A fifteen year stretch

It has been 15 years since the first post on this blog, and I can now look back and close the loop on some things.

In 2012, I was poised to leave home to study overseas and was feeling apprehensive: home was comfortable, and I wrote a post to that effect. But once I ventured out, I remained away for 5 years to the point that what had once been uncomfortable became the norm, and I didn’t want to return. With some reluctance I eventually did return and settled back to the formerly ‘comfortable’ home, but it took me some time to come to terms with it. In hindsight, I guess it’s not the place where one is that matters, but how one makes the best of things every day.

The year 2012 also marked the end of my full-time military service. For the two years in which I served, military service was the entirety of my world. Even in my free time, my conversations with friends and family would end up as a discourse on military life. For most enlistees, it was a love-hate relationship (the consensus was that it was a waste of time), and I wrote a poem expressing my thoughts: when our time in service is over, do we dispose of our uniforms and say good riddance to the experience? Last month, I returned to camp for a two-week stint, which made me recall how much I had enjoyed those two full-time years. I also chatted with a service-mate who shared that he had considered signing on to the military back then as a career (I had wanted to, as well). It shows that I’m not alone in thinking that, notwithstanding all our complaining (I had named the poem “Army Fatigue”), there can be meaning in a role that seems purposeless – again, it’s about making the best of things. It’s easy for one to see how enjoyable something was once it’s over, the challenge is in enjoying a tough time while you’re in the midst of it. I’ve taken that thought to my current workplace, which is also challenging though in a different way. After my two years of military service, I did indeed shred the mud-stained uniforms (as I wrote about in the poem) but there are many other mementos of army life that I still hold dear.

In 2013, army life was over and I had a foot in the door of the legal profession. I wrote about my vision and qualms about law practice – why did it have to be conducted in such a rigid way? It felt that law firms maintained the ostentatious front of being as exclusive as possible, as though the posher the place, the more one could expect that they knew what they were doing. Surely in a profession that has at its heart the need to be in the shoes of the client to advocate for them, empathy and understanding are key – and the wall should be broken with the profession taking the first step to meet the client on terms comfortable to them. I’ve now been able to answer my own question: yes, law practice can be different. We can meet the client in the middle. As to the exact details, I’m working out exactly how every day.

And with a few life lessons done and dusted, perhaps it’s time for new adventures.

Hare today, gone tomorrow

The time between the last post and this one has passed in the blink of an eye, and I have a description in verse for it:

Headlong Slide

The rush of water flows unabated
To its unseen, inevitable end
And I flow with it, the course decided
Though hidden by the river's myriad bends

Buoyant, I do not clutch at anything
Lest I am torn away by force and hurt
For the wild currents are unforgiving
Can I hold out, as a creature of dirt?

But discomfort hardly lingers with me
Slights fast forgotten and lost in this pace
I see the quickness of my odyssey
Mirrored in shortness of breath from the haste

Is the ride of life all the more thrilling
For its breakneck speed into the unknown?
It is only deemed truly fulfilling
In joining others who journey alone

At travel’s end, the sights and sounds will fade
For the story to be grandly retold
All memories woven taut and displayed:
Good and bad forming a glorious whole

November 2022

But may it never be too much to pause to savour beautiful moments.

Clear skies and sunshine

When I was in Morocco, a young man who could speak fluent Arabic, French, English and Berber claimed to have the secret to learning many languages: "Be unemployed,” he told me. “Without a job you have a lot of time to learn."

I must have missed something because the stretch I had without a job brought me no nearer to linguistic brilliance.

