peep show series 5

w00t there's more peep show on youtube! and it's bloody, bloody good. this is series 5 though so there's a hell lot of backstory if you haven't watched it before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2DJpobdC94

cesc wk 2/bookout

I'm starting to feel that this blog is getting into some kind of rut, what with me only being able to update once a week and only being able to give you a frankly boring rundown of whatever I've been doing this week. I'll try my best to keep the boring stuff short but I'm afraid that doesn't leave much. ^^

So what's it like in engineers? Dig holes, attend lectures, put up fencing, prod soil for mines, eat & sleep.

Well I meant it when I said 'short' =)

Ok bookout was considerably more exciting. Saturday: Novena at 9am - Novena Church that is, my family goes almost without fail every Saturday. Wally's place at 10 with the geog guys - he's on hospitalisation leave and consequently isn't supposed to go out, since SAF thinks you should be holed in at home if you're sick or injured. That has the unfortunate side effect of making you bored stiff, I'd expect. Heh talked about - guess what - army, uni, sport (I sat out on this one, having nothing to say), and gossip. Us geog guys do a frankly insane amount of gossiping (mostly about the 07A13A pple), but it's obviously between the 4 of us so sucks to the rest of you. Oh yeah I played my first FPS there too - Halo 3, got pwnt by XY twice and pwned him once w00t. Cheapskate bugger used some melee pickaxe weapon to run me down when he had to reload or sth, while I was trying to aim. Damn fun but I'm not used to console instead of mouse.

Uhh what else? I was late for YO and dropped by 3+ during their break... did some sectionals but I didn't think they were very successful. Didn't have the time or energy to really address their problems - tone quality, knowing the notes... these things need practice, and time.

Oh yes, undoubtedly the highlight of yesterday was dinner (cafe cartel) and drinks (harry's).
ZH & Remus & I talked for ages over some combo of deep-fried stuff meant for 5 people heh. Remus ever the good angel dissuaded us from the movie (narnia at 9:10pm) but we couldn't stop ZH from going for the heineken at cafe cartel. -.- I hate beer; to borrow Adam's colourful expression it tastes like horse piss. Furthermore it's the right colour.

Well, alcohol isn't to everyone's taste, and its ability to drown sorrows is, in my experience, overrated... but it's probably the companionship that alcohol's associated with that induces that effect. And yup, enjoyed the company last night, didn't regret going to the bar after dinner either though it was only one drink each before we had to dash. So that counts as a good night out.

I'm slowly falling into a new rhythm of life, discovering the joys of hanging out with friends, that kinda thing. Yeah I'm getting a life. Haha I know lots of people who'd fall of their chairs in disbelief - what? you drink? you go out? O.O - cos me and life seem to be mutually incompatible. But yeah it's awfully therapeutic and cathartic to talk to real friends, true pals who'll always stick around no matter what. And it's knowing that they'll be around that's kept me going the past 5+ months.

So thanks to you lot.

brave new world.

The Director walked slowly down the long line of cots. Rosy and relaxed with sleep, eighty little boys and girls lay softly breathing. There was a whisper under every pillow. The D.H.C. halted and, bending over one of the little beds, listened attentively.

"Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say? Let's have it repeated a little louder by the trumpet."

At the end of the room a loud speaker projected from the wall. The Director walked up to it and pressed a switch.

"… all wear green," said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."

There was a pause; then the voice began again.

"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able …"

The Director pushed back the switch. The voice was silent. Only its thin ghost continued to mutter from beneath the eighty pillows.

- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.

To me this is a really good metaphor for how the army's organised... You have the alphas (officers... like all my OCT pals are going to end up) sitting on the betas (specialists... people like me), who in turn whack the gammas, deltas and epsilons (enlisted men, or men for short). And yeah, we do get some propaganda about specialist pride and all that - I'm so glad I'm a Beta - and how we play different roles from officers - cos they're frightfully clever. And yeah, the different classes of gamma, delta and epsilon might well be different educational levels... a levels vs poly vs o levels vs ITE, that sorta thing.

It's deeply, darkly ironic, this metaphor. For years of school and all that I was groomed to be, more or less, let's face it, an alpha. When I went in and landed in sispec it was like pulling the carpet from under my feet. And it did bother me for a very long time; still does, somewhat. But when I remembered this passage from BNW - just out of the blue, a few weeks back - it did strike me as being really fitting. I could finally kind of rationalise my situation, even laugh at it - this caste organisation is put up for ridicule and criticism in BNW; it's nearly absurd, even inexplicable. People aren't people any more... officers are seemingly a different breed altogether, some magical class of ubermansch? Us specialists, caught in the middle... but still over the lower lifeforms, the saikang squads, the men (yeah, complete with the dismissive tone of voice). That's what army does to you; you don't see humans, you see ranks. Things that are, in the grand scheme of things, worthless, absurd, meaningless. 

So now whenever they do things like make us recite the specialists' creed, or when people ask if I'm disappointed about not making it to OCS... this comes to my mind:

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas.

I'm so glad I'm a Beta.

And I laugh, and nobody really knows why.