pitstop

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 :::

i just finished decorating my bunk's off file. not surprisingly, i'm left doing it alone. but never too artistically inclined, i came up with something probably only i will understand.

when the rest of my platoon mates came by later to look at all the 4 bunks' files, they all oohed and aahed over the other files. and when they came to mine, they cast a critical eye on it and remarked condescendingly, ' what's this? ' or ' this makes no sense '.

i was embarrassed. i felt humiliated. i was made to belittle my own self. not only because i did it alone with any active help, but really it cut me because i really did do my best. and then it struck me.

i'm sorry jacq. your sketch of shrek did look like shrek. i was only trying to incite laughter when i said it looked more like yoda. and i saw the look on your face when i said that. i now realise, it must have hurt you. i'm sorry.

it was wrong of me to deride your work. i feel the harrow all the same. furthermore and more distressingly, i shouldn't have bad-mouthed it in all view. it must have been worse for you. ( my camp mates are notoriously quick to criticize and even quicker to forget ). i take back the words, but the pain i wouldn't be able to take back. i'm so glad eventually melvin did say it looked like shrek. your heart seemed to have lifted at his words. i wish i was the one who said that.

i'm still growing, still learning. i sometimes still do and say innnocuous things that hurt others without even being aware of it. but now i've learnt, in a pretty retribution kind of way, that when someone asks opinons on something they have spent considerable effort on, be it a dish, a tune or a poem, don't ever dimiss it lightly, or worse, make a joke out of it.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 9:21 PM

Sunday, September 19, 2004 :::

the straits times reported recently that 92% of secondary school students were victims of bullying, one form or another. besides being a ridiculously high statistic ( i must be one of the lucky 8% or a bully ), their method of defining bullying is seriously flawed.

it seems that calling your overweight classmate "fat pig" and your slim friend "bamboo" are also considered a form of bullying. this probably constituted to the supposed high victim rate, since everyone at sometime or another has been referred to in an unflattering manner. but this is definitely not in any way bullying.

bullying is taking outright advantage of the weak, either by numbers, by size or by authority. something as trivial as calling each other names probably can be considered a little prankish, but it is a far cry to be considered bullying, and to be used as a statistic to highlight a problem that never existed, it seems that the surveyors already planned what they wanted, and are merely looking for evidence which supported their claim.

the truth is, if you are slightly on the heavy side, we will pick on your weight. if you are short, we will pick on your height. if you are rich, we will pick on your wealth. heck, if you are dark-looking, we will even pick on your "race". and the point is, you will have a trait that will eventually be picked on by others and others will have traits which will be picked on by you .there is no great harm intended and no need to be overly defensive.

it may not seem apparent, but finding something to pick on people actually plays a huge part in keeping relationships and contacts alive. even friends and lovers do occasionally call each names, but it only serves to build up the atmosphere as people laugh at each other and at themselves. how lively things get when people call you by familiar though belittling nicknames instead of distant acknowledgement.

it seems that the only people unhappy about such an arrangement are adults who try too hard to be politically correct and try to interact with people with fake amicableness.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 6:33 PM

Friday, September 10, 2004 :::

Hamlet once asked, ' to be or not to be '

but methinks..

temp license

LOL!

i passed my 2B TP!

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 7:19 PM

Wednesday, August 25, 2004 :::

was helping my bro to do homework..write a newspaper article review on the recent national day rally speech. i didn't watch the speech, and all my information was from the papers. and this is what i finally wrote.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, in his augural National Day
Rally speech to his people, comes across as a leader well-trained and
well-prepared by his predecessors, yet with an approach distinctively
unique from them.

Just sworn in a mere ten days before delivering the speech, he
could have tailored his speech just to reiterate the positive effects
the recovering economy would have on Singapore and constantly give
assurance of the nation's long term economic viability. However, he
only gave scant mention on the economy and policies, but more
impressionably he did not shy away from discussing any of the more
persistent problems, and from political apathy to education woes to
casino considerations, he made mention and gave his analysis, not
fearing backlash from the people.