But I dare say, if I had time on my hands, I might instead be enjoying some peace and quiet. My most vivid memory of Geneva is sitting by the lake and enjoying the scenery. It was the social norm – on fine sunny days, everyone was there. An ex-schoolmate recently sent me an email concerning sharing of poetry, and in response, I decided to write something to remember that communal spirit of taking a moment to appreciate life:

The Sunshine Collective

The brevity of flowers in the summer
Deters not the arrival of pots upon pots
As the planter of life, the gardener
Lays out the rows of fresh plots
The varieties growing by the hour

They sway in unison with the breeze
Delicate petaled heads held high
Such cordiality solely to please
As visitors mill idly and sit by
For the season's declaration of colour

November 2019

 A record of that scene - sometime in 2016. 

With a string of exams I took just over, I hope for my outlook ahead to be similarly idyllic.

Happy December!

On zeal

I have a terrible commute to work. There are four or five possible routes to choose from; none are good.

But though I dislike the commute, it struck me one day that I never disliked the journey because of the destination. I always wanted to reach the office at the end of the ride. It’s been exactly a year at my current job so far, and there’s never been a day that I didn’t want to go to work.

It’s life-changing to be doing, for the first time, something that I truly want to do.

My current job is at a charity, and I think I love it because I feel that what I do has meaning. It’s nice to see the smiles on our beneficiaries’ faces, and to realise that people who need help are receiving it. It’s a joy to make a difference in other people’s lives.

I’m not the only one who feels this way – many of my colleagues have similar views, and it’s very telling of how strongly they feel about their work when you see them spend out of their own pockets to give back to the organisation. I think it’s a pleasure to be amongst such passionate people.

I’ve met two people recently who inspired me in a similar manner. One’s a middle-aged lady who embarked on three careers in the span of one working life, as a businessperson, a teacher and a lawyer. Those were not easy career switches because you need (many long years of) training to go into teaching and law. The other’s a pastor, whose work is difficult and family life even more so. Yet both set their hands to what they do with zeal.

Now that I know what it means to be doing work not because I have to, but because I want to, I really hope I’ll take this attitude of doing things from the bottom of my heart to the next job.

For now, I’m cherishing everyday and figuring out how to have even a fraction of that lady’s energy.

People & languages in an inter-connected world

Stumbled across a website with an amazing idea. It’s a language exchange: but instead of finding a penpal and exchanging emails and the like (I’ve tried something like that before but the site didn’t seem to work very well), in this one you treat the site like a blog and post up entries in any language you’d like. Other people correct your posts, and you in turn correct posts for other people who wrote entries for themselves in your native language. As a bonus, because it feels like blog-browsing, I’ve been able to learn a lot about people living in other parts of the world. I think it’s an amazing system, and I’m looking forward to seeing how well it turns out. (Lang-8, if anyone is interested)

It also has been really nice to be able to write posts and share them, something I’ve been reluctant to do with this blog lately – probably because it’s entirely open to the public. The older I get, the more I think to myself ‘oh, I shouldn’t write my views about this or that, because it might get seen by my future boss - - - oh, what if I become a politician’ … There were good points to being young and naïve!

One thing I’d like to write about, though, is that recently I met old man that I got along well with, who invited me for tea and cakes. We must have had very different backgrounds, and were obviously in rather different stages of life – so it was nice to chat. When I mentioned my ‘I wanted to get out and see the world’ sentiment (per a post below) he threw in his thought that “it feels like everywhere you go, no matter how different the place is, people are the same: and you’ll find some that are just like you and some and are not”. No matter how easy it is to connect with people across the world now, people are the same – perhaps.

Possibilities

[edited]

I was watching a young boy on the train today, who was peering at a map of the Singapore transportation network. His excited expression sort of reminded me of myself studying the London tube map, thinking how amazing the extent of the network was, and how I had never seen anything like it before. Who knows, maybe in some ten years that same boy will be able to look at the Singapore map with even more fascination than today as this metropolis grows and heads in the direction of other mega cities.

