My last blog post as a civilian.

During last year and for the small bit of this year combined, the events that have occurred were somewhat bizarre. Although I really wanted to be in the National Team, I didn't quite see myself in it, so the whole Olympiad experience has been rather surreal. Some events that are pretty unlikely happened anyway. It has been hard to make sense of a lot of events, and I figured it would be easier to just take things as they come by. This could be why I'm not quite as anxious about NS as my parents and siblings and friends are.

I'm hoping to take the two years in army as a chance to learn as much as possible. Although I wouldn't expect NS to be a bed of roses, I'm sure that it would be an enriching and enlightening experience.

I remember in J1, Zilin told me that she was crossed with someone, because he commented on a lousy essay being "something that even an ITE student can come up with", and I didn't know why that comment pissed her off. I went back to my mother and sister, and they immediately picked out that it was derogatory to ITE students. That incident had left me thinking how horribly narrow my perspective had been all these while. Having spent 4 years in RI, I was not exposed to the people from neighbourhood secondary schools and ITEs, and had formed prejudices against them unconsciously. Hopefully, by being exposed to people from different strata in the society, I can gain a broader perspective of things.

In any case, for girls and people from countries without conscription, working for the military must sound pretty exciting. I mean, some ang mohs take a year off to work in an office or do community service in Africa after they graduate from High School, serving the military (especially in a combat position) probably sounds quite refreshing. I agree that life in the military is not something everyone wants to experience, but then again, it's not something everyone gets to experience.

People say that it's a waste of two years, but hey, compared to average lifespan of 80+, it really doesn't make that much of a difference. And for the RJ guys who are complaining that the girls in their batch don't look pretty, serving NS means that you're not going to be in the same batch as them again in university. We would go to university in the same year as Koh Zheng Ning!!! Doesn't that alone worth 2% of your lifespan?

Hanging around with a new bunch of people is going to be a test of my social skills yet again. I shall try to do better than I have done before. If I succeed, it could be rewarding.

Maybe I'm still young and idealistic. NS has a proven track record for turning people into cynics, but well, at least if I do, when I read this post again, I get to laugh at myself!

Ok, see you in at least 3 weeks. NS has a proven track record for killing blogs too, so I may not see you again after all.