koupdegrace

..what a shitty life I've got. feels like people only call so they got someone wonderfully nice to help them some of their work for them at no credit at all for them to have all the credit. it sucks being nameless helper number one, or superman, depending on whether you wanna be unoptimistic about it-or not. I don't think the good samaritian would have been a very good fellow if he did good deads every single day and he had to be charitable every single time. He would have become Donald trump by now.
....the uneventful afternoon passes,
and as super-nameless helper number one passes a field in his uncomfortably sweaty jeanstshirtandnotashoebutasandle combination at sengkang, I look up to see a sunny sky full of kites or every colour and life. I almost forgot to take the lrt cos I got pretty hynotised by them. I was just standing there as still as sir stamford raffles staring at Singapore river from the Victoria concert hall. well, staring at a sky full of kites made me wish I was one of those retards carrying around a dslr wherever I went - except the damn dial wouldn't be on 'auto' mode - with a extreme wide angle lens. can you imagine a sky as wide as your eye can see, full of life and colours and below, people sweating and laughing with picnic baskets and coke bottles and cannot-make-it-but-you-eat-it-anyway sandwiches. I'm gonna go there one day. another reason to visit my sis at her rented place.
it's amazing how the fact that you can get away from it all by sitting in a field and getting sunburned, is just kinda, sorta refreshing from the contagious depression everyone seems to be getting, or maybe it's just me. I think I radiate emotions worse than radar dish on board a navy vessel, which my father thankfully refused to fix during it's operation, or I would now be nothing but well, no way to put it delicately but - fried sperm.

And one day, I decide to myself: I'm sick of the taste of wet conflakes in my mouth and grimy smoke, and I stop.

It washes over me like a heatwave, soothingly blanket- like. Hot water, a luxury.
Enveloping
shoulderbladesheadbackhandshaireverywhere.
It were as if I were a simple white flower,
Set upon by a great devouring Phoenix,
turning me and everything around into white
heat.
And then cooling into dust of the desert.
Dry, so dry. So quiet. Solace becomes a
bore. But all the waters that can be spared
cannot hope to quench the desert. It could
never bring back the simple white flower
that I once was. Not even the eurekic
waters of the scalding shower.

Date: 271009
Location: Army bunk
--------------------------------------------------
She hadn't smsed me back yet after I told her friday was great and I had tix- depressing much. Well actually not really. She had till next Friday. Well, Sometimes, life just pretty much sucks as you feel your mental ability just slipping away- reason being that your job description is just pretty much, stand ready, listen good, work mindlessly, and always have entertainment within reach. Oh. And I almost forgot, your mini thermos of Milo/ ice Milo/ tea. Any one of the options will do. At your hip should be your trusty Leatherman and Pelican- in the case where you might need to cut a mango, or the lights in the armsskote decide to go on strike.
Now back to where I was... Oh right. She not calling back. Not that I have degenerated to the point of being a horny zombie seeking blood- note that I did not use vampire, I wanted to have the creepiness set in instead of the ladies being confused with the charmingness of Edward Cullen. But I'm grabbing at straws. And sometimes, you would love to have someone to really share something with, to know that you're real, that someone out there ( other than your parents which only occasionaly suddenly remember that the reason the house is so quiet is because incubus isn't blasting out of my room door) who you can talk to and tease and laugh together about things, and having her at the back of your mind, when the phone call brings the bounce back into your day. Stuff like that. I feel like a hermitated person seeking the cure of society, after an eternity of setbacks and conflicts and settling-for-plan-ness. That sound outta-whack, much?
Purpose is something I just want to have, it drives me, it becomes me. What keeps me alive is the work I love, the people I live for, and the freedom to attain that peaceble end. In the end, I can only conclude it is Love that gives me Life.

Show me how to love in the desert.