I came back this summer in time for nation-wide celebrations marking Singapore’s 50th independence anniversary. It was a good time to look back at the last 50, last 100 years to see where this place has arrived from, and I guess, trying to put it simply, Singapore has always been a place for immigrant people to find a livelihood, work for themselves, and somehow get tied up with the land along the way. To an extent, it still is like that today, even if the face of the nation is now very different from the past. What has been constant here is that the land and its people seem to change very quickly, continually adapting to the circumstances; and since independence that attitude has been mostly beneficial. So if adapting and looking to the future is a good recipe for success, I sincerely hope that this nation continues to do so, and that it changes wisely as well, so that those little kids can continue to enjoy modern train rides, and so that bigger kids like me can be proud of my homeland.

Local drink in a non-local mug

A short story and an unasked question

He laughed, replacing the shirt back on to its hanger. It was the most absurd thought he had had the whole day, so far. When the lawyer found out he worked from home, the legal practitioner had suggested that they meet at the coffee shop near his house – “I don’t stay too far from you, after all”. They would meet in fifteen minutes’ time. Lim had instinctively reached for a crisp shirt he kept at the back of his wardrobe – he rarely dressed up – while wondering where he kept his belt. This was to be a serious legal discussion. You have to be dressed appropriately when you sign at the bottom of the page. He had then stopped himself. The last time he visited the office, the assistant, Jenny, had smiled and told him it was perfectly fine to dispense with the pleasantries and formality while dealing with their firm. He’d smiled back and told her he’d prefer it that way, too. He considered that this modus operandi should probably also apply to the lawyer that he was meeting for the first time. Should he dress up? This was a meeting at a coffee shop, for heaven’s sake. He was the client! He could do whatever he liked. Lim walked to the doorway, picking up a comfortable pair of loafers as he let himself out of the house.

While walking to the coffeeshop, a pang of self-consciousness struck him once again, and Lim wondered if his black and white “I love Krabi” T-shirt was not too sloppy for the occasion. It was nevertheless certainly what he was used to: he was a reclusive software designer, and this occasion of filing a patent and selling on his idea was one of the few times that required him to step out of the house. He was thus far more used to dressing comfortably than dressing to impress. Lim felt a mix of reactions when he located the lawyer sitting at one of the coffee shop tables, decked out in shorts, slippers and a plain T-shirt, a briefcase placed on the chair beside him. On the one hand he felt like laughing at this flippant lack of ceremony, and on the other, he was glad that the lawyer was as informally attired, if not more dressed down, than he was. The indecision did not last very long. Lim decided this state of affairs comfortably suited him.

He pulled out a chair and sat down. He wanted a “milo-bing”.

As the hare flies

Itch itch.

I’ll be flying overseas for studies, in a matter of weeks.

If you want to know how I feel about that I’ll tell you that I’m a rather lazy, reticent sort of person that loves “home” because home is familiar. And lately, the importance of “home” has been underscored by all the age-seasoned bonds and friendships that I’ve been fortunate enough to have here. I would love to stay with all you people that mean so much to me, if I could.

Regardless, I’ll tell you that I’m eager to go. Right now, if possible; or soon, please, otherwise! And that’s because I have a deep desire to see the wide world out there. If you’ve played Civilization or any strategy game with a large world map, you’ll be familiar with the trade-off between exploring and keeping to home ground. I say that one should explore even without apparent need to – because the fact that there are lands out there is a calling in itself. In a game you might be rewarded with a treasure or two – or at very worst you’d get to meet a few new AI friends – but in the real world who knows what one might yield from striking out into the horizon? Inspiration, no doubt, and purpose, possibly.

In Che Guevara’s diaries the fellow irrevocably sets out from home on a motorbike, and somewhere along the way finds his life’s mission. No doubt there’s something to take out of that... 

I’m particularly glad that where I’m going – Manchester – seems like it would make a good base to see many other parts of the world. I’m looking to find a like-minded travel buddy or two (someone equally poor and budget), but there’s no hurry for now. At the moment I’d just like to look ahead and say that a future of possibilities is exciting. Certainly it’s not all rainbows and butterflies out there, but I don’t think I’m being too optimistic in declaring that it’s a wonderful world that God has created, and I’m delighted at being able to see it.

