Close friends.

An extrovert can have about a hundred friends or more. Introverts might have less than 20 or 10 even. But often I wonder, no matter which type you swing more towards - who are the people you can truly say are close to you?

Friends are made by many, many ways - in the classroom, in CCAs, in church groups or youth groups, wherever. And it's nice to have friends around you. They keep you company, are able to enjoy experiences with you, and are a joy to have around when you need people to share your happy moments with.

Yet, when the going gets tough, when you're suffering in pain due to social or family issues, or for that matter personal issues - who are the people whom you can trust to talk face to face with, people whom you don't have to smile in front of like nothing's happening or upsetting you, people whom you feel can truly sit with you, side by side as you pour out everything that's been filling your heart's bottle; people who love to listen rather than the millions who love to speak out and be loud. People who are willing to draw out the depths of your thoughts without getting bored or feeling that you're weird.

Not just people who are with you through what they deem as happy times - and you smile along and pretend nothing's happened - when fear and pain are eating away inside of you.

Was just thinking about it after lunch today.

Another of those moments.

Long weekend.

It's the long weekend and I've got quite a lot of thoughts, be it about what's happening in the office and of course, my thoughts on Life in general.

Ending this week would mean one month in Clementi camp. Things have been quite heavy in terms of work. And it doesn't really help when you're new. And it also doesn't help when in your branch, you're seated in the middle of your supervisor and senior who keep talking to each other not just because their major is Chinese, but also because their talk is really work-centric and they get along well. Even eating lunch with them is hard.

To be honest, a lot of times I'd rather wish I were left alone. I tried it once, eating lunch by myself, but that senior was like

"Why are you eating alone?"

So I joined them out of formality.

I haven't got friends who would really listen to all of my thoughts too - plus they're actually training somewhere in the field or wherever - so sms-ing them is pretty pointless too.

Sounds a little cruel but, I really hope all those who are going to ORD this year will just quickly ORD and go away. It's not their sarcasm or being constantly reminded by them that they're going to ORD soon and you're not; I just thought that hopefully, it would be easier to make friends with new people. Meanwhile I'll find a way so I can eat alone or something.

I know that to most people, the more company the merrier. It almost always is like that among combat NSFs who love the camaraderie and the bonding and all that.

Yet to me, rather than hearing loud noises and all sorts of laughter and shouting - I would much rather be seated alone, possibly under a tree, where a cool breeze would be present amongst a scenery of sunset or spring.

Blissful Worries.

(Last evening I had a nice dinner with Yu Jie at Pizza Hut after work :) he'd just come out from BMT for the first time and it was really nice to see him again after so long. Yu Jie, really hope you had fun fanning cards after you left for home.)

It's my 4th week at my admin job in the army. I wrote this down during my free time in between tasks at work, so I'll be able to record my thoughts as accurately and vividly as possible.

During dinner that day, Timothy called Yu Jie. Apparently he'd just booked out from SISPEC as well, having had his second round of field camp :(. I saw the effects later on when me and yu jie met tim at Clementi MRT. Tim was visibly tired, carried a heavy field pack containing probably lots of used stuff from field camp - but the worst of it all was his heat rash. He constantly twitched due to the pain from the rash all around. Things only got slightly better when we got into his dad's car at Aljunied MRT. On a side note, thanks tim for offering to ask your dad whether he could send me to Lorong Chuan station to collect my bike, and your dad for agreeing to do so :)

It really did took me some time to consolidate my thoughts over the weekend. It was only now - today - when I went back to work and he back to camp, that I started to fully comprehend everything I'd been thinking about over the weekend. I was sitting comfortably and sleepily in the office.

I listened to random pockets of laughter around the office, feeling myself resting relatively comfortably on my seat. The friendly talk. The running sound of my PC. The whirring noise of photocopiers and printers.

And then all of a sudden I started to feel really worried and fearful. The more the full realisation of my thoughts came inside of me the more afraid I could feel myself becoming. And then it started to hurt as well.

