He updates! And talks in third person!

Hello all. It's been two months and I suppose I'm not ready to let this blog die yet. I don't feel like people understand how significant it is that I'm posting because at this time I'm usually gaming. The fact that I'm willing to put off gaming to update, I feel, is worth noting. You're welcome, readers.

So. Happenings. (and fappenings). I've started playing an MMORPG again, so most of my life has disappeared. Neverwinter is a surprisingly fun game. It's better than the traditional RPG in a few ways, which I shall now list. People not interested may skip this next part (I'll let you know when to start reading again with pink text).

1. It doesn't have 10,000 skills. Everyone who has played a game like World of Warcraft knows what the skill bar looks like when you hit max level. You have 3-5 rows of skills, which adds up to about at least 36 skills to rotate easily. In neverwinter, you have 2 at-wills you can equip at a time, which are like your basic attacks, 3 encounter powers, which are like special abilities with a corresponding cooldown usually between 5-20 seconds, and 2 dailies, which are like ultimate abilities you can use when you've filled your Action Points, which is kinda like a power bar or something?

The implication is that a. You have to select the right skills for the right kind of fights (i.e. a PvP loadout doesn't work as well for PvE, a boss fight loadout isn't as effective for clearing waves of mobs etc.)

2. It's action based, meaning it requires reactive gameplay. Many traditional RPGs come down to just getting the right gear and stats and then just rotating the right skills, in pretty much a zombielike state. Neverwinter forces you to react. Enemies have special attacks which can one-shot you if you're playing a squishier class like a rogue. You can dodge, and you have to. Unlike other games where a decent healer can basically keep you at near full health without any effort on your part, the best healer in the game couldn't save you in Neverwinter if you refuse to avoid taking damage.

I see a lot of people blaming their teammates when they just aren't that good at the game because they're playing like a traditional MMO instead of reacting to a situation when it happens, which is pretty infuriating.

3. Being a game that emphasizes end-game content and knowing that, allowing players to get to end-game very, very quickly. For instance, WoW is very much about end-game content, and yet it still takes a few days or week at least, if you're playing like crazy everyday, to get to end-game. In Neverwinter, you can get from lvl 1-60(max level) in 2 days if you know what you're doing. And when you're max level, there's still so much to do.

That said, the game has a significant number of flaws which detract from the experience. This game would be so much better if they fixed at least some of these.

1. So many bugs. Just in the 1.5 months I've been playing, there have been a shit ton of bugs, and considering that the game is 1 year out of beta, this really shouldn't be happening. I know how difficult troubleshooting bugs can be, but this is fairly ridiculous. It's a common thing that when you debug, you end up with fantastic new bugs that you never expected in the first place, but never have I seen so many bugs in a game that's been launched for more than a year. And it seems like Cryptic is short-staffed, because they take forever to come up with a solution. Contrast Sony Online Entertainment's approach to Planetside 2. A game that literally involves thousands of players on the same map at once, yet it has fairly few bugs, and what few bugs there are are troubleshooted and fixed within a few days, whereas Cryptic takes weeks to solve simple issues.

2. Really restricting the benefits F2P players can get. I get it. They're a company selling a product and they need to make money. But at this point it really seems like they aren't even interested in making a game and they're only doing it because it's the only thing that will make money. Again, contrast SOE, who are making Planetside 2 to make money and to make an awesome game (both of which they've succeeded in). Planetside doesn't have pay-to-win features, and cash shop stuff are strictly limited to cosmetic items or items that you could have obtained by playing the game. Neverwinter has many items and companions you can never acquire if you don't spend money on the game. It gets to a point where F2P players have to put in significantly (I'm talking at least 2-3 whole months more) worth of effort to even compete with the benefits paying players can get. I'm not even bitter, because personally I've spent money on the game, and even so it feels like I'm barely competent. I have the skills, but I can't even touch other players in PvP because of their ridiculously overpowered gear, which though not purchasable directly from the cash shop, can be bought from the auction house. You acquire riches by selling/using items bought from the cash shop and can just skip all the dungeon delving, questing and hard work to get the gear. In fact, for 50 dollars they'll even let you skip a whole campaign, which is like a month's worth of gameplay. What does it say about a company that they will let you pay to NOT play their game?

NORMAL PEOPLE MAY RESUME READING HERE.

Anyway, I've also started working out more because doing guard duty all the time makes you fat. I'm not obese fat, but I've definitely noticed a decrease in strength and stamina. So I thought I might share workout tips. This is strictly for people who wanna build strength. You can kind of train cardio and endurance with this, but there are more efficient methods. So anyway what I've been using is a really simple chart to plan my workouts.

Here it is:

Infographic taken from www.startbodyweight.com. Click to embiggen

So those of you who know me know that I am very much against going to the gym. Why? Multiple reasons.

1. I'm too lazy to go to the gym. I live near a gym (approx. 1km walk), true, but that's 1km further than my living room. And when it comes to this sort of thing, that 1km matters. Here's why. You feel motivated. You want to train. You go to the gym today. And the day after. And the day after. Then comes a day where you feel tired, and you think, nah the gym's a bit far, I'll go tomorrow. Tomorrow you're still tired, so you decide you'll go tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow. You see what I'm getting at. If you have to go out of your way to train, you're gonna have trouble unless you really like training, or you have insane discipline. Which most people don't. I'm not saying don't go to the gym. I'm saying, make it as difficult as possible to come up with an excuse to not train.