To all of you who dream of ORD

Army Fatigue

Who would have thought
That a uniform, spotted,
Printed, pixelised
Could hold the entire history
Of my universe?
Sweat fading brown dots
Bloody red mingling with the green
Tears making fabric
Perhaps coarser

Someday, outside barb wired fences
When our fatigues are as
Tired by duty as us
Will we hold worn garment
Closely – remembering how mirth and
Friendship intertwine scarred threads
Or shall we shred old memories
Into the deep recesses
Of wastebins?

Gideon Chew
Oct 2010

At Basic Military Training school

After nine weeks of BMT, all that’s left to do is to see the route which I’m headed for next. Officer, specialist or man. That, and to wait for the final Graduation Parade where I’ll be throwing my cap into the air. I suppose throwing a cap is ordinary enough, but I’m really looking forward to it because it marks the end of this period as a lousy recruit. A recruit’s life is not bad, really, but it will be a pleasure to move on and not be bossed around any longer. “Any recruits here? I need some help.” At 2 am in the morning. Uh, disgusting.

What I will miss is Rocky Hill camp. When we first moved in, we thought our camp was merely a deserted outpost in the middle of the jungle (which isn’t too far fetched, because it’s the old, abandoned SISPEC camp anyway… in the middle of the jungle). On the other hand, the recruits over at the Ladang HQ were getting laptops, internet and all sort of other out-of-this-world stuff. We thought we were worse off, but I think I really enjoyed the stay at Rocky Hill and I’d easily choose it over Ladang… Who wants laptops in the BMT anyway? It’s an extra weight to look after. Rocky Hill was wonderful because the bunks were huge, the air was cool and fresh, good scenery, and no high ranking commanders to watch out for. It was also good to be able to catch glimpses of one or two good friends in neighbouring Quebec and Yankee companies there.

Three coolest things in BMT:

1. Throwing a hand grenade. I was lucky because I wasn’t even supposed to throw it at all…was on Att B. I can tell you, the feeling of holding a real, live explosive thing in your hand and being afraid of it, then throwing it and feeling all that fear leave… is an amazing experience.

2. My encounters with animal life. The most interesting incident was digging my shellscape and finding and nest of eggs, about 8 or 9 large white ones, the size of an M&M chocolate. Not the small no-kick M&M's, it was the size of those M&M's with peanuts inside… maybe slightly bigger. I smashed one with the blade of my digging apparatus and found a snake inside. At least it was a long body with a bulging head. There were no feet at all to be seen, but my sergeant said it could be a lizard with its feet not fully developed. I was, and still am, hardly convinced, but I didn’t have a choice and shifted the eggs somewhere else and slept in that shellscape that night. No mama snake came to disturb me, thankfully… Besides that, I did see a long brown snake sliding across our field camp site once. Also, we saw a few wild boar, a monster centipede crawled up the latrine wall centimetres away when I was squatting down relieving myself, and I once crawled into bed in my bunk and found a bee inside the blanket. Luckily, nothing misfortunate happened - I didn't get stung or anything - so all those incidences became vivid, unforgettable memories to talk with friends about.

3. Having an awesome BMT company, Zulu Coy. We had wonderful commanders, especially our OC, who was like some angel always watching out for us and explaining things to us… I think my platoon performed pretty well, on the whole. We received a lot of praise from our commanders, and generally we weren’t pumping very much. Zulu was also champion for Games Day, and the feeling is great when your company wins and over two hundred people, commanders included, are ecstatic. I do think we’ll be crowned best company in the coming week. Hopefully. But even if we’re not, we’ll no doubt be too busy throwing our caps up to be disappointed.