It hurt inside me, looking at that heat rash that day. I became suddenly afraid for tim and yu jie - and not just them - everyone I knew, other people going through such a nasty time in the army no matter where they were, I worried not just for their safety, but their health and even their mind too.

Surely, through tough trainings and field camps and other stuff, my friends in combat NS would definitely have undergone very hard (and perhaps, cathartic) experiences. Perhaps, I thought, in that manner the army does help to....mature the mind in some awkward way.

Somehow or other, though, my mind constantly hooks itself onto the pains and struggles that they face while undergoing such training. I worry for them a lot, believe it or not. Even in my relatively safe and comfortable environment, I wondered how everyone was doing. I worried and pined for my close friends in particular.. Whether they were safe, coping well or barely - and just whether they were feeling okay inside. Can't really express myself too truthfully for fear of MSD stigmatization, but yeah.

Ultimately, in the comfortable bliss of today, worry lingers. Logically I know, it's not use to worry - but I still do anyway. It feels like a slow rain of ash, marring an otherwise perfect scenery of a new-born butterfly taking its new wings to flight. If only what I feel could truly be expressed into words.
I'm not trying to paint a bad picture of NS - perhaps there really are people out there who really like NS or have been....irrevocably changed by their own cathartic NS experiences.

It's just what I thought about today and what tugged at my heartstrings and what hurt me even in that relatively safe environment. And I felt like penning down my thoughts right at that moment.

Now I'm hoping that everyone out there's safe, that's all.

Wondering. Pondering.

I actually wonder sometimes what it's like, to live through life while being psychologically simplistic - being a child in heart and mind.

I admire my friends who can do that.

I've spent so much time pondering about life.

Perhaps that's why I'm being spared and freed from the many physically and mentally difficult training and field camps my friends are going through - maybe they need the cathartic army experiences a lot more than I am.

Just some thoughts I have.

For One More Day.

I haven't quite had the energy nor time to write an entry on this book since I finished reading it (again). But I realised that I couldn't properly start reading (again) The Five People You Meet In Heaven until I jotted my thoughts down on this book.

In a nutshell, the whole book is about someone screwing up his life, family and what not really badly - and is given the luckiest chance of his life; to meet his mother for a day, an experience that in the end changed his life before he passed away 5 years later.

I thought the plot was pretty good, but I was more touched by Chick's (protagonist) mother. How she yearned for such a good life for him. How she tried her best - despite the divorce - to provide a good childhood experience for her two children, Charley (Chick) and Roberta his younger sister. With this yearning, added on to her love for her children, she tried her best to raise them to be good and respectable people. Unfortunately, her husband didn't quite bother about how to raise the children properly, inadvertently ruining their lives.

It's strange in a way. Chick got so much of his mother's love that he felt a little sick of it because of all the hugs and kisses and expressions of love. He even resented her at times, and hurt her several times when she tried to make him and his sister happy or when she tried to stand up for him.

I pondered and reflected upon how Chick was so lucky - to have had a mother that genuinely cared for him so much, rather than just lump all her desries and what she couldn't achieve when she was younger. All the small stories about how Chick's mother tried so hard to be a good mother - and how Chick ruined all her effort: Bottomline, we often take what we have for granted. It's hard to find a mother or father (and moreso both) who truly loves you and supports you for what you are. To those of you out there who have such a set of precious parents, you're very blessed.

Tears.

"I thought about how often this way needed in everyday life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry."

- Mitch Albom

Tuesdays With Morrie

The idea of crying. How so often, it is related not just to girls, but the more important mistake: of weakness, of emotional instability. The Chinese were one of the first people to create so many quotes and sayings about, e.g. how a guy should not shed tears but only blood. And all that crap.

I feel it so important, to cry when you're feel upset, so down - that the first noise you'd make when you try to open your mouth to talk would be a tearful whimper. We are bred in a culture where crying is seen as a sign of weakness, an inability to tolerate or handle certain things. Yet, I pose the question - so what? Crying makes you feel better. When you're sad and you cry, you allow your emotions to wash over you, no matter if you're hugging your knees, a pillow, someone close to you, or even a stuffed toy. When you cry, you feel the totality of sadness overcoming you. You feel as if things welled up in your heart is suddenly and very uncontrollably letting themselves out. I don't quite know how else to describe such an experience.