2. I don't like weights. Here's why. Can you do a one-legged squat? Can you do a one-arm pull up? One-arm push up? Decline one-arm push up? Front lever? Most people can't. Hell, of those things I can barely do 2. So my question is this. There are exercises easier than these which you can do, but they still hurt like hell. So when you can't even handle your own bodyweight, why bother with machines or free weights? There are benefits to weight training of course, but for the average person, bodyweight training is more than enough. Use weights when your body isn't heavy enough for your limbs, which it will more than be, for a long, long time. In addition, there are a lot of people who train with weights who don't pay attention to form, and it's way easier to fuck your body over with free weights than with your own body. I'm not saying you can't injure yourself with bodyweight training. With bad form you're gonna injure yourself, always. But weights are more risky. I'm biased against weights that way, but you can't deny that you can get a fairly strong body with just bodyweight.

3. You have no excuse to shirk bodyweight training. Can't do a bench press without a barbell and a bench. You know what you can do? Push ups. Push ups too easy? Decline push ups. Don't tell me you can't find a chair. Decline push ups too easy? One-arm push ups. One arm too easy? Decline one-arm. When you get to that level you're pretty much all set. Most bodyweight exercises don't even require equipment. And for those that too, it's easy to find substitutes. If you look at the infographic, it lists 7 basic exercises (excluding planks). Here's a list of equipment you need for those exercises and the appropriate substitutes if you don't have them:

1. Squats: No equipment needed.

2. Pull ups: Pull up bar. Substitutes: tree branch. Back of a staircase. Any bar-like thing. A home pull up bar (costs $20-$40, lasts a few years at least. Gym fee for 10 visits: $20++)

3. Handstand push ups: No equipment needed.

4. Leg raises: At lower levels, no equipment needed. At higher levels, a bar (see pull up bar) or 2 chairs/a table.

5. Push Ups: No equipment needed. Decline push ups: A chair/something elevated.

6. Dips: A bar (see pull up bar). 2 chairs/a really sturdy table.

7. Horizontal Rows: A bar. (See pull up bar). A table and a chair.

8. Planks: Can you guess?

You see my point? You don't need equipment for most of these, and the ones where you need them, you can find them at home. You literally have no excuse to not train even if you're potato-ing at home.

4. No self-esteem issues. When you work out at home, you're the only one there. When you work out at the gym, you have to look at a bunch of ridiculously well-muscled people. Enough said.

5. Less distraction. When you work out at home, you're the only one there. When you work out at the gym, you get to look at ridiculously well-toned specimens of the opposite gender. And how much exercising do you actually get down when you're staring/drooling. On the other hand, you may try too hard and over-exert. Overexertion -> injuries. You see, training at home reduces injuries.

And that pretty much ends it. I would continue but, I'm like 2 hours behind on gaming. Games don't play themselves.

Breaking News: I am a lying ass

So I just realised it's been almost a month and I did promise that I would update (and look I'm doing it!) in a week or 2 max with some of the writing that I've done. The good news is that I did get a bit of writing done. The bad news is that I won't be sharing it here, because it's still very very very very unrefined, at least in my opinion. Part of it comes from the fact that I've only done 2 revisions, but most of it is due to the fact that I haven't really written much in a few years apart from these sporadic blog posts, which aren't exactly literary.

Some of my writing is online somewhere, where I'm getting reviews at the same time that I'm revising and editing what I've already written as well as writing more. I'm still quite self-conscious and a bit of a perfectionist about my work and I don't want to share something that's less than as good as I can make it.

In the meantime, to make up for it, here's some nice music:

Gabrielle Aplin's entire album. Don't know if you guys know about her, but she has really nice songs so give her a listen.

And if you listened to Gabrielle Aplin and liked it you may also like Orla Gartland:

Might be awhile before I update again since I need time to work on my writing and a bunch of other stuff I'm learning at the moment. Also the steam summer sale just ended and I bought a whole bunch of games I have yet to try/finish so there's that. And also I need to start allocating more time for training with myself cos I'm apparently getting fat after 3 weeks of inactivity. Not good. And look, a total deviation from my usual style: a short post with only 1 set of parentheses throughout the whole thing.

Round of applause for changes!

Incoming...

Greetings ladies and gents, this is probably gonna be one of my shortest posts yet. Just a short update to let you guys know what's up. So remember in my previous post (scroll down) I said I was gonna start writing again? So I've been getting ideas and just generally throwing ideas around in my head, looking for inspiration and stuff and I've finally started working on something. Depending on how it turns out, I may post it here, so check back once in a while. Should take a week or two max.

Anyway, while trying to collect ideas for my writing I made use of quite a few resources which I thought I'd share to help out all those writers who are having trouble thinking of things to write about.

1. Nika Harper
Nika Harper is a writer/gamer/awesome person who(m? I can't handle the differences between who and whom in sentences like these. Let's not be pedantic) League of Legends players are likely to know: she used to host Summoner Showcase, and she's also known as Nikasaur. Anyway I really love her writing, which is inspirational in itself (she has all these awesome ideas), and she also had a video series called WordPlay on youtube, which was meant to help people overcome writer's block and also discuss writing techniques.

Her website: www.thisisnika.com
WordPlay
Her short story journal: www.nikaharper.tumblr.com/
And there are a few other links on her website, feel free to explore those on your own.

2. Writing Prompts That Don't Suck
Okay so I was also looking for writing prompts. You know, like a short phrase/sentence, or an idea, or concept, to jump start the creative process. Most websites gave me pretty shitty stuff though, boring shit. They weren't necessarily bad, but just seemed like they had been done before, or were too narrow. A skilled writer could probably make something cool out of it, but they just seemed like really stale, unimaginative ideas, and I'm not that good.