I sat on what they called the "Tunner" and watched the road speed by into a clay of a million vibrating threads. I watched as the sun spread it's generous hands over the wood of the benches, curling it's fingers gently over the shadowy crevices of the worn wood, still damn from the recent shower. I smell the smoke in the wind of speedy standstill air, both of engine and man. In the million million of threads that we are, no matter how ever vibrant we vibrate and resonate, we are of the same boundless length, the same grey, the same. If anyone can take anything from you, let them take everything from you, save the one pure singular truth that you will always be for the ones you love and that we are all the same. We are nothing, but we draw strength in the little things, that God sends us everyday, and God gifts are only in love. The only singular plural unexplainable by the mechanics of human logic.

Today, I think back to 2 nights ago, where I was drinking with a few friends of mine, and while talking to one who posed the question of "how's life?" - I said, "i think I just want to settle down.", and he gave me a look and asked me, "at the age of 21?"

He's right. No one in their right mind would " settle down" at the age of 21. But I didn't make it clear by what I meant by "settling down". You see as a person who has lived in almost perpetual conflict since he was born, arguing at Home, fighting the bengs in school, fighting teachers and studying on my own, fighting other guys for secondary school feelings over a secondary school girl, fighting the fact that girls I was crazy over weren't exactly crazy over me, fighting my parents that the career I wanted- would warrant whatever life I would live, and lastly fighting the inevitable calling of the army.

I'd like to say I've gone through loads in 21 years of life, but it would be boastful of those who have endured much much more. But at the end of these days past, I realize that although my sense of adventure still growls, needless arguments and fighting just waxes reluctance as if argument was work and I was a chow keng fella.
I feel the need to be tough, like any other man in his right mind, but I also feel the need to have the capability that I am not of the common breed. It is not arrogance that drives me, but the fact that I can be so much more that what I see around me at my current level. It arises as a wolfine spirit, in an estate dog

It's like the world changed when I left it for a while, to a green future
People lived in houses, but now the neighbourhood's filled with ghosts.
And mist.
I don't want to go from this fond memory I have,
But I don't want to stay because dusts is all that is left
I want to run and cycle through the sheets of wind,
But I don't know which way to turn.
All I need is simplicity, and some quiet and solitude.
For the first time in my life there lies no skirt.
What else coats my hands - but mere momentary dirt.
When your parents don't make sense
And your friends don't know how to lend a hand
But you just want your life, just mend
The ways that you've gone, and turned wrong.
I stand, and as for as far as I can see,
Black skies and road stretching,
Streetlamps betraying one shadow
cold night air suitable for the occasion.

Lying in bed in the cool. Today feels so lazy, even the bright sun coming in through the window, diluted by the a/c. Perhaps in the effect of the army, but it feels like the world is even lazier than me, with their rubber watches. Everyone seems to try so hard to get on the only ship at the dock. Everyone just seems to forget about the requirements of friendships, or perhaps, it simple becomes a thing of the past, this closeness. I am a lake, a lady bends over me, searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon, I see her back, and reflect it faithfully, she rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. - excerpt taken from mirror, by Plath.

Service is waking up at 4am for work.
Service is making sure everything's ironed and set in little neat rows
Service is running around when they tell you the "shuttle bus" at the interchange will pick you, there are 7 buses coming and going with Prc Chinese women going up. No they aren't in their number 4s
Service is drinking scalding hot tea at 8 Amish
Service is the joy of stripping a rifle down to useless lonely metal bits and putting it together to hear the wonderful click otherwise meant to be a bang.
Service is using government money to get nice new balance shoes that motivate you to run
Service is chao kenging; collectively organized.
Service is a long. Bus. Ride. And then, a long. Mrt. Ride.
Service is coming home to find that you're being interrogated because you decided to wash brand new clothes bought by the stepmom to give to my sister, cos I thought they would be itchy. I think she's having pms.
Service is coming home and playing wow, for all of 20 mins and your dad says you're forever playing computer games- i've been out the whole week. I think he's having pms.
Service is your stepmum telling you that the unit you are in is not chiong swar enough and that you are basically a nusiance in the house now. I told her very politely that it beats having your life at the hands of your friends superior stupidity. People get hurt because someone decides to talk on the phone while they are driving a tank and they forget that people need to cross roads.
Service is having to realize you're not as welcome home
Service is not being able to hug your friend whom you are crazy when she steps off the plane.
Service is 300 dollars donation to the Singapore govt for dropping a cigarette butt on the floor, nevermind that you are already paying them 30cents a stick
Service is having to wake up at 4 tomorrow.
Or-sum

