new record! arsenal 1-1 manchester utd, 30 matches unbeaten from start of season

one of the most competitive match i've seen so far this season. the gunners dominated most of the game and got the lead with a terrific goal through henry. the gunners deserved to win without a doubt. man utd equalised through saha and the scoreline was left at that. it serves as an apt parallel to chs team 1. both the gunners and team 1 are en route for a unique treble. yet for all the flair both possesses, there lies the greatest adversary within, the faith they have in themselves. yes there may be slight glitches like tonight's draw and team 1's scrappy win, the more important thing is the bigger picture is intact. we have to keep believing, truly that we will achieve greater things. destiny is nothing without self-belief.

a curse broken, by the skin of our teeth

the catholic high curse of not breaking into the knock-out stages of JGs every alternate year was finally broken tonight....by the skin of our teeth in fact. Team II lost to TCH earlier. THW make fast food companies compensate for damaging people's health. Yes it was a close debate as put forth by the adjudicators, but it was those sort of close debates that neither side really deserved to win and team II happened to be rightfully deserving of a loss. Next was the highlight of the evening, for us at least. ACSi II vs CHS I. TH condemns the music industry for its influence on today's youths. In keeping with their tradition of fudging, they ran a structure that essentially sorted vices per se and lotsa egs, and half the time, it was sex. Team I wasn't sharp nor clinical enough to finish it off quickly. Mark and Amoz missed out on a glaring accusation they made saying that we were conceding that influence does bring about harm since Kwek's substantive was on positive and institutionalised programmes by artistes. All in all, a close shave despite a unanimous victory. The wait freaked the hell outta me when Cat high was announced as the second last team to break. Anyway, lesson learnt, wake up call, gotta do better, now or never, and WE MUST WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!. the persecuted need closure from trauma, so do seniors from a school that perpetually loses in grand finals.

what we do in life, echoes into eternity

first day in this next phase in life, surviving without someone else. someone dear. woke up early, at eight. for the first time, i missed having someone nag at me to wake, or to shower, or to eat breakfast. oh what would i give to be tortured like that again?
collected gu ma's ashes in the early afternoon. it's interesting noting that the ashes of a body after after cremation isn't in the cliched form of white fine power. rather it comes in bits and pieces of bones. so it went, we picked up the bones, or ashes whatever and placed them on a cloth. i was the ash-bearer and cousin yujuan (i only found out that it's yu and not yi after like 20 yrs....so much for being my god-sister!) was the umbrella bearer responsible for shielding gu ma from the harmful solar radiation....to spectres at least. then we went on to clifford pier, boarded a harbour launcher sort of boat and proceeded outsea. it was to be indeed a very very usual funeral arrangement. now here's the paradox, while granny's essentially and staunchly taoist and insistent on having buddhist chants recited by a nun before gu ma's cremation, at the same time she agreed to gu ma's final wish to have her remains scattered all over the sea - not exactly the most approved funeral arrangement by taoist standards. so we went to to somewhere bordering international waters where according to dad would allow the ebbing tides to bring the ashes into the south china sea. it was exactly a solemn occasion, on the contrary, there were jokes, laughter and even photo shots. i guess that was the way gu ma would have wanted it to be. the huge turnout yesterday and today which included ah chong who was visibily distraught (he even said that his own mom was more deserving to die than gu ma!) more than testified that this was to be more than the mourning of an individual, but the celebration of the end of a communal experience, beautiful memories with one special and impactful woman - 3rd Gu Ma. gone with the wind and tide she went. that was the way she wanted it to be, carefree, liberated, and certainly un-claustrophobic. we even joked that gu ma's now embarking on her world tour.
then after the whole shebang, went to bishan on ming guang's car and met up with xander and the dictators. team one seemed tired, team two in their usual slack, but motivated and quasi-pessimistic mode. found out that amoz was actually quite popular with the gals, mark was perceived to be dao and that shaun goh is absolutely socially indept. so much for the recconaissance reports by feng yao and kenneth kang. was glad to see one new sec 2 joining, cos he was the one i identified during the inter-class debates. he definitely has the potential. it's a question of his committment. then went dinner with xander and the seniors. for coffee then home.....sounds terribly routinal....maybe this should be called a routine order and not blog...aggggrrzzz.... still got 2 more hours to chelsea vs arsenal.....and 5 1/2 hrs to booking in for duty.......2 days of compassionate leave over....army has subsumed my life....but it can't be subsumed any longer, unless of course PAS wins a 2/3 majority after another recount and wages war on singapore, or taiwan goes into a civil war and china intervenes, with americans joining in the fight....maybe that would make them extend my NS. 79 more days and still counting.

ord loh.

