Smitten At Sunrise

I woke up at the doorsteps of dawn

And waited for yesterday’s sinking sun
Rubbed my eyes twice or thrice, I can't quite surmise,
Waiting for the pretty soul
For whom I’d suffer more than a broken nose

There I sat on the curb
Where I tripped and fell head over heels
When I saw her on two wheels
With her ponytails prancing and dancing,
A ballet around her peachy pink helmet

So I said to me,
“Why, now’s not the time to simply be waxing lyrical
About a faraway miracle
So how about
A shiny surprise in something small and cylindrical?”

But I don’t even know her name
Only that she’ll be riding by again
Maybe next time it won’t be the same
We’ll play the giggling game
And see the sunset by the end of the day

So as I savoured my ice-cream dream
The squeak of brakes sounded right in front of me
She was off the seat
My heart raced at pedal speed
And she said, “Well, aren’t you going to let me in?”

In sweet shock I had the door unlocked
And we stepped through without the tiniest clue
What we could do before we’d even said “Hi”
So I took her to my rocket science room
Waiting for a carnation chance to bloom

And there we saw me, curled up like a baby
Floating on the folds of my bedsheet
With glowing stars on the ceiling
Encyclopedia cities and a wooden box with steel strings
I could feel her looking at me

Then I woke up again with a sunnier start
My limbs sprawled like a renaissance work of art
And I heard from outside a bicycle ring
Like how a songbird would sing
The sound of the doorbell to my heart

The Efficiency of Inefficiency

We have become so efficient at doing inefficient things that this paradox deserves some elaboration.

As much as the rationale eludes us, we have been presented with a need to stencil our four-digit numbers onto every little piece of equipment we have. You ask, why not simply handwrite? Wish I knew.

Maybe it's because we want to give our aggressors the impression that we are really, really neat soldiers; it might actually scare them. Maybe it's because we want to use penmanship to boast of our robotic philosophy. Maybe it's because using stencils elicits within us a measure of kindergarten reminiscence that never deserves to be forsaken no matter how much innocence we may think we've lost ever since we stepped through these doors! Oh, my Wilfred Owen!

Nevertheless, we are not daunted. We must demonstrate our fighting spirit. We must be thinking soldiers. And so we divide the labour, and valiantly sacrifice our period of self-study for the noble and divine sake of nattiness. (Indeed, we found a way to do it quite quickly nonetheless, which is really the point of the title.)

And so it goes, another day to be laughed at in retrospect, another day that re-affirms the wise and practiced adage – Do or die, don't ask why.

Second Hand Thoughts

The passage of time in the army is a familiar journey. Like an ancient vessel, winds and waves of instruction and command do much to dictate how her seamen experience the voyage. The occasional return to her port of call is shortlived but treasured; every departure is but for the sake of preserving the coast.

Sometimes I imagine a day passing by like how you reach for a handful of sand with your bare palm – that's dawn. As the sun rises and surveys the horizon, you slowly release your fingers and the grains of sand explore your knuckles like khaki waterfalls. Most of them fall to the ground by nightfall, but a few hazel specks remain stuck to your moist hand – these are the moments you catch. The rest fade into the shore of your subconscious.

I type this as I sit in a training shed, surrounded by friends, guns, grass, and the sound of raindrops that have since field camp lost a measure of their melodic quality. It's supposed to be our 'self-directed learning' period. But hey, boys can multi-task! But genuinely, I just think it's encouraging that such flights of fancy still materialise even now. In some sense, they're too precious not to pen down.

Which brings me back to the currency of events. What's interesting to note is that time seems to pass at a different speed here compared to the outside world.

On one hand, the general sentiment is that time passes as slowly as how a mouse would drag a hippopotamus across a football field. On the other hand, we are called to observe a sacred form of punctuality, in which a second of tardiness would result in elbow-buckling consequences; we end up always asking for extensions (which, by the way, brings back fond memories of my old life). So on one level, time passes too slowly, but on another level, it teleports.

Then, through an even wider lens, the rest of the world seems to be zooming past while everyday here feels like every other day. Because we live out the week in such great anticipation for the weekend, we scarcely realise that a month has already passed when we see our moms for the fourth time.