Enter Writing Prompts That Don't Suck. Daily prompts that are interesting, cover a wide variety of subjects, and are specific enough that you could get ideas from it, but vague enough that you can go in any direction with it.

3. Writing Prompts
Similar to the above, but more varied ideas, and a little more specific.

www.writingprompts.tumblr.com

Okay so that post turned out slightly longer than I expected. So I'm gonna get back to writing.

This is my 4th attempt at writing a post

As per the title, this is my 4th fking attempt at writing a blog post. Apologies.

So, what have I been doing with my life? The sad, sad truth is: almost nothing. My current work/rest cycle makes it really easy for me to tell myself that I don't have enough time or whatever cos when I'm in camp I can't do anything and when I'm out I have so much other stuff to do. But really I've just been gaming and playing or whatever. But it's time for change, you know, 'cos, summer and all that. I don't know why summer is relevant to change, or if it even is. Let's pretend it is.

So what am I doing now (or at least planning to)? Well, I'm working on my next D&D adventure. This is a completely new venture for me as previously for my d&d games I was basically only building single encounters and mostly just stealing pre-made content or just copy-pasting other ideas. This one is completely original, it involves a map of my own creation, a plot I wrote myself and completely original monsters/enemies/encounters. It's going slow because I'm basically running on nothing here, and I'm kind of a perfectionist with my work so I chip away at my shit because I can't stand it being anything but how I envision it to be. People who are interested in playing D&D can contact me. If you're reading this blog, presumably you know how to find me.

I am also updating my blog, as you guys can see, though I fail to see the point, since I don't think I have a lot of readers left. At this point it's basically an exercise in narcissism. I have also decided to start writing again. Short stories, maybe poems, both for use in D&D and just for the sake of writing. For those of you who somehow don't know, I used to write a lot in secondary school but for some reason I just stopped. Recently I've been getting some ideas so I'll start writing again. I may post them here, or I may post them anonymously on reddit. We'll see how it goes, but don't expect anything for at least a few weeks. Perfectionist, see?

Since I haven't updated with anything substantial in a while, and in fact have been writing the kind of updates I abhor the most (ooo today I did so and so, I recently accomplished so and so, basically all that stuff above this), I've decided to write something with a little more depth today. It is currently 1.30am (which due to my habits recently is practically 9pm for me in terms of how asleep I feel, but my brain still gets a little incoherent. It's complicated), so if I don't really make sense or I write something stupid just excuse it.

People who have read my older posts will notice that the subject of Parkour comes up quite a bit in my posts. I don't know if I've ever explained my motivations for picking it up, and how I've developed as a person because of it, so I'm gonna attempt to do so in this post. It's painfully narcissistic, but hey, it's my blog. I don't know if I've mentioned this in an earlier blog post (I could check, but, as they say, where got time. Incidentally if you haven't realised by now you can skip all this italicised stuff), but I've felt that blogs in this age are essentially an indulgence of our narcissism. Onward!

So my "journey", as so many practitioners like to call their experience.....Actually you know what, I'm not gonna call it my "journey". It makes me sound like I've had some sort of great adventure or whatever, and while it has changed my life, it just isn't that grand. It's the sort of life changing like going vegetarian, or deciding that you like coffee without sugar, but not something you could legitimately call a "journey".

By the way, I'm in a slightly melancholic/pensive/nostalgic mood currently, which I guess affects tone, so I think it would help if you guys put on some melancholic music or whatever. Just something chill which helps you think, or brings you back to whenever. If you don't have any, may I suggest:

Trampled Under Foot - Goodbye
Of Monsters and Men - Lakehouse
Faded Paper Figures - North by North

They're all quite different, feel-wise, and may not really fit but, whatever.

It's been said that people who don't practice Parkour themselves cannot truly understand what it is like, but I shall attempt to convey the experience.

DISCLAIMER: Don't take my word as the word of someone who is "qualified" to talk about this. I am far from "qualified" to talk about anything but my own experience.

And so I begin: My experience with Parkour (henceforth abbreviated as PK) started in early 2008 I think (This makes me Sec 2). Since primary school I've been a little obsessed with ninjas (it was a phase). So naturally I ended up searching for videos of "ninjas" and that eventually led me to videos of "urban ninjas", which is what you see in the freerunning scene. (Side note: for the uninitiated, freerunning and PK are not exactly the same thing. PK is basically about economical and efficient movement, while freerunning is about expression. Think the difference between Martial Arts and Dance) Once you get started with all those videos, it doesn't take long before you think you're looking at PK and discover what it's all about. Now, I don't really remember what my mindset was like before I started, because it's been so long, and it's a little hard for me to comprehend people who see it as a "dangerous" or "daring" activity, but I do remember thinking it was insanely cool. Everyone wants to be able to do that right? Flip and climb and run and jump, the whole time making it look effortless. So I wanted to learn, but, being me, put it off for forever.

