"You slept on sentry duty last night. They stole the GPMG. Now the OC wants to charge you because you endangered the life of your section-mates"
And so there I was, hunching in the driver's compartment of the armoured vehicle, palms sweaty, praying. Praying for deliverance from the punishment that was to come. Prayer for the OC to forget about all this rubbish. Praying so hard for deliverance from formal punishment. Praying for mercy despite the fact that I deserved punishment. The people in the back chatted over the intercom while waiting for the order to move out. Laughter and wild hoots at ribald jokes. I flicked my intercom switch to Recieve Only, placed my hands on the wheel and controls because the order to move could come at any moment, and began to pray out loud.
And I prayed and prayed. In the Name of Jesus I prayed.
A week later, the decision came through.
One extra duty only.
Only one, where others had 3, and the original intent was to confine us for 2 whole weeks (SOL).
That's the defining moment for my army years. Not Oxford, not ORD, but a humid morning in the jungles, sitting in a greasy, oily, smoking, vehicle, sweating in the heat and in fear, praying and praying, and being delivered by God.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
No More
I've decided that there's no point in being a reliable friend, because people just take you for granted and verbally abuse you if you don't seem to be as reliable as they think you are.
A hard learned lesson from the army and elsewhere.
So, from now on, no more.
I am not gonna be your slave, whether you like it or not.
A hard learned lesson from the army and elsewhere.
So, from now on, no more.
I am not gonna be your slave, whether you like it or not.
Monday, December 25, 2006
The Shepherds and the Angels -Luke 2:8-14
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them,
"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests."
"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests."
Sunday, December 24, 2006
The Birthday of The King
There can be no Christmas without the Christ.
And I think it's wrong for us Christians to celebrate Christmas without the Christ.
I mean, come on, christmas itself is just a date in the calender, an excuse for a holiday at the year's end. Some even say its a pagan festival.
What we should celebrate is not the date itself but the Virgin Birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
And we must celebrate in true, sincere, joy, not in some adrenaline-filled festivity that panders to worldly hedonism.
And we must give thanks, especially those of us who are blessed with food in our stomachs and clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads, and spare a prayer at the very least for the many who don't.
Call me a sermonizing wet blanket, but I believe we should not blindly drive ourselves into ecstasy over an arbitrarily declared date. For those who call themselves Christians, the joy must be at the gift of Salvation, and the many blessings God has given us, and our response must be, can only be, thanksgiving and prayer for the needy.
And I think it's wrong for us Christians to celebrate Christmas without the Christ.
I mean, come on, christmas itself is just a date in the calender, an excuse for a holiday at the year's end. Some even say its a pagan festival.
What we should celebrate is not the date itself but the Virgin Birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
And we must celebrate in true, sincere, joy, not in some adrenaline-filled festivity that panders to worldly hedonism.
And we must give thanks, especially those of us who are blessed with food in our stomachs and clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads, and spare a prayer at the very least for the many who don't.
Call me a sermonizing wet blanket, but I believe we should not blindly drive ourselves into ecstasy over an arbitrarily declared date. For those who call themselves Christians, the joy must be at the gift of Salvation, and the many blessings God has given us, and our response must be, can only be, thanksgiving and prayer for the needy.
Why I chose what I chose
Why indeed?
Why not psychology, or sociology, the other social sciences?
Why politics?
Because...
When you master psychology, you control one.
When you master sociology, you control a few.
But when you master politics...
You control an empire.
**cue megalomaniacal laughter**
Why not psychology, or sociology, the other social sciences?
Why politics?
Because...
When you master psychology, you control one.
When you master sociology, you control a few.
But when you master politics...
You control an empire.
**cue megalomaniacal laughter**
Friday, December 22, 2006
I got into Oxford!
Looks like I'll be going to Oxford in the end. Not that LSE is necessarily worse than Oxford (I certainly dont think its inferior), but I think that I'd prefer a campus life to a hectic city life for my tertiary education
Before all else, I have to thank my Lord. Especially in light of the fact that this was by grace and not by my merit, and even the skills that I have are gifts from Him.
And of course, I have to thank my family too. For their prayers and support.
Before all else, I have to thank my Lord. Especially in light of the fact that this was by grace and not by my merit, and even the skills that I have are gifts from Him.
And of course, I have to thank my family too. For their prayers and support.
Friday, December 15, 2006
I got into LSE!
2 unconditional offers from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Thank God!
London, here I come!
Arsenal, here I come!
Thank God!
London, here I come!
Arsenal, here I come!
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Holiday
The festive season is back, and everyone is now off on the customary vacation trips to exotic far-flung locales before returning for the traditional Christmas and New Year gatherings with friends and family.