Freedom

Another seven days and I’ll be enlisting into the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

Spent the last few months very blissfully. Caught up with friends, ate a lot of good food, did the things I dreamt of doing during my two years studying for A levels. For one, I had a backpacking trip to Malaysia with some close SAJC friends. Just four of us, without a car, but with the keys to my mum’s Perak house. We relied on coaches to get around. Stopped at Genting and KL too for the attractions/sightseeing/theme park. Real awesome. Below’s a pic of the twin towers at night, which was a lot prettier than I expected.

Also, I spent one and a half months working at the HDB. The job paid really well, 7/hr for doing simple admin work, and the office staff there were exceptionally nice to me. During my final two days, they sent me off with a party, treated me to lunch, and gave me presents. I think that is wonderfully extravagant; I was just a temporary office helper. Thank you God for such great friends at the job.

Comically, I worked overtime every Friday for six weeks - because no one told me work ends half an hour earlier on Fridays. Haha, dang. Where I’m headed for the next two years, though, that won’t be a problem 8)

A fresh year

I love entering into a new year. Christmas and New Year’s for me is a good excuse to party and catch up with friends. I love the festive food too, like turkey and wine (delicious).

For me, this new year is special because JC life is over and done with. I suppose one thing I learnt from two years of pre-u education is that one’s rewards are often proportional to the effort one puts in to something. You reap what you sow. I mean, SAJC wasn’t a particularly good school, but I really enjoyed the time I spent there. I suppose a large part of that is because I wanted to be there in the first place. As a result, I’d stubbornly see the good in everything, even when lectures were plain dull and when lessons weren’t any better. Which isn’t a bad thing, because it made school life very much more enjoyable. On the other hand, I certainly didn’t consider CCA part of “school” and happily skipped every CCA session I could. Consequently, I’m rather envious of people who have close friends from their CCAs. Like the rugby guys or the soccer girls. I’m guessing the reason they’re so close to each other is because toiling and training together after school though thoroughly exhausted and brain-dead from a day of books builds strong friendships.

Which shows it’s always good to give one’s best. Hopefully that’s something I’ll take into the new year. Anyway, readers, have a wonderful 2010. :)

Teddy bears never go out of fashion

I want one.

Studying is pious devotion

The bike I lost to a tree:

The tree looked handy so I chained the bike to it.
When I came back, the tree was gone.

=\

Sometimes, I think to myself

Yes, I like switchfoot.

There are not many songs I like at first listening, but this is one of them. See, the thing I go for in music is lyrics. I adore songs with good lyrics, and conversely, I’ll just stop listening if I don’t like what’s being sung (like say... Avril Lavigne). This is one song I really like because the way it talks about life is so close to the heart it just makes you sit up and stare.

Faust, Midas And Myself
Switchfoot (Oh! Gravity)

This one's about a dream
I had last night
How an old man tracked me home
And stepped inside
Put his foot inside the door
And gave a crooked smile
Something in his eyes
Something in his laugh
Something in his voice
That made my skin crawl off

He said, I've seen you here before
I know your name
How you could have your pick
Of pretty things
You could have it all
Everything at once
Everything you've seen
Everything you'll need
Everything you've ever had in fantasies

You've one life
You've one life
You've one life left to leave

I woke up from my dream
As a golden man
With a girl I've never seen
With golden skin
I jumped up to my feet
She asked me what was wrong
I began to scream
I don't think this is me
Is this just a dream
Or really happening?

You've one life
You've one life
You've one life left to leave

I looked outside the glass
At golden shores
Golden ships and masts
With golden cords
As my reflection passed
I hated what I saw
The golden eyes were dead
A thought passed through my head
A heart that's made of gold can't really beat at all

I wanted to wake up again, I wanted to wake up again
Without a touch of gold, without a touch of gold

I woke up as before
But the gold was gone
My wife was at the door
With a night robe on
My heart beat once or twice
And life flooded my veins
Everything had changed
My lungs had found their voice
And what was once routine
Was now the perfect joy

You've one life
You've one life
You've one life left to lead

I like the way the chorus changes from "you've one life left to leave" to "one life left to lead". Sometimes we’re just so dissatisfied with our situation we don’t realize that life isn’t all that bad. That being said, I’ve decided to stop complaining about my blotched chem practical exam. And look for what life has that’s worth celebrating, instead. Like, today afternoon it was raining heavily, but there were some really good-looking rainbows in the sky after that.

