Band of Brothers

I remember what exhaustion is, because I was exhausted. I remember what its like to take a bead on a person and pull the trigger, because I did that. I understand what its like to slide in the mud and be absolutely filthy and stink like a goat, because I've been there. - Capt Dale Dye, USMC (Retd)
 

Attended Constance's birthday party yesterday...and something just kept making me think it was her 21st (when it was actually her 20th only!). Must have been the fact that I would not usually go for a party during exam period unless a) the person is extremely close to me b) I'm really really stressed, and c) its the person's 21st Birthday. Beyond all doubts, it had to be c).
Was also reminded of my own party in May last year. Was talking to Rachel about how some people whom you count as 'good friends' don't turn up during your birthday party. Even after you personally sent them invitations. The feeling - if you've never had that experience - sucks. I'm not saying all who did that are bad. I'm just saying that, from my point of view, I'd go the extra mile just to make a person happy on his/her special day.
Of course, if that day clashed with something else important - like, maybe Grandma's 80th Birthday, or Dad's 50th, then by all means. But if it means cramming in a few more pages of the Collins-Cobuild dictionary and Encyclopaedia Brittanica to go spew it out on the exam pages next week, then I'm really sad for these peoples' way of looking at life. Yes, considering that there were people at the party who were having papers this morning, I think those who can't come up with valid excuses are lacking something. In life.

At my own party (and it still recalls itself vividly), the birthday boy was rushing all over entertaining his guests, which consisted of some Primary school, Sec sch mates, his JC classmates, as well as some army mates he had made along the way. Perhaps, its true to say that friendship is tested on the battlefield of metaphoria...when you're out in the cold night, and its pouring monkeys...and your buddy from another trench trudges over to help you dig out your own because he's finished his (rather than going to rest).
Only three people were standing at the BBQ pits that night. I had ordered food to be catered, and it was supposed to be cooked by the company which provided it. But, no, those three people were not from the company. The first, X, stood rather silently, cooking the food. My understudy-of-sorts in SMI as well as Y's long-time old primary school friend...we'd only gotten to know each other three months back. And rather than eating and lying back, enjoying the birthday party spoils of a friend he had only recently been acquainted with...he toiled over the coals to make sure food was served. Beside him, toiling along as well was Z,  a relatively soft spoken chap with a heart of gold whom I'd gotten to know through the person I'm about to mention next.
W, my platoon mate in OCS Golf Wing...a friend and buddy who'd gone through thick and thin with me in those short but furious and trying times in Golf, earned his place to be called...my brother.
Together, a motley crue...yet not so different...if you saw the commonalities amongst them all. To them, and to all others who have been generous in thought or action, I have remembered. I thank you all, and this passage I dedicate to you:

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

William Shakespeare's Henry V; Act IV, Scene 3

And now...The end is near...

With the end of exams on Wed...I'm all set and rearing...to go back to work. RIGHT. Yup, have to report to MINDEF, in my nice crisp uniform at 0800, on 051205 (*Changing back to Military Mode*).
Meanwhile...there are loads of other things on hand to perform...sorting my PGP room out, shifting out...packing my OWN room at home up...shifting the PC from my room down...being a human being rather than a "Muggerbot" (YC). Yes...life in Uni may give you more leeway when it comes to study time...but it surely saps your life away...when you have no othertime to even do your hobbies you once revelled in (running, swimming...esp in rainy/stormy weather).
I HAVE to train back my lost stamina/strength. I'm a slob. I admit it. But the marathon I'm doing on the 4th December won't take that as an excuse. Neither will the IPPT testers next month when I do the test. Sigh. Well...humbling reality hits us all...and for me, I guess it is the fact that, I may not be getting the GOLD award that I've been trying to maintain for these years THIS TIME ROUND. Which also Brings me to say that I have to try even HARDER to work it back to my former glory. Sigh X 2.
OK...back to the books... Culture and Society is an interesting module for those who are intending to take it as a GEM/Breadth/Major/etc. I've learnt all the diff ways that the state insidiously tries to construct the National Identity. Be it the NDP and making us all dress up in Red... to the President presiding over the parade...because in actual fact his SYMBOLIC representation is that of the "Nation viewing the performance, that the nation performs". Get it? Yeah...took me awhile too.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Whilst studying for my exams...was reminded of a time four years ago...during this same period, revising my Prac Crit notes...when I came across one of the first few poems I had PC-ed in JC. Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est" has never failed to resurface everytime I look at pictures and hear of news of fallen soldiers in the Middle East.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

2Lt Cathey's wife holds a last vigil the night before the state-funeral. How many of us would do this for someone close?  