Growing up in a modern society where teachers teach you everything, and in the same vein everything you learn is taught by teachers, it is initially difficult to comprehend the idea of learning something on your own. How do you get started? That was exactly my excuse for not picking it up earlier. I can't do this on my own, it's dangerous, it's whatever fuck because you're always seeing on TV that "stunts are performed by trained professionals" and to "not try this at home" or whatever. Eventually I realised that with my introversion I'm not likely to find anyone to teach me, since it's hard just for me to talk to strangers (I've gotten better in recent years, thanks for asking. I can now be funny to complete strangers. I am very proud. This is usually before they discover how strange my mind is, tho.), I was gonna have to learn this shit on my own. So I ballsed-up (balls-upped?) and looked through online tutorials, videos, articles and forums to decide how to get started, and I went out to the park one day and freaking taught myself that shit. And herein lies the very first lesson that PK taught me, before I even started:

LESSON NUMBER ONE: YOU CAN LEARN THINGS ON YOUR OWN

It sounds obvious right? Of course you can learn things on your own. But it isn't. We go through much of our early lives thinking, oh, if I want to learn something I should go to a class, get a teacher or whatever bullshit. I remember wanting to learn music, but I couldn't take lessons because reasons. (Incidentally I recommend that people who are interested in music actually take lessons because it really helps) But my point is this: There are many things that we can teach ourselves through simple trial and error, because the resources available to us in today's age are staggeringly huge. We learn things in a year that some people never learn in a whole lifetime. The information we can obtain at the push of a button essentially makes us experts in many fields, at least on a superficial level, and what do we use this power for? Machine gun kittehs and french bulldogs who can't roll over. Not that I don't approve, but just saying that we have tremendous potential. This lesson has stuck with me. Previously, when I want to learn something, my first instinct is to look for classes or teachers or whatever, but now I first attempt to teach myself something, to try and see if I can do it on my own first because hey, it's free. And I am not dissing teachers, because those guys can usually teach you a lot of things you can't teach yourself, but there is always something you learn by going it alone. It is slow, painful, and probably tough and unnecessarily difficult, but the things you learn, they stick with you because you spent forever learning them. It's why you can google a fact, then forget about it the next day and have to google it again, but if you have to apply a fact yourself, you can be sure you'll remember it for at least a few weeks.

Now, training in PK is an entirely self-motivated thing. No one, literally no one, picks up PK if they don't want to. The result is that you are entirely responsible for your own progress. No one will push you to say, "hey give me 20 more reps", or ask you why you didn't "attend training". No one cares if you slack off on training today, or if you worked extra hard yesterday. There is no reward for training hard, and no punishment for training less, beyond the direct benefits of traning and what you give yourself. What this means essentially is that you can't bullshit yourself. If your coach or teacher or whatever says, "do this x more times", and you say "I can't, I'm too tired/weak/pussy to", and they believe you, it makes it easier for you to believe yourself. But when you stand there looking at a jump you're afraid of trying, a few things happen. First, you realise that no one is forcing you to do this jump. Absolutely nothing is going to happen to you if you decide not to jump ultimately. And if you do decide to step down, especially when you know it's in your ability, that feeling sucks. It sucks so hard black holes are vacuum cleaners by comparison. And you can't lie to yourself and say "It was too far for me" without even trying. And if you make a half-hearted attempt you will know. And this little voice in your head appears when you try to lie to yourself, saying "Really?" And the thing I learnt after a few years was this: The sooner you learn to recognise your own bullshit, own it, and move past it, the sooner you will be able to work on it and improve. So here's the second lesson that PK taught me:

LESSON TWO: BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF, ALWAYS

Again, a seemingly obvious thing, but you'd be surprised how many tiny little lies we tell ourselves each and every day (I'm gonna update my blog, I'm gonna write more often etc.) without really processing it. And we get so used to trusting ourselves so completely that we need other people to call our bullshit. When you learn to call your own bullshit, you save yourself the embarrassment of having other people call your bullshit, and you can start working on it right away.

Probably the greatest impact that PK has had on me as a person is the shift in perspective that training forces one to adopt. It begins very simply. When you start learning basic movements, vaults and such, you get excited, like a kid with a new toy, and you want to try it on everything. It is the most amazing feeling, and it feels like you've just unlocked so many new possibilities. This is the most basic way that my perspective changed after I started training. You begin with seeing possibilities in daily obstacles. Railings, walls, platforms. Then you see paths. If you've ever played Mirror's Edge with "Runner Vision" on, that's basically what it looks like. Things don't glow red, but an experienced practitioner is always looking out for routes, paths and obstacles, and they might as well be glowing to him. You pick out all these things in the environment, you learn to recognise what you can and cannot do, given your abilities and the current conditions. Here's the freaky part: somewhere along the line, when you've trained for long enough, your entire way of thinking changes. You become more independent. You learn to trust yourself more. You learn to understand yourself. You know what it is you can and cannot do, and not just physically. Part of it comes from learning to recognise your own bullshit. Part of it comes from all the times when you've confronted a new obstacle for the first time, and being able to relate what you've already done with what you're about to do. And more importantly, you begin to understand that maybe you are different. Everyone is the same: we're all different. You understand that what works for other people may not work for you. It comes from training: You do a climb-up this way, your friend does it another way. You take off with your left foot, I take off with my right. Then you realise it applies to everything else. You like science. She likes literature. I like useless courses that employers take one look at and throw aside. And from there you realise one important fact.

