everything in
it's right place

my butt has been itching to get out of the house really bad recently! because i really don't like to stay home. but in my attempt to save money (which is going less than satisfactory), i'm staying home all day, everyday to play computer! and bits of guitar.

this is really bad for health. and to add to that list: watching dvds. which is also another couch potato trait.

so i've been playing computer games (world of warcraft, dota, maplestory!?!?? which totally sucks), watching dvds (batman begins, before sunset, a lot like love) and playing guitar (think 'oasis' and 80s/90s pop). insert the ocassional run here and there, which really amounts to nothing, recalling how badly i flunked my obstacle course test. add a dash of sms and phone calls, and one can really see the reliance on technology nowadays to keep me entertained.

speaking about couch potato traits, the amount of beer and coke i've been consuming is also appaling. soon i'll just be one fat ass slob who can't do anything but watch tv and play computer. and on and on it goes again!

edit- however i did pass my test the second time around, not that it's anything to be proud of! urgh

so i spent the last few days talking to the muslim people in my camp, asking them about their religion. an apt time to be asking and bugging them, since it's their fasting month all the way till next thursday. turns out that a lot of them don't really give a shit about their religion.

(remember that i don't like people like that? but it's alright, cuz i'm somehow getting sucked closer in to that genre)

and it turns out that a lot of what they believe in is the same as what i believe in, which is christianity and another whole religion altogether. so i started talking with them about the similarities and differences and why they chose to believe what they believe in. it came to one point where he asked me, 'if jesus was god, how could he worship god?'.

i know the answer to that question - jesus is part of the holy trinity together with god and the holy spirit, and though seperate, they are also one. such a textbook answer, isn't it? and why do i believe in this doctrine? erm... because i was brought up this way?

this is why it irks me a lot, that i am one who dislike, even despise people who don't give a shit about their faiths (unless they don't believe in any) and that i myself cannot find the answers to my own questions. i asked my mom about it (because she knows a lot of these things) and this is what she told me: the doctrine of the holy trinity is so mystified that there is no answer except to accept it for what it is. jesus is god in human form, and the holy spirit is god working through us, and they are seperate yet they are one. there's no explaining it, you either believe it or you don't.

a key part of christianity is evangelism, the spreading of the religion to other non-believers. but how do you explain to someone that in the end, you "either believe it or you don't?"

do i seem really DEPRESSED? while procrastinating to update my template (something that i've been wanting to do for some time now), i read through a few of my previous entries and really noticed that they're all so sad?

i.e.

• 241005 yesterday's post
  
  
• 180905 really strained relationships. or just perceived? i don't know. blocked out the text in this post though. it's there but you won't see it. just like so many things around.
  
  
• 110905

  i'm suddenly feeling very annoyed. irritated. just dwelling on past events, which has always been a bad thing. but memories always come back to haunt you. which sucks.
  
  

• 230805 more strained relationships
  
  
• 270705 because i just want to feel shitty
  
  
• ok this is not related, but just thought it was a funny entry. it still tends to be true, save for the fact that lifehouse's 'undone' doesn't sit take top spot anymore :/
  
  
• i mean come on, my blog's title is "WHY YOU SO LIKE THAT AH?"

anyway, i was supposed to be brainstorming some ideas for a new template, yes? and in my search, i stumbled upon this website whose layout i thought was pretty cool. fine, not cool per se but the simplistic layout and font which attracted me to it. i just want a typwriter style layout!!

however the sheer effort of having to type out all that html and css code is too much for me to handle. even thinking about it gives me headaches! the previous layout took about an entire night to do, and being the occasional perfectionist (ooh, does that make sense?) i am, i even strived to make it compatible with both internet explorer and firefox! so nerdy, right? partly because i use firefox while the rest of the world uses internet explorer (which totally sucks).


meh (this is how i end posts with no coherent ending abruptly)

past experiences can really come back to haunt you, to hunt you ass down. it's unbelievable that after such a long time, thinking about the past still hurts. i'd like to tell myself that i'm over it, but a part of the issue just left unresolved and that block just gets in the way. sometimes these issues really are resolved, but not in the way that i'd like. so i label them as 'unresolved' too. i'm being vague, am i? do i seem like i'm talking in circles now?

to be so bitter about certain things.

love is a complicated issue. everyone wants to be loved, to feel special, to love. i think it's sad when people hold it back because they're not sure about how the other party feels. or worse, because they know how the other party feels. unrequited love just pierces right through.