As another sign of my family's insistence on doing things the unorthodox way, we had planned to have our December holiday trip in January, a nice 8-day trip to New Zealand's South Island before the brother got conscripted. Unfortunately the agent couldnt get the requisite number of people to sign up and so the whole thing got cancelled. I sure was disappointed, because that meant missing out on the ownage scenary (there's no comparing it with Singapore: white-capped mountains and vast plains vs a potty brown hill called Bukit Timah and the grass patch next to the longkang), satiating my craving for juicy baked salmon, and viewing the epic battle-sites of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
But the whole sorry episode got me thinking about what I really wanted in an overseas vacation. I came up with a few fantasy scenarios:
1. A trip to the Carribean and the Bahamas, or one of those coral atolls in the Pacific or Indian Oceans, where you can swim all day in the crystal-clear waters of the coral reefs, with all the myriad varieties of sea creatures and trying not to get stung by the venomous cones and stingrays and lion-fish, taking in the fantastic colours of the coral formations and their wierd denizens, and when you're done with the swimming you can tan on the white sands or have a seafood BBQ grill just outside the chalet by the very friendly native housekeeper called Eamon Cudjoe, who is also incidentally a former Michelin-rated master chef. This will be capped off with a bottle of Chardonnay. And then you can watch the Champions League final in Milan between Arsenal and Chelsea, which Arsenal will win 3-1, in the air-conditioned chalet on the giant plasma screen with cable TV.
2. A tour to the major cities of Europe, ie London, Paris, Oslo, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, Madrid, Lyon, Bordueax, Marseille, Turin, Milan, Rome, Venice, Parlemo, Warsaw, Budapest, Athens, Malta, Istanbul, Moscow, and St Petersburg in that order. Shopping for designer suits, photos of castles, visits to the great art and culture centers of Western civilisation, touring the center of Papal power in the Vatican, gorging myself on lots of German suasage and beer and Piedmontese beef and Sicilian seafood and French foie gras and Spanish tapas and Russian borsch and Greek and Turkish kebabs, being in the thick of the nightlife in London and Berlin, paying homage to King Thierry "Va-va-voom" Henry and Master Wenger at Ashburton Grove, admiring the fantastic architecture everwhere (including the Emirates Stadium), and soaking in the living history (even though Lenin's mummified and the Acropolis is in ruins, they still ooze living history, which I would gladly soak up). And in Milan you can watch the Champions League final between Arsenal and Chelsea, which Arsenal will win 2-0, and Mourinho tries to punch Wenger but gets thrown into jail instead.
3. A nice, laid-back trip to the American and Canadian nature reserves. Camping out in the Rockies, taking in the sights of the awesome Grand Canyon at dawn and dusk, catching the sheer majesty of the natural rock formations and endless American plains under the inifinite stars. Having hot cocoa in a Canadian log cabin while outside its snowing, and the fire crackles as you read a good book. The next morning you can go round taking photos of carribou and all the rest of Canada's wildlife that live in those massive pine forests. I'm not sure if this is possible, but the sheer clarity of the night sky and the cabin's proximity to the North Pole would mean a night looking out for the Aurora Borealis, that incandescent display of incredible colour in the obsidian sky. And if the Borealis doesnt appear, there's always the Champions League final in Milan between Arsenal and Chelsea, which Arsenal will win 4-1, on the plasma screen with cable TV in the cabin, and the victory is so impressive that Lionel Messi and John Terry move to Arsenal.
It all sounds quite fantastic to the point of being rubbish, but thats what an ideal vacation is to me. Notice that none of them have the idea of tramping around in a phucking jungle with mosquitoes the size of thumbnails and rashes and humidity which simply drowns you, and the stench of the mud and rotting tropical shit. That's one of the things that pisses me off about the cramped potty island I live in. Of course its much better than Darfur or Somalia, but it simply pisses me off at times. And anybody who goes on and on about the paradisical lush green verdant jungles of South-East Asia, with their diversity of flora and fauna and natural beauty, obviously has not been on a route march through Pulau Tekong with the SAF.
