i love surfing the internet till the wee small hours of the morning just to lose consciousness of where you are. just being in the middle of cyberworld with gazillions of bytes wheezing past your now turning blurry eyes, it makes you forget everything. yes, everything is the keyword. i'm just immersed in the presence of others and losing my presence here. that's good isn't it? no doubt this stint here has been and i do suppose it will be a watershed in my life, nothing beats home really. to communicate with home and friends abound, that's life. this comes especially at a time when politics seem to be causing my life to atrophy. i just want to lay unconscious on the floor now, asleep. a mild headache and some dreary eyes are keeping awake. oh, the irony. i just love literature. thank God for literature. i'm just rambling away.

people who take and/ or love literature are seriously different from those who don't. reveal a slight nuance to the person who loves and/ or takes literature and you can expect a shocking but possibly entirely true perception and even a prediction of the situation. i realise people like these can read into a lot of things- personal and public alike, and intepret them as something else. fascinating don't you think? the joy of reading into things and making it your own- it's little wonder that literature is the written form of art. for that matter, reading into these slight nuances make literature the written form of pop art, to be more precise really. and it's always fascinating to be in the company of such people, but as i have also realised too much of these people will only turn you into a walking tabloid. because things discussed and shared aren't confirmed by anyone, it slowly starts off as a random comment and slowly makes it way up the top as a potential hot-grabbed article of The New Paper. share that same comment with someone who doesn't take or enjor literature and you get a simple toned down version found exclusively in The Straits Times. there are things that people don't see with the naked eye but intepreted differently with the noticing of the smallest actions, words spoken and tone used. oh, the power of literature.

i'm blasting k-rock into my ears again. all in a desperate bid to attempt to get myself out of the whirlwind of politics that i've been forced into. in times like these where music is formed from the clanging of metal strings and hard bass, politics seem to be driven out rather easily. forget the sense talked, because in politics there is simply no sense. people do the most darndest things- and you thought only kids do it, for their personal gains. this reminds me a lot of those cantonese shows of ancient times where somehow in the show there will be cases of betrayal against the ruler and pure selfishness. maybe a scene is played here in the perfect background of chaos stirred by That selfish idiot. nevertheless in the middle of all that stirred chaos, there is still a warm violin strings tone amongst the heavy bass and metal strings. there are still some trustworthy confidants around; there is still peace confided in.

sometimes i feel how ns makes us more mature is in the way it exposes our young innocent males to the working world outside, especially to the nerds out there whose world is just made up of plain formulae and books. politics fly everywhere in the office and suction pads are just personified simply. decisions are made with dumb nobility and inconsistence, won't you just remind me of what we learnt in social studies- about good governance and ultimately good leadership. oh, sorry there i just brought in the academics and they are just not relevant to the working world. you make the decision as to whether the things we study are relevant to modern society today. pure science and mathematics and humanities are not spoken of unless it is used for alluring purposes. it seems to me then that it's the subtle things that we learn and gain out of school that brings us far, not the book knowledge. still, the word personified was learnt during literature in secondary school and boy, am i already in the middle of the real drama unfolding before my very eyes. politics are played, need we even learn about the science of it? maybe i should just further elaborate on my opening statement then. that ns makes us more mature because it actually fuses both the academic and cold hard truth of life.

like finally it's one more year to ord date! and that means i've just spent a whole ten months in the army already and what a period! lots have happened and life's directions have somewhat been changed in this short span of time as compared to the dozen spent in school mugging our asses off. sorry but no offence students. looking back at the past ten months spent is something worth remembering, the lessons learnt, the dumb mistakes and not forgetting the most retarded things you do with your similarly retarded friends. it's no wonder then, why people say national service changes lives. of course there are the identically memorable times of despair and hopelessness when things planned for didn't seem to go the way it should be and then came the leaning on the Lord's plan during those times. things have definitely changed for the better. marie once told me about the guys in her school telling her about why guys in university actually seem more matured than those in college. reason is simply national service- there's just so much nothing to do that there is absolutely an infinite time for one to spend thinking about well, life in it's purest essence. and that's supposed to make you mature. bull. i reckon it's the whole process that makes us mature and not our rank or vocation that does the job. in fact you know what? i don't reckon, i truly believe it is so. final year lap, THANK GOD, bring it on!

you know the saying "all you need is a good night's rest"? if i would just add another word into it to make it "all you need is a good LONG night's rest" and boy, would you feel the difference. i realised after some days, possibly weeks of near sleep-deprived nights, emotions started to make waves in my constantly swirling head. hello world, for those who are jusdt feeling moody or down, take this advice: go sleep now. even if it's seven in the evening and you need to get up only at twelve the next morning, go sleep. you never know the miraculous effects of sleep. it always comes down to this really, especially after i just saw my friends off at the airport for their return flight home, some even to the door of the plane. it burns somehow inside to know that this plane is eventually bound for singapore and you on the other hand are repelled by this invisible wall at the aerobridge, just unable to board the plane. it really is a sickening feeling deep inside and it normally lasts for that short few hours while on the ride back to camp. then again, that 'invisible wall' will just have to make way for yours truly as i will be heading home in december. so i shall just continue to keep that dream alive by... continue to dream somemore. yea, in my dreams.

it seemed like a long time ago since i last saw daniel but in actual fact i just sent him off last night at the airport. it was a great time of getting together and all that jazz, but what i or rather we realised openly was how this whole affair seemed too much of a coincidence. i admitted it was indeed way too much of a coincidence. i mean i really did since i was posted here. the Lord works in the most different ways, some that are unseen and others yet so apparent but above all, He's got a plan for all of us. the paths that we have chosen are the very paths that the Lord can use to bless us and make us more like Him. in Him we live and move and have our being, thank God i'm posted here in taiwan. for that matter, thank God for this overseas posting. there have been a lot of things that i've learnt through my stint here, went through some personal struggles en route to maturity, or so i sincerely do hope. i think i shall end here firstly cause i think this entry seems rather incoherent at some parts and secondly but most importantly regarding this issue, there are a lot of things going on inside of me which is not exactly, well if you would say, settled. so i suppose it's toodles here. goodnight, taipei.

i had a nice considerably long conversation with daniel yesterday, after being able to steal a bit of time off his busy schedule of mere cleaning of arms. it's a good thing, now that i realised, where we're all heading in our conversation. to be able to converse about mature things such as our future paths, education plans, love life, training matter yadayadayada but at the same time injecting the all so familiar crappiness adds a new dimension to our friendship. though frankly i miss those times back in college or in secondary school where conversations were just simply meaningless, i suppose this is a good thing that we're all growing up in the right and proper way, thank God. which brings me to imagine how life would be like for me when i get back, soon *hinthint*. i mean i remember those random ramblings that francis and i would have along the path back to his home and i stopping at the bus stop for those who were just about to think further than that; as well as those planned meals at nearby white sands. i was just wondering what in the world would we be talking about. maturity is not a bad thing, i've indeed learnt alot, but is it necessarily a good thing if we lose it. thankfully, none of us have lost it yet.