i found myself a home, a home, a home sweet home.

Its around 6 more months to ORDinary life and soon, I will have my pink IC back, and some time from then on, I will be an adult. (It's funny when you are 20years 11months 31days 23hours 59mins 59secs 99 hundreth of a second old you are a matured(18) and after one breath you are an adult!).

I will leave my summing up of my NS experience after I ORD, but now I shall share ways I observed that help you have a more "toned-down" NS -- if that is the word. Note: Some are through experiences, some are already too late for me to adopt, or not according to my principles. In other words, these are for you people.

Act Blur Lives the Longest: Firstly, if you are f**ked up, all you get is all easy work. Tedious they may seem, but its better than being arrowed to do some dua zhong stuff. Regulars only make use of you and your talent that they do not have.

Talk Less and be Alert: Don't talk too much and dont complain for stupid stuff, lest you LPPL. Be alert and observe, if someone is not looking too happy, go to toilet.

Dont take the initiative: More often than not, you will be the one being tasked to do the job and make your own wonderful idea work. You are just a NSF, it's not like your work will be implemented anyway, unless it helps SAF save alot of money, but then again, all recognition you get is some respect until your next mistake.

Subscribe a Hi!Card or something: Dont use your personal number for army. This way you can filter the calls you dont like and wont have to let the fone vibrate in your pocket when you are watching movie with the 2nd cutest girl in the world. (The cutest is with me hahahaha kidding).

Analyse the situation: If there is an impending reward aka nights out or free lunch etc, first think whether the job is possible. If it's impossible, there's no need to rush.

Live a day by a day: Do not volunteer for last minute guard duty(even if you dont have any for the month) on the notion that "then next month you wont have". Try to evade as much as possible. Trust me on this one, this way you will get the least duty in your NS life.

Make friends: Friends are probably the only reason besides defending your country that you dont kill yourself with your bayonet.

Be prepared: Before you enter NS, make sure you are very fit. 60 pushups a day(in sets of 20) and less than 11 mins for 2.4km is the minimum requirement.

Pride is worth your life: It takes it away from you.

With power comes responsibility: Almost all sorts of responsibilities you can have if you become a commander. Basically, you are the scrapegoat for anything that happens to anyone below and above you. But, the money is good. Being a man almost shirks you of all responsibility and punishment, and your pay too.


I'm very tired now le. Can't think of more at the moment. I have some secret ways to break the system but I wont reveal here.. or else I will be sabotaging alot of people. haha

Again, I must emphasize, this is rather a complaint by me (or maybe a lesson learnt? i really dont know) than a slack NS for dummies. I wonder sometimes is it fair and does it pay to be positive, hardworking and kind. I can only say my NS life so far has been fruitful, as I think I learnt more things by doing more and felt less angry by complaining less(wait a minute, i think i was complaining..).

Also something important, I feel that social responsibility is lacking among young people.

Glossary:
dua zhong: enormous and important(describing a task or some tasks)
LPPL: backfire.

edit: obscenity removed.. even i couldn't stand it.

past tense

Does it happen to you?
Everytime when you see your old friends, be it on friendster, or facebook, or msn,
someone you knew(past tense) during primary school, secondary school or JC,
or when you hear them saying something you dont know of,
do you feel that you have distanced from them?

It's like you know them for quite a well already, and once you part with them, because of graduation and going different schools, doing different work, going to army, or simply, taking different paths in life, you feel like you never knew them at all?

It's true that its hard to keep a friendship alive, and actually its harder as the duration gets longer, but issit everytime you change an environment, you must change your friends too?

I'm particularly worried for some, and for me, that when we get old, who do we make friends with?

Those people we study with?
Those people we work with?
Those people we share the same hobby?
Those people who go out with us every day to shop, eat and play?
Those people who are not attached, have no grandchildren, fancy a game of chess with you and loves talking about the past -- what we could have done when we were young and what we should have not, what we could still do at that moment and what we no longer could.

Maybe I was just too quiet... thats why I didnt make many good friends.

Sometimes it's just very scary, to see how much people can actually move on.
Maybe I'm just too sentimental.
I had always been unable to part with the things I have used before. Toys, pillow, bolster, computer, wallets, stationary, handphones, clothes, software(yes.. I would have stayed at windows ME if i could, and IE 6.0 if it wasn't so laggy and virusly and buggy to the point I give up, but i still use IE most of the time now), house, bus I took, the path I took to school, and many more.

I'm a conservative person, change is like eating rice. I know its inevitable, and I have to live with it to survive, and its a everyday thing, but I just dont really like it. Unless, you could convince me, like how my mother convinced me probably during my childhood. (Im just using it as a example, i dont have anything against rice lol)

They say to see a character of a person, see the group that he/she is with, and to have a blissful marriage, find someone who thinks alike, understand each other, and have a common goal in life.
I think I have to start looking for people who have no friends. Just kidding. lol.

I think im just different, and most people, indifferent.