Hello Tuesday,
I just got posted to the far other-side of Singapore, where the sun don't shine and we clean rifles and bazookas everyday. I think I'm going crazey with the boredom, I think it could be worse. Just came back home, walked in through the door, slept two hours on the bus, people I don't remember saying hello on wow. I think I could be bored. Of listening to people talking about fighting and fighting through the cream soup and chicken of the afternoon. But no one fights the good fight anymore. What happened to the nice guys that do good. Nobody wants a hero, nobody wants to be the one, everyone just wants to clean rifles and not be a star, no thanks chiong-swar. Hello Friday.

What do you want? You want my money? Take it. You want my ambition? Take it and make it YOURS then! What else do you want? My life? My acceptance and tolerance and silence. Take it then. No people. There is no have your cake and eat it. The cake was a simple thing. All flour eggs and icing. We put it together complicatedly beautiful and left it to rot! Now we got roaches and everything. Yet the plate which holds the crumbs you also want. Want want want. I'm the man with the solutions for everyone aren't I? Well guess what? The only fucking problems I can't solve are mine! Well nevermind about it! You got your solutions don't you? You can go now. Leave me here with the rotting whatever. Destroy me and turn me into a slavering mindless money worker! That's what you want right? Cos fuck yes! Money is the solution to everything! A kid in singapore should have to pay for his own everythig huh? Well it's a good idea there are lesser kids in Singapore then! Less suffering for the unborn. More suffering for the poor bitches who gotta stick it out. Fuck you. I don't give a fuck about colateral anymore. Fuck it up. Put me in pes a. Let me fuck shit up.

I am sad, indescribly so as I feel the impending sunset of my youth, as shocking as the afternoon sun on your face when you oversleep into the day.

Sometimes the bane of our human suffering is simply the fact that we want to recognize it as something uniquely painful and unresolvable. But the truth is that we just don't want to written off, as shallow feeling beings. Intruth pain, in a manner of speaking, is how we justify our existance. Thought I, as I go on like a internal combustion engine. Inhale, combust, exhale.

Today's my best friend's birthday. And god I miss her so much

It's funny sometimes how we wanna be alone strong and independent, and how at other times we want to be hugged and cherished and covered with a blanket when we sleep. But we all have to decide, take a stand and then to take our finger off the nightswitch button sometime. It would be nice to be fickle, in love. But when there's none, and only reality, then perhaps it's time to take a bow and say goodnight for one last time. And goodbye. No more speaking in riddles. No more guessing, no more games.

What could go wrong right? You would think, being at the new Asia bar at the top of the swissotel. Except that I was there, dressed so rightly for work, as video crew for some ted baker runway thing. Yea. Cue: Everyone thinks that i'm living the life of a rockstar. You're partially right. I do enjoy living life this way. I love having the freedom to choose when i would like to take jobs. I get to travel to places the public wont get usually get access to. But having saud all that, you really dont wanna be there when shit hits the fan, which coincides with murphy's law as well of having the fan as shitty as possible at all the best times possible well i was at the swissotel And looking every inch out of place. Oh well,
Could be worse. I at least had jeans on. Could have worn khakis.

