Dear Dreams – Page 248

The explosive

I stepped into the camp with my loaded mood. There was no reply after I sent my message to enquire about my eligibility for the volleyball game. This day I missed another training.

Watching my dreams going to be perished, it was endless torment. This day I didn’t talk much again, because the whole place was pool of sorrow.

If you knew a harmless nod from you could have fulfilled a person’s only hope of surviving in the place, would you be a nice guy?

I was indulging in my self exploring of book but I’d never forgotten to work while others were enjoying. It was when responsibility had overruled everything else, not even when “your boss” sucked could change the fact.

There were immediate reflections, sometimes I just hated myself so much; when I was denied of my freedom, fell sick because of sadness, yet I didn’t just set everything aside.

This day, when the projector decided to take a break, I rushed over with another one and I didn’t expect to see his face there. This running caused more pain on my ankle, and in front of his superior, I didn’t show any form of slackness. Would he stop me from doing this like how he banned me from the game?

This day, when I felt so much like crying out, screaming to the loudest of my voice, yet I was still trying to crack jokes. The fury and grievance within my entire body and spirit were the most saturated explosive. They weren’t within my control.

Review of year 2005

It’s always sad to recall about the past but it’s a must in order to be able to do reflection – to correct mistake as well as not to let history repeat itself.

Year 2005 is the worst year I’ve ever had.

Army had totally screwed up my life. From injuries to doubt of indignity, life was never as bad as this. Alas, I was blessed to have the chance to learn driving as well as to go overseas to ROC (Taiwan), which had allowed me to gain more knowledge. The cruelty had also enlightened me over several things in life. The most fortunate gift was the befriending of so many buddies in camp who were always so concern about me.

I was sinned; I hadn’t been spending enough time with my friends. From my ex-classmates to my ex-platoon-mates, I’d failed to fork out time to even chat online with them. Many of them had eventually drawn a distance away from me, even the once closest friends didn’t bother. Year 2005 was the loneliest year I’d ever spent; even my birthday was an ignored day. I’d been keeping myself occupied with my personal stuffs and also the television set; none would have believed this, since everyone still assumed I was blessed with girls.

I’d been looking at babes and yet my courage level hadn’t improved much. It wasn’t that someone was watching over me, but somehow all my female friends were bringing my confidence down. None would ever want to go out with me, making the imaginary horns on my head grow bigger.

I didn’t have many chances to play volleyball. At the beginning of year, there were trainings of Yew Tee CSC at Unity Secondary school and Jianhui kindly invited us down, however, it didn’t last long. I managed to step into BMCC a few times but the attendance wasn’t good since everyone had their own events. Beach was rare as well and most of the times, I went down in small groups, which was quite hurting when compared to the past. At the end of the year, when the army’s volleyball started, I faced so many problems in the participation, which lasted over the year.

Financially, I was blessed as well with the little income of $450 each month, which they called it “allowance”. But since I’d to travel everyday, expense was high and I couldn’t manage to save up a lot to prepare for jobless period after ORD. I’d been spending more than usual with my friends during outings. Foods were the robbers. I hesitated to take up civilian driving license even though I’d experience in driving and was supposedly able to pass easier, because I couldn’t even afford a car and wasn’t lucky like other friends who had family car.

I’d been neglecting my personal website a lot. I spent most of my time on my journal ever since I realised the need to write down things for my extremely poor memory due to bad incidents in camp. Creativeness was lesser as time and moods didn’t permit. There’d been too many things I wanted to accomplish but failed to. Dreams were too far away.

Year 2005 – I hate it.

End of year – 2005

It rained heavily and my mum hadn’t come home with my lunch at three in the afternoon. Things weren’t going good. I was late for an hour; surprisingly Weitat was in the same train as me. I was the end whereas he was at the front. I tried to join him but the train was fully packed at the middle.

We joined the rest at Bedok’s Giant and they were ready to set off. Mingen drove Tze Khit, Mingli, Xiaowei and Guoxin to Tze Khit’s house while Mingfa, Meijun, Weitat and I went to go some food. We’d a hard time getting a cab just before a bus-stop near the MRT station where there was an illegal queue.

I’d rather take train over since it was only a stop away but they didn’t want to walk. It was really expensive to take a cab during festival period and I’d trusted the driver too much that he hit his side mirror with another car’s on the roadside.

I spent my time playing with Tze Khit’s dog, Snoopy, as well as taking pictures around. Mingli, Xiaowei and Guoxin were busy preparing the food. The fire was quite well-started as the weather seemed to turn good for our celebration and for the first time I started barbecuing and the rest slowly joined in. Some of them were busy at the mahjong table all along.

