Withdrawal

That's it. I'm officially an addict. The cravings just won't stop and its threatening to swamp out my senses and it seems nothing that I use to do matters anymore. I want it, I need it, I'm in pain. Your presence, it's my vicodine, my morphine, and the reason why I'm still alive.

This sheer desperation is torturous and tormenting me every waking moment. I need reprieve and solace but where can it be found? For those of you who STILL do not get it, I fell madly in love, to someone I shouldn't have (or so she keeps telling me).

I am so torn between patience and desperation. On one hand, I know it would do me good to be patient. You always hear me say what will be will be but as the sand trickles, I find myself believing less and less of it. Cue desperation. I'm desperate to make myself heard and make it up the mountain before it becomes insurmountable. The avalanches and rockfalls you trigger do not help one bit as you continuously try to throw me off. Every word was like needles piercing through my heart like the chilling cold of the atmosphere you try to create and deter this mountaineer.

Do you know what it's like? Being trod on and put down despite giving it all that you can give? And yet, despite all the misery and pain, one keeps going on. Fear gripes him at every ledge, anxiety pushes him to go faster even though it is perilous to do so. The loner gets no sympathy from the mountain, no sincere support from those he knows. He is all alone in his quest to scale the peak.

Why? He has given up once before so why not again? He has let go and yet he came back to the very same peak again. What drove him to such madness and compels him to do it all over again? Not because its there, but because of the promise of a new beginning that he desperately craves. To be with you ever since the first time you beheld his gaze. Do you still not see it girl? I am so madly in love with you that I will try my best, or die trying. You are the only solace I can find in this madness surrounding me and my only light in the darkness that perpetuates my life.

Madness? This is what they call Love.

It used to be that my patience can tide me through many things but lately it seems, my patience is being tried and it is no longer as dependable as it was. Time as it seems, is no longer on my side as I now try to surmount some rather tough odds as I start finding myself worrying more than ever as the sense of urgency creeps up on me to get an answer. The pressure and stress of work is not helping (neither is the fact that my supported teams are not performing well, whats the go Ferrari?!). Heck, I'm even contemplating on going overseas to chase someone down if it comes down to that.

It all sounds a little cryptic here but thats the way it is. I'm back to my cryptic secretive ways. The walls have eyes, or I may be going mad from all that anxiety...

Brief respite

And so it came to pass, the brief respite I had from the toils and troubles of work and (gasp) more work. This planned trip to the land of the rising sun had taken far too long to materialise but it finally pulled through and I, for one, am finally having a long break from all the worrying I've been doing.

For this purpose, I hopped on board the new A380 for a short flight to the Eastern Capital of Tokyo, for what had been a trip 3 years in the making, with a good friend of mine. We reached our destination early morning on the 5th and after a breif stopover at Tokyo station for some coffee (he insisted on filling his stomach) before making our way to our ryokan. But due to an error in taking the trains, we ended up in the wrong direction, at Akihabara. Omnious sign to reach the very stop I had always wanted to come to. But we had our luggage in tow so we made our way to the ryokan (the right direction) and reached there by 10-11ish. The check-in was pretty simple and the room was cosy. We popped in to a nearby 7-11 for our first meal of instant noodles. Hey, it was no shame at all since it was a totally new experience to be eating something of such good quality.

So there we were for the whole of 7 days, running around (the train system was surprisingly not that complicated) and going plenty of places. We, or rather I, hung around Akihabara for a good portion of the trip. It was my Mecca and paradise. To be able to finally enter Animate, hunt in Toranoana and explore Mandarake was so indescribable, I spent a few hours scouring through the stuff at one place that I almost forgot the time!

But all is not about Akiba. We did go to the famous fish market at Tsukiji (and feasted on some very fresh sushi), scooted over to the famous shrines in Nikko, visited the various temples in Asakuza (the famous Raimon too), Ueno, Ochanomizu and others (including the notorious Yasukuni). I ended up getting several charms for my colleagues and friends (friends got most of the charms praying for love, I got 4 for myself alone :p). I was so bowled over by the place and the feeling that I didn't really want to come back. A visit to the Maid cafe (Pinafore) was so unreal but it was like a chicken going into the pond. Had a real hard time trying to communicate and the girls were so cute trying to make sense! I was a very sad soul when I was boarding the plane.

Coming back home, I came crashing down. Suddenly everything became drab and the public transport was a total let-down (not that it was that fantastic to begin with).It was tough picking myself up to get back to work, especially when I landed smack in the middle of a fire-fighting session back in the office. Sigh.... back to work.

August Frenzy

I know its been a while, quite alot has happened for the past month or so. First, got called up for my very first In-camp training. And then the much awaited Olympics came. Lets talk about the ICT first.

