Gonna go back to camp for the longest time ever in a long long time.

2 days.

=)

For the past two weeks or so, I've been taking off and leave from the FUB spending as little time as needed in there.

Loving every moment of it.

And soon, I fly to Taiwan for another overseas attachment which means I get to spend another 3 weeks away from the FUB! FUN! =D

When I come back, gonna get more offs so I can spend even more time away!! =D

Right. Am very happy =)

Bought myself an iPod nano cause I want to.

Very nice.

Been spending most of my time playing this great Star Wars game, Knights of the Old Republic.

It's great cause I can give in totally to my darker side in it.. and yet somehow, I feel, and fear, that this darkness of the game is overflowing into my real life. I've been harbouring thoughts which are most dark indeed.

Pray hard those remain as they are, thoughts.

All this gaming means another thing. I've not touched my books for a VERY LONG time.

Damnit.

I have to resume reading soon!

I.. something is not right

I am losing my ability to write coherently. This posts has ideas and points all randomly here and there with no substance, a shell and nothing more.

Most disturbing..

I shall need to meditate on this.

There was a time when people said
That Singapore won’t make it, but we did
There was a time when troubles
Seemed too much for us to take, but we did

There was a time when I believed, as much as anyone else and more, in this song.

In this country.

That was a time, in the past, to be forgotten.

For sometime now I've been contemplating to blog about this. There were many good reasons for me to, and lesser bad reasons for me to. But still, I had to think it through.

However, now, there is no doubt about it.

For I can now, without a doubt, proclaim this as a fact;

I have no feelings but contempt for this "country".

Indeed for the past 20 years I've been proud, to say the least, to be Singaporean.

I envisioned a great future for me in Singapore, working and serving the country, bringing it to a whole new economical height.

I need to detract now to say that even though I had great admiration for the country, I never had much of an admiration for the ruling party. Moving on..

I envisioned myself as a politician who will, no matter how insignificantly, try the best to change the political climate here. Someone to breathe some new and exciting life.

I loved my country.

For 20 years I had watched the national day parade with pride. And it was a great feeling to see the flag flown over the stadium.

When I was younger, I would hang the flag whenever national day approaches and would always try to get my hands on those little flags on a stick and wave it around.

I used to read the "brain-drain" articles on the papers and thought to myself;

"How irresponsible and despicable these people are! Making use of Singapore's stability and education and taking off without much contribution to his mother state"

I vowed not to be one of those.

For I loved the country deeply.

And then.

I woke up from the dream, the illusion.

They say national service is the best time of your life.

No studies stress, no work stress.

They say national service would change your life.

It had surely changed mine.

But not in the way they would have liked it.
Not one bit.

It is not really the fact that I would have to give up two years of my prime.

It is not really the fact that I am not a physically inclined person.

It is not really the fact that I dislike military life per se.

It is not really the fact that I only have weekends available outside.

No. It is not those factors.

For those are just confined to a two years period, a two year period which I had already endured more than half of.

The main culprit is what happens after the two years.

See, for twenty years of my life, I foolishly believed that I would be a free person after serving my two years sentence. At least until I need to go for ICT.

All is well, I assumed, I could get myself a high paying job which requires lots of travelling. Works well for me, as I can't really stand tedious repetitive desk work, travelling is good. I could "escape" most of my NSmen obligations while still based in Singapore, a Singapore citizen.

And then, as I edged closer to my ORD, I did some research on NSmen life.

It was most shocking.

As everybody knows, I am not physically inclined whatsoever. Not so much as I don't want to but I cannot to. And so, I was to be punished for this fact, even after my two years sentence, even if I was still studying.

That's right. Even in a Uni, I would have to report to a camp to have physical training weekly.

Weekly.

That was the deal breaker.

I could and would not accept it!

I had already given two fucking years! And you still want more.

Of course, my resent for the country did not came immediately.

It was, after all, not really the country's fault really, it was just this NS thing.

But then I realised.

I cannot stay in this country anymore.

Not if I want to retain my competitiveness in the market.

Not if I want to advance in my career.

Not if I want to be a global player.

For the time spent in camp could be better spent working, reading, researching, networking.

I figure such opportunity costs was too great for me to give up.

And as it dawned upon me that I could not stay here for long,

The glass house which sheltered me for 21 long years broke.

I woke from my dream, an illusion broken.

I opened my eyes and took a look around.

Everything changed.

Scary at first but I slowly came to terms with it.

Singapore's ugly side was magnified and the pretty side dwarfed in my new eyes.

I no longer love this country.

Patriotism was a thing of the past for me.

And I realised.

I want to leave.
I need to leave.

I have to leave.

---

P.S I did not proofread this entry and this was written in a heat of the moment so the flow may be incoherent but it truly reflects the flow of my thinking then. =)

More is to come on my grand exit strategy.

Two things did not went as planned today.

1st.

I went back to Taka to get more of my Ito-en green tea.
Happily walked to the shelf planning to take home about 5 packets to save me the trouble of going down there too much.
There was only one packet left.

one
一
いち
une

-_-

Asked a staff and she said there was no more stock.

At least I managed to buy the last one.

2nd.

Bought a Maths textbook.

Much more difficult than I thought.

Not as planned.

