Dear Dreams – Page 246

Staying back late

I hadn’t stayed back till so late in camp for quite long already. This night I was so exhausted after staying up at 3am continuously for fourth days.

As usual, it was all for the room #4-10/11 which was the only lecture room with Internet, such that the trainees loved to stay there since they didn’t get to surf net until weekends.

It was alright to work overtime since recently there was this system to accumulate hours to claim off. I’d rather stay back late each time than to stay back for a short while for many times as it was boring to stay back alone and considering the extra transport fee.

However, the record book went missing a few weeks ago after I brought it to the TRMS office and then told Ivan to get Chen De or Jonathan to bring it back. I’d searched through the cupboards and asked around but nobody knew where it was. My lost was the greatest since I’d been staying back most frequently and I didn’t record them down.

I was quite fortunate since Jacky Foo was the Duty Officer for the day and he was just inside the Admin office when I went to return the keys. His concern was a comfort to my heart; it was great that another guy understood our difficulties and suffers.

I was supposed to stay overnight in camp before the parade for the next day was cancelled. It’d be quite cool since Chen De and Kwang Han would be staying together if it had resumed.

It’s going to be only a half day for the next day since I’m having physiotherapy session in the afternoon. I’m looking forward to the next day for the weekends.

Morning run

I was cursed that the HLS (Healthy lifestyle) wouldn’t be conducted out of the camp. Just before we were near the gate, it started to drizzle and the route changed to within the camp only. It was kind of wasting time to run with such big crowds who were blocking my way that trying to maintain their speed behind them drained out my energy. Overtaking caused inconsistency of strength used during the run. Nevertheless, running with a bad cough was tough.

I was curious to see Unimog at the carpark near the POL area. Suddenly Benson called for me and I realised the 3SIG guys were having a major exercise there and their landrover had broken down since hours ago and yet the MT-Line didn’t provide any technician or a substitute rover to help them. It was good to chat with him there for about an hour, knowing more about the conditions of our ex platoon-mates.

Brian passed by and I asked him about the volleyball tournament. He announced the sad news that he had sprained his ankle during the first game and our team could actually get into the top three. He had called 007 immediately upon obtaining his injury to get me back to the team but failed. I could have replaced him as the setter instead of being the libero and we could achieve the first ever glory of the Signals team.

It seems too impossible to live a life without hatreds and regrets.

Anthony's dad's funeral

I was supposed to go home early to upload my website with all the updated stuffs which I’d done over the weekends, however, I failed to.

During the gym session with Bryan and Sem Chi, I received this SMS from my brother, saying Anthony’s dad had passed away. I told him the time I was booking out in the evening but he didn’t reply after that.

As mentioned by Bryan, people go to the gym for different purposes. Like him, he trained to make himself look nicer, whereas others tried to make themselves fitter; for Sem and I, we were just doing it as physiotherapy. I was so lazy that I didn’t really like to go to the gym, since volleyball could help keep me fit as well, but for the sake of my recovery I had to.

When I was leaving the camp, I gave my brother a call to confirm the meeting time and place, and he told me he wasn’t going anymore. Since I might not be able to leave the camp before nightfall the next day, I decided to proceed on alone.

I strolled towards Anthony’s house with Edgar, who stayed further down, and we’d some craps on the way talking about seeing girls. Anthony couldn’t see my face when I waved across the road.

His dad passed away on Monday due to heart attack. There wasn’t any symptom before that, just plainly minor illness like fever. Like most of the funerals I’d attended, there wasn’t any crying; adults were supposed to act brave.

I was dead beat as I hadn’t slept enough for the past few days as usual. There wasn’t much for me to say, especially when I didn’t know his friends. As more of them arrived, I became more awkward, finding difficulty in understanding their conversations. They just made me so inferior. From games, movies, stars to scouts and other topics, there was too little I knew to give any constructive or even humorous remarks, that I stayed in low profile.

They were great men, the old boys from my secondary school, Gan Eng Seng School, the ex scouts of great leaderships and fames. I could have gained so much if I’d joined them years back, if only I didn’t hate uniform groups.

The interesting thing was that they ate the peanuts like chocolates. I betted they were hungry like me but was too shy to take any food. I sat there stoning for more than five hours before they all decided to leave. One of them drove a few of home and luckily for that, I could reach home earlier near midnight.

Bad, worse, worst

When BAD and WORST are put together, people tend to overlook BAD.