His focus on problems and seeking out solutions was also
refreshing, filled with interesting anecdotes from his personal
experience about Singaporeans and their idiosyncrasies. Through these
relations, he painted a tongue-in-cheek caricature of a typical
Singaporean - more haste, less speed, and too efficient to try to do
something in a new way. And this focus will be crucial in this stage
of the nation's growth as the previous two PM have done their part by
first building the nation and then building ties and relationships,
now will be the time to push towards the frontier and break existing
barriers.

The way PM Lee dealt with the issue of the pending casino
construction in Singapore is also a big hint on how the Government
will act and respond to various issues in the future. PM Lee himself
had said that proposal for the casino had come up in the past, but it
was turned down time and time again without much due consideration for
it. But now, it seems that the Government has given much thought on
issues it had previously said no to, and have begun to try things that
they would not have inclined to. In the case of the casino, the
Government is now not saying no, but focusing in minimising the bane
effects involved and looking into the merits of the boon factors, a
trait that is now evidently reflected in PM Lee and his new team of
leaders.

In all, the National Day Rally speech had been a surprise of sorts,
not only relaxing policies on the surface, but also giving the people
a indepth preview into how the new Government will work, the PM's
focus, his proposed changes and what will drive this nation in this
age.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 12:20 AM

Friday, August 13, 2004 :::

i feel like i've suddenly lost my enthusiasm for writing. in fact, i think i lost my mind. i'm hardly the analytical and cantankerous critric i remember i once was. i now skim through the headlines of the papers and feel reading the news is a chore.

many times i felt the burden to pen down what had been troubling me, but everytime i get to blogspot, i find i can't aptly put my feelings to words anymore. it feels like the mode i'm most proficient in communicating with people has suddenly become defective, and i'm trapped with emotions i can't liberate.

perhaps i'm merely disacquainted due to scant usauge, or maybe the army really makes one dull. i don't know. i can't tell. until i regain my dexterity around words and sentence structures again, i fear this blogger will find it hard even to post a worthy entry.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 3:27 AM

Thursday, July 29, 2004 :::

if banging your head against the wall hurts, then why do you still bang it?

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 11:44 PM

Sunday, July 18, 2004 :::

if i say, "I like ROCK MUSIC!", how much can you infer about me? much, i guess. let me show you.

let's start with MUSIC. ever heard a tune playing and you can instantaneously predict what the next bar will be, and true enough it goes as you guessed? immediate satisfaction. it's the same feeling guitarists experience when they can synchornise their jump and their huge downstroke with the drummer's final hit at the cymbals at the end of a fast song. and it is exactly this gratification that i seek to fulfil everytime, everyday in my life. i like head-banging and air-guitaring to the heavy thump of the drums in rock music, and this penchant satisfy something deep inside me i can't explain.

i have this strange little idiosyncracy with me. i have this thing with orderliness. every item and every object within my sight must be tidy, to the extent if anyone put a single folded newspaper where newspaper are placed unfolded, i get restless, impatient, and have the tendency to hunt down the guy who placed it in such an awkard manner. but since everything on earth has balance, so does this. for me, things need not be where they are supposed to be, as long as they are tidy. for example, amazingly, i can tolerate it if i find CDs in the toilet, as long as they are stacked nicely and they still have the discs inside. similarly, i get furious if the same CDs are in a pile near the stereo, with some missing covers or with broken case hinges. this is no different from music. you just can't throw crochets, semi-breves and minims around the bars as you like, but if you tidy the bars up so that the beat duration is complete for each bar, then there is no problem placing the bar where you like. much like a song can start with an intro, a verse, or even straight into the chorus, but it can't even begin if the notes in the bars are messed up.