The Honour after the Fall: 2Lt James Cathey arrives back in the US...with a State-Flag draped over his coffin, whilst his fellow passengers watch...and wait. 

The anonymous face of the Worker. The Creep.  

"I don't belong here"

A day after my Biodiversity exam...and I feel pretty fine. Well...fine to realise that yesterday's exam was pretty ok...Prof Pandit actually REPEATED 4 questions (or more) from the previous sem's paper...verbatim! Before any of us start saying things like, "He must be really lazy" and such about Prof, let me help us recall something he said on his first lecture. "I don't care how much you score, what I am concerned with is what you takeaway from my classes"..."If you make even a minute difference, I think my job as a teacher has been done".
What I was really inspired was an anecdote that he told us about when one of our class mentioned that her teacher discouraged her from being a vet. "Let no one tell you not to dream. A teacher of all people should never dash your dreams". You rock Prof! =)

Quite enjoy what I'm studying,...Culture and Society. I must say that I've been made more aware to the fact of the national identity being portrayed in state-created rituals, used to reinforce the multi-culural, and more importantly, multi-racial ideology in Singapore. What we take for granted may not be ours to keep, if the government does not retain its hold on power, and use the acknowledement of multi-racialism as a key tool of control of its ethnically-diverse people.
OK. Enough of "Soci-Talk". For those people who think that life in NUS is crazy...just a mode of morbid inspiration, based on the Radiohead song "Creep". Enjoy...
http://www.lowmorale.co.uk/creep/

I had a dream; It was about nothing...

Three Down...ONE to go.
And I was like...Phew. Thank God.
Have finished three papers...Making of a Nation (MOAN), SC1101E (Making Sense of Society), AND Biodiversity. God's been good to me, that I've got to thank for.
Decided to just log in tonight and chill for awhile...was reminded of the movie "Bowling for Columbine" I watched the previous Saturday...so I found the song from the soundtrack and placed the lyrics below. Yup..so you all can find out just WHAT I've been listening to.
My last paper is on the 30th...have loads of time to mug for it. So am going to. Must get great grades this sem...to pull myself out from the dregs. Ah well...life in Singapore as a student...not much life.
If you all have time to listen to music, do take the opportunity to try "I am the Walrus" by the Beatles. Its another of these absurdist songs which are really meaningful. If you get it.

Take the Skinheads Bowling - Camper Van Beethoven

Every day, I get up and pray to John
And he decreases the number of clocks by exactly one
Everybody's comin' home for lunch these days
Last night there were skinheads on my lawn

Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling

Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes
Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same
There's not a line that goes here that rhymes with anything
I has a dream last night, but I forget what it was

I had a dream last night about you, my friend
I had a dream; I wanted to sleep next to plastic
I had a dream; I wanted to lick your knees
I had a dream; it was about nothing.

Dear Children of God, Here's looking at ya.

I don't know...but sometimes, I think God may just answer this: "Dear Robert, I'm God. I'm the one whom everyone prays to...Iraqis, Americans, Indonesians...Jews, Christians...Go Figure." Maybe its just ME with my anthropomorphic sense of looking at things. Everything ard me, Divine or otherwise, has my characteristics. Or MAYBE...its not just me afterall.
And sometimes...you just wonder, are kids that innocent, and Naive after all? Perhaps we grow LESS intelligent when we grow up...all the air pollution depriving our brains of oxygen, giving us lead poisoning...etc. You get it.
Here's what my letter would look like:
Dear God, Pls Save us. We're who are living "are dying, with a little patience".
Amen.
Nian

P.s. I took the pics from Laremy's blog, who took it from his friend's blog. Thanks bro. I'm citing now. (http://udders.blogspot.com Last Cited 15th November 2005)
 

Dear God...some people look both ways...but suddenly a car comes and hits them. Then what? 

I wish I had a choice for three puppies. I got three brothers instead, kid.  

Caught this movie yesterday...on the pretext of revising for my Soci paper next Saturday. A very good documentary about the oppression of democracy and the culture of fear pervading the American Society. 

This is what I call FIGHTING SPIRIT  

Pre-exam thoughts...

