World Weary

It's not easy being a conscript. You waste two years of your life doing what other (often uneducated and clueless) baboons want you to. They don't give proper instructions, they are always last minute, and it generally is very demeaning to be ordered around my someone who has a quarter of your IQ. This dire situation is compounded by the fact that every now and then, you encounter people who go out of their way to make you miserable. When you meet someone like that, and you give them just the tiniest opportunity to find fault with you, well then in a nutshell, you're screwed.

And so my friend finds himself being CHARGED and given 14 days of SOL (which basically means that he can't leave camp for 2 weeks, and also puts a mark on his army records) for committing a very minor offence. As Mdm would say, a 'small matter'. Smaller than an Asian man's flacid penis on a cold day. It's really very surreal. I won't be seeing him at the gym, won't be celebrating his birthday (which is very unfortunately this weeked), and we won't be able to have our planned brunch at Pregos. Not just yet anyway. And he isn't like one of 'em brown dirt fellas who spend their days congregating around the smoking corner and talking about soccer. He works really hard, to the point where he doesn't get to leave the office at 5.30 everyday (like moi), and occasionally can't find the time for lunch. Is this how our wonderful organisation CHOOses to repay loyalty? We're ALL screwed la. Can't wait to get out. It makes my blood boil to think about some of the motherfuckers out there who abuse their rank as the only means of projecting any sort of authority whatsoever over people who will be unimaginably more successful in life than they can ever hope to be.

Having said all that, not all of them are bad la. I've been blessed with generally good superiors. I have learnt a thing or two here and there. Still, it's nothing that couldn't have been learnt elsewhere. I really feel terrible about what's happened to him, So unexpected. And unjust. You know what they say, what goes around comes around. Hopefully that holds true this time. That's all I'm gonna say.

Drama inspires one to write doesn't it?

Anyway a few days ago the apparently finalised plans for the Ground Zero Site were released.
I have to say that I'm liking the designs. Although you can't exactly term any of those buildings 'iconic' (which is a term I am quite sick of because of it's blatant overuse here in Singapore), I think they're a fitting replacement for the Twin Towers, which were hopelessly boxy but still considered icons of New York City. As you should all know by now, I had the priviledge of visiting the towers a year before 9/11, and the entire complex was really breathtaking, especially for a 14 year old kid from a country which prides itself on it's PUBLIC HOUSING.

I'm a whee bit iffy on that building with the 4-diamond cascading...thinggy, which is funny because it seemingly is the most daring of the lot. But then again I love the old school buildings in Manhattan more than anything else (think of the Woolworth, the Flatiron, the Chrsyler in all her 1920s splendor), so I suppose that reaction to 4-diamond thinggy isn't surprising. Don't get me wrong, I really do adore avant-garde, cutting-edge, ground-breaking, in the vanguard etc etc architecture, but what amazes me about all the old buildings is that they were built without the comforts and conviniences of modern technology today. And the Empire State and Chrsyler are still taller (and infinitely more majestic) than anythig we have in Singapore today.

Singapore has never been the country for skyscrapers that make you want to have spontaneous multiple orgasms. For some reason, our 'big 3' look provincial compared to their counterparts in Malaysia, Taipei, Dubai etc. When it comes to skyscrapers, it must be said that I can be a size Queen. Hell, ain't no skyscraper going up my ass anyway.

Ewww.

So yeah. That's about it. I still feel shitty for WR. The cost has just become too much to take.