How long, O Lord?

Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your Face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death.

My enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your Salvation.

I will sing to the Lord,
for He has been good to me.

-Psalm 13

posted by baron at 2:04 AM

A certain female Scholar and her master have made it into my list of the people I despise the most.

The former claims that "once (Singaporean men) enter NS, they complain a lot. Perhaps, they're not used to the physical training or regimentation...easily bullied by females".

The latter asserts that Singapore males are "whiny and immature" and that he will take out anybody "if you stand in my way".

I have nothing but the utmost contempt and loathing for these people.

The former has not even the slightest inkling of what NS life is like, and has no place in commenting on what she has never experienced for herself. It goes against all logic and good sense and morality to put down those who have gone through what you will never go through. Who are you to talk about conscription? That fugging bitch's comments are a total outrage. I hope that she will be utterly humiliated in the years to come for that extremely malicious remark. She and her abominably skewed and twisted perspectives must be obliterated, if this little island is to keep up whatever pretense it has at being a "just" society.

As for her Master, he ranks even lower. Was reading about his interview in a newspaper and I have never come across such naked, blatant arrogance, not even in Mourinho, not even in hitLEE He may have engineered some technological success in Singapore but that does not make him the god he deems himself to be. His eagerness to use the legal system as a weapon also demonstrates that very sickening mentality of the island's rulers, using force and fear of force to get their way done in all things. It is my sincere hope as well that he will meet his downfall and be exposed for the malicious, power-hungry and graceless maniac that he is.

Enough bitchery for the day. Its just that at times like these certain people must be illustrated as who they really are, not who they paint themselves to be.

posted by baron at 10:27 PM

Broken, I must rise.

Stop languishing in self pity, yes, that is the imperative.

The Imperative.

The Imperative.

Fight for hope and all that, under the sleepless stars, under the keel of that half-lunar night.

And on it goes, I wrestle into the wee hours with the demons that come in the name of noble beauty.

A part of me cannot help but lament, though it has been well nigh two years after the Disaster.

How tragic the choices were, how crippling the consequences.

Now I like Baldwin IV of Jerusalem lie behind the Silver mask, a victor turned leper bound in the cloth of self-deception, a shadow-remnant of his former self.

And what a self that was! At 16 defeating Salahdin the famed Saracen conqueror. What skill! What fortitude!

Now, now, all has changed.

Devastated, and never to recover fully.

Most of the pain has gone, leaving seared, cauterized numbness.

I feel the loss, though, like how one feels the loss of a limb, feeling a phantom sensation even though all thats left of his arm is a stump.

All that I treasure, all sunk.

God remains, of course. God will be God. Inscrutable, powerful, all-loving, yet all mysterious and all-silent.

I'm quite alone here in this crystal night of mine. All the world has emptied into a vast crystal sheet glimmering with them stars. None shine as bright as a certain pair of eyes, of course.

I cannot mourn. Of course I fight. I forge ahead. But there is no forgetting this anniversary of the wrong choice.



God, oh God. Wherefore art Thou.

Circular reasoning awaits.

And to my dear friends who've been so well informed of my problems, and are struggling with your very own now:

Do NOT take my path.
Do NOT be bound to the falls of the past, nor the fate of the future.
Do NOT re-commit my mistakes, because they are costly.
Let go and let God, else you be consumed by pride and self obsession and the overwhelming desire for control and perfect performance, as I am now.

Let your life be driven by grace and not by failure and fear.

For that is how I am living my life- fear and failure fueling every little success- and it is corrupting me, destroying me slowly.

Appreciate the beauty of what God has given. What grace there is- do not take it for granted, as I have.

I cannot pretend to fully understand your desires and problems, I am limited. But I ask that you hear these words- this is not a sermon- these words are the best advice I can give you, my dear, dear friends, out of gratitude for the grace you have shared with me.

It's blatant hypocrisy that I cannot follow my own advice. But there is time left for you still. My time is over, I have to assume the inevitable.

Stand firm, stand tall, where I have fallen, and rise to His light when I have departed from His.

This I ask of you, those who have stood by me for so long.

posted by baron at 9:10 AM

I am so high,
I can hear heaven.
I am so high,
I can hear heaven.

Oh but heaven,
no heaven don't hear me.

And they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.

Someone told me
that love would all save us.
But how can that be?
Look what love gave us.
A world full of killing, and blood-spilling,
that world never came.

And they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.

Now that the world isn't ending,
it's love that I'm sending to you.
It isn't the love of a hero,
that's why I fear it won't do.

And they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away.

Yes, these lyrics have been on this blog for some time, but that song really hits me even till now.

I dont need a hero, though.

Heroes are for women.

I need God.

Will God's love do?

What would God know of mortal love?

sending to you. sending to you.
why then is nothing ever returned?

Explain.

Define.

Elaborate.