Time of the term, when many people fret over their unfinished business, (akin to hungry restless souls wandering the earth during the Seventh Month). Unfinished business here implies term papers, written assignments, group project reports, presentation slides - the banes of a Uni student's life multiplied hundred-fold unfold before one's mind-eye.
Still in the process of editing my Biodiversity project report...trying to finish it by tonight, then move on to more pertinent stuff like the actual STUDYING for my exams which start NEXT FRIDAY. urgh. (anyone out there reading this, please please pray for me).
A thought hit me today. One of those thoughts that you get, and decide to file away to address at some-other-time-when-one-is-less-busy. Yeah, that kind of thought. The thought of today was: Why certain people keep crying over spilt milk - in the form of not being able to get into a educational institution of their choice.
I've seen this happen far too often...from Secondary One when we were posted to our schools of choice (or in some cases, non-choice), to Junior College when people would lament over being posted to "FJC" over "WJC". And now, when we're in University, I still hear the ardent cry of many an individual who feels seemingly misplaced in NUS, as they rather be "somewhere else on the West coast of the US".
My reasoning for this phenomenon is derived from the fact that human beings are creatures of greed, with insatiable appetites to yearn for more. We're given one thing. We ask for another. We're given a second. We want BOTH.
Such is the folly of Modern man. For the day that our ancestors harnessed fire was the day that they walked out of the Garden of Eden, into the wilderness.

Sometimes, I hear of those who remark to the effect of: "you know, its not that I couldn't get into X University in the US...its just that I have no money", or worse "I have the money, I have the grades. I could be somewhere else. Why am I wasting my time here?" and I feel like retorting, "Look, IF you could go, and you so WANTED to, then why didn't you? WHY are you spending your time here, giving others who placed a respectable university like NUS as their first choice negative remarks like yours?" Certainly, it is these people who give their compatriots from certain elite institutions which they hail from a bad name.
For the former, I would sympathise more, and would urge he/she to do his/her utmost best wherever, since ultimately the employer would look at the certificate scroll and the writing indicating "First Class", "Second Class", or simply "Pass". Furthermore, if this person who is genuinely intelligent, and not merely some number-crunching-book-chewing-question-answering machine - I'm sure he'll/she'll do well at interviews for Post-Grad scholarships (which will look at the person's holistic performance, rather than simply the grades attained).
I mean not to discourage anyone from going overseas if they are able to support themselves, as well as qualify for the placement via their own merit. What is disheartening to hear is the fact that Singaporean students choose foreign universities over local ones, simply because a "First Class" degree is more attainable for the common student than it is here. By doing so, this creates internal pressures within the Singaporean academic community, with local students questioning the rationale of having such tight, stringent marking systems, resulting in only a measly few being awarded the coveted title of "First Class Honours" on their degree scroll. It is no wonder that many would choose, if ever faintly possible, to escape the stresses and tribulations of the Singaporean "pressure-cooker" school and head to 'greener pastures'.
And what with the rest of us, who are lacking of the proverbial silver spoon (along with its accompanying cutlery set, laid out before the crib)?? Perhaps, we may feel bitter against these fortunate souls who do have more riches and wealth than ourselves to afford a 'better' education elsewhere. But for what we lack in wealth, I say we make up with retaining our own unique Singaporean student culture. Lest jesterly laughs and retorts of "mugger" are heard, we should consider ourselves fortunate to be able to receive a higher education at a respectable university in the first place, rather than simply relagating ourselves to the "couldn't go elsewhere, sit-it-out and slog" crowd. Rather than commenting and comparing "why don't Singaporean get as much benefits as those in X country", we should be looking at how we can create inward-solidarity, and make it known to the higher authorities that there is more to academics than the mere anticipation of a good job after the graduation ceremony.

Like...Er...woof? 

Signboards...with a sense of humour

Uh DUH. 

Oooh...I Lurvvv Mashed 'taters...Yum! 

The ALL NEW SUBARU IMPREZA 2006

The Brand New (YET-TO-BE-RELEASED in Singapore) Subaru Impreza 2006... 

Differentials and transmissions...revealing the beauty within the beast (or is it vice versa)? 

Isn't she a Beauty?? 

The New Subaru Impreza 2006...Stunning...as Ever  

To all of Us...from T.S. Eliot

Translation: I have seen with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her "What do you want?" She answered,
"I want to die."
A dedication, to those of us trapped in the Wasteland... 

The Return of Spring 

"Resurrexit tertia die."