In Loving memory of my dear gu ma, Wu Xiu Zhen (1948 - 2004)

approximately 3 hours after my previous entry, that was ironically about my aunt, the much feared eventuality i mentioned earlier manifested itself, in the form of a cold, expressionless but serene looking carcass. my aunt had passed on in her sleep that night. i had always imagined how this scenario would actually be, now that it has been unfortunately realised, i find myself in a reality check. I dun seem to appear as upset as what i would have previously expected myself to be. would that be a result of a closure, that of an appeased conscience? or is this simply a case of subdued emotions? i really really dun know, but i feel very weird though. i felt totally lost and aimless earlier in the morning, it was worse than sadness, it was an emotional void. an irreplacable one left with only memories of gu ma to and not the reality that she would be there to witness my rite of passage in a month's time, my graduation, my marriage. yet in the afternoon, i find myself insulating my state-of-being from all emotions. i just imagined that nothing happened, had lunch and watched a stephen chow movie on tv. i guess the nature of her hasty funeral arrangements had pretty much to do with this as well. at this very moment, we are awaiting her cremation at 1715. it wasn't that we didn't feel, i just didn't had the time to feel i guess. While we are grateful about the serene and apparantly painless nature of her demise, we mourn the loss of someone so intergral in the family. her gastronomical cooking, her loud and cheerful laughter, the beautiful embroidary creations, her perfect knowledge of even what is reported in the most obscure chinese newspaper colummns, even her iconic sarcasm, and her fussy nature. that was gu ma.
i may not have realised it when i was younger, but gu ma was more than a babysitter since the day i was born. she was a mentor. it was her credit that i have a decent command in chinese after the countless monologues she spew on when since the time when i was a toddler. it was her credit that i had an early start in learning current affairs and general knowledge. At age 7, she tried to explain what the USSR (su lian) was, what nuclear weapons (yuan zi dan) are and even the socio-economics about why Russia's choice of political reform preceding economic reform made it a negative example of a reforming communist state as compared to china. i really cannot estimate what a huge impact she made on my early life.
societal structures do not favour singles they said. yet our family is a perfect role model of how even singles can feel intricately bonded to their extended family. being single all her life, gu ma devoted all her attention on me, treating me as her own, so much so that it kinda got on my nerves when i was younger. my parents too, never treated her like an outsider. she is definitely a intersecting cloth bonding our family fabric together. this was why i get fucking pissed when ppl in camp keep question my need to stay out or even my need for compassionate leave when 'it's only JUST your auntie'
i hear kids running around, apparantly it's cosin raymond playing with nieces claudia and ashley. perhaps i can be true. with an objective perspective, death need not be treated with doom and gloom, it is but an end, and rightfully happiness should be the epilogue of celebrating having lived through a fruitful life and not mourn over the future that wasn't to be.
and so it went, in our own way perhaps that exonerates grief apparantly, we celebrated and thanked gu ma over the wonderful memories and impact she had on us. i kissed her left cheek just before the undertakers took her away, thanking her for all she did, and kneeling down in front of the door while the undertakers carried her away, we all cried, (i had never seen my father cry before prior to this), and with just and not neccessary sorry, we celebrated a life well-lived, and gratified ourselves with the knowledge having spent a huge part of our lives with such a wonderful personality. gu ma, (aunt-mother), she is an aunt in kinship, but really a mother to me.

'nature's first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf's a flower, but only so an hour
so leaf subside to leaf, so eden sank to grief
so dawn sets down to day
nothing gold can stay'