After some time, the water-melon was cut and we’d to salute to Mingli for choosing the “beautiful” green water-melon. When the news of Anqi not coming over broke out, we took out the cake and had it donated to our stomach.

Ah Teck, Kok Chiang and his future girlfriend’s arrival lightened up the spirit more. Most of us went into the living room to play game and the forfeit was to be shot by Tze Khit’s air pistol. I managed to capture some photos and a video of Xiaowei panicking when she was the target; however, she deleted them cunningly. I was down-lucked thrice but the bullet didn’t hit me.

It was all silence when Mingli mentioned about leaving with Xiaowei, Xinyi and Guoxin. She was such a noisy cockster who had created so much fun that the place turned quiet immediately upon their departure. I did another good deed before they left by taking a photo for them and Guoxin must have felt so blessed to stand besides Xiaowei.

Kok Chiang was forced to drink up some alcoholic drinks before sending his future girlfriend home. He was so weird that he didn’t want to drink in front of her and she seemed to be a very nice girl, worrying about him and willing to help him drink up a bit.

Kok Chiang returned after that and he wasn’t in a good condition that his cab passed by a few times but didn’t stop. We’d to give him a call to inform him that he’d passed by before he managed to get back.

When I was dozing off with the boredom, Kailin came, but it wasn’t enough to light up the place anymore. I dozed off, leaving Kok Chiang and Tze Khit drowning themselves in the merry of alcohol.

In the morning, Weitat, Mingfa, Meijun and Kailin left in Mingen’s car. After that, Mingfa and Weitat messaged me and woke me up, telling me that they left without informing us so that we wouldn’t be woke up.

Tze Khit’s mum asked us to go upstairs to sleep, but Jingpeng decided to go home. So, both of us left the place without Kok Chiang and Ah Teck.

It was really fun to have such gathering and would be even greater if other members like Ah Bee, Wilson and Pauline were present too.

Reading

It’s been such rare case that I haven’t been writing anything on my notebook during travelling. I had just finished reading a book last week titled “On the job”, whereas my free time on the train and in camp were spent on putting each word into my brain. I was reading for the sake of reading.

Reading was a tough job for me since I could be distracted so easily. Everytime after finishing a paragraph, it seemed like I hadn’t gone through them before. I was in fact thinking of other things while I was reading. It might be a supernatural power or unique skill, which I rather not had, because it was simply useless.

I bought a book from the bookfair downstairs my house last week. I was hoping for cheap old or second hand programming books but they weren’t as cheap as expected.

Most information could be viewed online, therefore, it didn’t worth to spend too much money on books; however, reading from books and monitors were totally different feeling, whereas small sized books could accompany me anywhere.

There were other books which I was quite fancy of, but decided not to waste money since I might not even have enough time to go over them.

In fact, reading is less awkward than writing during travelling; it’ll somehow attract less attention.

It's never been better

It’s really difficult to bring myself back after setback. When it’s almost impossible, worse situations come in, throwing celebrations for a rugged man.

I went back after a day of escaping from the hellish place. The absence of the duty clerks started the day unpleasantly. A set of new rules caused frustration, which I’d chosen to ignore. Just at the first storey, the scene of clients outside the office told it’d be a busy day.

It was a scary moment and luckily no big shot was around. We could have got there earlier if only the main office was opened earlier and we could draw the keys in time as well. It was an unusual case that none of the CAI personnel was around and I’d to help them issue their rooms.

I didn’t like the idea of Kwang Han being called back when he was promised of a off day since a few weeks back. However, he was handy and it was great to have him around to help settle things, especially when the office was kind of like a thrash place.

The cupboards to the expensive equipments like laptops and projectors weren’t even closed, not to mention being unlocked. Uniforms and boots were left in the middle of the “resting” place.

I checked the loan books and there was this laptop being issued out the day before, without the serial number or recipient’s number. The worst thing was the name without rank in front that was telling me he wasn’t even from the camp. Luckily we found a laptop on the front which matched the brand. So, I concluded the person didn’t clear it after the client returned.

I sensed a comeback of the same old problems. The book was in a mess with missing items like contact numbers and signatures, some equipments returned weren’t cleared. Perhaps, it’d never been better since last time, except that some of us were present months ago to lessen the disasters but now we weren’t in the office sometimes.