Speak and talk and communicate else I perish of ignorance.

posted by baron at 7:22 AM

On Penalties:

ARSENAL 5 MAN UTD 4!!

NYAH NYAH NYAH!

Rob our trophy and we'll rob yours!

To be fair, Man Utd were the better team, with Ronaldo and Rooney running havoc in the Gunners' rear ranks.

But to be equally fair, they didnt deserve the 2-0 win back in October.

What goes around comes around.

And Lehmann of all people is the unlikely hero! Hah!

Its a happy weekend!

posted by baron at 9:59 AM

I think it's about time I started to de-formalise this blog entry system.

It just goes to show how much of a negative impact the military has had on me- everything is regimented to the extreme.

I suppose the main army stuff will continue as per regulated log entries, but this'll be a kind of civilian alter ego entry. So-

about my non-army friends' blogs.

Amazing sense of life and zest and colour- above all, life- all screaming at me, telling me what I'm missing, reminding me of what I look forward to when I step off the fastcraft at SFT (as if I need reminding about those sort of things).

Entries of movies watched, of people met, of scholarships (rejected and earned) and schooling, of books, and music,of religion and of overseas trips and all the rest of that wonderful world of CIVILIAN LIFE.

These people are so incredibly free to ponder and reflect and -above all- ENJOY the life that they live.

I say this not out of a wimpish oh-army-is-too-tough kind of attitude, but rather one more of envy. I can take and endure SISPEC (albeit only by the grace of GOD) and most of the SAF-issued crap, but I do NOT enjoy it one bit (except for anything involving weaponry).

Life truly is amazing. Cliche phrase? I don't know how else to put it.

You tend to apreciate that, once your life is taken away-not literally of course, but you get my point.

Ahh, life.

From zenith to nadir, a sine wave having over the span of 80 years.

Speaking of zenith to nadir, I hope Arsenal dont go that way on the morrow, and win the FA Cup in style. I hope they give Manchester Untied the proper screwing they deserve at Cardiff (though no-one deserves a more proper screwing than Jose Mourinho and his Russian boss).

Anyway its been a bad season for the Gunners- but things still bode well for the next one. Watch out, chelski..

And Liverpool vs AC Milan in the Champions League Finals is just surreal/unreal. Its not the wacky, colourful, kind of face-off, like say PSV versus Barcelona or Lyon vs Inter Milan, nor the straight-laced old-guard contest, for example between Juventus and Real Madrid. Liverpool vs Milan is just..... wierd. Different. The kind of "no-link" feeling, to use the Singlish word.

It'll be a whole new night in Istanbul.

But thats soccer, where anything goes.

I wish I could say the same of the other issues in life.

Got accepted by NUS for their Law and Econs Double Degree. Feel like a bit of a cheat, because my real intention is to do International Relations at LSE or somewhere. Again, the only obstacle I've got is money, or lack thereof. I dont want to burden the folks with a hundred thousand pounds of additional expenses on me and my brother, but at the same time I'm not good enough to qualify for them scholarships at PSC or FIREfly or wherever. And a trip to the US is ruled out, because of SAT underperformance.

Yes, thats your typical gripe of your typical Singaporean A level grad who's good enough to go overseas but not good enough to get the money from them bigwig organisations. I know its downright over-heard and over-whined about, but thats the big fix of my future right now. I need to find a way out.

Or rather, I need to find God's way out. See, thats the thing about living for a Higher Purpose. You dont make decisions without consulting your Father in Heaven.

I recall trying that once, trying to move ahead without the Heavenly Green Light, and it made everything go into one big meltdown. My close associates would know about The Catastrophe.

Boy was that a big screwup. I keep trying to replay everything in my mind, sifting and sorting for mistakes that can be rectified, trying for new ways to recover what tattered remnants remain of the situation, all to no avail. The mistakes, as I see it, were due to inherent flaws in my character, ie they come from some hideous weakness of mine that cannot be removed without altering my very person. The situation now is beyond redemption; a certain key person is moving overseas now and that will be the end of that. With that person's departure I will have no real option at rebuilding and re-consolidating.

So this is my other fix, then. The Pastor says that I've got to move on and "let God heal that hole in your life".

Well thats all fine and dandy until you consider the cost I've been paying all this while- in terms of time, and prayer, and money, and sweat, and yes, tears.

One of the other main gripes I hear about religion (read Christianity) is that its too much of a mass cult invovling hysterical worship sessions and self-righteous preachers screaming at you to turn or burn.

Thats true, but thats not the main issue with religion. Of course the Church has not been the ideal organisation-community for those who have chosen God. Of course some enterprising "pastor's wife"-cum- potential-Hollywood-singer and her "pastor"-cum-businessman-husband will turn the church into some maniac's conception of a private entreprenuerial corporation, complete with rock music and halls for masses of prancing young people. All that is due to fundamental human weakness- that same weakness that sees Pastors embezzling funds and Bishops molesting little boys. The Church is not perfect (and it shouldnt pretend to be so), so get over it already. All that matters is that God is perfect, and that we humans have oversized egos.