As another sign of my family's insistence on doing things the unorthodox way, we had planned to have our December holiday trip in January, a nice 8-day trip to New Zealand's South Island before the brother got conscripted. Unfortunately the agent couldnt get the requisite number of people to sign up and so the whole thing got cancelled. I sure was disappointed, because that meant missing out on the ownage scenary (there's no comparing it with Singapore: white-capped mountains and vast plains vs a potty brown hill called Bukit Timah and the grass patch next to the longkang), satiating my craving for juicy baked salmon, and viewing the epic battle-sites of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
But the whole sorry episode got me thinking about what I really wanted in an overseas vacation. I came up with a few fantasy scenarios:
1. A trip to the Carribean and the Bahamas, or one of those coral atolls in the Pacific or Indian Oceans, where you can swim all day in the crystal-clear waters of the coral reefs, with all the myriad varieties of sea creatures and trying not to get stung by the venomous cones and stingrays and lion-fish, taking in the fantastic colours of the coral formations and their wierd denizens, and when you're done with the swimming you can tan on the white sands or have a seafood BBQ grill just outside the chalet by the very friendly native housekeeper called Eamon Cudjoe, who is also incidentally a former Michelin-rated master chef. This will be capped off with a bottle of Chardonnay. And then you can watch the Champions League final in Milan between Arsenal and Chelsea, which Arsenal will win 3-1, in the air-conditioned chalet on the giant plasma screen with cable TV.
2. A tour to the major cities of Europe, ie London, Paris, Oslo, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, Madrid, Lyon, Bordueax, Marseille, Turin, Milan, Rome, Venice, Parlemo, Warsaw, Budapest, Athens, Malta, Istanbul, Moscow, and St Petersburg in that order. Shopping for designer suits, photos of castles, visits to the great art and culture centers of Western civilisation, touring the center of Papal power in the Vatican, gorging myself on lots of German suasage and beer and Piedmontese beef and Sicilian seafood and French foie gras and Spanish tapas and Russian borsch and Greek and Turkish kebabs, being in the thick of the nightlife in London and Berlin, paying homage to King Thierry "Va-va-voom" Henry and Master Wenger at Ashburton Grove, admiring the fantastic architecture everwhere (including the Emirates Stadium), and soaking in the living history (even though Lenin's mummified and the Acropolis is in ruins, they still ooze living history, which I would gladly soak up). And in Milan you can watch the Champions League final between Arsenal and Chelsea, which Arsenal will win 2-0, and Mourinho tries to punch Wenger but gets thrown into jail instead.
3. A nice, laid-back trip to the American and Canadian nature reserves. Camping out in the Rockies, taking in the sights of the awesome Grand Canyon at dawn and dusk, catching the sheer majesty of the natural rock formations and endless American plains under the inifinite stars. Having hot cocoa in a Canadian log cabin while outside its snowing, and the fire crackles as you read a good book. The next morning you can go round taking photos of carribou and all the rest of Canada's wildlife that live in those massive pine forests. I'm not sure if this is possible, but the sheer clarity of the night sky and the cabin's proximity to the North Pole would mean a night looking out for the Aurora Borealis, that incandescent display of incredible colour in the obsidian sky. And if the Borealis doesnt appear, there's always the Champions League final in Milan between Arsenal and Chelsea, which Arsenal will win 4-1, on the plasma screen with cable TV in the cabin, and the victory is so impressive that Lionel Messi and John Terry move to Arsenal.
It all sounds quite fantastic to the point of being rubbish, but thats what an ideal vacation is to me. Notice that none of them have the idea of tramping around in a phucking jungle with mosquitoes the size of thumbnails and rashes and humidity which simply drowns you, and the stench of the mud and rotting tropical shit. That's one of the things that pisses me off about the cramped potty island I live in. Of course its much better than Darfur or Somalia, but it simply pisses me off at times. And anybody who goes on and on about the paradisical lush green verdant jungles of South-East Asia, with their diversity of flora and fauna and natural beauty, obviously has not been on a route march through Pulau Tekong with the SAF.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
This is the End
by The Doors
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
Ill never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...strangers hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
Theres danger on the edge of town
Ride the kings highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake...hes old, and his skin is cold
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and well do the rest
The blue bus is callin us
The blue bus is callin us
Driver, where you taken us
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother...i want to...fuck you
Cmon baby, take a chance with us
Cmon baby, take a chance with us
Cmon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin a blue rock
Cmon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But youll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end
I first heard the song while watching Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now as part of my Literature S Paper revision.
Francis Ford Coppola was the dude who did The Godfather films, and Apocalypse Now was his film rendition of perhaps the greatest novel ever written- Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
An interesting chap, Joseph Conrad. Born in Poland, worked in the American merchant marine, then lived in Britain. A brilliant writer, on par with Dickens at the least.
But this is not about book-writers or film-makers.
The song was the background soundtrack to the preamble of the film. It played while USMC helicopters circled over the jungles of Vietnam, with napalm bombs from F-4 Phantoms showering all over the dense vegetation, crimson flowers blossoming, their deadly petals germinating death.
The song and the setting- the sheer moral chaos of the Vietnam war- brought to mind the ideas of Hobbes.