Of course, the charts on the wall weren’t updated; someone must be expecting souls could embark there when physicals weren’t around. Three projectors went missing but actually they were sent to workshop a day before and nobody had informed everyone.

Upon realising the number of the projectors left, I tried to get back the expired ones. Suddenly, the air-con servicing men arrived and claimed that they had informed Jonathan the day before that they were coming down. I stopped everything and accompanied them up to each room, on the way saw the threatrette’s door opened widely with the air-con on. Luckily the equipments inside were still around.

I was going for lunch when Warrant Ng came in and claimed that he had indented a laptop from Staff Quek. Again, Kwang Han and I weren’t informed of anything and we’d to make phone calls. We tested the set, which was found on the floor earlier on and there was problem with the power connector – obviously someone had received it without checking.

After lunch was self initiative to pack up the office, but it was painful to see others not contributing. And when someone stepped in, the only person not idling had to do the entertaining. It wasn’t only about setting good example.

Interpret

Suddenly I remember this important fact about visiting a doctor. You’ve to stress each point clearly, and by hook or by crook, make sure he doesn’t twist a few words around in his report.

Let’s take for example: you’re there to see him because of a back injury after carrying some heavy stuffs. When you tell him you first injured it due to volleyball practise five years ago, make sure you highlight that’s only the starter of the pain. Also, you’ve to make it clear that it’s due to excess physical training for the volleyball game.

If he’s something wrong with his ears or his mind can’t really focus, and he indicates you’re complaining about your backache this visit due to volleyball practise, or he tries to act smart by summarizing the sentences by only writing down “Due to excessive volleyball game.” – And you’re a goner.

So, do both patients and doctors need to be A-grade students for English or GP (General paper) in order to make a successful consultation? I don’t know.

The most crucial period

So, there went my only leave of the year.

It was kind of wasted though the day was quite fruitful; I could actually get an off for the training at Mandai camp, if not for the ugly people.

I was there half an hour earlier, reading outside the administration door in a cool position. I watched three guys trying to roll a heavy tin down the stairs and then some passers-by were asked to help out. Two joined force to carry one tin down, whereas another one did it by himself. What I witnessed were different kinds of attitudes.

I went into the office so that I could open up the doors of the hall to start everything off earlier but the people weren’t so friendly. At least I was able to do it. After some time, I was told that the office would be closed soon and I’d to sign out the key to the door of the backstage. That Indian guy didn’t want me to take the key out from the sealed envelop before I signed over.

The participation was as bad as before and this time only eight of us were there. I was told by Brian I was going to play libero. I was fine with that since I’d have higher chance to get into Safsa, other than that I couldn’t perform by attacking. The crucial thing was still the eligibility for me to take part in the tournament.

I didn’t dig expectedly well. However, I felt less pressured like the previous time when David was around. I also had a phobia from the first training when both my calves had a cramp at the same time. It wasn’t a nice feeling to play when I still didn’t know if I could go for the next training.

Luckily all of them were very friendly people. We could achieve more if everyone was able to come for the training. Their digging couldn’t make it, whereas I hadn’t gotten back my confidence. They did extremely well in their spiking but I could predict bad situations during the tournament when opponents played tricky. I really hoped we could get into the semi-final.

Setting was no problem for me before I got tired in the third set, which my team eventually won a can of free drinks each. We’d great fun.

Photos description

Before dozing off two hours ago, I’d edited all the captions of the photos in my Friendster account – http://www.friendster.com/profiles/sillydumb (gone with the wind!) – with more “meaningful” lines. I must be crazy.

I don't regard him as a doctor

Sometimes I really doubt the professionalism of doctors nowadays. They may be good in their studies, memories or whatever shit, but their characters are always a questionnaire.

Do you care for your patients? Will you give them the best that you can? Can you assure their health will be well taken, at least you try?

If you think they’re sick or injured, will you give them the medical certificates that they need? If you think they’re fit enough to do all the shit, can’t you certify he’s fit to?

If own a private clinic, I don’t give any hell to you; if you work in a hospital or polyclinic, I can choose other places; but if you work in an army camp’s medical centre, you’re just causing hell to all the patients who have no other alternatives.

I despise you.

They never stop

It was a rare night when mum met my brother in the living room and they couldn’t stop talking.

There were countless topics on my mind and I needed to put them down before forgetting them.

Suddenly I realised if my work place hadn’t moved out to the living room, this wouldn’t have affected me.

“I can’t think when you keep talking; I can’t sleep if I don’t finish typing.”

I must be too weak that I conceded.