next on to ROCK. quite simply, i want my girl to be loud and exciting, just like a good rock song, bursting with enthralling energy and amazing licks. a perfect contrast to the quiet me. a girl who makes my heart thump whenever she's near. and like a well-written rock song, someone that is witty, tongue-in-cheek, makes intelligent company, give insightful remarks on relevant issues and in true rock fashion, not compelled to follow the whims of the outside world.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 3:55 AM

Saturday, May 08, 2004 :::

i don't believe this.

i totally forgot i had a cd-r stuffed in my bundle of dirty army clothes. and i threw the whole bundle into the washing machine and started it.

i don't believe this.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 6:19 PM

Sunday, May 02, 2004 :::

here's the answer for power of observation quiz.

streetpic edited

singapore's street signs are on the left-hand-side, facing the oncoming traffic. this pic is wrong because the driver of the car could not have possibly read the sign meant for him.

this is the original pic before editing.

streetpic unedited

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 11:17 AM

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 :::

by your powers of observation, find just one glaring mistake in this seemingly normal photo of a street.

streetpic

the answer will be shown in a couple day's time.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 11:43 AM

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 :::

senior minister lee kuan yew went overseas this morning. a gas pipe exploded this afternoon, causing the nicoll highway to collaspe. one died, three injured and four were trapped. power was disrupted momentarily.

which frighteningly confirms the truth of one of singapore's most well-kept myths.

when old lee is not around, singapore cannot hold.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 10:10 PM

Monday, April 19, 2004 :::

5566 left singapore early this morning at T2. i wasn't there, i was at T1, but it isn't the point. our friends told us that there were about 20 fans there, presumably skipping school, just to wave their idols goodbye.

it is then when my sergeant, got angry. he screamed in mandarin and profane hokkien, " *** ** **! got books to study don't want to study, *** ***, skip school come airport support what *** *** 5566! ". ( haha, the askterids here makes it look like a text message beckham would send from his phone. )

he then continued with his ranting, " if next time i got a daughter and she like that, skip school chase what 5566 7788, i will ** ** ** whack her silly i tell you. chase until like dog ( pun on paparazzi ) like that. wait i chain her up see how she chase. she can only ( mimics a dog at the end of its leash standing on two legs) , ' yelp! 5566! yelp yelp!' *his crazy laughter begins*. " then he asks," so what will you all do?"

( stunned ) we, " well..ermmmmm.... ". suddenly, the minibus reaches the airport police station. we all scramble away.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 12:39 PM

Monday, April 12, 2004 :::

got pretty worked up reading the yesterday's new paper about these chinese scholars' comments about singaporean students.

so we are stupid, lazy and filled with pig's swill? and what a singaporean student does in four weeks you can do in a single day? well, how much china has progressed in 5000 years, we did it in less than 40. efficiency and effectiveness indeed.

what infuriated me most is that they say " the singapore government is stupid, give us scholarship grants, but i'm leaving as soon as i'm done. " no one cares a hoot about where you came from or where you intend to go, but you do not scold my government in my country, not after you happily use our money for your education. can your government afford to give you a proper education? can your government even use money without taking some of it for themsevles?

so you come over here, and when you are new and foreign, you say we singaporeans are helpful and such. but after you are familiar about how things work here, you think you can castigate and get away with it because you will be " leaving as soon as you're done "? it's like going to your friend's house to stay over for a night and complaining the fridge has nothing you like to eat.

so why don't you go back to the place you came from and see if there is even a fridge? why don't you return right now? " oh, i'm not that stupid. this government gives me money to study, but i will leave after that and never come back ". so after you have a career and get married, you are going to send your parents to an old folks' home and never visit them? start burning the bridge before you have even reached the other end?

i'm more angry you talking negative about our government, calling it " stupid " than about us being filled with pig's swill. you seriously think you are a genius and that our government is tripping over itself to give you an education and hopefully work for them, at the expense of its own citizens? no. we have more to gain from your country than you from ours. much more.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 4:16 PM

my dad repaired my guitar! i thought it was irreparable after i knocked it over and snapped the neck inhto two. haha..i think my dad is a genius. i love this guitar of mine even more now, it looks so cool with those screws and super glue. haha! here's how it looks now.