when I finally got my camera and started fiddling with it, rehearsal just started. That's when I found out I have to have my tripod with me, and the battery of the sungun with me. I didn't even know if the camera would react well to darkness. Well if in doubt, bring everything. Right? Well not for that day, when you have to climb two flights of narrow stairs and them being skinny enough for one person, life really starts to get interesting when you have one rebelling tripod, one heavy arse battery swinging around on your back, and at the same time protecting the camera, which apart from the fact seems to be falling apart, also is very very heavy, and when your rushing, the whole tide of people just seem to be put there just the powers that be can laugh at how hilarious a day your having. Then you realize no. You don't need your sungun, and tripod, cos the gears are failing, and there's no spirit level inbuild to balance your tripod. And the light you have on the camera is too weak to offset the shadows on the models faces since you are really fighting the sun. It's like a 2:1 ratio, but you know, unless you specific lights just for filming set up, it's just all pretty cosmetic and you want to just give a soft diffused feel to see everything and take the edge off and also see the clothes well.

So I commenced filming. I filmed rehearsals that were going on and tried to figure out all the good spots for my shots later. So I had one planned one at the end of the walkway, one in the middle where I could just get a face shot and one a birds eye view on the second level, where I could snipe down the whole runway and catch the crowd at the same time. All these positions I would later not use.

So far everything went pretty much okay. Filmed the models behind the scenes having their makeups, filmed them having shaking loose and having fun. Filmed the director and makeup artists having their little dialogue about where's this and that.
Filming all that at first was. A little quirky. Ever walked down a street and had a camera hosed at your face out of the blue? The camera person holding a rifle might get the same results. Add my face with the mask on concentration, and I've killed them all already. So they were all like hush hush, for thr first two hours until they got used to me being around and popping around like a Jack in a box everytime they started talking. The Helsinki looking bunch of models, well they all looked like they could be actors on a Hitler movie set, just gobbed off to each other in Finnish or god knew what and just stared at me like I was a moderately boring piece of national musuem piece. They were like clones of each other, and amused each other just, looking, deadpan.

So when the show started, the crowd settled in. Traffic tripled, at the narrow stairway, since the holding room was next to the toliet and everyone sooner or later just wanted to unload the accumalated alchohol cargo. So carrying a tripod that wouldn't just fucking close, and the camera just made life fun. What made life funner, was the fact that channelnewsasia was also there, took one of my spots nevermind. Still got two positions. Murphy struck, birds eye view position was locked out. Private function. Wonderful. That's strike two. So I struggled through the masses and finally got to my last position, which I shared with a very avid photographer, so avid that his camera was in my shot half the time. Murphy struck again. Event started. I rolled the camera, and saw- 15 minutes of tape left, and 20 minutes of battery. Strike three. Shit
What choice did I have? I just kept it going, crossing my fingers that it won't run out, I abandoned using the dumb fuck of a tripod that I carried with the dutiful love of a husband carrying his wife down the aisle, and went handheld, shooting from the hip like some steampunk movie hero. And - as the event closed in song, tape counter went zero. Thank god for that. Seriously.

The only corker of the day followed though, to prove that Murphy will strike as many times as it's neccesary to worry you to hell. The sungun camera light was weakening. I couldn't even see much of the crowd detail on the camera when my aperture was fullopen. What a bitch. Well I reported it to argyll my boss. Done. Went for drinks, danced with my ridiculous outfit- I probably looked like Constantine in my John doe attire anyway- and watched my boss make out with two very hot girls. Like one was this chick from hsbc, some banker, she looked like a very hot banker.
And the other was this other girl, part of the team I was working with, might just be his girlfriend. I don't know- I met these guys for one day, haven't really had time to figure out the relationship chain much yet. But whoooohoo. This banker girl was like hawt. Outta my league though. For now.
I think I pretty much just figured out how I might want to spend the next 10 years of my life.

Lesson learned?
Bring a semi formal change of clothes - just in case
Remember to breathe and just walk in and do my shit. No more flapping. Will count to ten if I need to.