Bugs in the bath.

Some time ago I talked about my strange encounters with birds. Now I'd like to discuss my strange encounters with creepy crawlies.

I have this inexplicable affinity for the little creepy crawlers of the earth. They love me so much, I had a cockroach fly straight into my arms (literally). The other day while chatting with Shermin a beetle flew down and landed one on my lips. I felt so loved. I also felt quite grateful that I listened to my mother when I was young about not keeping my mouth open like a moron, otherwise I'd have ingested the poor thing that was only trying to show its affection for me.

The same beetle I talk about has even met me in the bathroom a few times. It seems to like the puddles that are left after a bath, and once or twice it came before I started my bath as if it instinctively knew when I was going to come. I don't freak out when I see bugs, if you are trying to catch one reason to laugh at me. But I'm not too gruesome and I don't start trying to slaughter the hapless beings. So I just bathe with it swimming under me. It doesn't do much to me and won't do anything unless I harm it.

But the strangest and potentially the most dangerous bath buddy bug I've ever met was a centipede, just today. Yep, I had a nice warm bath after walking back in the rain (the umbrella that is always deployed in the side of my bag just didn't seem to be there). At the end of the whole thing, I noticed a slimy worm-like object at the bottom of the wall in front of me. Upon investigation I discovered the hundred-legged worm, and I decided to give it a squirm for all it's worth and gave it a light spray of water. The thing started to move down the wall and it seemed to be heading towards the gulley, but apparently centipedes are one of the most egoistic bugs around, so it figured that it wasn't really in any real danger, and even if it were, he'd hunt down its harrassor and put an end to him. I wasn't going to end up on his wall full of animal heads he caught while hunting game, so I took one step out and sprayed him so that the water guided him into the gulley in a peaceful manner. While I suspect that was where he came out from, I thought maybe he'd like to see home again so I sent him back down again. Next time I see it, I'll, let it be.

I am quite embarrassed however, to admit that this is the first time I'm seeing a real centipede. It was a small bugger but I heard that they pack quite a punch. During my BMT SIT test, one of the most poser AC guys in my platoon got bitten on his lower lip by the little fiend. I swear to you, and my platoon mates can attest to my words, that he had the sexiest lips for a whole week!

Another little critter that visits my house every once so often is this hairy caterpillar. My maid goes ballistic when she sees one and my sisters start praying for mercy when they see that cute little thing. Me? I wish I could keep it as a pet. Well it's just too sad that long time ago I had to squish the thing for my mother because a hairy cat that was another bathroom visitor was freaking out my sister. She didn't want to admit it freaked her out more, that's why she employed me. I played with it for awhile before conceding to their cries of pain and suffering and decided to end the miserable caterpillar's life with a slipper. I mean, I'm sure it would rather die than live with the fact that 4 women (and one guy, my brother) were terrified of it and thought it was hideous. Oh and it would rather take its own life than listen to the above 4 women (and one guy, my brother) scream in terror.

Now the cute lil' thing ain't all that cute. I caught one bugger try to climb into my army boot one day. That's no good. I brushed it off before it could reach its objective. From now on, I ALWAYS ALWAYS check my boots before wearing them. It's quite ironic that I didn't have to resort to such a level of caution even in BMT or field camp.

In any case, I must explain where my compassion for bugs came from. When I was a little boy in primary 4, it was raining and I met a drowning earthworm that was wriggling on water logged soil. I don't know what possessed me to feel for it, but I whipped out my hanky and picked it up. I tried to dry whatever I could of it although it was quite hopeless since my hanky was quite drenched too. I went home and tried doing all sorts of funny things to revive it. The guy wasn't going to make it, what's more, it seemed like it was getting disemboweled for who knows what reason. In the end, I took it downstairs, buried it, and threw my poor hanky away.

Everyone loves mealworms! My sister's managed to rear one and it's turned into a beetle and it still lives after a month or so. She took good care of it. Same couldn't be said of me. One day I was trying to put a drop of water into my mealworm box, and I spilt it. So immediately, in front of my social studies teacher, I took them out one by one, held them upside down and shook them gently to knock out some water. I used tissue too. The poor things were all immobile, but slowly they all came to. My partner's heart attack diminished, too. It was a miracle that there was a 100% survival rate after the flood that I caused! I felt that after this, there was nothing that could take away my mealworms, not even if there was a flood in Singapore.

In the end, my mealworms died when the ants that wanted to take away the apple in its container decided that mealworm would taste better. I left the container in school and forgot to put a CCTV over it. What a waste. I felt like a bad person.