When WORST is gone, will everyone realise the presence of BAD?

Or will everyone look back and compare BAD with WORST, such that everything seems too good already?

Will BAD become WORSE?

I don’t know.

But my views are clear all along, just that I don’t wish to stir anything up.

Genghis Khan Series 2

My back ached badly even though I was sitting on the chair with the back rest; my cough worsened with my whole body still feeling weak. I regretted not visiting the Chinese physician on last Friday or Saturday when timing could meet; I preferred bitter medicine to sweet ones, besides, they could do me better by bringing down the “heat”, caused by my fury and disappointments, which was the origin of my illness.

It was supposed to be a very fruitful day and I could have uploaded some updates for my website. Just when I was checking the availability of all the URLs in the links pages, I started trying out the games. Slowly, I proceeded on, until the site where ROMs were available.

I tried to search for the Water Margin game, in vain, and then my target became Genghis Khan Series 2. I opened the Sega Emulator and started trying out this game which I wanted to play since ten years ago, if not for the cost.

It was difficult to start off with the non-text graphics for all the sub menus. I didn’t even know which command each of them stand for until I clicked and executed them. Despites this, I managed to conquer the whole Mongolia and thought it was such simple game.

Then, I realised I was wrong. The second err started off by the invasion into China and the European countries including Italy. All the countries were too vulnerable to each other that defending was difficult. Since I couldn’t control my countries directly, my ruled places were often broken through after the AI’s auto invasion to weaker countries with my troops. The concept was kind of same as the Water Margin’s but there were more “players” in this game.

So, I ended up spending the whole night with no achievement; while my main force was gaining more lands, my backup forces attacked the weaker countries by themselves and ended up being invaded when the remaining defending forces were little.

The computers were sadists that they executed all captives and the unrealistic thing was that all generals would be captured for the battle lost. Since the game didn’t have many plots, I’d to figure out how to win it with the head-on battle concept.

Kailin's twenty-first birthday

It’s unkind for friends to not attend one of the twenty-first birthday. Nowadays, people are careless about others, or they just treat you nice when they’re in front of you and forget about your existence after bidding goodbye.

This day, I’ve learnt something new again, though I didn’t even want to witness it at all. Try to be more independent, buy your own present and be there by yourself though you don’t know the way, and at the last minute just let your friend’s friend know something has caught up and you can’t go anymore.

For Kailin’s birthday, I made more than twenty missed calls to both Wilson and Pauline.

I didn’t like to go out alone to shop for girl’s stuff, probably, “hate” is a better description. So, I entrusted Pauline happily and thought everything was settled until I failed to contact her hours later. Her phone could have almost caught fire after being heated up by me.

I met up with Guoxin, both in very worried state for the present. If Pauline hadn’t bought it, we could have gone to shop for ourselves despites going there late; however, Pauline didn’t pick up the call until this very last minute. Wilson joined in her missing-in-action. Anqi was late as usual and we left first.

Suddenly, Jianhao called and told me he’d just talked to Pauline, who invited him to go as well, before he called me. So, I tried to contact her again but failed. We couldn’t figure out if we should go get a present first or not, because I couldn’t afford to waste any money.

I was good at my navigation this time after checking the street directory even though I lost my count of the bus-stops, I managed to get down at the correct one.

It was awkward at the party at the quite plainly decorated function room; her friends were almost all females. As Anqi arrived, she went to Kailin’s room with Guoxin and me, where we entertained ourselves by looking at her photo albums and television.

It was the first time I didn’t take out my camera to join in the fun. I wasn’t “employed” as the photographer and besides, I hardly knew anyone there other than Huiqin and Liping, which forbid me from training my skill. I continued to dig for Wilson and Pauline but their out-of-reach status gave me more cold sweats.

Just soon after Anqi left after 10pm, the couple finally arrived with Jianhao the driver. We stayed inside the room to watch the show, which my brother had downloaded long ago but I didn’t have the time to watch. By then, I was finally relieved with the arrival of the present.

We left after the show at 11pm. Guoxin went to catch his bus 178, which reminded me of taking shelter at Wilson’s house years ago after I missed the last bus there. Jianhao came back to fetch the couple, together with his girlfriend, and they decided to go for late dinner since they hadn’t even had a bite.

