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I'm experimenting with a parallel blog, at
nobilitas.blogspot.com It's an allegory thing about the duality of my character. Which is not split-personality schizophrenia, mind you. posted by baron at 6:29 AM
I have mustered enough strength to blog again.
Well! There's so much to report on. I'll briefly record the Armour stuff first. Straight after the technical handling tests on the heavy weapons we went for a simulation shooting practice. Its like those arcade video games, except that instead of a screen and plastic pistols they have a 360 degree screen and projectors plus a mock-up turret/cupola of the vehicle smack in the middle of the room. You manipulate the cupola and the weapons systems (including the smoke grenade launchers) just like the real thing, including the loading and firing of the auto grenade launcher and the heavy machine gun. Wicked sick indeed. WICKED!!!!! Problem was the 40/50 cupola has no electronic targetting sight scope so everything had to be engaged with the naked eye as the only targetting system. Which, of course, isnt very useful when you're shooting at enemy APCs 1500 metres away. But it was still dead fun, the ultimate arcade experience. As i said, it was WICKED. Then came the driving course. Was another fun thing except that the instructors became alot more temperemental, especially when we didint drive the 23 tonne armoured vehicles properly, and screamed at us alot more as a result. Which, naturally, stressed us out even more to the extent that more mistakes were committed. Like driving into the gullies. Sergeant: OII!!!! SLOW DOWN!!! @#*%$@)^%)^(^^&$# (@)#)##!! Me: Yes sergeant im doing my best Sergeant: You best cant even include stepping on the #($*#*@#& brake pedal and $)%@!*_) releasing the accelerator and setting gear to L range??? Me: Sorry sergeant Sergeant: Never mind give me 30 (pushups) after this circuit. Ok it didnt exactly happen that way but you get the rough idea. Then we had to break the damn tracks. Crazy stuff that. I dont wish to record the whole process down, suffice to say that my uniform was soaked with sweat after just 5 minutes into the process. Exhausting stuff. After driving was LIVE FIRING. WOOOOOOO Setting up the target butt was another case study in insane and inhuman slave exploitation (what with moving 90kg concrete slabs around), but firing the heavy weapons was WICKED SICK. The auto grenade launcher goes CHAKCHAKK CHAK CHAK CHAK CHAK CHAK and you see the little black grenade rounds fly off and go CHOOM CHOOOM CHOOM CHA-CHOOM with clouds of black smoke and bright flashes. Just like the grenade throw in BMT, but multiplied by twenty. Ho boy was my adrenalin on max. The heavy machine gun was funky. The damn thing bangs like nothing in the world. And the rounds have this cool effect on the target barrels; they leave this small almost innocuos hole in the front but rip out the whole of the back of the barrel, like some maniac came and twisted and and tore our the metal with a chainsaw. WICKED SICK! The GPMG was cool, because even though it was the lightest of the weapons it was the most accurate and easiest to control. Its the midway thing between the SAW light machine gun and the heavy machine gun, being a medium machine gun (DUH). CHARTT CHARTT CHRRAAAAARRRRRTTT!!! It was quite a beauty to shoot it espcially at night when all the red tracers go whizzing and richochetting just like in star wars. But one of the guys had the some ejected cartridge casings stuck in his sleeve and got 3 inch blisters on his arm because of that. Ugh. Following that there was nothing much except the field camp, where I fell asleep on sentry duty after the laager and got one extra for that. And now I'm sitting here waiting to be shipped out to Taiwan for platoon training. Its quite a shitty feeling now, especially since the chaps in infantry and signals and combat engineers have all gotten their sergeant stripes already. Whereas we poor sods in armour still have 2 months to go. Oh well. The two sides of every coin cant be seperated can they. posted by baron at 5:32 AM
Hanging like a sine wave through the years, its always been the same crests and troughs.
