i wrote this little assortment of random thoughts on mondaynight/tuesdaymorning and, well, it seems rather less epic, less great-american-novel, than it did at 4am tuesday morning. however, seeing as how i don't feel inclined to think of anything to write in here, i shall just copy this out and be thankful that technology has not yet advanced to the point where rotten fruit can be hurled into your modem and emerge out of mine. my advice, therefore, is that you read it at 4am in the morning, whereby my genius will be apparent (more so).



just past 4am, tuesday morning. i'm on my last shift of guard duty. at this point, i'm so sleepy, you could be holding a big flashing neon sign saying "i'm a naughty person; shoot me!" and i'd still let you through the turnstile.

LAUNCELOT:
We have the Holy Hand Grenade.
ARTHUR:
Yes, of course! The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! 'Tis one of the sacred relics Brother Maynard carries with him. Brother Maynard! Bring up the Holy Hand Grenade!
MONKS: [chanting]
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
ARTHUR:
How does it, um-- how does it work?
LAUNCELOT:
I know not, my liege.
ARTHUR:
Consult the Book of Armaments!
BROTHER MAYNARD:
Armaments, chapter two, verses nine to twenty-one.
SECOND BROTHER:
And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.'
And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--
MAYNARD:
Skip a bit, Brother.
SECOND BROTHER:
And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.'
MAYNARD:
Amen.
KNIGHTS:
Amen.
ARTHUR:
Right!
One!... Two!... Five!
GALAHAD:
Three, sir!
ARTHUR:
Three!
[angels sing]
[boom]

gotta love monty python. (i added this bit back here at home - i'm not such a big fan that i've memorised their screenplays)

standing, listening to my md. no, it isn't allowed, but nobody coming into camp at this time is going to care. besides, its the only thing keeping me from falling asleep on my feet. (happened before. if you've never tried it, what happens is that you end up falling forward; at which point you wake up, your instincts kick in and you step forward to regain balance. QED.)

like a horse.
just a thought.

the guard commander just handcuffed himself playing with the cuffs. yep. we've got a real crack team responsible for the camp's security here - a handcuffed guard commander, soporific guards, the surveillance guy asleep in front of his cctv display - don't tell the malaysians.

md is playing weezer now.

i'm a lot like you / so please / hello i'm here, i'm waiting / i think i'd be good for you / and you would be good for me

shit. battery getting low and i don't have a charger in camp.

ssg julian tan from the sof has just booked in - highlight of the past 15 minutes. he's written 0430 - i don't have a watch - bugger, one and a half hours more. my feet are already tired.

some people are all garang and all that now, but what would happen when the chips were down? who's going to be shitting his pants? we're supposed to be the saf's elite. i really wonder about that sometimes. but this is one of those things which you really don't want to think too hard about. best you never find out.

there's a constant line of tiny brown ants making their way along the ledge in that way ants have. walking up and down endlessly, pausing only to rub noses or whatever it is they're doing. bloody ants.

technically, we're trained to kill. other people, i mean, not ants. but nobody thinks about training with regard to what its really training us to do. instead, when you go to range, say, you think about what you're doing in the most literal way possible - trying to hit some stupid metal pop-up which just coincidentally happens to be man-shaped. and whaddya know, happens to be painted with a charging enemy! nothing more.

i've got five rounds with me now. sometimes i wonder what it'd be like to have to really shoot someone. i don't think i really want to ever have to do it - what would that make me? - but i wonder all the same. i've spent a year training to do just that and there's a year and a half more of the same ahead, and on one hand you wouldn't really want to have wasted two and a half years of your time training to do something and yet never doing it. of course the alternative is actually shooting someone. cute.

that's why people say ns is a waste of time.

intellectually, i 'get' ns. i understand why i'm doing it. We Ourselves Must Defend the MotherLand; Nobody Else Will. Blah Blah Blah. the total defence propaganda team would be proud - they've got me all conditioned. pity this is all a little hard to see standing around doing nothing at five in the morning.

you're still with me?
understand that i've got two hours with nothing to do.

smu wants to interview me. they've got a thirty minute essay lined up. wonder if i can still string together more than three coherent sentences, consecutively and in a formal manner? i hope they don't ask anything about the economy or current affairs - i'm woefully uninformed - but i suppose their not asking about that is about as likely as, well, ... [insert something witty and unlikely here]. i imagine my neurons or synapses or brain-thingys are operating in a kind of viscous fluid environment - slowly.

see? that didn't make any sense at all, which is why you/ve got to think up something witty and unlikely for me.

third company - the recruits - are having their morning water parade. the "yes sergeant!"s and "permission to drink up, sergeant!"s echo across the battalion square.

i'm certainly glad that period of my ns is over.

thoughts turn to ord. the days stretch depressingly far ahead. what is it, about five hundred or more to go? its all very sian.

god, i'm going to have a hell of a time trying to stay awake through lessons later. doing an operator maintenance course for the lsv this week. very, very boring and very, very messy. i was up to here in engine oil yesterday. by right i shouldn't even have been scheduled for guard duty in the first place since i'm on course, but since when does the saf ever do anything except "by left", as we say?

0532. half an hour more to go. time sure flies when you're having fun.
i'm having fun.
whee.

i've written more in the past one and a half hours than i have for the past one and a half months. hell, year.

i'm hungry, but i can never work up much of an appetite for the swill the cookhouse always tries to pass off as 'breakfast', but which is actually yesterday's dinner scraps, composted, blended with industrial solvent and dried into an all-purpose breakfast powder which can then be mixed with water and moulded into any shape - a char siew pao, greasy noodles, chee cheong fun - any shape at all and re-heated. half-life: ten years. comes with its own self-basting grease to ensure a uniformly disgusting coating of viscous oil.

shift is finally over. my relief is drawing his weapon and ammo. if you've read this far, congratulations on your perseverance; your certificate is in the mail. sorry though, no car for you. cheers.