So there you go. My big heart for these critters has earned me a reputation all over the insect world. They all love me, except for those awful mozzies and sandflies! In any case, I really have nothing against insects and I hope that screaming girls will realise they're quite harmless. If there's one way you want to get rid of your fear of insects, bathe with them...

Escaping

Hi, I've been escaping this place for a long time and I'm absolutely nonplussed because for some weird reason, I've lost the knack of blogging. In fact, it seems like I've completely lost the knack of writing, and if you were to shove a foolscap paper and a pen in front of me and then write down an essay topic on the whiteboard, the first question I'd ask you is how do you make the pen work.

But my title isn't so much about escaping blogging so much as how it is about how I've escaped two social events, one intended and one not intended. The former being a barbeque that was planned long ago by my coursemates to celebrate (mourn) the end of our slacking. Initially, I was excited when the idea was proposed, but that same day I decided with die-hard resolve that I wouldn't be attending it when the attitudes of certain people pissed me off. Indeed, right up till the day of the BBQ, their behaviour did not impress me the least bit. Just imagine, on the day of the barbeque, attendance reached a rock bottom low of half the number of people. The most popular excuse was diarrhoea. Strangely, all those with diarrhoea went for the BBQ in the end, and I believe they ate like pigs. Somehow this screams "Chow Keng". I'm a self-proffessed anti-chowkenger and I believe that even though we have nothing to do right now in camp, if we are still able to move and breathe we should report to camp and not fabricate some weird reason to skip a day, only to be seen at night eating junk food. Oh, and to top it all off, I believe a bulk of their night activities included playing mahjong and cards, games I can't play, won't learn how to play and find inappropriate for a BBQ session. With full condo facilities, it's sinful to sit around shuffling some ivory tiles or some regally decorated pieces of paper, trying to coax the opponent to shamefully add in a few bucks to spice things up. Of course I don't know exactly what went on, but I am sure for certain that my attending the BBQ wouldn't have made me feel any better, nor any sense of fulfilment whatsoever. If you want to celebrate friendship, there are better and more lasting ways of doing so, and one way is to respect your peers in your everyday lives, not sit in one place and shunt your duties.

The second social event I missed was Cindy's farewell and that's because I'm not sitting on a chair with an inflammed palette/uvula (I'm not a certified doctor or medic and I shall use a shabby self-diagnosis here) that is indicative of an impending flu. That sucks because I'm sick of getting sick. I loaded myself with water today and visited the toilet so many times I needed to borrow my brother's hands to count. I do hope of course that the situation doesn't deteriorate into a miserable flu because then I'll be very sad. As it is, it's really sad that I missed Cindy because it'll mean not seeing her in a long time, and missing her sweet yet crazy demeanour. In any case, the fluboes of NJC will never find the world too big a place and we'll always find a way to meet again, hopefully in the Macs of NTU or Jurong point, a landmark in Fluboes history!

I really hope that by Monday I'll be rocking again. Cause I'm too cool to be sick.

Want to comment on an article I read in the papers today. A school boy died while crossing the road today by a bus who knocked him down while he was turning right at a junction. I tried to recreate the accident in my mind and I highly doubt it's the boys fault, because a smart guy like him who's walked the roads many a time should know to look left and right. I wouldn't be surprised if the fault belongs entirely to the bus driver. A very irritating thing I noticed about Singaporean drivers is how they try to turn right while completely disregarding pedestrians who have right of way no matter what. For your information, a pedestrian has right of way even if he has no right of way (contradictory huh?). So if an idiot jaywalks, you must give way to him. Anyway, there have been many incidents when I felt that a car has absolutely dismissed my presence and safety by zooming sheer inches from me while I'm crossing the road. There was once in the wee hours of the morning I was walking across to get to my bus stop when two cars zipped past me and if I had taken even one step I'd be in hospital. Turning right at a junction at a green light is one of the riskiest manouevres anyone could do because they must mind traffic coming from ahead as well as pedestrians crossing. These drivers just throw caution to the wind. Imagine, my uniform makes me close to invisible at night, and if their lights weren't on I'd be pancake. I have much sympathy for the victim and I have no sympathy for the busdriver who was suspended and faces the sack.

Oh well. This is enough for a week. I might return sometime soon if I don't get too addicted to Sonic Heroes. I keep dying lah. Anyway. Good night!

Back loh

It's been quite a while, guess that I've been thrilled I'm the big green monster, I know what with that big green moron looking at your face everytime you tried seeing if the author of this blog had finally woken up and decided to exercise his fingers a bit on the computer to make what is commonly known as a weblog entry.

Within the last week I've been afflicted with the most horrible stomachache which was a combination of diarrhoea and constipation, flooding my innards but not allowing it to come out, causing much discomfort and pain. I'm sure bearing a child can't be as painful as the pain I went through, but it must be comparable. Plus, it's quite idiotic to think that your bowels want you to go to the toilet and then you wait there for an hour and nothing happens at all. You feel cheated and you feel like flinging your fist in the air.