It never changes. Re-offender indeed. In all my relationships, in all my duties, in all my life. I am the Re-offender, always re-offended, always re-offending, forever cursed with this exceptional ability to raise the shadows of the past and bring black darkness upon whatever new light that shines. But that's because light is illusory, light is of no substance. I am the re-offender beause Light is im-material, it has no matter and no weight to itself. Inconsequential, if you like it. Therefore who would be so imbecilic as to have faith in light? If the physical manifestation of light is so transient, so temporal, what more the metaphorical conceptions of light? Are not hope and dream and promise and love-blasted love- mere flashes of impermanent brilliance, sparks from that grindstone of deception that so quickly fizzle and fade? No, the rock we are founded on is one of despair and the need to accept brutal reality. The reality that hits us again and again and again. Denial and delusion-these are the true form of the light of hope, its very core. How seductive hope is! So beautiful and attractive a facade it bears, with the fanged jaws of reality concealed behind, slavering and waiting to rend and tear vulnerable, soft, human imagination and dream. I foresee more sleepless nights. Nothing compares to you- but to what avail do I struggle, and to what effect are my prayers? posted by baron at 7:19 PM
Re-Offender, by Travis
Keeping up appearances Keeping up with the Joneses Fooling my selfish heart Going through the motions But I'm fooling myself I'm fooling myself 'Cause you say you love me And then you do it again You do it again You say your sorry's And then you do it again You do it again Everybody thinks you're well Everybody thinks I'm ill Watching me fall apart Falling under your spell But you're fooling yourself You're fooling yourself 'Cause you say you love me And then you do it again You do it again You say your sorry's And then you do it again You do it again And again and again and again and again Oh But you're fooling yourself You're fooling yourself 'Cause you say you love me And then you do it again You do it again You say your sorry's Then you do it again You do it again You say you love me And then you do it again You do it again You say your sorry's Then you do it again You do it again And again and again and again and again posted by baron at 7:15 PM
I am sick, having gotten a sore throat and a slight chill from all the dust from outfield. I forecast a fever soon, at this rate.
Why did Patrick Viera leave? Why???? Why???? Arsene Wenger should have sold someone like Pascal Cygan instead! There's now a vacuum at the heart of the Arsenal- no one, not Hleb, not Flamini, not Fabregras, nor even Gilberto can fill those monster-sized boots that were Viera's. In any case, I'm into the Drifting again. The drifting is like the Dreaming, realm of Neil Gaiman's Lord of Dreams, except that this is my own realm where majesty and passion and glory and darkness meld and merge into my sentiment. I shall go on with this... And off into the sky Its night. Nights are longer than daytimes, say twice as long. And when there is daytime, its not humid nor buggy nor stifling nor windless. Daytime should be sunny and windy and the skies must be clear and blue, with huge swollen sheep-clouds, but all in the right proportions. If there's rain, then it must come in thunderstorms, with dark majestic sheets of grey lashing out with lightning and thunder. But for the most part it must be sun and azure sky. But night- ahh night. This is when the clouds dissapear and the stars emerge. And the stars will be as numerous as the grains of sand, each like a diamond against a velvert backing. Pure beauty. And we're in the sky now at night. And the stars, they're breathtaking. This big swirl of diamonds, out there sparkling in the void. Fantastic, they glimmer in your eyes, their reflections magnified and amplified into points of light brighter than day. And they sparkle, its pure magic, pure bliss, so small a pair of eyes encompassing the light of a thousand million stars in an obsidian night sky spanning half the galaxy. Yes, night- overwhelming, colossal, all glorious and majestic and burning with the fires of a thousand passions and dreams, that are so very small but still blaze away, fueled by hope, the hope that you've given me, the hope that can never be put out nor extinguished by neither space nor time, not ever, not until you say otherwise. That is my Drifting, my drifting into a world of beauty and nobility. Call it soppy and cheap sentimentalism, but that is my domain, my realm of hope and dream, my sanctum from the torrid stench of reality, my House of Healing, and I will not let it fade for as long as my God and my Hope lives. posted by baron at 4:16 AM
Armour is taking its toll on me.
I have never known such fatigue before- mental spiritual physical etc etc etc. But oh well. Enough about whining, I guess its just the fact that I miss my home with an unprecedented intensity. Home, home, where I wanted to go. Such a wonderful place, on the East Coast, next to the beach. With sea breezes and all that. None of the satanic carbon encrusted chimneys that define Jurong and Tuas, nor the endless drab HDB slabs of Toa Payoh or Ang Mo Kio, nor the filth and farms of the Chu Kangs up north. Oh man. Home, home, where I wanted to go...... Condolences to the good folk of London, who have just witnessed yet another onslaught of that demon Terror wrought by them motherfuckers from arabia.... Condolences and may they be strong posted by baron at 6:28 AM
Watched Batman Begins the other day with the Dreikaiserbund.
