Now I am sitting in front of my computer, I feel tired, but cannot sleep. That’s because when I lie down, I feel nerve firings through my legs, my neck, my hands randomly.
The worst attack I have ever had was when I twisted in my sleep. An intense shot of pain shot through my nerves in my body, and no matter what position I lie in, I feel the pain. Hwei Min was there and I was literally screaming, and sobbing, not knowing what to do.
Whenever I lie down and I feel an ache in my back sometimes, I feel an overwhelming sense of fear rush over me. I start to imagine the worst, I start visualizing what is causing the pain in my spine. I start to imagine what will happen if i lose my ability to move my limbs. I think of the consequences to my family.
Knowing what I learnt from “The Secret”, I know I should not focus on it too much, and instead, look forward to a full recovery. But lying down, feeling and jolting at every single tingle of my nerves, it’s hard, you know?
So I am sitting in front of the pc… googling for information about my injury. I came to looking for news about Michael J. Fox, and somehow found some inspiration from watching an interview of him on Youtube.
Supposed to go back tonight, and be staying overnight in camp before going out field for exercise tomorrow.
My back problem is worsening. Last few days, I just felt a slight backache. Today, I start feeling muscular and nervous spasms all over my body when I lie down. Not good.
I think I will have to report sick. Don’t think I want to go out field. Don’t feel good dropping out like a loser, but I don’t want to injure myself for life over a few days of maintaining my ego.
Past two days were spent doing basic engineering tasks. Not too bad, mainly refreshers, we forgot most of the procedures but our past knowledge kicked in shortly after ‘hands on’.
As usual, though, lots of time spent waiting. The standard SAF motto, “Rush to wait, wait to rush” applies all the time. It seems no matter how much planning you put into arranging your tasks, so as to speed things up, SAF just seems to break everything back down and slow you down. It’s very interesting, you know?
Once you put on the uniform, you suddenly become a little more stupid, and time seems to flow slower.
However, someone put things into a very positive perspective yesterday.
We were in a training shed, and it just happened to be breezy. That guy (i can’t remember who) said that he treated ICTs like a retreat, a time to reflect. It’s true… The training shed we were in was in the middle of a field, and when I heard that observation, the trees, the grass, the breeze quite suddenly become quite surreal.
After being introduced to it by Kok Boon, I watched a movie called “The Secret” not too long ago. (www.thesecret.tv) It describes the secret to success. I shall not reveal too much, you can take a look at the video at youtube, but having watched the movie, I found that ICT served another purpose.
The Secret
ICT takes away things I take for granted. Things like freedom of time, ability to keep clean, having a nicely cooked meal and all the other comforts of modern life, but much more importantly, time with family.
It is a part of human nature that we take things for granted after having it for a while. From what I recall from studying psychology, that’s how our brain functions. Our thoughts and sensations being ‘electrical signals’ in the brain… after many times of repetitive ‘signals’ of the same kind, our brain builds a huge trunking line between the parts of the brain that are involved in that signal. This is so to make our brain process this information faster, and allow more of the adaptive parts of our brain to take in new information.
In short, we are wired to just accept certain sensations as the norm, after repeating it too many times.
The problem with that is that we tend to forget what we already have, and we tend to focus on things that we do not want. We then complain about things that are now not going on too well in our lives.
The more we focus on the things we DO NOT want, the unhappier we become, and the more the things we do not want become a reality.
To me, we need to constantly remind ourselves of the things we already have, the things that are going on well, and have been going on well. We are thus, training our minds to become in-tuned with the things that we DO want.
Sounds cheem? I think not. Think about it and I think you can find dozen examples of people who are unhappier and unhappier, and are thus becoming unhappier and unhappier still. Nothing mystical about that!
Interesting new format now, makes the whole shoot feel more like an arcade game. It just got harder to get Marksman now.
Anyway, got a call from Chye Kwang to tell me everything is smooth in office. Glad to know that everything is ok, even though Teck Yew is on leave too.
Just got home. Its 10.30pm by the time I reached. I stay within 15 mins bus ride away from the camp. I can’t imagine the others.
Tomorrow book in again at 7.00 a.m.
Anyway, I noticed something in the range opposite to ours today. Another company was having a shoot. A 2LT officer was arguing with a Staff Sergeant over something to do with ops.
