it's so good to sleep it one's own bed again after being away for so long.

will let all you guys in on taiwan and all that soon enough but i'm afraid i'm not up for any long posts now. so i'll just whet your appetites with some photos:

hungry yet?

i'm back

the temperature here is starting to go up. (unfortunately) it's getting similar to singapore's weather which is such a shame considering that my first 5 days or so here were spent in cool almost air-conditioned like surroundings.

lodging here is horrible, as expected. i feel like a squatter trying to get shelter from some impending natural disaster bent on wiping out our homes from the face of the earth. but, of course, i'm dramatizing here for effect (would you rather read a boring, factual blog?). in all honesty, one gets used to the situation one is in, as is usually the case in almost everything, and this is no exception.

the food here is as bad as the lodging, with only one difference: it takes a much longer time for you to get used to the food compared to the proposed sleeping arrangements. some of the meals are just so bad and inadequate that it's... i dont even know what to compare it with. thank god for the canteen which serves highly edible, albeit fattening, food.

it's already my eighth day here. about 2 more days till the end of the exercise, 5 days till i leave this camp, and slightly less than a week till i return home. can't wait to touch down, lie on my own bed and eat good old unbeatable singaporean food.

hey y'all!

i'm typing long-distance this time and hope that you guys back home are doing fine. it's almost the end of my sixth day here in taiwan and things are alright i guess, though the exercise that is currently underway is a pain in the ass. big shots all over the place are just barking orders in your face and you're expected to execute them almost immeidately. it's almost as impossible as kit not being able to shop for a month.

as for flight details, my return flight is on the 27th (thats a thursday) at 9:30pm and i should be touching down 4 - 5 hours later. so kit (unless you are willing to meet me at the airport at an unearthly hour that people like melvyn probably haven't even heard of yet) you really dont have to meet me. i'll see you during the weekends.

i'll be signing off now, the timer's ticking down the minutes of usage i have left and currently, it's a big bright red 3.

see you lot when i get back. will update if i get the chance.
adios amigos.

for those of you who arent already in the know, i'm leaving for taiwan in... oh about 10 hours or so. i have to be at the airport by midnight and the plane is scheduled to leave at about 2:50am (i think). i am excited about this trip. well to be honest, i'm only excited about the r & r and am dreading the crap that we have to deal with there. so it's a mixture of emotions and all that. but you know what takes the cake? the fact that i have no idea when the exact date of my return will be.

so, literally i'm leaving on a (jet) plane, i dont know when i'll be back again.

but it should be between the 27th and the 1st of may (fingers crossed). i cant (more like refuse to) see why they would want to keep us there any longer than that.

so here's me signing off for about 14 - 18 days. pray for me and will see you guys when i get back. toodles.

what do you get when guys walk around aimlessly in town with nothing to do?

i look like a freaking farmer and zhong wei (a friend from camp) says that the headwear he has on is more like a panty. lol.

probably one of the reasons i like science and math so much is because its so simple. no, not your everyday version of simple, but it's just less complicated.

definitions, theories and experiments are clear and there can be no argument about it being anything else. most of it are in-you-face facts that cannot be disputed and leave no room for other possible hypothesis. it just is and you have to accept it, whether you like it or not or even if it just doesnt make sense to you, because on some level it actually does.

they are so different from the arts where almost anything goes. one view is no more wrong or correct than the other. everything is accepted as long as it is adequately substatiated. it so much more less simple. there is always two (or more) ways about it and individualism is often emphasised whether directly or otherwise.

dont get me wrong, i love participating in debates about issues and expressing oneself but wouldnt it be easier to just be simpler?

an interesting quote from t. s. eliot:

an election is coming.
universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

you know what? i have a problem with indians. now now. if you fall under the i'm-indian category and have taken insult to my statement, relax and hear me out.

i have a problem with indian girls.

i'm fine with them on a one-on-one basis and hell, i'm fine with a whole group if i know them. i'm taking about the group of anonymous indian girls that just love to stare at you from afar as you walk past. they just stare, no matter what you're doing. shopping, strolling, with friends, having dinner... they just s t a r e.

and the weird thing is, they dont do it when they're by themselves, only in groups. then they start the whispering. what the hell are they taking about? you start feeling self conscious. you just wanna get the hell away from there. so you walk the hell away from those prying evil indian eyes.

now what's up with that!? why the hell are you looking at me? do i have something on my face? is what i'm wearing weird? i know i'm not a fancy-pancy dresser and play dress-up where ever i go but c'mon, i'm not in rags! is my fly undone? is my shirt stained? what is it? tell me!!!

now i'm not tooting my own horn or anything here. it's just genuinely irritaing when a flock of girls just keep staring at you and you feel like you're some freakshow on display.

cant you find anything else to look at?

this week i had a really interesting and informative time in camp. (i know... totally unexpected) the whole lot of us had to attend a chemical defence course and a medic-cum-first-aid course (i forgot the proper name for it). it was kinda fun actually and really not as bad or boring as most of the other shit that is synonymous with the army.

for the chemical defence course, we actually donned those chemical suits you see on the telly (you know, the hazmat types). suit, overalls, gloves, masks with filters... the whole enchilada. it was bloody uncomfortable, really hot and extremely difficult to breathe. if you were a clautrophobe, you'd be screaming for realese like one of dolly parton's boobs. after a prep course we were put to the test: in batches, we were placed in a room where something was smouldering right in the centre, spreading caustic smoke all around and were told to perform drills and do some really stupid shit. at the end of it, before leaving the room, we were to remove our mask (the one and only revered barrier between fresh breathable air and horrible corrosive crap), close our eyes, hold our breath as long as possible and answer a series of stupid questions.

i couldnt hold my breath long enough to survive the whole line of questions. the moment i tried breathing, i choked. i opened my eyes and they burned. my face was feeling all prickly; like a whole group of drunk peranakans were smearing belachan topped with chili padi on my face. but still the stupid seargent persisted. i finally answered the last question and burst through the door to the outside and, more importantly, to fresh air. by this time my eyes were red and tearing, my face was on fire and i was coughing and breathing was horrible. the effects were short-lasting but the experience was definitely memorable and interesting.

the second course, the first aid one, started out as most lectures usually end up; insanely boring. it was so irriating to learn all that crap about bandages and slings and wounds and fractures and all that stuff. it was interesting but to get cramped with all that information over a short period of time was just plain bad-planning. the scary and fun part came when we had to learn about (and later perform on our partners) infusion a.k.a. drips.

i have to say, learning about it and actually sliding a needle into your buddy's vein is totally different. i never thought that i would be able to do it but man, i did it. (of course i had to do it twice because i missed the vein the first time around, but lets not dwell on that...) it was really nerve-racking to perform because a whole lot of shit could have gone wrong, and the dude your happily jabbing into is your friend, plus you just leant the procedure! so no pressure...

but like i said i did it. it was actually exhilirating (and relieving) to get it right. getting jabbed, on the other hand, was just as nerve-racking. but i had an excellent partner, who got it right on the first try. so all in all it was really cool. i mean when will i ever again get to infuse a dude only after a couple of hours of practice?