Pretty.

Christmas 2008

Happy Christmas!

Biennale, and promos.

I got my results back today and I’m glad to have been promoted. Calculating the score was easy enough, all I take are four subjects and they’re all H2, so it’s a possible twenty points each, adding up to the eighty total perfectly. I cleared the thirty-five points to promote minimum by a good margin and I’m content. I think it’s interesting that almost two years ago, I was so absolutely fixed on getting into SA, and here I am now! You would think it’d be satisfying to be able to fill in the blank for something you want to know – dog meat tastes ___, or bungee jumping is ___ – but if were to ask me how living out a dream is like I’d probably just say it’s all just a bit too real; the way the fantasy of a beautiful girl at a distance disappears when she comes close. JC life can sometimes be unpleasant and exams are tough, but paradoxically, it’s probably only when one realizes dreams aren’t flawless, but accepts the flaws anyway, that the dream becomes far more beautiful than it was before.

Take the outing with my KI class to the Singapore Biennale just yesterday. You wouldn’t believe the trashing we got for sacrificing PW lesson time to embark on our own little adventure outside, though it was rather inevitable that if we wanted to go at all this month with our busy schedules someone was bound to complain. I think it really was worth going though, and it’s these unpleasant experiences (of risking stuff and getting caught) as well as the good ones that make school life so favourful.


Of the biennale I have only praise for, though I still think that that which evokes disgust cannot be art, like say the framed picture we saw of a bloodied head with drooping eyeballs and jutting teeth. I think art should be noble; appreciate-able. Like this art piece that had hundreds of miniature trees and plants stuck into a bed of sand, all black against the dusty yellow background of the sand grains. It already looked awesome, but when we walked past the exhibit we noticed all those trees and plants had their backs painted with colour, and the view from the back looked even more grand. The piece I thought funniest was this:



an art piece I would have probably missed if I’d been in a hurry, since it was outside in the open while all the other pieces were displayed indoors. All the artist displayed was a few alien figures, but the genius lay in its chosen background, courtesy of the Singapore government – you know how people always say the Supreme Court looks like an alien ship?

Perhaps aliens control the highest levels of our bureaucracy.




Oh, do you know the power of Korean drama serials? All Tim did was to take out his phone and answer in Korean, and look!

& the class.

Daydream Express

I was recently thinking of what I’d really like to do if I weren’t sitting for the A levels.

For one, to travel the world, and see the novelty of the different walks of life people in the world have. Not too long ago, the Straits Times published an article on an expedition by train from Singapore, through a few ASEAN countries, to China. I thought it was fascinating, because traveling off the beaten track by choosing to ride the train instead of taking a commercial flight revealed so much more about the areas that news team passed through. I’d like to do that too. Or perhaps, rather than passing through countries, it might be wonderfully fresh to stay or work in another country and to learn its culture and language. I’ve always admired England for being the centre of the world’s largest empire, and because a few very inspiring teachers I had long ago were British, but I already think and dream in English. Perhaps Thailand, Spain, New Zealand, Latin America ... or even China! Haha.

Well, that’s wishful thinking for now. Maybe I’ll have the chance in future. Right now, I’m happy with the life that I have. Today’s the last day of a week-long break from school. I only went out once, and that was on Teachers’ Day with my old primary school classmates, but it was a good time we had. I’m glad that we’re still close after so many years.



Picture from Valerie. I hadn't seen Zixuan for 5 years, but he hasn't changed much. These guys are awesome :)