AN HOUR!

Anyway, that's all fine and dandy. My cousins and aunt from India came for a few days and the house became a riot. The cousin sister doting on my two sisters brought about the worst from the two...they became a bit too hyperactive from the love. I wanted to escape. Anyway, the highlight would've been the nonsense and liveliness the many hours playing Sonic and then the play that we watched, the King and I.

Now I'm sick of blogging so I promise to come back soon. This post is to assure you I'm alive

What superhero/supervillain are you?

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 80% Spider-Man 75% Robin 57% Superman 55% Supergirl 40% The Flash 35% Green Lantern 35% Batman 30% Wonder Woman 20% Iron Man 15% Catwoman 10%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Your results:
You are Venom

Venom 58% Mystique 45% Apocalypse 41% Mr. Freeze 36% The Joker 33% Dr. Doom 33% Dark Phoenix 32% Magneto 28% Riddler 26% Juggernaut 25% Two-Face 25% Lex Luthor 19% Green Goblin 17% Kingpin 16% Poison Ivy 11% Catwoman 3%

Strength, disguise and adrenaline are your greatest weapons.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz


I'm sorry that the gaps are so large (if they come out large...in the preview over here they seem to be quite spaced out). Even then, I think my supervillain is cool. Lol. I don't mind being hulk. It's fun to get angry and smash things around. Therapeutic actually. Haha!

Paint made in China

I seriously suspect the paint they used in the room is from China and has some extremely toxic lead vapour compound. Everyone's getting strang ailments, the most frequent one being diarrhoea, which neutralised at least 5 this morning. The last two days, for some inexplicable reason, I've been feeling groggy and sleepy although I've been strangely full of energy the last few weeks. Now suddenly I feel like sleeping in the room again plus when I come back home I feel awful too. And it's not due to lack of sleep; I'm sleeping for about slightly less than 6 hours as usual, which is fine.

But diarrohoea and fatigue have no connection with lead and paint. And the paint was done up 2-3 weeks ago. May still be hazardous. But still...what's wrong with me...

And I got beaten 3 times today by some noob at the Capcom vs SNK game. I feel so sad...and poor.

The woes of being a leadership are caused by selfish individuals unlucky to be led

Had another fall out with a rock head person in my group today.

I decided to save him some face and do as he demanded. That meant shirking a job that a commander gave us to do: the menial clearing of bunks and carrying cupboards and beds. This was done in the name of 'soldier's rights'. It's not our fault that we were chosen to stay back a few months before our new course began. They had no right to make us do work. Did they?

I think a lot of girls will be thinking that army meant doing sai kang without question. I'm sure other army boys here will be thinking what in the hell are soldier's rights. They probably are forced to do sai kang without even breathing a retort in their own units. And I agree that sai kang should be done without question of rights or what. For the simple fact that we are doing nothing, sitting and waiting out for new course to begin, that is in our context. Actually, the fact is that we are innundated with a lot of other computer related work which the officers are handing us to do since they are extremely busy. That doesn't matter, there's still lots of space for us to help. And mind you, we were up against a warrant officer. It's amazing that it so transpired while I was away at Kranji that she got pissed off with their 'demanding' for their rights that she just told them to stop doing it.

I've just deleted a whole two paragraphs to keep myself from going overboard with my ill feelings. I just need to get a simple point across.

There are a lot of negative qualities we all possess. But the worst few of them include pride and selfishness. I HATE selfishness. And I hate it when a person puts himself on top of a pedestal and dictates that everything that happens be to his convenience. As the perma-IC, I'm losing my face all the time because of some jokers who decide that their lives are more important, other than my aim of keeping everyone happy. I shun the way their few months in STC before the transport supervisor course begins must revolve solely around them. They have no respect for any form of authority, and at some point in time they must feel the sting and repent.

Sadly, I don't think they'll feel the sting. They've been caught once, and supposedly their 'taking full responsibility' for their actions is a noble deed and spurs them on in their folly. Taking responsibilty is good but continuing a misdeed is foolishness.

In any case, I'm going to ignore them even more and let them do what they want. In fact I'm just going to act cold with them even if they don't care about it. And then I'm going to talk to higher authoritites. In no way must I allow myself to lose control over myself. Today during the argument I was trembling like I do when I argue. It's the fear that I'll completely lose it. There's everything to lose and nothing but short-lived pleasure to gain by giving into mindless rage. I've not lost my head yet, but there's this tugging feeling that it may happen one day. I don't want to see it...