Basket.

I think the SAF has a very healthy give-and-take policy with its servicemen. In my case, they have taken my fingertip and are trying their best to foist on me the blame for the whole incident. Of course, I am patently unsurprised by this despeicable act: who likes taking responsibility, after all? It's just too much trouble, this whole thing about being responsible and accountable for the good health and welfare of the conscripts under your charge. Whoever came up with such a silly notion that we ought to be? Obviously anything that happens is their own damned fault, unless the media somehow gets wind of it and manages to put it on the front pages.

There's been little that has left me more disgusted with the state of affairs in our fair countree. My patriotism, never high, is now at an all-time low, and I view the upcoming National Day Parade with a lot more loathing than I ever have. It is nothing more than a thick layer of make-up to prettify the irresponsible, hypocritical, prematurely-decrepit hag that is our nation at forty.

I didn't think I could be more bitter towards the place of my birth than I was when still a student. But now I realise that NS is when you genuinely see the unpleasant side of our clean and green Lion City.