LESSON THREE: YOUR PATH IS YOURS, AND YOURS ALONE

People can advise. They can say, I was in a similar situation, and this worked for me. They can say, based on these factors, this method seems the most logical. But no one can know your exact situation. No one can tell you how to tackle the obstacles you face exactly, be they physical, mental or whatever. Just as different traceurs must adapt similar movements to fit their unique bodies and different obstacles, so too must you find your own way to navigate your own problems, because your situation is uniquely yours. Which is not to say that other people cannot advise, but ultimately you are the one making the decision. And the importance of that is this: That you don't have to follow the conventional path. That is the most important lesson that PK teaches. That the conventional path may not apply to you. It's easy to walk on the pavement. Do you take the pavement when your wallet gets snatched? When you are being chased by people who very much would like to cave your face in? It always begins as a physical lesson. You learn it from interacting with physical obstacles, and your brain learns to adapt it metaphorically or indirectly to life. Learning to take the non-conventional path physically may also give you the courage to take the non-conventional path figuratively. And it is important to realise that the non-conventional path IS a path. I'm not saying be unconventional completely. I am still going to university, studying, getting a degree etc. I'm a law-abiding citizen (for the most part) and I generally adhere to societal norms. But simply realising that there is a different path can do wonders.

I hope I've managed to convey the way my mind has developed as a result of PK training. I haven't been training long, just a few years, and I'm curious to see how I develop in the future. I don't know if you guys really get it from what I've written up there, or if you think you get it but it's not actually what I wanted to convey, but I tried, it's freaking 3:42am now. Gonna read this in the morning again and see if it makes sense but so far this is what I got.

This is a total non-sequitur, but I've also been watching movies recently, and I have two to recommend:
End of Watch
Up in the Air (just watched this today).

They're really awesome movies and if you have a couple of hours I definitely recommend watching them. You will not regret it. Also Up in the Air has George muthafkin' Clooney. Say no more.

ALSO I realise I said I wouldn't take 5 months to update. I didn't lie. It took longer.

Back.

It's been 160 days, or 5 months 7 days, since I last posted, and I just wanted to begin by apologising for not updating, for anyone who's been coming back to this blog over the past 5 months expecting something to read. It's an age where people hardly have blogs anymore, and the relevance of blogs is (I feel) starting to(or maybe already has) decline. For someone living in Singapore, whose friends and family, and almost everyone I know, live in Singapore, it's just not that necessary to have a blog. Despite this, I feel a strange obligation (I've said this many times) to update my blog from time to time. It's even less relevant for me because I don't even post about what happens in my life all that often. Still, I don't have twitter or instagram, and I hardly share/post anything on facebook, so I guess it's through my blog that anyone even knows what I think or want to say occasionally, since I don't talk that much in real life anyway. Unless around certain people or certain alcoholic beverages. But that's a different story.

Anyway, I normally don't post much about what's going in my life, but....meh. Last you guys heard(read?) from me on this blog, I was enlisting and for all you know after that I just died or went to Nigeria or something. No offense to Nigeria. Beautiful place. Less the 419 scammers. And I guess the poverty. And crime. Okay not that beautiful a place, but that's besides the point.

So I enlisted. I was posted to 4th Coy in BMTC School 4. My BMT experience was just like any other, tekan, then lots of funny nonsense. And fucked-up people. Can't miss those out. As I learnt in the next few months, they're everywhere. For the last few weeks in BMT I really wanted to be posted out as a driver, because frankly after field camp, I realised that I really hated the feeling of having camo on my face. Like, a lot. I don't mind going outfield, as long as I don't have camo on my face. And being a driver was basically one of the slackest things you could do, and you get a chance to get a license in the process. Awesome. However, to be a driver, you have to pretty much opt to not go to command school, i.e. SCS and OCS. And the risk of becoming an infantry man was just too much, so in the end I opted to go to SCS, because if you're gonna be in infantry, might as well be a commander. Better life. Why not OCS? Because Scorpion King and Centipede, that's why. Ask the OCS people about it. And you know what, since I opted to not go for OCS even if I qualified, I still don't know whether I did qualify for OCS. I made an educated guess, but with the SAF you never know.

In SCS, I was posted to Charlie Coy, which ended up being a good deal, because despite being less slack than Bravo and Delta, it's still SCS. We slack. Lol. 8 weeks at Charlie. It was pretty fun, again, lots of funny nonsense. For the entirety of the last few weeks, I was basically completely sure I was going to Military Police, despite all the rumours (and one blatant lie from the CO) that there was no intake for our batch, that even if there was it wouldn't be me, blah blah blah. Posting day was intense. Some screw up at HQ delayed our posting orders so we just sat there for 4 hours waiting. When my name was finally called (our coy decided to drama a bit and say the names first, then posting, whereas almost every other coy said posting first, then started calling out names), it was with a bunch of people who didn't look like they would be going to MP. Then they called the 2 people who signed on to MP (and as a result were definitely going there), and we were with them. We literally shouted and jumped around for joy. Then got knocked down because they were trying to tell us something and this was the only way to shut us up. But lulz.

And here I am now, posted to MP Command as a specialist-to-be. I'm in my 5th week here, with, inclusive of this week, 8 weeks more to go. MP is awesome, and I really couldn't ask for anything more. Except maybe to not serve NS. Barring that, post me to MWDU pl0x?

I've heard people talk about how army is a life-changer, or how they really learned a lot about themselves from the army and stuff like that. I don't really feel like I've learnt all that much about myself from being in the army, and I certainly don't feel like my life has changed all that much. I mean, getting the opportunity to shoot rifles, fire grenades and stuff is damn cool, no doubt, but it's not a life-changer. You won't fire off a grenade launcher and go "Damn, I see the light now". Unless by "the light" you mean the explosion from the grenade. Or unless you are that kind of person. In which case, good for you. Grenade launcher enlightenment.

But it is a fun experience. I'll update more when I can more accurately verbalise the random thoughts flying around in my head now. And I promise it won't take me 5 months.