There I was, newly assigned to the unit and then was thrown into a Brigade level full-troop exercise.Well, all was rather fine since I was able to click with the other platoon commanders but had a slightly hard time trying to merge completely into the scout platoon. I understand since their original PC had been with them all the way so its unrealistic to expect total acceptence for a new guy like myself. Still, that remains a minor issue. It was the scheduled 8 days of exercise that raised quite a few eye-brows and lowered morale for many. What made it so long was actually a series of "breaks" in between the mission. Only thing is, these "breaks" sap more energy than replenish it because of the waiting and wondering. It does no good to lower our fatigue levels.

Anyway, first mission was a supposedly simple recon mission but on one of the tougher objective routes for my team. And we were inserted at the wrong time, giving us only an hour of cover under darkness to walk. As if that was not bad enough, it seems as if I overrated my own capability cause the moment I picked up my field-pack and started walking, I knew I was in deep trouble. The other guys were just as bad but I did manage to put up a front to push them on but it was futile after 3 hours when we eventually resulted in 5 minutes of walking followed by 10 minutes of resting. It was just that bad. Our mission was FUBAR (F*cked Up Beyond All Repair) and we got "killed" by a patrolling Armour vehicle after a while. Why FUBAR? There was only 1 road in to our objective and there was a whole company of enemy troops waiting for us along the way. AND to top it all off, the objective was changed to another one AFTER we were declared "dead"... Consolation though that we get to rest for the entire duration of that first mission, only having to deal with surprised remarks of us scouts being "captured" (hello, we are dead, not captured. And dead scouts dun talk).

2nd mission wasn't so bad if not for me being trapped by an enemy patrol on my way to the objective from my Observation Point position. For 3 whole hours, I disappeared off everyone's radar (I think my team declared me captured). So there I was, trying to think of ways and means to get back to my OP. I eventually decided to try bashing through some very tall cane plants, making quite a fair din with the rustling. To think of the fact that its the Chinese 7th month did not help. I ended up at a road junction near an enemy OP position that was the very same one that trapped my only route back. They heard me alright but I was lucky they never came to investigate. So I just sat tight near the road in the bushes, tired, tirsty and very very pissed. I bidded my time and calculated the risks before making a run for it. A distance from the spot, I jumped into the forest and move quickly in the general direction of my OP. Either the enemy were asleep or too surprised to even give chase, I won't know. I knew for sure my heart was pumping like a motor piston. The guys were all damn surprised to see me for sure.

Final mission was something new to me. I was to act as the intel officer for the Armour-fighting force for the Battalion's defence mission. Nothing much happened though since the enemy opted to attack from another direction so nothing for me to do, right? Wrong! Another group launched their attack at another Battalion's defence position and I happen to be right in the area. And when the other OPs could not get through to the main intel centre, I ended up being the mobile intel centre in the field. Its not easy in that cold damp environment where water condenses everywhere, including rubber tyres. It was an eye-opener of an exercise really but hell no I don't want to go through it all again!

Not to mention that this whole thing made us missed a whole chunk of the Olympic events! Even though I'm not a fervant fan to watch every event, I'm still a strong supporter of the Olympic ideals and celebrating the best of Athleticism. Kudos to Michael Phelps and Usain "Lightning" Bolt for their prowess and to the Chinese (Whom cannot be entirely trusted for their product quality) for organising such an extraordinary Games that no other Nations can possibly match. (London has alot to think about and do). Good show but it's back to work now.

System failure

I hereby declare the BYOB day a failure, along with all the whacko ideas that the authorities have come up with. Why? Because everything just failed from the end-users' viewpoint.

First up, BYOB day was implemented to try getting people to cut down on the use of plastic bags. Just the other day, I was down to the local supermarket (with my own bag in tow) and was greeted with the sickening sight of all the lazy folks gorging themselves with the plastic bags to carry their merchandise with. There at the side of the counter was a small can which 10cents was to be donated for every plastic bag taken. Not a single cent was ever dropped in after observing 10 people with obvious plastic bag fetishes moving off from the check-out counters. Instant failure...

Next comes the road traffic regulating measures, most "fondly" in the form of higher payment on what used to be heavily-congested roads (which are still congested). Has the ERP succeeded in easing traffic flow? Hell no! Let's put this in the form of a simple analogysince the brains behind it fail to see it so clearly. If I have 100 cars heading to a single point A with only 3 roads leading to A I get congested roads on all 3 with perhaps road 1 being more congested. If I make people travelling on road 1 pay more, I successfully "eased" the traffic flow for road 1. What the nit wits dun see is there are STILL 100 cars on all 3 roads and that number is still allowed to grow! Why is it so damn hard to just cut the number of new cars sprouting out on the roads? Is it because daddy's little boy just got his licence and he has to make sure he gets one so as to show that your family is well-to-do?

Hello people! Yeah, you sitting in that office chair in some Ministry or authority. I seriously question your credentials to be sitting in your positions. I even question your qualifications as graduates or professionals with any common sense.