sorry. sigh i'm just so tired now, just too braindead to think anymore.

today was a funny day. you know, funny as in weird.

the main event was booking in to camp, unfortunately to zero my rifle (sar21 which also happened to be already zeroed). basically to those of you who don't know, zero-ing aligning the sights of the rifle to the actual trajectory or whatever, so that you can actually hit what you're pointing at. ok ya whatever. turned out that it wasn't so bad after all. spent most of it sleeping! haha while waiting for my turn. but now i feel bad because i didn't really help with anything at all. meh.

woke up from a bad dream today with my heart racing pretty quickly. it wasn't really a bad dream. but i woke up as if i just had a nightmare. weird, right? what i dreamt about was actually a collage of different dreams, but i only remembered the last one which was about going to church!

the scenario: i had to play in church for service and service usually starts at 10am, with the morning rehearsal at 8.30am. but my family and i were watching tv and you know how dreams go all zigzag and all over the place? yah then i noticed the time and it was 10.15am! ok this probably wouldn't seem to be that much but i like to be punctual for all my activities if possible (but seldom happens haha). and 10.15am would mean being 2hrs late!

so perhaps this post doesn't make much sense, but it sort of got me thinking about church, christianity, religion, and everything in between. these things just seem so illogical at times, that it's really just beyond comprehension. and recently i've been thinking a lot about it, asking questions, trying to understand. somehow i just can't stand people who have no idea about the what they believe in, and worst of all refuse to admit it. i despise people who follow others blindly, but i'm such a hypocrite in the way that i sometimes commit these very same mistakes.

maybe i'd call this phase: 'finding my purpose', or 'the meaning of life'.

• woke up at 7.30am, even though i slept at 3.30am


• played eguit for church, thought it sounded pretty screwed up. however my brother told me it was pretty good and 'funky'


• had to join my dad's small group for a cluster meeting. and got saboed by jeff to say some stuff. which was pretty embarrassing. ok that's an understatement. however george (the cell group leader) said some very nice stuff about me! :) haha was kinda shocked. maybe because i don't quite agree with him.


• sometimes i think that our group in church is a load of fun. like today. reminds me of school, to an extent? school in singapore, to be exact.


• was so stoned after church that i fell asleep the moment i lay on the bed. really really tired


• watched 21 grams, a movie about 3 people struggling with tragedy and their quest for redemption. actually i think it's a really wonderful movie, however i watched it during dinner with the family and thus didn't pay much attention AT ALL. and this is one of those movies where you have to devote every single bit of your concentration. because it only becomes enjoyable once you do. so sad! because you only get that moment the first time you watch a movie and now if i watch it again it won't be as good.


• note to self: don't ever watch these kinda movies with my mom, EVER. halfway she starts saying "ooh how come you can see her breasts? and the man is really naked ah? i wonder how these actors act like that with all the people looking!" and "eh these people all take drugs, don't know how to take care of their lives". sigh.


• i am going back to camp tonight. that really sucks


• someone just messaged me a really weird sms. so i have to note it down here.


• i'm going back to camp tonight. oh i said that already?

1) go running
2) watched 'the motorcycle diaries', which turned out to be a superb show
3) play world of warcraft (if that's even counted. yeah right.)
4) erm that's about it

about to add in #5, which is "watched 'before sunset'". oh look and it's almost saturday already! one week gone by, just like that? gah

ok, so i just watched this show titled 'jan dara'. a very nice show staring christy chung and a few other handsome and beautiful people.

basically the story is about a boy called jan dara whose mother passed away giving birth to him. and therefore his father hates him for it. a story about family relations and how screwed up they can be, about sex, crazy men, tormented, sordid and ultimately lonely lives.

oh, did i say sex? this is probably the only show i've seen where all the female leads (or sometimes not so prominent 'leads') are naked at one point or another. i mean, almost all the characters in this show have sex at one point of another (so exciting, right? heh). told you it was about sex!

overall it was a pretty good watch. but also really sad.

also have a bunch of tony leung movies! haha i don't really watch his shows, and i don't really know why but my mom has a whole stack of his dvds. claims that it's from my brother. was thinking of watching 2046 but i think i'll save that for tomorrow? sounds pretty good too though.

happened to be blog-surfing - yes the low-life activity that people like me do under circumstances of extreme boredom - today and chanced upon this. rather amusing. if only all girls were like this, the world would be a better place! for guys, at least.