the day we celebrated and always will: 230304

the best way to teach responsibility is to give responsibility

so after weeks of forsaking my liberty over the weekends to my new recruits, here i am, blogging away. camp life is now far more interesting, dynamic and certainly busy since the recruits enlisted into bravo coy 3 weeks ago. as part of the men, i never had the benefit (or rather burden) of viewing a company's efficacy from a commander's perspective. well now i do. it is only now that i truly appreciate the difficulty of delegating duties, and perpetually showing (or trying to ) project an image as a trustworthy and efficient commander. so far so good, platoon 4 are really a pretty united bunch of mofos. they may not be the fittest lot, but their determination and bond really make me proud of them. this batch are really an interesting lot: one fellow dislocated his arm while sleeping, another one who's called bing chen can't even tie his shoelaces and shat on his bed cos he was too afraid to go to the toilet alone at night! then there's this plt 4 guy called marcus who is severly flat footed and could hardly walk at times. it was during one of these times when i was DS that this marcus guy found himself unable to walk. so out of exasperation more than sympathy, i piggy backed him back from the cookhouse only to be cheered by the platoon with a resounding 'Thank u CPL!' now that was one defining moment, when u realise the nobility of our tasks. to me, NS is more than just to protect our nation from aggressors. it is in fact the ultimate social engineering mechanism that shapes the positive collective psyche of our male citizens. through NS, the pai kias make a clean break from their dubious backgrounds and ORD as socially responsible (most at least) citizens. through NS, cheesy as it sounds, but we gain great self-confidence through the constant pushing of ourselves beyond previously perceived physical and mental thresholds. it is a crucible where the rich, poor, various races to be cooked in a baptism of fire, only to be purified, as matured, responisble adults. The joy of spending time with these fresh soldiers and teaching them the right attitude towards army and life in general, really vindicates my decision not to chose to post out of bravo just to ensure that i would stay out on time everyday. i really can't bear to imagine myself being a clerk at S1 branch.....
Friday was a rather harrowing day. i was at the medical centre bring the chao kengs (at least most of them) to report sick. the tranquility of the cool air conditioning was broken by the wailing of the sirens of an ambulance. one guy from Singapore Technologies was ran over by a 3 tonner while servicing it. it was a really sorry sight to say the least, there was blood on his face and it was very bruised. it was probably the 1st time i saw the SMC medics rushing so fast, attending to the unconscious casualty shouting in mandarin 'Uncle uncle! wake up!' even the SMC bitch went to help as well. they stripped him naked and placed some life saving equipment on him and evacuated him to CGH. i later learnt that he was already not breathing at SMC and he eventually passed away. i can't help but to feel a great sense of grief and sorrow. perhaps out of sympathy, but perhaps more deeply at the transcience of life and its unpredictability. it was a little different from the bendemeer bus stop accident aftermath that i saw several years ago which traumatised me even more. i felt just sympathy then. it was perhaps the fact that gu ma is terminally ill, that's why seeing the eventuality for every single person of us really rattles me a little. have i done enough to care for my aunt? have i tried to hear her out? would i miss her constant nagging? or am i just a cold, callous bastard? i've never felt this strongly disturbed about my personal life for a considerable time. family, it is the building block of the nation, and perhaps even NS, may serve to strengthen the blood bond. after all, i never felt more homesick in my entire life until i enlisted. she's might be going to a hospice pretty soon so i might not get to talk to her, comfort her as often as i might hope. i really wish that i can look back at all this and say with a clear conscience, that i had done enough, but that might well not be the desired eventuality.

' surprise of the century....'

once in a while, there will be a couple of shock soccer results. like wolves winning man utd for example. and at times, the favorites may even be playing consistently well for 90 mins only to lose eventually without knowing what hit them, or perhaps even a wrong call by the referee for an injury time penalty. the debate equivalent happened last friday. anglican high defeated catholic high in a split decision over the motion AHS proposed: THBT that euthanasia should be made legal. now i mentioned in the previous entry that i wished that the 'dictators' would give nothing but their best and leave nothing to fate to decide this round. the dictators did and we're proud of them. but to fate, indeed it did too. now an overwhelming majority of adjudicators would tell u that they're 'complete idiots' so as to speak, meaning they until u provide a full analysis and links to an argument, the adjudicator cannot merit you on your argument, and conversely not fault u until the opposing team brings about a valid rebuttal to the argument. and very unfortunately, 2 of the adjudicators that round apparantly chose to penalise the opposition's (chs) arguments on the basis of their own intellectual evaluation and not through the proposition's retorts in the debate. it was by all accounts, in simon cowell's words the 'surprise of the century', although cowell would have made for a more discerning judge! i hate to sound like a sore loser but i truly feel, and many others too (like the chinese high boys who vocalised their thoughts into 'tai ko!' after hearing the result, only to be chided by the AHS 3rd who overheard them) that AHS were not deserving winners. if that's the way they're gonna go, and should they be presented with more highly experienced and indeed more professional adjudicators, they're gonna get thrashed. to get an idea about just how good AHS is, i'll describe one AHS debate that i adjudicated before. then their 3rd who's called alexis debated in this vjc invitational debate. i think i described it in an early blog entry about the fact that this alexis actually questioned the house in a most eloquently phrased argument asking 'why don't you have sex in front of your parents if you think they won't get angry', and by the way, the motioned had no explicit links to sex, it was about teenage romance. in my written adjudicator's sheet, i described her speech as 'sexually charged' and it was no surprised that she had the lowest content marks. a little wonder as we realised on friday night, when in a stroke of ingenuity (provoked by sheer boredom of waiting for a result that we would had believed to be a forgone conclusion) that 'ALEXIS' is an anagram of 'LAI SEX'.........
the part II of the surprise of the century: team II defeated RI II! shaun was first and did a reasonable decent job. a good job in fact. kenneth as second was kinda jittery but ok. fengyao was the true reckoning. he shows great raw potential. in our opinion, comparably, his performance put the RI 3rd in a very bad position with firstly many arguments to deal with, and the fact that his arguments completely sucked and it was all the more glaring when compared to fengyao.
S.O.T.C no. 3, the above mentioned RI 3rd was the best speaker of the round.
whatever it is, we told the 'dictators' that yes while winning is important , it is in fact the process of learning and the friendships made are the real assets in debating. having had bosom friends in xander, sow chen and trev for years now, borrowing kwek's catchphrase : ' i didn't say that because i had to, i really believe in what i said '. and i really hope the 'dictators' can understand this - without having to go through the burden of defeat and shatter dreams that so many CH team went through, that is.