The chaos and bestial anarchy that resides in the pysche of every human being. I believe the madness and insanity in the lyrics speak for themselves, without need for superlatives. There is no describing the revulsion I have for the human condition as portrayed by the song. It represents the limitless madness of humanity.
No matter how hard it's controlled by will-power and self-discipline or how deeply it is concealed by the facades of society and the rules of interpersonal conduct, bestial, brutal, horrific, chaos is the very heart of humanity.
Only force and iron coercion is effective in restoring order to such disorder.
And thus the other alternative in the Hobbesian dilemna is logically totalitarianism. The cults of Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Kim Il Sung. The venerating to the point of deification of fellow human beings and their ideas, no matter their flaws, no matter the costs, no matter the morality (or lack thereof). Dictatorship, despotism, force, naked, absolute force.
Total, unquestioning, obedience to the authority.
The only true safeguard against the Vietnams of the world and pyschosis of The Doors, then, is found in Nazi Germany and Khmer Rouge Cambodia.
This is not just limited to extreme cases. Look how everybody in Iraq is looking with nostalgia to the brutal reign of Saddam Hussein when confronted with the chaos and anarchy unleashed by Bush's experiment in Middle East democracy.
Or how Singaporeans worship their Benefactors the Party without paying the slightest attention to political and civil rights.
This is the damned if we do, damned if we dont choice that characterises life as a human being.
Between the abyssal chaos of our nature, and a life under the cruellest and most brutal regimes imagineable.
That is our choice, barring choosing God.
I must admit, though, that this sounds more Nietszche than Hobbes, as Hobbes went on to develop a kind of social contract form of liberal democracy, whereas Nietszche went on to become nihilistic pessimism incarnate.
But then, Nietszche did not have God.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
Ill never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...strangers hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
Theres danger on the edge of town
Ride the kings highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake...hes old, and his skin is cold
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and well do the rest
The blue bus is callin us
The blue bus is callin us
Driver, where you taken us
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother...i want to...fuck you
Cmon baby, take a chance with us
Cmon baby, take a chance with us
Cmon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin a blue rock
Cmon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But youll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end
I first heard the song while watching Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now as part of my Literature S Paper revision.
Francis Ford Coppola was the dude who did The Godfather films, and Apocalypse Now was his film rendition of perhaps the greatest novel ever written- Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
An interesting chap, Joseph Conrad. Born in Poland, worked in the American merchant marine, then lived in Britain. A brilliant writer, on par with Dickens at the least.
But this is not about book-writers or film-makers.
The song was the background soundtrack to the preamble of the film. It played while USMC helicopters circled over the jungles of Vietnam, with napalm bombs from F-4 Phantoms showering all over the dense vegetation, crimson flowers blossoming, their deadly petals germinating death.
The song and the setting- the sheer moral chaos of the Vietnam war- brought to mind the ideas of Hobbes.
The chaos and bestial anarchy that resides in the pysche of every human being. I believe the madness and insanity in the lyrics speak for themselves, without need for superlatives. There is no describing the revulsion I have for the human condition as portrayed by the song. It represents the limitless madness of humanity.
No matter how hard it's controlled by will-power and self-discipline or how deeply it is concealed by the facades of society and the rules of interpersonal conduct, bestial, brutal, horrific, chaos is the very heart of humanity.
Only force and iron coercion is effective in restoring order to such disorder.
And thus the other alternative in the Hobbesian dilemna is logically totalitarianism. The cults of Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Kim Il Sung. The venerating to the point of deification of fellow human beings and their ideas, no matter their flaws, no matter the costs, no matter the morality (or lack thereof). Dictatorship, despotism, force, naked, absolute force.
Total, unquestioning, obedience to the authority.
The only true safeguard against the Vietnams of the world and pyschosis of The Doors, then, is found in Nazi Germany and Khmer Rouge Cambodia.
This is not just limited to extreme cases. Look how everybody in Iraq is looking with nostalgia to the brutal reign of Saddam Hussein when confronted with the chaos and anarchy unleashed by Bush's experiment in Middle East democracy.
Or how Singaporeans worship their Benefactors the Party without paying the slightest attention to political and civil rights.
This is the damned if we do, damned if we dont choice that characterises life as a human being.
Between the abyssal chaos of our nature, and a life under the cruellest and most brutal regimes imagineable.
That is our choice, barring choosing God.
I must admit, though, that this sounds more Nietszche than Hobbes, as Hobbes went on to develop a kind of social contract form of liberal democracy, whereas Nietszche went on to become nihilistic pessimism incarnate.
But then, Nietszche did not have God.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
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