well, i think i take after my dad's ingenuity. cause i just discovered a new easy way to reheat last night's veggies for my instant noodle meal. haha! i was thinking whether to put the plate of veggies into the mircowave or re-fry it when i came up with

reheating last night's veggies

ta-dah! removing the lid of the saucepan i'm cooking my noodles in and letting the steam heat up the veggies! synergy, i say.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 2:41 PM

Saturday, April 10, 2004 :::

my second ever blood donation today! it's been one year since my last and first donation. ah..the deja vu feeling before the blood donation. the dread, the fear and the feeling of just going back home. all so vivid. haha..but this time, the sensation was different. if anyone recall my blog last year, i said i dreaded the prick of the finger using the harmless-looking device most. but just now when the nurse used that, somehow it really only felt like a prick, like accidentally touching the ends of my guitar strings. now that i've gotten over the prick, there is nothing about blood donation i really fear now. haha!

plus there are really a lot of things in the goodie bag this year. let me just quickly state them. a thermal flask for tonic and soups, quite stylish i say, the brand's logo is so inconspicuous you might think the flask might cost you tens of dollars. then there are these health supplements, iron and complex b for replenshing blood and vitamin c. there's also two little boxes tissue paper, just in case you decide to cry when the needle is inserted. and lastly, there is this very cool watch they give. it's so nice i cant bear to wear it. if only i had two, so i can keep both!

yup..after all these promotion and self-ad, if you or anyone you know might be interested in saving lives, the blood donation centre is at joo chiat community centre on this sat and sun, apr 10 and 11. there will be free shuttle bus to the centre at eunos mrt from 9am to 3pm. be there!

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 4:26 PM

Friday, April 09, 2004 :::

there has been some unhappiness recently between my shift's prowl teams and our force 2IC. it is a known fact, perhaps not to our force commander, an officer, but to the rest - the force 2IC, the ops specialists, the reserves, the orderly, and even the drivers, they know we tuang. in other words, we do not really go out and prowl the airport sometimes, but just stay in the pass office. when we coms back to report our location, saying we are at the transit area or at the taxi stand, well, most of the time we are actually in the pass office.

on tuesday afternoon, our unit RSM did an unannounced spotcheck on T2. by a stroke of luck, the team which was on duty happened to be the most on-the-balls of all the teams, and no one was caught. so on that very night, which was my shift, the force commander, decided to conduct a spotcheck to see if this shift's teams were tuang-ing. he sent his 2IC, a sergeant whom we all like and are friendly with, to the two terminals to see if we are actually working.

when he came, he found that T1 was sleeping and T2 was playing dai-dee. so he just smiled and left, but after a few hours he got the 2 team ICs to sit down at burger king's and talk about it. he said that he will settle this amongst us privately but warned us to buck up because the top are doing spotchecks, sometimes without even first going to the ops room at the airport police station, and that no one can warn us in time. which was fine, because after that and in our following shifts, we did do our 5 required rounds of prowling.

but after that, we found out he actually told the force commander that we tuang-ed when he did said he would not. and we were scolded and given a stern warning by a infuriated force commander, who said the next time this happens, we will be charged. so we all felt that we have been unfairly backstabbed by the 2IC, firstly because he did not keep his word and that he still told on us when we listened to him and did our prowls properly after that.

just yesterday, when he did another spotcheck on us, we completely ignored him, and now he seems even too embarrased to look at us after all our blatant suan-ing and merciless sarcasm. he does not conduct arms loading and unloading drills for us nor deploys us at the airport anymore but stays in the ops room now and mans the coms.

of course i realise being a force 2IC is not easy. it is hard finding a balance between not letting the 12h prowls get too xiong for us and not letting us tuang and covering his own ass. but saying one thing and doing another is quite another matter altogether.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 3:34 PM

Tuesday, April 06, 2004 :::

FRIENDTEST

hehe..my own version of it. a bit old-fashioned by now, but still fun i guess. the conventional sites send tests by email, which i think is considered unsolicited mail, or worse, spam, so i thought i'll put it on my blog, and probably learn some HTML along the way. therefore, you will not get to click click and then receive your mark, but instead you have to do it manually ( yep, that will mean getting out your pen and paper and then marking it yourself at the end ). have fun!

p.s it not meant to be easy. bring out the dice!

