The First Weekend

"Powerpack your Friday nights. Step on it and accelerate to the max! Dinner, movies, drinks and clubs. Chiong. Then Sat pace a little, chill and glide on. Then come Sunday, unwind and recharge and sail out on the momentum of the weekend high." Weetz, 2011.



Friday evening kicked off with meeting the interns from my internship at SPF. We met the rest of our department who were prawning with moderate success at Hai Bin! But it didn't really matter, as we sat down and gossiped and caught up with each other. It was fantastic seeing them all again. Made new friends and reconnected with old ones. I was particularly happy that we got along brilliantly despite not seeing each other for a year. Also met my junior from CS and I was glad to know that he was doing well interning there. Heineken, prawns, conversation... a warm fuzzy feeling.

Saturday was spent earning money instead of spending it! Tuition went well though. I see it as nurturing the next generation in my own little way. Poisoning them with my slightly unconventional and un-teacher-like views while explaining how to write a narrative and how to do QA for Chemistry. I've been doing it so long, it's almost effortless in a way.

Sunday. Bridesmaids. After letting it all sink in, maybe it isn't that funny! There's a lot of toilet humour, but female-style, so that's something that I've never seen before! But the rather original script and solid comedy-acting by a stellar cast made it a very enjoyable experience that was worth its weekend ticket price. The inclusion of Hold On at the end was wonderful! I am almost inspired to start tuning in to Class 95!

And then I did something that I've never done before. I went to sing karaoke. Alone! The feeling of being one with music and lyrics, of the entire body being an instrument - incredible! 2 hours, uninterrupted. I was partly inspired when listening to Jolin's discography the other day and I realised how much I missed singing and how Chinese lyrics could express emotions and thoughts in an incredibly beautiful way. So I spent the evening alone but connected! Connected to a world of composers, lyricists, singers. A solo concert for an audience of one - myself!

And that's how I spent the first weekend upon starting work.

I'm so going to regret sleeping late just to write this entry.

ICT 2011

It's true that Twitter and Facebook have been taking my time away from blogging. Sometimes you put yourself out there and when it comes to actually writing an entry, you're all out of juice.

But this entry is not about that. It's about my in-camp training last week. There's plenty of things I hated about it. I hate that I sometimes have to push on, even when my head is about to burst. I hate that there's a lot of waiting.

But I love sweating it out. I love the physical exertion, the physical activity. I feel like I'm exerting myself, really feeling it, like the body and mind are one. It's the feeling of a hard day's work... when I was inside that contraption, setting it up, and my singlet wetter than it'd ever been and sticking to every part of me, and me rushing against time, against my physical limit to get the bar into its fucking position. There's a strange sense of exhilaration.

And I'm a bit of a different persona in camp. My normal usage of vulgarities went up about ten times. Because, as we all know, bitching is a coping mechanism. And what better way to bitch than with the familiar people that I'm glad to see whenever I go back. Going through all that shit again somehow builds a bond that's not affected by time. It's memorable alright.

Also, I passed my IPPT!

Maybe the most exciting parts of life doesn't always have to be good. Maybe the worst parts of it might end up being the ones that you look back most fondly on. I go back year after year, the dread never decreasing. But I appreciate being outdoors, facing the sun, with the men that I've come to know for almost 6 years. We've all grown, we're all different, yet we work well together.

If only I didn't have to spend so much money cabbing to camp.

Six

I push myself to the limit. And I always feel a little superhuman after taking off the mask. Sometimes that feels kinda cool, like I've done the impossible. Other times I swear that it's the last time, that I'll never do it again.

Most of the time I do it because I don't have a choice. There's a bit too much relief at being alive at the end of it all. All the heat, suffocation and perspiration.

6 more days to go. And after that 6 more to go.

Giving Up Too Much

There used to be a blog which wrote of wondrous things. His entries were filled with imagination, one I could never hope to match. The words were poetic, flying off the computer screen with the bubbling enthusiasm of a toddler trying to walk. Reading it always left me with a fuzzy feeling, like I've just been hugged.

More often that not I sit in front of the computer with my eyebrows furrowed, thinking hard. What can I say that I have never said before? Am I funny, serious, inspiring? What's my style? I feel like a writer in a mid-life crisis. And I question this rut!

Maybe it used to be easier writing when I didn't know the power of words. Twitter made me realise that with 140 characters, I could tell a joke. With 140 characters, I could be succinct. A tweet could be so much more immediate because of the time it takes to read it.

If I had twenty-four hours left in the world, I'd tell my loved ones that I love them. And then sit in a corner with a great book, with my mind and imagination, creating the greatest Universe in my head. It wouldn't matter that it wasn't real because everything comes to an end.