Random Vid:

A 2nd open letter to my social life

"Now wait a minute, TC," You say, "You haven't written letters to your social life before." Yes, yes I have.
"Now wait a minute, TC," You say, "Isn't it a little weird to write letters to abstract concepts instead of any entity?" Nope.avi
"Now wait a minute, TC," You say, "Why are you inventing imaginary characters to ask you these strange questions?" It's a thing.
"Now wait a minute, TC," You say, "What social life?" Well. That...I.. shutup.

My dear social life (again),

Almost 2 years ago, we parted ways as I ran away with this beautiful computer (who I am typing this on right na0) to explore Skyrim. And what a grand exploration that was. I'm not quite nearly done yet, but a while back you asked for us to get together again, and so we did. I had some fun times with you, o dear social life. Thus, it is with heavy hand that I must yet again pen such a letter to you, informing you of yet another imminent separation.

This time is different, though, I assure you. The last time we went our separated ways, it was a choice on my part. A difficult choice it was (not at all), but a choice nonetheless. This time, it is not a choice of mine. The SAF has taken me away, and I leave tomorrow. They have promised to introduce me to my wife though, a beautiful lady by the name of SAR 21. I am told that "she shoots very far" and is in fact "made in Singapura"

I am unsure how long it will be before we meet again, o dear social life. Believe me, if it were up to me, this letter would not even have been conceived of. Regardless, I think it a safe bet that it will not be the same, for the next few months at least. Goodbye social life. 'Til we meet again,

Sincerely,
TC

tl;dr version: Going to army, will be a bit of a recluse na0.

Goodbye world. See you in 2++ weeks.

22/4/2013

I'm finally updating. Rejoice, readers of Okaycan.

AN UPDATE!!!!

Eh first I'm gonna apologise or as Seraph from The Matrix puts it, "First, I must APOROGISE". Anyway, sorry to everyone who's been constantly checking this blog waiting for updates. If no one actually constantly checked this page looking for updates then ignore the above, and I'll just proceed to emo one corner.

ANYWAY. Sorry for not updating for 4 months; to reward you loyal readers for your patience, here iz kittehs. Or more specifically, the itteh bitteh kitteh committeh:

Yes I am a cat person.

I am currently blogging because I am actually down with the flu which, ironically, helps me focus. Because my ears get blocked and I can't really hear most things. So it's very peacefully quiet. I like it, but I don't like getting my ass kicked by this stupid flu, so I'm gonna blog while I can and get rid of this flu asap.

For lack of a proper blog topic I'll just update you guys on what I've been doing the past few months.

In January I found a job working for High Achievers. They do camps for schools. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to tell people about the job so what I'll say is I didn't like it. Some people find it meaningful and I guess if you do then good for you. But I found it unnecessarily stressful and I gave up after ONE camp (yes, I'm a quitter. Sue me). Furthermore, this camp has further convinced me that kids are the spawn of the devil. Annoying little buggers.

Just look at those evil, evil eyes.

For more details on why I didn't like it feel free to contact me personally and get ready for a rant.

At the end of January having decided to not do any more camps, I began sourcing for a different job. Sidetrack: Around this period I started playing Dungeons & Dragons with a small group of friends, which I'll say has been awesome so far. Yes, I'm a geek. Surprise.

Shock and horror.

Back on topic: so anyway, I was running around buying stuff for my D&D games (dice, sexdolls stuff), and I eventually went down to Paradigm Infinitum to get my dice and sexdolls stuff, and I happened to ask if they had any job openings, and turns out they did. So I've been working there since then. We sell board games/card games and stuff. Do drop by one of our outlets and buy stuff visit! I'll be there(there being the Fusionopolis outlet at One-north MRT) until 30th April, which is my last day, after which I shall lepak until I have to go serve this great nation.

In March I realised that I've been spending too much time sitting around doing nothing so I decided to be productive. I'll train once a week, and practice drumming once a week(neither of which are nearly enough), which leaves me with 1 more day to rest and recover, while I work 4 days. At first I got a lot of shit done, but after awhile the repetition started to wear me down. Did I mention I hate routines? Probably gonna hate the army but meh. 

And not a two-shit-flying-fuck was given.

Mostly because I have no choice anyway. So good thing ventures people have been planning regular outings and stuff, which disrupts my training totally, but it breaks the monotony and for that I am grateful. (That's a shout out guys. I don't know if I'm popular enough to give shout outs. Does one have to be popular to give shout outs? How popular do you have to be before you're qualified to give shout outs? Why do I love long rambling paragraphs in parentheses? Why am I being meta?)

So yes, that has been the past 4 months of my life. Yeah. I spent 4 months doing the same things over and over again. Judge me why don't you.

Haters gonna hate

At this point I would like to apologise APOROGISE to everyone with a slow internet connection because I've been spamming gifs. No, I'm not gonna remove any gifs because you're too poor to get broadband.

Now, as a reward for slogging through this somewhat lengthy post, this funny african dude:

He's absolutely hilarious. Watch and subscribe, people.

And now, more content! So far every time I've been sick I've taken a nap at some point simply because I was feeling like shit, and every time that happened I've had some sort of dream/hallucination. I'm not sure which it is because I feel awake but it's totally wacky. The first instance I remember is when I had a headache/fever last year, and I saw lines and circular nodes all over the room. To aid in visualisation, here's a picture:

Imagine diagram B, but with a lot more lines and with the lines extending past the nodes. It was kinda weird. I remember that it meant something but I couldn't remember what it was when I woke up. Like I said, weird. Another weird thing was that I could actually see these lines and nodes from different angles (I'm not sure how, which I guess would suggest I was actually asleep and dreaming) and if you'll look the circles there appear to be 2-D. Now, if you look at a 2-D object from the side, it's flat, so it looks like a line. But the circular nodes in my dream/hallucination actually looked like circles from every angle.