Q1. the which-music-rocks-my-socks test : i'm listening to my favourite song: it is..

Sunday, March 28, 2004 :::

what's up with smu and their advertisements? i think they are trying too hard. today's straits times ran an article on them, featuring the poster kids smu uses on their ads, in poses which allegedly signify smu's traits - creativity, flexibility and empowerment.

i especially found amusing the guy who did the handstand and claimed smu taught him to look at things from all angles. bleh. why would anyone want to look at anything from all angles? would you want to let your will and determination to be withered away listening to every opinion? would you want to allow your passion and enthusiasm be doused with working on every nitty gritty detail of your plan, losing the vision meanwhile? would you let the momentum of your plan be crippled with analysis paralysis? the person who spends his time checking the clouds and discerning the wind will never sow any seeds.

i say make your decision, hold your ground and fight. i would rather maintain a narrow perspective, my own perspective, and bulldoze my way through than to gather all resources on the subject, spending years on analysis and prediction, and then coming up with a theory-perfect plan which was compromised to fit everyone in.

i think smu is over-emphasizing on its difference with the other two more-established universities. for one, the definition of different means it's just not the same. it doesn't even necessarily mean it is better. for me, different folks, different strokes. just because seminar style teaching in universities is a novelty in singapore does not equate to lecture-and-tutorial style being inferior or just for " normal " people. though i blame the current education system for producing people who can't think and ask questions, and seminar-style teaching's open atmosphere is a major plus point, put togther a bunch of eager-eyed misguided people who can't stop talking and asking questions just because they are supposed to be loud and be heard and ask questions in seminars, and what do you get? a bunch of " different " failures, or worse, a bunch of student leaders.

who is to judge what is good or bad? not me, but i find smu's attempt to suffuse itself with an aura of youth and liberality laughable, the idea of getting its students to leap off chairs in victorious poses extremely ridiculous, when their counterparts are offering serious and proven systems and courses and focusing of making them better.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 5:00 PM

Thursday, March 25, 2004 :::

i'm finally back from prowling changi airport! but it's only the first day, one more month to go. argh. but anyway, today had been real fun. imagine a bunch of japanese tourists alighting from their bus, and then rushing back up to grab their cameras when they saw us fully armed. then they started flashing wildly ( the cameras, not them ). while we were prowling the transit area, a woman was looking at us worriedly and playing with her hands nervously. she then approached me, looked at me intently and asked with a shaky voice if this was a routine patrol or if something had happened. i replied that it was just routine and there was nothing to be worried about. she looked relieved. it was then i saw the LCD TV screen behind her. she was headed for jarkata.

i think i probably saw more SIA air stewardess today than i ever did in my whole life. i think they are HOT! it doesn't matter that the foundation they use on their faces is thicker than the camo cream i use to camo my face during my garang days, or that some of them are already slightly old. i'm just so attracted to them! it must be their kebaya. the thin-fabric clothing with purple orchid prints that hugs on each of their figures. and some of them are low-cut! the forefathers who created this traditional dress must have great foresight. i really find all SIA air stewardess look real pretty in their kebayas. no wonder SIA is the flight of choice. most people like me would choose my flights based on the air stewardess only.

something i noticed through hours of careful delibration. why do all the air stewardess have to shake their bon bon when they walk around? it is causing a major distraction, and guys who say they go the airport to study or to defend it are probably lying. one last thing about the kebaya though. the skirt of the kebaya ( is it called a skirt? ) cannot be too short. it must nicely cover the ankles to look just right, showing off the pretty feet in those cute sandals. nice.

congratulate me quick! one more month of air stewardess! yay!

