[A.Z.] Everybody Hurts

The weekend didn't go as well as I had hoped it would be, although it was good enough. On Friday morning, I managed to meet up WR, who has since been working as a salegirl at the U2 shop in Citylink. It was good just meeting her again, and like I knew I would, I couldn't help it, and gave her a tight hug the first moment I saw her. It scared her stiff, I can tell you that for sure, but.....it just felt so good. It seemed like old times, just talking about everything in particular......even though there were only the two of us. I really miss the girls, and I'm pretty sure WR knew that. Saturday I went out with N, and although she didn't seem like her usual self, at least I still got to see her again. She has had problems with relationships lately......sigh. But only she can help herself. Anyway, it was too good to see her once more.......

Today? Today, I started the Tekong Chronicles :D It's now available in the link to the right. From now on, my experiences in Pulau Tekong will be there. So enjoy! I will be gone for two more weeks starting tonight, and when I come back, the Tekong Chronicles will be updated yet again.

Anyway......ciao.

Well, I'm back.

It has been a hectic two weeks in Pulau Tekong for me, and too many things have happened for me to note them all down in this blog. For that reason, I shall be starting a new, seperate blog, just to bring online what I have been writing in my personal, pen-and-paper journal I have been keeping in Pulau Tekong. This is also one way for me to keep my thoughts organized.

So, people, get ready for the Tekong Chronicles.

Anyway, it is good to be back. I came back home at 5pm yesterday, because I booked out early for an Air Force medical checkup. Thus, I had an extra 3 hours of freedom compared to the poor crumb balls who only got to book out at 8PM :D ROFL, I feel so evil now. I really feel like laughing evilly right now, but bleh, there's no one to laugh to :S

If there was anything good about Tekong, it's that it really makes you appreciate everything you have taken for granted in your life. Everything felt good. The family, the home-cooked food......I was glad to be home. But what I truly missed the most were the girls. They were the friends that mattered the most to me.

And unfortunately, all of them are not too free. Sigh.

This morning, I met up WR at Orchard. Since we had graduated from PJ, all of the girls have become extremely busy, having taken part-time jobs and all, while the dudes are slogging away "for the nation". Bleh, I really hate that phrase. But anyway, while WR had to go to work at the Citylink U2 shop in the afternoon, she was free enough to meet up with me in the morning. And so we did.

How I missed her. The first thing I did was just to hug her tight. It did scare her real stiff, I can tell you that, but......I just couldn't help it. I missed her, and I missed all of my sisters, especially N. I love them all, and I will show just that my way.

Anyway, it was good talking to WR again, if only for a while. I really missed those days in PJ......we caught up with each other, and there much chatting about our lives since we parted ways. It was just too nice to have her company once more, especially after the trials of Tekong........I'm just too weak emotionally. I know it.

Well.......partings had to come sooner or later. But I'll be back soon, to see the rest of them.........

And so, this shall be my last post, before I go to the trials and tribulations awaiting me in Pulau Tekong. Thus, as my last words, I shall give personal messages to all those who meant so much to me.


N: Hey sis! Wanna know something? You're just about the best thing to happen to me in my life, as far as I'm concerned. You were my sis, my sounding board, my storyteller......and so much more than I could say. In other words........you were part of my growing process. In less than 12 hours, I will be bound for Tekong, and your words of wisdom shall be part of what sustains me in my trial. Live life to the fullest, sis. I'll be back soon.

AL: Hey! Well, we haven't been seeing each other much in the last 2 years since we left BPGHS.......but it's still nice to know that you haven't forgotten me. You know, you were the first step to my rehabilitation as a human being, and the one who first helped to drag me out of the muck of depression and friendlessness, and put the optimism into my life that I needed. Anyway......stay happy! I'll be back a better man.

EL: Hey girl! So what's up? Anyway, I'll be off for a while......but I'll still miss you all the way :p To be honest, you're one of the more unforgettable people I have ever come across......even though you come across as a bimbo sometimes :p Anyway, stay lively, and bring your joy to more people! Looking forward to hitting ChinaBlack with you soon :p

ST: Hello Sam! Er.....oops :p Anyway, all I can say is, you're quite the unique one, and I think you also know it :) Your unassailable happiness really makes my day when I'm down, and sometimes, you remind me of AL :p Anyway, have fun with your BF, and I'll see you in a few :)

Jessa: Hey Jess! You know, I'm kinda sad that we weren't able to get to know each other all that well when we were in PJ.....you must have made a good friend! :) Anyways, I'll be going off to Tekong (and why you would ever want to go there yourself is something I'll probably never figure out :S), and so, chill, alright? Taking things too seriously never helps matters, so just relax :) The world is never as bad as it seems, and yes, I know I need to learn that lesson too :p Anyway, take care!

