Basket.

Seven days in the wilds of Pulau Tekong, over and done with. National Service is not what separates the strong from the weak; field camp is. Take my word for it.

I was thinking of perhaps going down to the new RJ to take a look around this weekend, but I guess I have to stay home and tend to my wounds, products of the ferocious battles with swarms of mosquitoes, sandflies and red ants, the wicked thorns of the mimosa and trench-digging for quite literally one full day.

Ha, it seems like I can't stop talking about army stuff these days. Well, what I can say is that it's quite literally my job.

On a route march one night, I looked up and saw the full moon, a pure white disc in the clear sky, illuminating fields of lalang, on either side of our path, lightly swaying in the gentle breeze. If I had time to stop, I would have. Instead, I just gaped and tried to sneak another glance. It was breathtaking, picture-perfect, the kind of scenery one never imagines one might be able to find in Singapore.

Just try to imagine it, in your mind's eye.

Bracing myself for the enriching new experience of spending seven days in the jungles of Pulau Tekong, replete with such joys as centipedes, giant spiders, snakes and various other weird, wonderful and extremely dangerous organisms. Be prepared for anything, they say, so I guess I have got to be. Despite my slight insectophobia (yes, I am aware that centipedes and spiders are not in fact insects, but I use it as a catch-all term).

We went to the edge of the jungle that day and already I've seen creatures I never previously knew existed. I caught a glimpse of a centipede, a small snake was spotted, and to top it all off a lizard somehow climbed onto my head. I had the good fortune not to see any giant spiders, but my section-mates reported such sightings. I wouldn't put it past that beastly jungle to contain specimens as large as or even larger than the famous Ngee Ann Poly sighting. Something like that crawling into my flimsy little bashar at night...

But what can one do? As the army (parody) song goes,

Training to be soldiers
Fight for our land
Once in our lives
Two years of our time
Have you ever wondered
Why must we serve?
Because we have no choice
And we 'lan-lan'* have to serve, have to serve.

*Hokkien slang for no choice

Endure.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

-Alexander Pope

January 2005. Half a month since the big move and everyone is talking about how queer they feel upon seeing "NUS High" (correct me if I'm wrong, I have not personally cast eyes upon it) in place of "Raffles Junior College" at the entrance of the good old Mt Sinai Campus. I wonder how I would feel upon seeing it.

Passed by yesterday as I alighted at Buona Vista on my way back home, but I didn't take the chance. Perhaps I was afraid nostalgia would hit me like a brick. Stepping on that station platform and descending those familiar stairs were bad enough. The gantries I had used so many times and the bridge I used to cross so often remained just as they had been, mute reminders to an era past. The bus stop was exactly as it was; the little stall run by a shopkeeper whom I had always thought bore more than a passing resemblance to Pervez Musharraf locked up - he always closed it in the evenings. The Ministry of Education office building loomed beside; yet no longer as forebodingly as it used to.

I know that area so well, yet when I returned it felt like a friend from many ages past, the relationship long cold and we practically strangers. Despite the No.4 that weighed on me, the army boots I did my best to avoid staining with anything whatsoever and the jockey cap whose one good job was to shade my eyes from the sun, I would have felt like a student again, but the chilly reception the whole area seemed to give me was the most potent dose of reality I could ever hope to get. I no longer know the area, just like I no longer know the friend who used to be so close but now only exchanges the occasional cool "hi" when we pass each other now and again.

And there were, of course, no more familiar figures in white and green scattered all around, waiting, talking, walking, laughing.

Everything was the same, yet everything had changed.

Maybe that is why the past two years seem like all a dream. Surreal, as if it never happened. A fantastic dream I would wake up from and cry because it was such a wonderful experience. Faraway and all in soft tones the memories are.

It's been a rough week. As they forewarned us, time became more precious a commodity than it ever had been for me. Yesterday night was particularly bad; after suffering through punishment and sai-kang (shit job, literally) I had ten minutes to change out of full uniform, boots and all, shower, change into my sleeping attire, tidy my area and then jump into bed, failing which I would be hauled up again for not sleeping on time. I made it, amazingly enough. If I was to totter up the total number of push-ups I did during the week, it would go to around 200 or more; 40 alone today. My section mate reached the century mark in one day.