The main issue I have with the idea of God is that He cannot communciate with us. We have to do it on His terms. That is not wrong, because He IS GOD, but it is just about possible as an amoeba trying to discuss chess with a supercomputer (which is to say, not at all). I dont say this to stumble anybody, but to inject a sense of realism- since we all know that God is real.

He hears our prayers- but we have no way of knowing what He is doing to act on them. Faith pleases Him, but faith by itself does not reassure us very much for very long, especially those of us who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the physical world of hunger and hurt and all that.

And getting to know Him and His plans for us is notoriously difficult. There is no standard formula for Him talking to us- so we have to do it as if we are doing lottery. Sometimes you get lucky and He sends you a clear message, more often you dont and go blundering into where He does not want you to go- and you hurt yourself, sometimes real badly, as was my case.

Sometimes this really gets my goat.

What a long entry. Enough. Good night you civilians. Enjoy your lives.

posted by baron at 9:52 AM

Days of Darkness 2: Tales from the School of Infantry Specialists

Ah, SISPEC.

For years that very name has instilled fear and demoralization into the heart of many a conscript.

And suddenly the nightmare was realized in full detail on that fateful morning of the 21st of March.

Term 1, of course, saw the nadir of my morale in my already de-motivated tenure as a foot-slogging conscript.

Day One was quite an experience, with me doing push-ups in the bunk as Razak the Bastaric PWO didn't take kindly to not being greeted by us maggot-trainees.

The rest of week one was spent in a daze because I was not used to waking up at five bleeding fifteen AM every morning, and having breakfast a full bleeding ungodly hour before sunrise. Lecture after lecture passed quickly, and I cannot remember anything about them, being unconscious with both eyes open through the whole week.

But such hazinesss passes quickly in the SAF, morphing into complete, total, and utter numbness.

Thus it came to pass that I went through the motions of navigation and wandering around in the dark with a compass and getting lost, and taking tests on signals and communications.

Then there was the week of weapons training, just about the only interesting experience in Term 1 where we got to fiddle around with the Ultimax 100 Section Automatic Weapon ( a 5.56mm light machine gun), the M203 Grenade launcher, the M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel mine, and that bastard-beast of an anti-tank weapon, the Matador.

The Matador is insanely heavy. It is an 8.9kg rocket launcher which will kill its carrier through exhaustion as much as it would kill a tank at close range.

Then there were the navigation exercises where the instructors threw us into the jungle and got us all lost, returning to bunk at 1 am the next morning.

But anyway, the outfield training followed all too fast.

Ambushes, tactical movements, fire-movement drills, and all the rest of that infantry stuff filled the remnant of the Term.

I dont know how to describe it.

The whole period of life in SISPEC is incredibly numbing and deadening, not to mention claustrophobic.

Imagine yourself in this room with all its dimensions at 3 meters. A work-out machine is the only object in the room.

You do the exercises all day, until you're dead beat.

Then you sleep for 5 hours.

Upon awaking (let's call it "reveille") you do the exercises again.

And this goes on day after day after day, for week after week after week.

That's what SISPEC feels like.

That is the path of a Specialist.

****play music here, that sort of music that goes when the hero makes a startling, horrible, sickening realization that the he WILL die after all and there is no hope left****


Postscript::::
What a deadening, negative entry!

Was reading my non-army classmates' blogs and was amazed at how much life and colour they can experience and enjoy.

I need a life. A non-army life.

posted by baron at 8:03 AM

Days of Darkness 1: Tales from the School of Infantry Specialists (SISPEC)

Prologue

Yes, I woke to a nightmare.

After a week or so of block leave, my posting to SISPEC demolished whatever high spirits I had grown to have.

The return to hell island was extremely hard to accept, despite all the prayers and support from Uncle Mark and my parents and good old Daryl.

And then there was Bravo Company. And First Sergeant Razak the Razor Rat.

That madman made us do push ups on the first day of SISPEC because we failed to greet him when he entered our bunks.

And that was a ominous portent for things to come.

The Sergeants in SISPEC are truly a different breed from those in BMTC or the rest in Singapore, for that matter.

If my BMTC sergeants were inhuman, these were sub-human.

I still can find neither the superlatives or expletives to describe the instructors in SISPEC, let alone the Warrants.

Ahh but the Warrants are very intriguing, the way a sentient alien race would seem intriguing to us.

Dont get me wrong, some of them have actually rediscovered what little humanity they once possessed when they got married and had children, but The Warrants as a species of instructors are like this overlord kind of caste. They are the kings of the SISPEC animal Kingdom. Crazy people.

This was the demon-world of SISPEC, in the Heart of Darkness.

Here ends the Prologue, I shall add the rest of the Dark Chronicles later...

posted by baron at 5:57 AM