the chinese new year break
chinese new year felt different this year, not just because i've got a shaven head, but merely because one of my cousins couldn't go visiting this year; and so there weren't too many people of my age around me. apart from that, i didn't eat any cny goodies because of a slight cough and the lingering thought of ippt (napfa test in ns) which will take place in two days time. i don't know if it's the army that's decimated my palate, but i couldn't take the buffet food i ate at my grandparent's house on the second night of cny. not because there was rice or chicken (there wasn't!) but because i couldn't take all the seasoning and artificial (?) flavours. blergh.
the cny routine for me in the past few years would be simple: eat eat eat get bloated feel horrible gamble a bit and that's it. it takes a certain amount of willpower to go without the eat eat eat eat part of it all, even though after 17 years of visiting you know that you'll feel like shit after all the gorging. that's the failure of humans to look beyond the short term benefits and toward the long term costs. hrmmmm.. haha. i think i have pseudo-anorexia. i abstain from all soft drinks and fast food (i was tempted to eat mcdonald's ice cream yesterday though haha) but i eat hawker food like there's no tommorow... weellll i guess i do eat hawker food in moderation, but in relative terms, yeah, like there's no freaking tommorow.
most of the talk this year revolved around... guess what? army life. urgh. it was quite funny at first, listening to all my older relative's stories, but by the 3rd day onwards it just got bloody sian. i met meester so-phat-ster mark ng at my great grandma's house though and what he said about his time during the army was quite amusing, i must say. back then, there weren't any of the air-conditioned ferries we pampered ns boys take to tekong and back. there were no ferry terminals either. the saf would tell them which part of east coast beach (!!!) to wait at, and one of those landing ships would come and pick them up. those kind of ships that landed at the beaches in normandy. those open-air ones which have massive landing platforms that pivot outwards from the ship, the kinds that can transport vehicles too.
he said that every sunday he would wake up and he'd be extremely moody for the rest of the day. take a bus to orchard, eat ice cream, then head straight to east coast. sit on the bloody landing ship for half an hour, shut up and give everyone the 'ahh don't talk to me' face. hahaha.. oh well hopefully in one months time i wont have to go back to that damned island..
looking back, i had a good 6 day break. im not trying to psych myself up by writing this-because blogging to me, after all, is a form of catharsis-but the break gave me the time to see my relatives and friends again. it also gave me the time to think about several things and i'm glad that friendships remained intact. make that ecstatic. i think i once told myself that i live for families and friends. naivety, perhaps. but to me the only reason why i fear death is because of the pain and suffering those close to me will go through. can you imagine being a hermit? if you lived a simple life in a hut by a beach, and one day in your days of old you passed away, no one would care. but sometime's that's a good thing because no one will be saddened by your passing. you leave the world without causing a big hullabaloo. hehe right now i probably just can't imagine myself passing... choi! and that's why i can say this so easily... when my time is due (choi!) i'll probably be wanting to cling on for a while more.
quick nugget of useless information that includes references to army life (which i am indeed getting irritated about writing or saying): i remember when i was marching from one campsite to another (it was a 5km march with all our barang barang on our backs) and admiring the view and the scenery. haha yes, on tekong. someone told me tekong used to be a nature spot once... there were places where we could see mangroves, outlining a wide, gently meandering river. the clouds were brilliant, not covering the sky but rather concentrated in large pockets around the sun. and the sun was an orange hue, partially obscured but appearing majestic nonetheless. the colours were blue, crimson, red, orange, pink; the view was from a bridge that we had trodded up, about 10 metres above the ground. seeing that, and later on, the fields of long grass, unperturbed by the jarring presence of concrete, made me think: "wow, there's so much on this world living for"". yes, ultra cheesy ultra cheesy ultra cliched.
well, the break's going to be over soon. i think i'll be confined this week for some crap so goodbye to blogging for 14 days...
the cny routine for me in the past few years would be simple: eat eat eat get bloated feel horrible gamble a bit and that's it. it takes a certain amount of willpower to go without the eat eat eat eat part of it all, even though after 17 years of visiting you know that you'll feel like shit after all the gorging. that's the failure of humans to look beyond the short term benefits and toward the long term costs. hrmmmm.. haha. i think i have pseudo-anorexia. i abstain from all soft drinks and fast food (i was tempted to eat mcdonald's ice cream yesterday though haha) but i eat hawker food like there's no tommorow... weellll i guess i do eat hawker food in moderation, but in relative terms, yeah, like there's no freaking tommorow.
most of the talk this year revolved around... guess what? army life. urgh. it was quite funny at first, listening to all my older relative's stories, but by the 3rd day onwards it just got bloody sian. i met meester so-phat-ster mark ng at my great grandma's house though and what he said about his time during the army was quite amusing, i must say. back then, there weren't any of the air-conditioned ferries we pampered ns boys take to tekong and back. there were no ferry terminals either. the saf would tell them which part of east coast beach (!!!) to wait at, and one of those landing ships would come and pick them up. those kind of ships that landed at the beaches in normandy. those open-air ones which have massive landing platforms that pivot outwards from the ship, the kinds that can transport vehicles too.
he said that every sunday he would wake up and he'd be extremely moody for the rest of the day. take a bus to orchard, eat ice cream, then head straight to east coast. sit on the bloody landing ship for half an hour, shut up and give everyone the 'ahh don't talk to me' face. hahaha.. oh well hopefully in one months time i wont have to go back to that damned island..
looking back, i had a good 6 day break. im not trying to psych myself up by writing this-because blogging to me, after all, is a form of catharsis-but the break gave me the time to see my relatives and friends again. it also gave me the time to think about several things and i'm glad that friendships remained intact. make that ecstatic. i think i once told myself that i live for families and friends. naivety, perhaps. but to me the only reason why i fear death is because of the pain and suffering those close to me will go through. can you imagine being a hermit? if you lived a simple life in a hut by a beach, and one day in your days of old you passed away, no one would care. but sometime's that's a good thing because no one will be saddened by your passing. you leave the world without causing a big hullabaloo. hehe right now i probably just can't imagine myself passing... choi! and that's why i can say this so easily... when my time is due (choi!) i'll probably be wanting to cling on for a while more.
quick nugget of useless information that includes references to army life (which i am indeed getting irritated about writing or saying): i remember when i was marching from one campsite to another (it was a 5km march with all our barang barang on our backs) and admiring the view and the scenery. haha yes, on tekong. someone told me tekong used to be a nature spot once... there were places where we could see mangroves, outlining a wide, gently meandering river. the clouds were brilliant, not covering the sky but rather concentrated in large pockets around the sun. and the sun was an orange hue, partially obscured but appearing majestic nonetheless. the colours were blue, crimson, red, orange, pink; the view was from a bridge that we had trodded up, about 10 metres above the ground. seeing that, and later on, the fields of long grass, unperturbed by the jarring presence of concrete, made me think: "wow, there's so much on this world living for"". yes, ultra cheesy ultra cheesy ultra cliched.
well, the break's going to be over soon. i think i'll be confined this week for some crap so goodbye to blogging for 14 days...