boys are seriously quite dense creatures. they can make you sO mad and not realise it. then even dumber girls, for example me, will get damn worked up for nothing. because the boys dont actually know you are angry with them. a particular boy made me sO mad today that i had difficulty breathing.. but he obviously doesnt know about it. but thats alright. im completely fine now.

monday's plan was supposed to be as follows:

7am: wake up
8am-12pm: study
12pm: borrow dvds from serene center
rest of the day: play computer/practise guitar/watch dvds
10pm: go running


unfortunately i woke up at 11pm, and spent the next hour wondering why i woke up so late. thereafter i realised that it was a really stupid decision to walk to serene center in the blistering hot sun, so i didn't do that either. managed to spend all of 15 minutes practising some guitar techniques (at least it helped a bit) and added in a fair bit of snoozing to the timetable.

the evening run didn't happen either. must be the monday blues, yeah.

tuesday's plan: go running after breakfast, borrow the dvds before coming home, and study in the afternoon. hmm yup. the studying bit isn't really that critical, so i'm pushing it to the afternoon when my sis-in-law (brother's wife) will be coming over. she's bringing the kid, so i'll have to lock myself in my room. again, lest playing and spending the next few hours doing baby talk and smelling baby drool. haha.

just played a bit of world of warcraft, and i can never understand how some people like those hardcore taiwanese gamers can get sooooooo hooked on to it. i was all stretched and tired out after just 2hrs! and the newspapers say that they apparently spend up to 48hours playing in a row?! my eyes feel like they're on a red bull overdose :/

meh.

there's no combination of words that i could put on the back of a postcard
no song that i could sing but i could try for your heart and
our dreams they are made of real things like
a shoebox of photographs and sepia-toned lovin'
love is the answer at least for most of the question of my heart like
why are we here and where do we go and why is it so hard
it's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
i'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together

brunei was a pretty interesting experience. the weather there is quite nice: moderately dry air and gentle breezes, so you don't quite sweat as much as singapore. it's cool (sometimes cold, even) at night, so sleeping is a generally pleasent experience. there's very few mozzies out in the field and though it's dark at night it's not the least bit scary (unlike certain parts of tekong). the terrain is really hilly, steep gradients with lacking map information and lots of hidden features. so navigation is a pain in the ass.

the training was as follows: 3 days of navigation, followed by a 3 day stay in a 'jungle village' of sorts and the grand finale of it all, which is a company level exercise comprising of 2 missions over 4 days. between each of these events is either an overnight sleep back in the bunk or some misc training to brush up on the technicalities.

we don't get much fresh water outfield; most of it is from rivers and streams. initially i was skeptical about drinking water from these sources (i mean, omg this is river water right?!), but it's rather pleasent after all. the water is cold and refreshing, tasting pretty much like mineral water (just what it is, isn't it? haha). nothing beats sitting by a stream after a long trek to freshen up and have a nice cool drink.

rediscovered my old love of playing with fire. setting aflame almost ANYTHING puts a smile on my face. must be some arsonistic tendencies. especially on a really cold night up mount biang (also the highest hill/mountain we climbed up during our 18 days). the temperature drops to around 20plus celcius, coupled together with the wind creates some reallllllly cold situations. my gpmg gunner and i formed a small fire of sorts and sat by the glowing embers, bodies all curled up (not together lah!) trying to keep ourselves warm. maybe that's what it's like to sleep by a fireplace? yummy warm feeling.

the stupid forest there gets so dark at night that i couldn't even manage to see my hand right in front of my face, let alone with the night vision goggles (no idea why i brought those along). anyway.

i guess in a certain sense the training really built me up, in terms of maturity. maturity to handle my platoon men, to handle situations, to handle myself. people always tend to take many things for granted, and only realise it when it's taken away from them. it's so easy to critic other people, but never yourself. and in the end there's really no one else to say sorry to but yourself. many people in my camp are jerks, but it doesn't mean i'm allowed to be one too, right? but at least i got a second chance this time (unlike many other times). it takes a lot of balls to fully admit that you're wrong. given my really short attention span, i hope i won't forget this.

really missed my parents, the sonnies and a few others. HI I"M BACK!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :)

1) compared to singapore, brunei is a really lonely (and different) place

2) don't attempt to play dota in brunei

3) how to be nice



maybe i'll elaborate later