It was quite a wrong decision to join them – the two pairs of couples. Since I’d helped Kachua and Anqi to pay Wilson for their share of the present, a unique and trendy watch, I was just left with ten bucks. If it wasn’t for Jianhao had promised to send me home, I wouldn’t have joined them for I didn’t even have enough money to take a cab home; not even if it was daylight with no double charge.

We went to the nearby coffee-shop, which was very crowded. After ordering my two plain roti prata and a cup banana shake, we had fun watching a guy doing parallel parking with his mini-cooper. He was moving in and out at the exact angles, which got him nowhere from the same positions. Many customers were joking about this guy. His car was gone soon without notice and another driver did the parking amusingly even though there was only around twenty centimetres of allowance with his bigger car.

We waited very long for the food and I was very disappointed with the cold prata, which they could have fetched out long ago. The banana milkshake was normal except for the sweet ice-cream on top; $2.50 stuff certainly had its own speciality.

Jianhao kept his promise to send me home even though Pauline wasn’t going back to Bishan and it wasn’t “on the way” anymore. He missed two turns into AYE at Clementi and then he had to make a bigger round with more traffic lights a West Coast Road. It was quite cool actually.

I’ve taken Jaiyat Singh’s bike, Kian Wee’s lorry at the windy back, Rehan’s super duper petrol-wasting acceleration in his Mini Cooper, drove Yuqing’s brother’s car and now the newbie Jianhao’s car. Now, I’m looking forward for more excitements.

How they fare

Cpt. Heartless
Head Hell
090106

Dear Sir,

RE: Permission to take part in inter-formation volleyball tournament

1. I would like to seek your permission to take part in the above mentioned tournament commencing 090106.

2. I am fully aware of my existing back and knee conditions (from my physiotherapist). Understanding the limitations, I would like to take full responsibility for any unforseen worsening of these two conditions during the period of tournament.

3. For your understanding and approval, please.

Regards
PTE CHAN KAI LUN (S8335xxxA)

As I talked to Guoxin about the inter-formation game, he told me the Signal team didn’t do well. I didn’t even have the chance to witness how they play. It was a whole life of regrets, though there was nothing I could really do.

I strongly believed things would be better if I weren’t forfeited from taking part; they really needed a better digger; a volleyball freak who would go for all sorts of ball would benefit them a lot as well.

The doctor sucked; the physiotherapist didn’t dare to take any risk; the boss wasn’t compassionate at all; the officer-in-charge didn’t request approval at the upper level; my means to take responsibility for myself was declared; the concerned officer couldn’t do anything except to put in words for the people. It was all designed to put my chance down.

Fever

When it starts to get feverish; there’s no antidote to help recover.

Giddiness, aching, thirst, there isn’t any need to use a thermometer to identify that I’m running a fever.

A tiring evening lies ahead, while work still piles up. Hopefully it’ll be fun.

Half day off

After taking the flu tablet and cough syrup, I knocked off soon.

It was a surprise visit from Shep and like usual, she didn’t sound pleased. That was after a complaint from 007, which I believed he was just trying to create problems out of boredom again. There was basically nothing except that “your men are getting out of hand again and you better go and check them out.”

So, what’s wrong?

There wasn’t even time for me to recover from the drowsiness caused by the medicine. Then she started saying I didn’t go for the first parade, which I’d been going everyday. Even though I was very used to being accused, I wasn’t in the mood to control my temper.

Things could be done were done. I couldn’t understand most of her speeches. She told me to visit the freaking MO if I were sick, although I’d told her I’d my medicine. Halfway through, her attitude turned better and then she told me to take half day off. It wasn’t for free; I’d accumulated two pathetic day-off after so many months of torture there.

Before I could leave, blackie brought a new problem and then his tone changed so fast when Shep came to know about it.

Camp’s life sucks.

Heartache is the virus

As I begin to feel worse, it’s such a weird feeling I haven’t had for long.

I’ve a poor health but everytime before I’m going to fall sick, I manage to suppress the riot by my mental power. However, whenever I face a big setback, I’ll definitely fall very sick.

I was tired enough to doze off without taking any medication. After the short but many intervals of sleep, I tried to make the day more worthwhile but my brain was blocked.

I didn’t like it when I began to feel more feverish. I was numbed. This day I was alone almost all the time that nobody cared.

Night time was a finger training session for me to help Kailin to ask the BMCC guys if they were attending her birthday party. My brain seemed to be squeezed. This was when I realised speaking was a tedious activity, though it didn’t matter to me since I didn’t really feel like talking.