Watching from a distance, of course, I could not really figure out what they were talking about. However, this triggered an insight I got from watching commanders lead in my years of the NS experience. Being of the rank of a corporal, I could, obviously, watch everything, and just pass judgement… but I have seen some really bad commanders in my NS cycle.
The kind of commander that totally sucks is a combination of
one who cannot say no to the superiors, and is “super siao on” at trying to impress
one who cannot admit that he does not have as much experience in certain areas as, say, a NCO, who could have been in service for more years than he, and could have a better approach to do things, or have an insight on situations.
The problem with this combination is that, on one hand, while trying to impress his superiors, he could fall flat on his face because he might not be realistic when setting a task, and his subordinates fail at achieving the unrealistic targetsthat he promised. On the other hand, he would also lose any respect that the subordinates originally had of him.
So? Complete failure…
Of course, in the Army, subordinates cannot leave his charge so easily, neither could they disobey his orders directly, so things would go on looking fine on the surface.
In the long run, the net result would be inefficiency. You would have people who cannot lead at all, in leadership positions. These people would not leave, since they know that they are inefficient, and would not survive in the real world. Instead, they would serve long and well in their positions and depend on their ranks to lead.
Result?
Inefficient SAF. Fucked up person who will be ill equipped for the real world when age finally catches up and he has to leave the forces. His only skill? Managing people, which we know he can’t do very well anyway.
By the way, I am not really passing any judgement on such leaders. By the sixth one I meet, I have already gone past that. I just find it kind of sad?
There are a lot of personnel stuck in these kinds of position. The whole problem is… many of them might not even realise the truth, since they are sheltered by the system.
Thankfully its not like I am in the Army. It is much better in the ‘real world’.
I started out doing a review for “The Departed” … but I think any comparisons with “Infernal Affairs” would be inevitable, since I’ve watched both.
On its own,
“The Departed” is a great movie. The movie is worth S$8.00 Movies in Singapore are from a range of S$6.50 to S$9.00 depending on the day and time you watch it on.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Billy Costigan, an Irish American who goes undercover into the Boston mob.
Matt Damon plays Colin Sullivan, groomed by Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello into becoming an informer for him.
Nicholson is a contained nuclear reactor as Costello. On the verge of blowing up, keeping the audience guessing as to when he is going to blow. This relationship keeps the tension on Costigan as he goes through close shave after close shave. Reminds me of The Joker in the original Batman movie.
In comparison with the Hong Kong original,
“The Departed” departed on what drives the two main characters’ actions. The timeline is different, for one. This accounts for the difference since in the Infernal Affairs movie, both characters started going undercover at around the same time, and the movie starts at least 8-10 years after they’ve been undercover.
Leonardo DiCaprio was great at portraying the role of Costigan. Always in constant danger, his internal conflicts are barely below the surface. However at times, I am a little lost on what drives Costigan. Tony Leung’s character, the undercover cop, wants to be a cop… and faces an identity crisis, and internal conflict for not being able to say that he is one. He’s been in the triads for 9 years. And there are plenty of opportunities for him to show that he really wants to be a cop. Costigan has been undercover in the mafia, for over 2 years? And he wants to quit the force after that. It is a little difficult to empathise with Costigan’s pain.
Similarly for the role of the informer. I felt that the motives for Sullivan were too vaguely shown, and hence I could not really feel for the character. Matt Damon did a good job at whatever material he had, playing the two-faced character pretty well. But what the movie lacked, again, was what drives Sullivan? Andy Lau’s character was more well developed in that as the audience, throughout the film, you understand that he really wants to be a ‘good guy’ too, and had been forced to be in the position he is in.
It could be due to a difference between the American and Asian culture, but I would say that I derived more tension from Scorsese’s
“The Departed”, because Boston is portrayed as a grittier, more violent place as compared to Hong Kong. The locations and sets the movie was filmed in was dirtier, granier, closer to reality.
Andrew Lau’s “Infernal Affairs” portrayed a less gritty Hong Kong, the locations and sets are cleaner, neater. The costumes and make up for the actors also leave a clean, cool feel on screen.
In my opinion, the latter allows the story to be told, whereas I found the grittiness a distraction in the former, especially in the dealing of the movie’s main characters.
It is just interesting that the same plot (most of the plot keypoints are there) can be treated with such a vast difference. So what we have here are essentially two movies, both great, and both worth watching for different reasons, however, if I have to make a choice, it will have to be “Infernal Affairs” on any given day.
