Archives

September 25, 2003

Peace

it's like a rainbow really, you know you can never be near enough to touch it, it's just there for you to admire from a distance. seeing how the colours spread across the entire sky, cutting through the clouds and rain. and all you can do is just to stare at it, for those fleeting moments before it disappears, as the sun retreats back into shade. you never really lose what you never had in the first place, something like trying to hold moonbeams in the palm of your hand...

***

week rewind:

monday was a messed up day, walked into fire and came out unscathed though... but the damage had been done...

midweek was filled with atec at 40 sar... it's just a job, i don't want to argue anymore, no one listens anyway...

had a nice phy/lit dinner tonight though =) am quite tired... don't think i can write anymore, maybe i'll talk more sometime later...

Posted by zai at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2003

Willingly

as each week passes, i'm beginning to feel as if, bit by bit, the restraints that hold me back are slowly being taken away, that courage is building inside of me, so that i may finally be free, without inhibitions or doubts to do the work that has been planned out for me.

***

anyways, now that they've closed down the e-learning centre in my camp, i can't write as much as i used to... miss the place =( but the good thing is that i'll make it a point to come home more often, that means other than log entries, i can start working on updating other parts of my website too!

***

week rewind:

we're done with the cadets! haha, three weeks they were with us... and being the point man wasn't entirely a stressless job... the amount of self control it took to get my temper down at times... if it wasn't for soh...

you see, when you dictate change, the sphere of effect that the change brings abt is larger than most pple who make the changes can foresee... because when you bring abt something new, something old has to go...

i guess i'm just tired... tired of standing in front of pple trying to get silence or their attention... but i'm not angry though, cos it's not as if i don't want to do the stuff we used to do... it's that we can't.

and when you can't stand on your own two feet any longer, have you ever tried falling, knowing that someone will catch you and carry you through the rest of the journey? i felt His hand cover me like a shield on the last day of the course... while the other hand lifted me back onto my feet again... the things i don't deserve...

***

what's the one thing you desire the most now?

***

it always has been and will always be this: that no one in this whole wide world should ever have to be alone, should ever feel lonely or abandoned... and whatever little i can do to help achieve that, i will.

Posted by zai at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2003

After all

an entire love story condensed into one afternoon... if there ever was a time i could touch love, every facet of it: the happy, the sad, the understanding, the longing... the time we spent at chinatown today would be pretty hard to beat...

ah well, i'm just so happy for the two of them =P

Posted by zai at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

The day

funny how i still so full of life, as if the 21km run never happened at all... yeah man, have been able to keep my spirits up for most of the day, never felt so high for such a long time... maybe it's because today is the day He ran beside me =)

only wanted one thing today: that was to finish the run soonest so that i could make it down to efc for the service... and though i could hardly remain standing for long, i pretty much gave everything i had left in me during worship... and it felt great! =)

Everyday, It's You I'll live for
Everyday, I'll follow after You
Everyday, I'll walk with You my Lord

and this sunday marks the seventh day i've come back home after work in camp... have managed to make it back everyday to help out with the chores... and to quote: i've become exceedingly efficient at it... =) but more importantly, coming back home everyday has given me the freedom to read His word and also spend time with my parents during the nights... both of which has brought much joy into my life. yeah, high is how i'm feeling right now, typing this out at 5am in the morning...!!

Posted by zai at 05:08 AM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2003

God speed

was determined to wake up bright and cheerful to erase whatever happened yesterday... thankful for the concerned trainee who came up to me at the end of the day, and so for his sake i wanted to start a new day forgetting all the bad stuff.

and it had to happen: co pretty much took away our entire afternoon training slot by wanting to give a talk to the cadets, which meant we had only the morning part to complete all of our day's training... we got off to a very late start cos ep had to give two heavy lectures on the 25mm... and when he finished, i looked at my watch and it was close to eleven... hm, two and a half hours to finish ia and loading/unloading for the entire batch of cadets... i thought it was impossible, i thought i would have to stay back on sat to clear up the remaining trainees...

but we did it! =) when i came out of my veh, voice hoarse from giving non-stop ia, we had almost cleared them all save one... haha, felt a little surreal cos really, it was some feat... (aided by every other instructor who heard the lwe calling =) i gathered the trainees and got the strength of the pple who hadn't finished the practices, and maybe i could go after all...

***

insert photo frame here

Posted by zai at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2003

Reversal

was feeling quite upset today... and apparently it was quite visible cos one trainee approached me later in the day and asked if anything was wrong...

i try to give my best during training, i mean i really pull out every single good-nice attribute i have in me to make the trainees a little less stressed when they try out a new drill or sorts... but some of their attitude really just puts me off: sleeping on top of the vehicle, denying any wrong doing when i point out their mistakes and eating in front of ep!! and these are cadets! coupled with the fact that enforcing discipline is non-existent in the instructors vocab nowadays... sigh... like soh said: no, we will not do anything, because the school principal wants it to be this way... (in chinese of cos...)

today's incidents really echoed what sharon shared with me a while back... we were talking abt one-sided love affairs when she said something like it makes you think how God feels when pple reject the love he gives so willingly and freely... he's kept his side of the bargain, but there's still so much rebellion going on...

