The "Three Represents"

just a day in the more natural world
and its time to go back in again
into the wilderness...the bewilderness
the senselessness and the numbness

thankfully there is refuge in indulgence
feeding the fire that still burns strong in the heart
keeps it warm
lights up a path for the mind
keeps it from straying into disillusionment


...


nevermind. i've done a lot today. got the missing parts for the rifle cleaning kit, which was totally messed up during the training in Taiwan, and got my sergeant rank sewn on. got some scores from the Esplanade Library, bought some things for my circuit fabrication method (CFM) project, a pair of earphones to treat my ears to more bearable music, returned home at night and did more CFM stuff, like making the printout for the stencil and the test printout onto the glossy photo paper for the toner transfer test.

...

no wonder Kai Cheng can't understand my blog...lol...you probably don't either =P

my (non)-life essentially revolves around Sungei Gedong Camp and the confines
of my room where my hands are trapped to the keyboard, or my blue DSTA folder containing tons of "classified documents". yeah right...when you were young,
you'd imagine being a detective or a soldier or some superhero...so can't i pretend to be some defence scientist who sticks his nose into every conceivable project, witching between projects when patience or inspiration runs out?

when i book out of camp, or when i'm stranded in my own thoughts inside of camp (ie mind travel...or daydreaming (non-euphemistic version)) i cease to be Corporal H J Soo, Specialist-to-be and bewildered about CMPB's decision to post him to Armour. any characters take turns to surface. Usually its either the Defence Scientist, the Exotic Engineer (Default setting), or Master Sergeant Uncle Soo the Sergeant Major of...


The Defence Scientist
he's concerned about this nation's security...and feels strongly about bad engineering he feels is rampant in the hardware he sees in the military. too much weight, too bulky, too unintuitive human-device interface (HDI), too screwed up, too much maintenance...most of all, too much inpracticality, lack of commonsense; i.e. stupidity in engineering.

he seeks to change all this, but not before slamming the current technological convention. especially the indigenous 40/50 "weapon system", at which he curses and swears at. Then he proposes a radical idea that is most probably unfeasible or even stupid, before it undergoes a long and painful (to both the spirit and the 'ego') process of ratification and verification and feasibility studies and refinement. He is inclined to discuss his ideas before these logical processes take place, because with their birth comes lots of zeal. that has many embarrassing and disastrous consequences, which should certainly only take place in the thought process and not in conversations with humans, who don't think much of him nor his trash.


The Exotic Engineer...
has conceived a million projects and ideas to date. None of them has been completely realised. He hits a new idea every now and then. Its a touch and go affair...what can be termed "half-fuck efforts". That leaves very unhappy half-virgin ideas waiting to be fully realised.

Engineering is art to him. Art is intriguing and interesting to him, but he doesnt view art as a plaything for surrealists...anyway he thinks everything around him feels surreal. So the scope from which he gets his inspiration and ideas are broad. recently, reading about the origin of chinese characters has created this 'hand' that tugs at him, telling him it is inspiration for a new data transfer protocol that he seeks to create for his "handphone remote control over voice call" project.

his self-confidence is always wavering. It is a chaotic and dynamic system itself...confidence and depression tug at the emotions constantly, producing complex and unpredictable emotional patterns.


Uncle Soo, the has-been Sergeant Major
reminisces much about his past, glorious career as Unit Sergeant Major in a unit that has much history and heritage. many times to be proud of, such as the ascension to the honourable duty while still a corporal, calming initial tension between his sergeants and staff, setting up the S1 and S4 departments, attempts at creating proper procedure and administrative order, organising the first year-end camp in many many years...

but the great things usually remind him of his many failures too, such as the handling of the unhappy Part C cadets who turned against their platoon sergeant, which he felt he could have handled better, and wishing that he could have played a greater role in training instead of just drill lessons, and other embarrassing moments. like the time his sergeants, who were seated behind him, pulled down his pants while he was scolding cadets...

nevertheless, his cadets apparently viewed him in quite a good light, and
called him Uncle Soo. That was to be his legacy...

Since his retirement from service 3 years ago, he has been leading a rather
sad life as a 'has-been'. Currently in the 'real' military service as a corporal, he still has day dreams about becoming a sergeant major again. Of course this will never come true. Nor will the opportunity to lead over a hundred men come again. He will just have to make do with his very specialised duty that makes him a grain in the pillar of the specialist corps, while he pursues his passions he has chosen to indulge in since his retirement, reminiscing all the great moments of the past with much unnecessary nostalgia.

............

All these and more...until a distant but always irritating voice from the floors above calls for "fall in!!!" and the numb brain (numb from the collapse of the castles it has built over itself onto itself..for beyond maximum on the pain spectrum is numbness) resumes control of the body again.