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 12:51 AM

Sunday, March 14, 2004 :::

why does the government go to such lengths to convince us that our chicken and eggs and all poultry stuff are not contaminated? it is not as if we are much troubled by the scare most other countries are facing, in actual fact, the feeling we have about this is the pretty much the same we have for all other issues - apathy.

who cares? after all, the Government have served us well all these years. with the ability to pick itself up after every major crisis, economic or civil, without even much of a hoot given by the average man in the streets, what's a little chicken virus? good gracious none of them attempted to eat chicken in public to demostrate their faith in their policies. we will probably be eating McChicken looking in awe.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 7:50 PM

Friday, February 27, 2004 :::

not feeling in the best of moods lately. someone from the other platoon lost his right index finger in our exercise just this week. seems like it was cut off by a steel wire rope that snapped. the last information i heard about it was that they were still trying to search for the finger in the water.

this isn't even the first case i've seen in merely months. Doing what seemed like routine work, my bunkmate had, coincidentally and unfortunately, had his right index finger crushed when we tried to unhook the boat trailer from the five-tonner. he did not even scream in pain when it happened. he couldn't even feel a thing. his finger was crushed.

things that happen just make me think. i wonder when it will be my turn. i wonder if i will be able to make it through. i wonder if ever the day will come that i have to type my blog missing a finger too. i'm scared. i'm uncertain. but i know i still got to play my role.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 11:59 PM

Thursday, January 22, 2004 :::

when someone asks whether you are a leader or a follower in the pack, most of us will probably punch the air and yell, " leader ! ". but i gave it some thought, and decided i was actually neither.

i'm not the eloquent and articulate type, able to present my case to someone else convincingly. i find i talk too fast, squeezing three words in the time allocated for two, perhaps, i guess, i'm too insecure feeling that i can't hold the attention of the opposite party if i pronounced every word like it should. and i do not command the prescence some do, sending out the i'm-in-control vibe throughout the group. i'm just more than happy to let someone else take the lead if it pleases them.

similarly, i find i cannot be accurately classified as a follower because i simply am not part of the group. while tagging along the group, if no one talks to me or keeps me entertained, i'll be thinking of something else, or planning my next steps. usually i'm not bothered what the group does, because i don't participate much. i just tag along to make up the numbers.

after much cognition, i came to the conclusion and the personal revelation that i'm actually the last man of the group. i see myself as the protector of the group. i regard myself with the onus of ensuring everyone is safe. i walk at the very back, to make sure no one gets left behind or ignored. i don't let myself get drunk because i have to maintain some sanity around so things will not get out of control. man, if i ever get my driver's license, i can foresee myself being forever the designated driver.

no one ever notices i'm around, but i have to dart my eyes around to see if everyone is around, while maintaining the non-chalent or simply blur look walking at the back. the most draining part is the fact that i don't really get to maximise the enjoyment of the company of the group. but don't ask me to join with the chatter of the main crowd. it's just not me. i wouldn't have anything to say. this is probably just the way i am.

to put it in the sense of a journey, others can afford to fall back or collapse, because if the front does not realise, i will come by from the back. but i can't afford to fall myself. i have to be stronger than others. it's not easy being me.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 2:41 AM

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 :::

i feel like such an idiot. my dad asked me last sunday if i'm coming back this tuesday night for dinner ( which was last night ) and i didn't give it much thought, and said, " no, i think i'll stay in camp since i'll be booking out on wed ".
it struck me that it was acutally his birthday yesterday, and it completely slipped my mind until i saw the cake in the fridge just now. he was hinting that i come back for dinner on his birthday and i dimissed it just like that. i'm feeling very very guilty now, thinking how my dad must have felt. argh.

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::: posted by Richard Wan at 12:45 PM