It's better to let your emotions to wash over you, rather than let them well up inside of you and crush your heart from within.

So, to those of you out there - whether you're a boy or a girl - who cry and (yes) CAN cry, count yourself lucky. You have no idea how much luckier and blessed you are that those who can't cry - those who've been bred not to cry openly or even at all, those who have been so used to not crying they've feel so much worse because they can't, or those who don't allow themselves to cry because of social stereotypes. People may laugh and smirk at you, but deep down inside, whatever's hurting them is causing their heart even more pain than they realise themselves.

Don't be afraid or get even mildly uspet that you're emotional by nature, and when tears well up in your eyes easily be it when you get sad or emotional over something you're passionate about like your faith. Have a good cry, don't be afraid to lean on a friend or let it all out. Feel calmer and reborn the next day, in the waters of your own emotions. And let go.

Heartpain.

I really wished that, on that Sunday, I could've saved that large amount of food that was thrown away - I mean it. Seeing that amount of food going to waste and bring put near the rubbish was painful to bear.

Love each other or perish.

"Love each other or perish."

- W.H. Auden

One of the more...poignant moments as I re-read Tuesdays With Morrie for the 2nd time. I'd read it sometime back when I was Sec 4 or J1. The train ride from my house to the army camp I work in is very long; thus explaining my sudden..."desire" to read books. I'd finished reading Mitch Albom's Have A Little Faith in just about 1 and a half days. And here I am now, pondering over his most famous and most thought-provoking - yet simply structured and written - book.

Love each other or perish. It indeed sounds profoundly fascinating and intriguing from Mitch's and Morrie's perspective, yet how sad the real truth is in today's world.

"Earn a living and be rich, or perish." It's sad how our earliest ancestors or our poorer counterparts across the globe are so much better off that us in the realm of love and happiness. The Ethiopians, desperately poor but so full of life and love, are indeed happier than many of the rich and powerful that currently dominate our world with their wealth, status and power.

In Singapore, it's rare to find a family (let alone clusters of people) that has deep familial love within. Out of the (I know it's pretty few) friends that I know, I know only one person so far who's been gifted and blessed with that. And it's wonderful. Each time I go to that person's house, I feel it - that colourful, warm, close love within the family. I feel it ever so palpably from the perspective of an outsider - it's like pixie dust or glitter, swirling around an otherwise monotonous snowman in a globe. Such love is pure, pristine, unconditional and unadulterated, born from the guidance of two great parents, graced by one great Father above. It permeates the home (not house) that they live in. Even when exchanging casual comments between themselves, I can easily feel that closeness - so much I sometimes feel a little threatened by my own intruding existence :)

Love, something so omnipotent, something so immaculate in nature. Something that, as today's people strive for perfection, wealth, status, academic acknowledgement and other materialistic and physical ideals, simply slips through their fingers, and disappears.

Perhaps only when one realises its importance in daily life; when one learns to cherish whatever little or abundant love that he/she possesses - perhaps only when one stands on the dangerous, uncertain precipice of death, whether due to old age or sickness - that the importance of love will overwhelm them in their otherwise drab and sad existence.

Love each other or perish.

It's a pity things aren't quite like that, eh Morrie? :)

Resident Evil 5 - The Mercenaries Reunion

To those of you who know what I'm talking about:

Excella Gionne is my favourite character! She does look like some sort of an Italian secret service agent, I just realised. Anyway, she looks really cool, her voice is charming, and some of her melee moves are powerful - although some sound really funny too. I especially like the way she taunts people.

Can't wait to play her again tomorrow. A shout-out to the guy who played Mercenaries Reunion online with me just now where I used Excella and he used Rebecca - you're amazing, good to team up with, and great job to the both of us for that 150x combo.

"You're just not ready for me." - Excella Gionne