Today while I was falling asleep after getting kicked around by my flu all day, it was almost entirely quiet because of my awesomely blocked ears (which are still kind of blocked, which sucks) and as I was falling asleep I heard like the most awesome melody. It involved one violin and a female voice. This would be an awesome story if I remembered what it was (and would probably be more believable) but I cannot recall that melody now, only that it was awesome. See I would totally be an awesome musician if I could recall stuff like that. And if I actually had any musical knowledge. MEH.

Error 404: Fucks not found. Unable to give a fuck.

Now at this point you're probably saying, "TC, that's totally weird of you." (or not, since I suppose most people don't have imaginary conversations with other people by themselves......or DO THEY? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNN. Let me know. And look here I go with the rambling passages in parentheses again. I realise this isn't helping. Huh. Parentheses appear to be a real issue. THEY'RE TAKING OVER THE WORLD AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW IT). And I'll admit that the above does sound a bit strange. However, I am going to conveniently deflect any further thought from this topic by embedding another Maximbady(that's the african dude up there ^) video.

He's shouting in that video so turn down your volume a little.

Anyway, this would probably be my last post for a little while, since I doubt I'll find the focus and content to write another post before 9th May (my enlistment day) and after that I doubt I'll have the time/energy to be writing posts, at least until POP, so don't expect any posts until July I guess. Don't miss me while I'm gone, but in case you do here's a kitteh to keep you company:

And I suppose that is all for now. Wish me luck.

P.S. My blog posts have titles now! 

TITLED POSTS!!!!!!

Unfortunately they're just the date the post was written on cos I can't be arsed to think of proper titles, especially not when I'm sneezing every 4 seconds. See you guys in 3 months.

2012 Concluded

31st December 2012

I'm having trouble starting this post because frankly I don't know what to say. 2012 just popped up before December 2011 was properly enjoyed and you know what, just like that, it's gone already. I'm glad I'm enlisting in May, so I can take some time to slow down and relax. No homework, no "oh shit A levels are coming" kinda feeling. Though I do feel some trepidation regarding the A level results (haven't exactly been a stellar student), we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. One step at a time.

First, I'm gonna share this article from Cracked: 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person. It's cynical, it's harsh, it may not be true, but I think it makes sense. Live by it if you like, don't if you don't, but I thought it was interesting.

2012 was a busy year, I suppose, what with the studying and the examinations and the studying etc. Though I have to say there wasn't all that much studying on my part. Maybe we should take a moment at the end of every year, though, to see what we've accomplished. What have you achieved this year? I can't say I've actually achieved much this year, and funnily enough my first instinct is to blame it on being a JC student. Like how it's a stifling environment, or how it's too busy or whatever. But you know what, that's not really it. I guess I haven't achieved much because I was lazy. I still am, but I've decided to get off my ass more often, so that's a plus. I realised how dangerous a trap it is, to think that just because you recognise your own faults, that that makes it okay. I'm always going "Well yeah I'm X, but at least I know I'm X". But it just hit me that it's not all that big a difference if you're not gonna do anything about it. I guess that seems kinda "duh" but I've never really thought about it.

Here's a song from The National because I can't think of what to say:

2ND JAN 2013

I've dragged this post out over a few days because I went to bed before finishing it on the morning of 31st December. And then after that COWNDAUN madness.

Well 2012 is finally over. 2013 looks to be a fun year so far. Seems like yesterday I stepped into class on the first day of school thinking it was gonna be a long year. This year, rather than any specific new year resolutions, I'm going to aim for general improvement. I will get stronger, smarter, richer and hopefully nicer. I know I'm not a very pleasant person lots of the time, but at least I know I'm...lol JK. I'm going to be nicer. And I will be more spontaneous, less fearful, less cautious.

At this point I've begun reading my previous posts for ideas on what to continue writing about, and I realise just how damn condescending and self-absorbed my posts are. Why didn't anyone tell me? You twats. Or do you guys actually like the condescension and self-absorption?

I also stumbled across the first blog post of last year and realised that I said I would say hi to any new readers I've gotten over the new year. Hi, new readers. Welcome to Okaycan. This is what it's like. Long walls of text, occasionally inane, usually lengthy, sometimes boring and updated infrequently. Isn't that a joy.

Realise I haven't done lists in a long while. Or guides. So here's a guide, in the FORM OF A LIST. Like, whoa.

6 Ways to Build a Giant Ego

6. Fake It Till You Make It.
It's a common method of combating depression and low self-esteem. Pretend that you do have confidence, or pretend that you're happy. Act like you're a badass mofo even if you don't think you are. One day you'll realise that you're not acting anymore. One day being some day in the future, ranging from 1 to 999,999,999 days.

5. Do Things You're Good At
Doing things that you're good at tends to lead to successful results. It also lets you know what your strengths are. Successful results generate positive feelings and confidence. So if you keep doing things you're good at, you're gonna feel better about yourself and eventually become more confident. At first you'll just be confident in whatever it is you're good at, but that confidence eventually bleeds over into other aspects of your life. So you get better at other things. You see where this is going. Eventually. Also it really doesn't matter what it is you're good at, even if it seems useless. Whether you built an empire from dust, built a company from the ground up, built a table from wood, or built a giant ego from reading a list on the internet, as long as you're good at SOMETHING, remind yourself of that fact once in a while. Unless you're really good at making horrible puns. In which case you need to stop what you're doing and find something else you're good at. No one wants to hear your bad puns, you horrible person, you.