Amanda: Hello there, Lil' Miss Akina! Well......we've met only once, and it's kinda too bad we couldn't meet more often, but you know what, I think it'll be better when I come out, cause by then I'll be more of a man :p Anyways, continue being yourself, for it is what we all need to do!

D: Well........I dunno. I dunno when you'll read this, dunno even if you'll even READ this in your lifetime, but yeah. What can I say? Ultimately, you were just another Katrina in my life, someone I never got around to knowing better, despite my wishes to the contrary. And so...... I suppose you're quite happy right now where you are. Anyway, I wish you well, and I'll keep the good memories we had during OC. Until then........maybe we'll meet again someday. Maybe.

To the rest: Well, for good or bad, all of you have shaped my life story for better or worse, and all of you have been influential in how I have turned out. I am sorry that I only have the time to concentrate on some of the more important people in my life, but that doesn't mean you weren't important. Perhaps, we'll all meet together someday, after the guys have done their NS and the girls have found their beaus :p, and then we'll all meet together, and reminiscence about our halcyon days in PJC. But for now, I gotta go. See ya all in a few.


And so, this shall be my last words in an account of the life of an 18-year-old Singaporean dude,an account which stretched for slightly more than a year, an account which chronicled my growth as a youth, a thinker, and ultimately, an individual. At least.....this shall be my last words as that particular youth.

Perhaps, the next time when I speak, it will be as a 19-year-old National Serviceman, with different views on life, with different thoughts and opinions, perhaps tarred by the brush of pragmatism, but hopefully still retaining the better part of my vibrant romantic colors. I will be speaking from the viewpoint of an 18-year-old youth no more, for that version of me, which lived in the years 2003-2004, will cease to exist. Instead, from the year of 2005, a new me will emerge to talk about his life experiences in this very same blog.

Therefore, as my last words in my soon-to-be-former self........

I bid you all, adieu.

This, could very well be one of my last posts in quite a while. For in two days, I will be dragged against my will into another mode of existence, one I never asked for in the first place.

Yes. I am scared of what National Service means to me. Despite all that everyone has said to me, despite all the encouragement, despite all the attempts by other people to portray it as not being so tough as I feared, I still cannot let go of my fears. As I write this, I am questioning myself, why I have so many reservations of what is essentially supposed to make me a man, nothing more horrifying than that.

Well........I think that's basically it. I am not ready to be a man.

Despite the fact that I'm 18, the age of adulthood, the age when I'm supposed to be responsible for myself, to be, in other words, mature, it is not so. I'm still a boy inside, despite appearances to the contrary. Already, I am missing the times when I enjoyed being puerile, being irresponsible, delighting in meaningless trivialities even when I am not supposed to. I enjoyed sleeping late on weekends. Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I enjoyed having crushes on every single girl that was nice to me, enjoyed the sappy ballads that nevertheless touched the romantic in me. I enjoyed living in a fantasy world, tweaking the nose of an all-too-pragmatic society with my irrelevant attitude, taking things as they come. I enjoyed the fact that I could be so mind-blowingly immature at times, ranting about everything under the sun, and when I go back to my normal self, I enjoyed the fact that my friends still treat me the same as I am, knowing that it was only an episode which would happen every now and then. I enjoyed flirting for laughs. I enjoyed being the irrelevant, irresponsible me, in other words.

And I fear that will change oh-so-irreversibly, once I have undergone the trial of manhood every Singaporean male have to undergo. In other words, I fear that I will no longer be myself, as I know myself.

I know I have been talking to those around me about my impending enlistment as if my death lay in it. Something that is quite ridiculous, I know. I mean, I'll be back within two weeks, wouldn't I? It's only an extended NCC camp, someone told me. It's like a holiday at a chalet, another person said. They'll train you up, but it isn't THAT bad, yet another one said. And I know all these to be truths.

Yet my heart, that hopelessly romantic, irrelevant, immature half of me, that antithesis of my pragmatic, down-to-earth brain, cannot accept the logic my brain takes into itself as a given. For National Service is supposed to make you a man, yes. But how it does it, as far as I know, is that it forces you to assume responsibility for yourself, changes your view to a pragmatic state, and forces a jaded maturity on you. In other words, my heart, the heart of a 15-year-old schoolgirl, the heart that keeps my optimism alive with its romantic, irrelevant ideals, will be shunted aside, as National Service forces me to become a 'productive citizen of Singapore'. Eventually, under the pressure of the training that will force maturity onto me, my heart will eventually die, to be replaced by the robotically pragmatic, jaded heart of the average Singaporean.

Isn't that a death in itself?