The irony is that in attempting to ensure our welfare, MINDEF is actually making things worse. Take, for example, the strict requirement of seven hours of uninterrupted sleep. The lights out timing of 10.30pm is so strictly observed (because our superiors will get it if it isn't) that we have little time to do all the stuff we need to do. And no prizes for guessing what would happen if, the next day, what needs to be done is not done: we get fucked. So what is the solution in this case? Wake up at 5am or so to get everything done. And in the end, do we get the "seven hours of uninterrupted sleep" the SAF so sonorously proclaims as part of its "Care for Soldiers" core value?

For sure, a lot of things are rotten in the military. But the main disease is the so-called Eighth SAF Core Value: "Cover your own ass". Everyone is basically trying to do that all the time, from the CO to the MO right down to the sergeants and of course, I am not ashamed to admit it, us. I'll just say they don't actually give a fuck for your well-being - only their own. Because HQ ties their well-being to yours. And why does HQ do this? Because HQ will get hell from the population if they don't, and manpower is the SAF's best asset. It's all very cynical and calculative. The lieutenant-general and the lowliest pond scum of a recruit share a common aim: to avoid getting fucked.

The result is that, despite one of the Seven Core Values being "Ethics", there is a distinct lack of honesty in the SAF. The books and videos they show pre-enlistees are honeyed words of deceit. It's all one big show. I really wouldn't mind sweeping roads despite being sick and on medical status, but I dislike the fact that they hide us all whenever parents come along on their tours, and how the sergeants put on plastic masks of kindness on Enlistment Day. Or how loopholes in the punishment guidelines actually allow them to fuck us harder than they should be doing. Not to mention how much safety is emphasised in huge posters and signs but we are forced to run down slippery stairs to meet cutthroat fall-in timings.

I'm certainly not hating the military for this, and I did not write this because the week was so tough. I was prepared for things to get worse. The military always has a function in any sovereign nation-state, and I understand that the only way for Singapore to raise a significant armed force is through conscription. It's just that something is rotten in the military, like in most of Singapore society even - all they want is "face". To put on a good show. Only appearances matter.

22 hours back home beats by many times 2 weeks "adjustment" (ie confinement, obviously) in camp. Guess which one I have and which one most of my friends have? *Giggle*

Familiar faces have been turning up here and there as fresh batches of enlistees unload almost daily. Been inside a month longer, and I feel like a grizzled veteran (in army speak, "lau chiao") already. The reality, of course, is always more sobering; I have the "grizzled" part down pat and the sergeant is always not shy to point out this little factlet, give me two minutes to run up four storeys, shave and return, then threaten me with repercussions perilously resembling the infamous change parade if I do not make more of an effort to abide by the rule that everything under the chin "belongs to the SAF".

I was going to write about how militaristic Singapore actually is but I think I'll leave that for either tommorrow or some other day when I have a little more energy and time.

The first day of 2005 over and done with. Good fun and good food all day long, as I spent the entire afternoon on mahjong at Justin's house, then headed for a family dinner at night.

Booking back in tommorrow. I haven't been more unwilling to leave this little island or more happy to see it since I entered the army.

Even happy memories bring with them much sadness. I hate the way we are structured.

I stood with Winston on the seafront of the Esplanade as the last minutes of 2004 ticked down to oblivion. With the fireworks display cancelled and the celebrations generally muted for obvious reasons, one might have thought it the gloomiest new year ever. But for me it was the perfect curtain down on a memorable year.

The key is always in the memories. And right up to the last day, 2004 certainly gave me many, many, many moments I will forever remember.

But while we remember the past, we must always look to the future. And the future is very uncertain.

Maybe I say that every year, but this time I really mean it.

It's the end of the old order. Thirteen years of education is over. I will never again have the experience of waking up on a dark January morning ready for the first day of school. The comfortable classroom days are gone forever. Next time I have school it is not going to be the same. All the old rules have been swept away and I must begin clearing out the old customs too.

Everything has changed, not least myself. Not least others' perception of me. From the comfortable daylight of the past, I am about to plunge into the darkness of uncertainty; the uncertainty that comes with things new and never before experienced.

The final barrier has fallen as December 31st changes to January 1st. The final security blanket has been taken from me. It is a whole new year, a whole new world out there, that I must face.