---

Well.. nobody said life would be easy =)

and no one said it would be this hard

Hoo!

The past 21 days has been pretty much another surreal experience.

I felt nothing when leaving, just another day.

The day I came back though. Different.

21 days. As I sat in the coach travelling around Brunei. It suddenly struck me that this is, for now, the longest I had gone aboard, the longest stretch of time I spent all in a military place.

Though it was nothing like a typical military camp. At least for most of the time. At least for some of the people. =)

----

Though I did not make as much progress on my studies as I plan and would liked, it still turned out pretty good.

Now, I just need to get more advanced texts for micro and macro econs. A bit regretting selling away my old texts from Ngee Ann! ahahha! At least I still have some.. copies. ;) and a international econs text. Looking at those books, they look so.. new, a wonderful reflection of my time in Ngee Ann indeed. =D

OH!

And I made the most wonderful discovery in Brunei!

After lunch during RnR, made my way to their supermarket to get a drink.

Side track!Rachel was looking for bread and so I 顺便 browse for some custard puffs as well. But there was NONE! Not as in sold out but none as in non-existent. =( Anyway, that is not the wonderful discovery I made.

So, I was looking for some green tea cause I want to.

Found the green tea section.

Grabbed a Heaven and Earth jasmine green tea bottle which, back in Ngee Ann, I used to consume on average two such bottles per day =)

And then, it happened.

For some reason, I decided to look at the price. For good or bad, I am usually price blind when buying stuff I really want, especially impulsive purchases.

So the price of that bottle was around a dollar. Could not remember cause there it is not much different from when I anticipated. What caught me off guard was the price of another brand of green tea next to it.

3 dollars.

FYI Brunei has currency parity with Singapore.

3 whole dollars for a 500ml of green tea?!

I was very intrigued.

So I bought it with huge expectations. =)

And it was bliss.

=D

I am gonna hunt down a retailer for this green tea here in Singapore in the next few days. Hope I won't be disappointed!

----

BTW I have one week of off! Yay!

Adding the long break before my take off, the gig in Brunei and this week of off, total up to 6 weeks of break from the FUB! And round 6 weeks up and it is almost two months!

August came and went.

And so will the rest of my sentence!

Bright future awaits! =D

God Save the Queen

HELLO!!! =D

I've bought my very 1st piece of tech gadget which most non-freakish normal beings won't think of paying for; a branded earphones.

AHHAHAHA =)

It costs 155SGD for an entry level piece. Yes, entry level, yes 155SGD. The better ones even goes up to 500+! Now, I would be crazy before I'd fork out so much for just an earphone. =)

The reason I bought that is very simple. See.. I've been eyeing an iPod touch for a few weeks now and I've decided, after ample research, to wait until September-October-ish before purchasing. Reason being that is usually the period where Apple announces for future product. I sure as hell don't wanna get one now and regret my purchase two months later due to a better deal coming or even a new model!

But still.. the urge to spend is there! Even after deciding to wait, I find myself looking through auctions for iPod touch. And I know I will succumb to temptation, I am good at that. So, I decided to make a ridiculous but useful big purchase, in place of the touch. That should kill the urge. I hope. /me is clever! =D

---

Got another book.

Been reading lots lately. Which is wonderful. Cause the books I read are not fictional tales which are largely useless but economics books. Already consumed Freakanomics, Under Cover Economist, Discover Your Inner Economist.

Waiting to be read is Economics for Dummies(need to refresh my basic economic. ahahah) and the one I just bought; Sun Zi Art of War.

These books really changed the way I look at things now.

And so mesmerised by economics that I might even pursue a Masters in economics if an opportunity presents itself. =)

I could almost countdown to the time I will be released; 11 more months! =)

NS is, as usual, stupid.

My unit decided that all those who failed IPPT are to stay back on sat morning for remedial training. Apparently, this semi-confinement is supposed to be "painful" and thus "encourage" and "motivate" the failures to pass. HA! Well, it might work on some but not me.

For one, I am largely unmoved by extrinsic factors. I am moved by myself. And I find the costs of really putting in effort to train does not even come close to the benefits I get for passing.
For two, I've already written off these two years as sunk cost in my life. Wasted, thrown away. You can even confine me on Sundays. I will be sad. But it won't change anything.
For three, fuck you.
And lastly for four, I am so excited about my future I could not give a flying fuck what happens now. Cause confinement or not, I am already living one year ahead.

=)

---

Will be going Brunei to support the officers in training, poor souls IMO.

9 Aug till 29 Aug.

Yes. My birthday will be there. But then again, I am not really a birthday kind of person, so yea. Whatever. =)

This will be a good trip too.

1) Will miss the stupid Army Half Marathon; 21km run. =) That means I would have served my NS without taking part in even one AHM, the 1st AHM I was in Tekong so no need take part. HAPPY!
2) Will miss all the stupid running training for the AHM. =) I hate running.
3) Might miss some stupid SOC trainings. I hate SOC.
4) Almost one freaking month overseas; one freaking month of break from the FUB. =D

---

The iPod Touch is really sexy.

Just did two games of DOTA.

I lost my touch. :(

I need my pills.

I miss the life I had.

The part which sucks about not having anything is the memory of once having everything.

Netherlands will win later tonight.

And Spain will too.

=)

memories..