I have been counting the days to my enlistment, as if I was someone who was told by the gods above, that my days will be numbered on January 8, 2005. I have been desperate, maybe at times even manic, to see my friends one more time before then, almost like the cliched question, "If you only had so much time to live, what would you do?". N, EL, ST, JT.......all the girls I love. They brush my fears aside like other people, and my brain knows they mean the best, yet my ignorant heart screams betrayal. And I am torn between undeniable logic and heart-wrenching romanticism, unable to decide what to do. So I remain strong before them, agreeing with everything they say, and yet I have not found the salve that would sooth my crying heart, and tell it that it would be just fine by the time I return from Tekong.

Sometimes I wonder if this journal of my life, if it survives, will one day be read by an "older, wiser me". And what would this "me" from the future think? Will "I" think, with a jaded heart that has seen its share of trials, that "I" was too immature, perhaps even laughable? Will "he" think that I was just being stupid, just being immature, and that I should have known better than to pen all these thoughts of romanticism that has no place in this society I live in? Will "he" think that I should never have existed, being a burden on everyone with my romantic ideals? Will "he" ultimately dismiss me as hopeless, and as a result, would he dismiss "his" immature past, which would be me, as I am now?

I cannot shake off my feelings that I, as I know myself to be, would come out a changed man, and perhaps not for the better. Thus, I have written this post like, as it were, a sort of last testament. A last testament for everyone else, detailing the thoughts of an irresponsible, immature me to everyone who cares enough to read this blog, to everyone who knew me as I was and am, and ultimately, to the "me" from the future.

Perhaps tomorrow, I will give selected people my last words, crafted especially for them. But for now, I, as myself in January 6, 2005, bid you all adieu. In the course of this blog, I have grown as a person, while still staying true to the persona that I basically am. Now, it is time for the present me to go.........and perhaps, just perhaps, I will return as the future "me", the "me" who has been shaped by his trials to become a man, to continue the story of who I am, what I think, and what I have done and will be doing.

And so, this is my last word.

Ciao.

Alright, why haven't I been updating my blog?

The reason's simple: I'm afraid to have to face up to what I am going to have to write. But now......there is no choice.

Simply put.......I am too afraid to face up to the fact that, come this Saturday, I will be serving my National Service. Now, this may sound silly coming from a Singaporean male, who's supposed to be patriotic, or at least pragmatic and totally brainless enough, to actually look forward to National Service. But I'm not like that. It's just not me.

I've served in the National Cadet Corps before, and what I've seen is enough to convince me that it's not my thing. The shouting, the exhortations to "Endure!", the machismo that's the root of the military endeavour.........It's just not how I want my life to be. Then, I had served in the NCC without complaint, for I was far more screwed-up back then than I am now. Then, I had no friends I could trust, to the point that my life seemed meaningless and colourless, and the NCC was just one more monster to endure, so I could get through a day I didn't want to live.......To me then, I felt as if no one would care if I had died.

But for the past year, I've finally learnt what it meant to have friends. True, most of them are female, but still I finally learnt what it meant to have laughter, to have companionship. I finally learnt what it meant to be jibbed at without malice, to know what it is like, finally, to have people who are willing to see through your differences from them. I finally learnt what it is like to have people who would care enough to grieve if I should suddenly die, and that means so much more to me than anyone can imagine.

And on Saturday, I am going to leave all that behind. Back to that screwed-up world of extreme machismo I could never function well in, where "manly comradeship" acts as a poor substitute for the emotional support that the girls provide me, and that I have come to rely upon to bolster me against the unforgiving world. Where I am supposed to be pushed to my limits to strengthen me.......but I fear, I really fear I would snap before anyone realised...........

I had met the girls along with some other friends tonight. It was a fun gathering and all, with talk of those who had went into NS before me, what had happened to them, and what would happen to those of us there at Cafe Cartel tonight who would be enlisting by the week. Prior to that, I have had irrational, but oh-so-terrifying nightmares of failing to make it out of that trial with my mind intact, or even my life. Still, I had to be strong........I had said things about "meeting them for the last time before I enlist", unable to say what exactly has been bothering me. But the girls missed it totally. They said that I would be out soon, that we could still meet up in the future, that it's not the end the way I predicted it. I know they are right......but I still cannot shake off that spectre. I really wanted to make the most of my remaining days of this last week of freedom, to spend as much time as I possibly could with them..........but no. They didn't catch it. And so I would be left alone to face what's catching up to me.

How can I stand being ripped out of everything that I love? It's just too cruel. It's just not something I want.......it's something that is forced upon me. I fear for my mind........I don't know how much I can stand of the brutal training they can force upon me, before I snap or something.

Yes. I'm weak, I know. Rub it in, why don't you? Maybe you'll like to know that while I'm writing this, I'm struggling hard to keep my tears in my eyes? Yes. I'm weak. I know that.

But all I want is the love of the girls. Not the machismo of the guys.

Is that too much to ask?