Like sailors, we learn all these things the hard way, the choppy and homesick way. But then again, who knows what will happen tomorrow? *grin*

There Is A Leaf

there is a leaf

that falls from branches who

were praying to the sky

it swims through the air and lands on

kneeling roots

there is a leaf

that is not yet a leaf but a tree

for it receives blood still

from legs that are being

severed at this moment

there is a leaf

that arrives at a concrete forest overrun by

hasty metal beetles with

granite logs smudged by giant silver cobwebs

it is disposed of quickly

there is a leaf

who is a passenger of the winds

like many who merely hope to tease the sky

and gracefully descend

only to become dirt again

there is a leaf

that is painted across

a pearly gown

its underside caresses a damsel's soft ivory skin

it cannot be destroyed

~tc

I will miss my room dearly.

The first thing that blocks your way when you enter - a new IKEA shelf I excitedly assembled with Mum a few days ago, plus the books from the package that just arrived this month. Both are really weighty.

The regions round echo the sound of that from which I've learnt to read, write, speak, laugh and think, amongst other things.

Another shelf then appears near eye-level. Things get dusty quite quickly while they're on it, but I suppose I'll miss cleaning them equally soon.

One resident ornament that depicts my true nature.

My trusty MPB lies just below. I will miss typing on it late into the night - to people and for people. Of course that means missing those people as well. Deeply.

And of course its very sexy Iron Man II wallpaper. Which is, by the way, extremely cool even to girls.

Learning to live without music will be quite deafening I think.

Who needs a lake and a forest when you've got books, a glass table and an iPhone. Argh, no more daily tweets.

The stillness of the night is usually quite admirable from my window.

Right below it, my damsel stands, tall and elegant. I will miss caressing her and making her trill.

To the detriment of our relationship, I will be forced to embrace another kind of longish, black and noisy instrument as my only companion who vociferates without vulgar embellishments. It cannot compare to a Fender, although I will need to defend the country with it.

My bed rests beside my damsel. Poor bolster, there will be no one to hug him to sleep very soon. (Yeah, it's a him. My pillow's a her though.)

What I see when I open my eyes in the morning (assuming I'm facing up with my head tilted slightly to the left and free of eye-crap).

"Mirror mirror on the cupboard door, who's the darkest of them all?"

This is actually an empty contact lens case. I wear my lenses in the washroom. It's just an artistic close-up. You've been conned.

Vestiges of my childhood still reside in my glass cupboard. Eat this bomberman, I will soon have more firepower than you and your pitiful little marble.

And of course, it contains lovely evidence of how important all of you have been to me. This is a really big one, nimbly crafted by Duck III with her own hands. I will miss being heart-warmed when I happen to cast my eyes on random things.

And finally as I type, time ticks away in nonchalance, and I'm that much closer to the next rung on the ladder heavenward.

Jesus, lead my march to Calvary.

A Worthy Excerpt

I didn't expect my attention to be held to the end when I started playing this video; it was really just for fun. I still believe that presuppositional apologetics best pierce at the heart of the postmodern thinker. But that doesn't make the blade of science any duller or less capable of anatomising propositions than it has proven to be. Clearly, unlike how one of the following speakers would contend, nothing happens by accident, not even the click of a mouse.

So here's a worthy excerpt - a small transcript I made of The God Delusion Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox (haha one letter away from John Lennon).

(In response to Dawkin's assertion that 'Design is dead, otherwise one must explain who designed the Designer', and so believing in a Designer leads to an infinite regress.)

It's the old schoolboy question - Who created God? I'm actually very surprised to find it as a central argument in your book. Because it assumes that God is created. And I'm not surprised therefore that you call the book 'The God Delusion' because created gods are, by definition, a delusion.

John Lennox

Professor of Mathematics at Oxford

I think the observation to be made is that scientists, more so than any other profession, cannot escape philosophy. Every tributary comes from the sky and ends up in the sea. Or you could say every tributary comes from the sea and ends up in the sky. Which is partially why I wrote this.

With Authors In April