COS I can

Seems like another (hopefully) quiet day of contemplation in the office. One which I've admittedly spent much of dozing off ><

The past couple of weeks in camp have been pretty lax off the back of the LAB, which was underwhelming to say the least. No complaints from me though, it has however been an eye-opening experience in the art of cover-ups: Backdating documents, "loaning" something which had been lost out to another department to avoid the check etc. All things which I still find myself not entirely comfortable with, but which still seems like an essential skillset in the working world :/

Monday's ORD function was a joyous affair, I really hadn't realized how attached I'd gotten to some of the outgoing seniors over these few months. Hope they all fare well outside, it's enlightening in a sense because you realize just how much the realities and prospects of poly students differ from those who graduated from JC. Practically only those with insane GPAs stand a good chance of getting into a local unis, some of them have to consider part-time studying while securing a job, and others have to seek a place overseas. While being ecstatic about finally ORD-ing (who wouldn't be?), most of them appear more than a little lost as well, I guess it's just another illustration of how these 2 years under the routine dictated by the SAF really affects us, that the impending prospect of freedom could leave them so baffled.

The event itself was fun, starting off with prawning at Punggol, pretty exciting till you succumb to boredom after long periods with nary a nibble, and then one comes and you tell yourself to be patient, ensure it's well and truly hooked before flicking it out of the water, taking care to grasp it such that the obscenely disproportionate claws (don't see those in the market..) don't get to pinch you while you carefully dislodge the hook and release it into this submerged netting to keep it fresh. And then waiting all over again. A novel experience for me, and it was hilarious to see people flicking the rod too hard such that the prawn literally flew out of the water to land, with much commotion amongst the other fishers, and to see Saw exclaim when he got kiap-ed by one. Horribly expensive though, I checked. Roughly $30 for 3 hours per rod, it cost my whole company $1200 and our catch totaled 12kg. $100 per kg lol..

After that was soccer followed by a chalet cum barbecue, typical army stuff, too much food, loads of alcohol, I got to try some new mixes hehehe and realized I absolutely suck at drinking games, much to my detriment.

I found out last Thursday, much to my disbelief, that I got into NTU via the waiting list. A huge shock for me, cause I had totally given up on it (see one of my previous posts) and was mentally focussed on my application to Australia, dealing with email correspondence - which I always find a chore - with the agent and compiling information on all the relevant deadlines and such. A very welcome surprise though, and my disbelief must have showed when I picked up the phonecall, roused from a rare mid-morning nap in bunk (slack week ma) to listen to some guy claiming to be from LKCSoM and informing me that I'd been offered a place:
"You sure? Because I got an email saying that I was on the priority waiting list...."
"And I'm calling to tell you you've been offered a place"
"So you mean I got in through the waiting list? .....sorry I'm very happy right now.."
"Congratulations, we've sent you the letter of offer, and by the way will you be accepting the offer?"
"Of course!"
"Okay remember to confirm it on the JAP"
"Thanks"
*call ends*

Quite embarrassing now that I think about it, and the guy didn't seem horribly impressed but being in a state of shock I didn't really care. I don't think my brain has mentally readjusted itself yet, I'm going to be staying in Singapore! And if I'm allowed to disrupt, I'll start school this year FFS, how the heck am I going to manage. Alot to think about and prepare myself for, but I'm simply overwhelmed by how immensely fortunate I am, and happy that I didn't write myself off as always ending up with the short end of the stick. This opportunity really does sound promising and exciting to be part of the pioneer batch, or one of the pioneer batches at the very least. The future suddenly seems very clear and "real", no longer sourcing around for schools, filling up application form after application form, taking admissions tests etc but rather going on to the actual thing! I honestly have no idea how I'll fare as a student as I am now, it's quite scary after the long layoff but it's also something that we'll all have to face x.x

This getting in via the waiting list business is a huge thing for me, not because I have any stigma about it, but rather because it illustrates very clearly how little control I actually had over the entire episode. I performed well enough to be placed relatively high on the list I guess, but other than that, it was all predicated on other people's - people who I don't and may never know - decisions and actions; those who chose NUS over NTU for instance, or even the interviewees of those people, to stretch things a little further. So many things, large and small which I had zero control over, and yet which will undoubtedly profoundly affect the course of my life, or the next 5 years at least. Don't you find that at least a little scary? That where we end up down the road may in no small measure be down to so many arbitrary factors, which we may have little to no say in deciding? Sometimes it seems that what free will we have may simply be to justify internally where we wind up. But that's obviously too extreme a view. Our inner drive and motivation sets a direction, and though we may not be able to dictate where we end up, we still choose how we respond and go on from there, that's some solace at least.

So thank you, Fates, for allowing me this chance and to retain a distinctly local flavor in my portion, however meager of this grand tapestry.

Enough wondering and wandering for now, I don't want to sound like too much of a prick, so here it ends. I've got a good Sci-Fi anthology that has suffered much neglect afterall.