The whole concept of the Bat-man is quite fascinating, the darkness, the fear, the deep brooding guilt and regret that lies at the heart of the whole story. I dont know. I need a role model who's survived a tragic loss and has gained strength from his fear and hatred and grief, to become a wielder of terror and darkness to compensate for a failed past. Where does God figure in all this? I know not. Then again, I dont suppose that God figured much in The Cataclysm either. posted by baron at 8:04 AM
School of Armour
Specialist Training Wing Bionix Armoured Infantry Section Leader Course Somehow, life on the mainland doesnt seem so much like its on the mainland in Lim Chu Kang. To the south, cemetries define the landscape. To the north, chicken farms as far as the eye can see. And all the atmosphere is filled with that noxious vapour that is chicken flatulence. But on the bright side, the instructors there are good, as is the cookhouse food. I guess that about sums up the environment I am in. Ahh but the circumstances, the situation, that is so much more complex, so much more dynamic, than the smell of the surrounding air or the geography of the camp or the taste of cookhouse food. I am numb. Nothing new there, you say. Youve always been that numb, immobile, dead persona ever since this blog was set up eons ago. What's so much more number about you now than that numbness that gripped you years before? You see, the whole thing about Mechanized Armour training is that its the toughest course I've ever had. So much more physically demanding than SISPEC. Sure, SISPEC was numbing because it was just plain mentally deadening, but Armour cauterizes your awareness, your consciousness, by making you go through circuit training after circuit training. Dont get me wrong, its an exciting place to be in. The vehicle Im on is a Bionix 40/50. As the name implies, its got a 40 mm Automatic Grenade Launcher , a 50 calibre heavy machine gun and a General Purpose Machine Gun on it. That is seriously awesome firepower vis a vis the infantry section that it is intended to fight and annihilate. The 40mm AGL is a piece of art in itself. Imagine your M203 firing. Just one shot per 5 seconds. This baby can fire up to FIVE HUNDRED 40mm bombs in a MINUTE. Pure, beautiful, devastation. But oh, the price you pay for wielding such power. My arms are still aching even now from all that handling and physical training. It does not come cheap at all. That about sums up the initial week of my Armour stint. posted by baron at 6:52 AM
Was reading George Orwell's Coming Up for Air.
Panoramic and funny stuff, and very penetrating too, in typical Brit fashion. Somehow I feel I can idnetify with it- that unbearable tension of coming war, of massive overwhelming nostalgia and sentiment for the old times, completely at odds with the Bruce Springsteen song I'm listening to now. Ah yes Springsteen- whoes songs are the embodiment of that upbeat, on-the-bounce, optimistic, victorious frontier spirit of the US of A. The US of A indeed! A land in the ascendent, of high hopes and high dreams, and totally high-spirited, as depicted in Springsteen's The Rising. Even I the cynic am drawn to that spirit of hope and renewal. But about Orwell's Coming Up for Air. Thats what I can identify with more. About the times when I was in good company and in a good school surrounded by good stuff. And what good company! Oh I'm not going to start about that company again. I've grown numb to it. I meant the sort of people- my classmates, my church clique- that I did stuff with and had a good laugh about it all. Man do I miss those times. And now all that has faded. The rest of the world has moved on into scholarships and relationships and universities and bright sparkling futures. Whilst I look into 5 months of Armour Infantry training. About rushing out from the Bionix IFV in full battle order and all that. I cant whine and gripe, it solves nothing. I just can't help reflecting on how things are, and how I long for the things of the past. posted by baron at 9:41 AM
Clocks, by Coldplay
Lights go out and I can’t be saved Tides that I tried to swim against Brought me down upon my knees Oh I beg, I beg and plead Singin’, come out if things aren’t said Shoot an apple off my head And a, trouble that can’t be named Tigers waitin’ to be tamed Singing, yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Yoooooooooooo ohhhhhh Confusion never stops Closing walls and ticking clocks Gonna, come back and take you home I could not stop that you now know Singin’, come out upon my seas Curse missed opportunities Am I, a part of the cure Or am I part of the disease Singin’, yoooooooooooo ohhhhhh Yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Oh nothing else compares Oh nothing else compares And nothing else compares Yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Yooooooooooooo ohhhhhh Home, home, where I wanted to go Home, home, where I wanted to go Home, home, where I wanted to go Home, home, where I wanted to go posted by baron at 9:11 AM
Withdrawn (I) 66.67%, Outgoing (E) 33.33%
Imaginative (N) 65.85%, Realistic (S) 34.15% Emotional (F) 57.45%, Intellectual (T) 42.55% Organized (J) 56.52%, Improvised (P) 43.48% Your type is: INFJ You are a Guide, possible professions include - career counselor, psychologist, educational consultant, special education teacher, librarian, artist, playwright, novelist/poet, editor/art director, information-graphics, designer, HRM manager, merchandise planner, environmental lawyer, marketer, job analyst, mental health counselor, dietitian/nutritionist, research, educational consultant, architects, interpreter/translator. So says http://similarminds.com/career.html Am I really? How interesting. Withdrawn, imaginative, emotional, and organised. Intriguing. posted by baron at 7:59 AM
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