Posted by zai at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2003

Home

i will not feel guilty for wanting to come back home to help wash the dishes, take out the trash, lift my grandfather to bed or keep my parents company during the night now that my sis is staying away at campus. this is where i belong... i'm sorry, you lost me a long time ago...

Posted by zai at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2003

Did you see

did you see the sky at sunset today? i'm so glad i made it out of camp to return home, managed to catch the next best thing to a full blown rainbow: a glow-fade sunset that was simply brilliant.

was on the mrt on the way back home, and i sat on the row of seats facing west. the sky hadn't given way to the dark yet when i boarded the train, so it was a real magical exp to watch the sun's retreat all the way from the start to the finish. it illuminated the entire landscape of clouds, neoning the underside of every layer of cloud bright orange. it looked like a distant heaven, full of colour and brilliance. and just when i though i had seen the best of it, the surrounding skies grew darker a little and brought out the shine in the sun-lit clouds.

yup, you know what i would say next: damn i wish i had my camera...!

***

no one said it was going to be easy... but all you really need is time and sincerity, the two things no wall can resist.

Posted by zai at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)

September 07, 2003

City of Angels

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

Posted by zai at 08:07 AM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2003

Longest

"Whole lot fall in and go for dinner! i need a break!"

and we took a break, went for a nice dinner before strolling back to the veh shed to finish what we had started. i'll give you everything that i have, but sometimes i am only human...

Posted by zai at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)

September 03, 2003

Was thinking

it's the magic, the search for that impossible moment that keeps me alive and breathing, well and dreaming... that feeling of being finally found times two...

Posted by zai at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2003

Smile

ok, so they didn't eat me up... don't know what all the worrying was for... i guess i just wanted everything to go right the first time so badly...

***

booked back into camp this morning and as i laid down on my bed i could feel the 'rawness' of the new sheets covering my bed... heh, someone had changed them for me overnight, and that simple little act really lifted my spirits... knowing there's still some good out there. thanks. =)

***

very tired now... but my journey's far from over yet...

Posted by zai at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)

September 01, 2003

Shut down now

had another one of those 'i am a specialist of the singapore armed forces' day... had to endure the biggest stunt that has ever hit me in my army life.

booked in last night to settle some admin stuff with the cadets, handed over the manuals they needed and briefed them on everything that's going to happen for today's lessons. wanted to make sure that it would all go smoothly and it almost did work according to plan, but it had to happen: after some time during the first lesson at cai, the coc approached me and said: "sgt, actually we're only suppose to start our lessons tmr."

incredulous, i told him, no... my training prog says we start today... until he showed me his training prog. aw damn, they changed it without letting me know. and so that was how it turned out, i had activated the entire aiocc course and made them run around in the morning drawing all the stores and weapons before sending them all to the cai for our first lesson for a gunnery package that was suppose to start tmr...

i guess i would have just died there if it wasn't for the fact that i was given absolutely no advance notice of the changes or a new training prog to work with. was confronted by eac when i tried to sort out the mess. and this was where He must have stepped in.

in the midst of all the finger pointing and 'but i gave you the training prog already!', i was strangely at peace with myself... normally i would feel that compelling need to be right and to let everyone know that i'm not the one in the wrong... but this time around, i just let the shelling come and offered just one sentence: "i never received any new training prog". think this new calmness in me has alot to do with what happened with my breakdown after an oc briefing a while back... it wasn't easy though, not with 48 cadets standing behind while you get trashed by a wo trying to push the blame onto you... but nowadays i don't feel the need to fight these type of battles anymore... the truth is in me, and i'm quite satisfied with that alone. i mean, in the end eac had to get one of the cadets to get a copy of the new training prog and pass it to me. wouldn't be needing it if i had one already.

and there was the small matter abt my wsm chiding me for the bunk cleaniess: "cheng, do dare tell me your bunk is ready for inspection huh?" i was like, damn i knew i cleaning the bunk til 2am wasn't good enough, should have worked til 4am... i've had it with the saf telling me my best is never enough or appropriate.

***

but i had the best k session to date today! we were given a half day off cos the course was delayed and we wasted no time in going down to k-ters to sing our hearts out... needed it really, had to escape from it all and get lost in something... and i'm back home now. feels great to here spending the night in my own bed... i'll start worrying abt the course tmr... cos tonight i don't even want to think abt anything remotely related to the army...

***

i am a specialist of the singapore armed forces. i will charge up any hill you order me to with everything that i have without so much as asking why. but if i won the hill for you, and you tell me: eh, wrong hill, we need to take out that one over there. i'll look back at my section and count the dead i left behind in taking this hill for you, give you a look that says it all and charge up that hill you order me now to take out with everything that i have. and i'll do it over and over again until either i die a welcome death or i ord, which ever comes last. because i'm a specialist of the singapore armed forces... do or die, don't ask why.

Posted by zai at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)