The road less travelled

Basket. I can't have my hair cut yet. The hairstylist said it's still too short. If he said only that, I wouldn't feel that upset, but he went on to say that I've grown fatter! Have I really grown fatter? Or is it just my face? All thanks to the army la, for feeding me with so much food but giving me only endurance training rather than strength training. Some more now I'm out of the army and back to a civilian.
And can you believe this? I was on my way home on Friday, and TV Mobile was showing some news article entitled Labour of Love and depicting a pregnant man! Shucks, I have to suck in my tummy wherever I go from now onwards 'cause I don't wanna become a pregnant man.


Okay frustrations aside, I shall begin on the main point of this entry.


Most of my army friends have gone forward in their army life. Some are currently undergoing training in command school (Officer Cadet School or School of Infantry Specialists) while the others are posted to various camps a.k.a units all around the island. But I'm taking a different route. I have gone back to school. St. Andrew's Junior College has agreed to let me repeat my Year 2 and take my A level exams again this year (praise God!), and the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) has allowed me to disrupt my National Service until the end of this year.

I went back to school on Tuesday instead of Monday, because Mindef wasn't done with my disruption procedures yet. In the words of the manpower personnel at Pulau Tekong, I still belonged to the Singapore Armed Forces. Thus I still had to report to the Basic Military Training Centre together with a few other Privates to wait for permission for us to be officially released for studies.

It was an 8-hour wait inside a room, from 8 o'clock in the morning to 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It's pretty interesting how the 10 of us bonded together in less than a day. Among this section of disruptees, the majority hailed from Tampines JC (TPJC), while one came from Anderson JC and I, St. Andrew's JC (SAJC).

We were all from different companies (Broncho, Gryphon, Jaguar, Raven, etc.) during our Basic Military Training (BMT) phase, but we were all gathered in the room for only one purpose: to disrupt our NS and retake our A's.

I have to admit that the wait was dreadful initially, but the TPJC guys made it count. I was actually trying to kill time by reading my Time magazine (how cool is that!) and my Economics tuition notes, but after a few hours, the TPJC guys managed to open me up, metaphorically.

The first thing they asked me immediately after they heard I studied in SAJC was (as you have guessed), "So are there really a lot of pretty girls in your school?" My answer was, "Well, it has become a rumour, a myth. The numbers have experienced a tremendously sustained decrease over the years." Seriously, if you have heard people saying that there're many pretty girls in SAJC, that was a proven fact many years ago. Today, pretty girls are an endangered species currently facing extinction in SAJC.


Alright, I have elaborated too much on an issue that isn't very important. Let me go on to my first day back in school.


It was a luxury waking up 30 minutes later than reveille time in the army. To keep fit during our civilian months ahead, my new-found friend, Private Dinie (one of the TPJC guys) suggested doing 5BX (5 Basic Exercises) and jogging every morning before eating breakfast and going to school, to reminisce a little of our army life. I thought it was good so I implemented the idea, except the 5BX part due to time constraint.

To cut the story short, honestly I felt awkward seeing so many unfamiliar faces in school. And those few familiar ones had some kind of a surprised look on them when they spotted me. My new class is a small one, with only about 10 members, before the few of us repeatees supplied reinforcements. I realised we repeatees and our new classmates are facing a generation gap. We're from the 80s while they're from the 90s. Cool. As for the teachers, all of them have never taught me before, except Mr Yoong, 'cause he seems to always take the H1 History classes every year.

Unlike last year, my most favourite and least favourite lessons have taken a drastic switch. I used to love Physical Education (PE) most and Mathematics least. Now it's the other way round. I shan't say anything about PE but for Maths, it was my first tutorial lesson that I attended on Friday (I missed the one on Monday) and it was the first time in my life I felt the classroom was hot (if you know what that means). Haha.

Pity there are only two Maths tutorial lessons in a week (the other three are lectures). Hai. And there are three Physics tutorial lessons of which two are 3-period lessons. How I wish Physics and Maths can swop time slots. Haha. Nevermind, tomorrow there's Maths tutorial lesson so I can enjoy the heat again. Yay.

On a seious note, to be frank, repeating this Year 2 is tougher than I had expected. On Tuesday when I attended the first lesson of the day (Maths lecture), I was totally lost. It was the same for Physics tutorial lesson which followed. Only History lecture was slightly better. Thank God it was a short day on Tuesday, otherwise I would've gone bonkers on my first day itself.

Like what I smsed Neale, the grass always seems greener on the other side. Last year before my A's, I couldn't wait to be enlisted into the army because I wanted to use my brawn more than my brain (which was ironically true: you don't need any brains in there). But during my BMT days, I'd rather rack my brains studying. And now that I'm back to school, the whole cycle seems to start again. Well, like what Neale said in his reply, it's better to munch away at / enjoy the grass with no eye for the fence! I shall learn to do just that.

When I repeated my Secondary Three back in Catholic High, I knew I was one year behind my peers and only one year ahead of my younger sister who's two years younger than me. Instead of taking my O level exams two years before she took hers, I took mine just one year before hers. I actually imagined this: What if I were to repeat a year again in JC? We would be taking our A's together. And so my thoughts became reality, a cool but very sad reality.

I shall not go any further and take up even more time on this. I have other more pressing issues to settle. I'm living on extra borrowed time.