4. Spend Time With People Who Make You Feel Good About Yourself
And I mean people who genuinely make you feel good about yourself. Not those gangs rebellious teenagers in old TV series join and claim "They make me feel good about myself!". Because they probably don't really. It doesn't have to be people you know in real life. It could be your WoW guild. Your LOTRO Kinship. Your friends who hand you another beer even though you're already literally roaring drunk. Just people you enjoy spending time with.

3. Challenge Yourself
When you challenge yourself, you push your limits. That makes you get better at things, which incidentally feeds into point 5. Furthermore, overcoming a challenge makes you feel like capable. Even if it was something completely inane. For instance, say you get bored one afternoon and decide to see if you can flick a paper ball into a shoe from a few meters away. It serves absolutely no purpose (unless your life goal is to fill the shoes of the world with paper balls from a short distance away, in which case, go you), but you would still derive satisfaction from it simply because of the difficulty involved.

2. Watch Your Posture and Improve Your Image
Stand up straight, keep your chin up and dress better. You'll start feeling better about yourself instantly. What you can do from this point on is to improve your image. There's always room for improvement. Maybe burn away your belly fat. Leg fat. Arm fat. Okay that's some disgusting imagery right there. I apologise. Continuing on. Maybe get a haircut, or just style your hair a different way, see how people react to it. Though you should not get a mullet under any circumstances. That's just wrong.

1. Don't Be Afraid To Try, And To Fail
So many times we fail before we even begin, giving up because we fear failure. I know that feeling really well because heights turn me into a sissy coward. Anyway. The giving up. Maybe we're afraid of being embarrassed when we fail, or afraid of pain, or maybe just the feeling you get when things don't go as intended. But the important thing to note here is that failure is very normal. Even monkeys who spend their whole life jumping in trees, which comes instinctively to them, fall from time to time. Don't be afraid to try because there's a possibility of failure. Don't think that you're gonna fail. Try because there's a possibility of success. Think that you will succeed. As cliched as this saying is, "If you're afraid to fall, you fall because you are afraid." And even after you've tried and failed, don't think it ends with that failure. Accept it. Learn from it. Own your failures. Stand back and look at what went wrong. If you fell, ask yourself why? Was it because you hesitated during the jump? Were you focused on something else? Was a teacher with chickenshit hair asking you "What if you fall?"

Speaking from my own experiences, I can say that as much as the fear is, the satisfaction is greater. In fact, the greater the fear, the greater the satisfaction. If you've stood on the edge of a jump and thought, "Well, shit, that's really high up", or "That's really far" then went ahead and jumped anyway, that feeling, it's indescribable. Always, when you're standing there thinking "What if I fall?", ask yourself instead, "What if I don't?". That said, always be careful. Don't go around taking risks just because "Lolololol you said TRY!" because it's not about risk, it's about calculated risk. Skydiving is brave. Skydiving without a parachute is stupid. Anyway, if you try, and if you're not afraid of failure, then failure can't get you down. Every time you try in spite of your fear, you begin to feel better about yourself.

And that's it for now. I've temporarily lost all desire to blog. Happy new year people.

To all my readers: Have a great year ahead!

Here's a Title for this post.

Am I the only one who feels weird sharing stuff (music, funny comic strips etc.) on Facebook? It's why I don't do it. It just feels like I'm shoving things in people's faces going "NA. LOOK! LOOK! SEEEEEE THIS THING THAT I LIKE!" and really no one asked for that. Which is why I'm gonna do that on my blog because I'm allowed to do that on my blog. I'm allowed to do that on Facebook too, but I feel less like a dick when I share things on my blog because I'm not forcing people to read my blog, whereas if you share things on Facebook and it appears on someone else's newsfeed it's more or less shoving it in their face. I know the feeling and I do not appreciate it. So you're welcome, people who do not like reading people's inane fb posts.

First off, this haunting track from Portal 2's soundtrack by awesome indie rock band The National, titled Exile Vilify:

Iz naise. I didn't actually finish Portal 2 because I didn't want to think too much, and I uninstalled it before I got back in the mood for some puzzle-solving. So I didn't actually get to hear this song in-game. Still.

Also there's this song, Apartment Story, also by The National. Catchy if you listen to it like 2 or 3 times.

The National also did "Rains of Castamere" for Game of Thrones, just saying.

Moving on.

Prom. I don't have much to say about it, except how horrible the emcee was. I know we couldn't really afford a very good one but...oh what's that you say? People say he was paid $4-5k for this? Really? For "jokes" like

Emcee: (talking to Brandon Pee) So you pee alot in school?

Pretty sure that's not worth even $5. Personally, I think it's worse to have someone trying but failing to be funny than to have someone who's not even trying. Okay, I'm done here.

Since I don't actually have much to talk about I figure I'll just share videos and stuff. Enjoy this french bulldog  puppy trying to roll over:

Cutest thing I've seen all year. Possibly all my life. According to someone in the comments french bulldog anatomy is such that they have trouble rolling over and need to learn to do it by themselves when young, or they'll never be able to roll over. Which is sad. Still, wiki doesn't mention it and I have 0 knowledge on dog anatomy so.

Okay recently I haven't really blogged and that's mainly due to not having much to talk about. So (and I've said this many times) you reader things really have to give me some ideas sometimes. Just say like "Hey you could do a post about _____" or ask me an interesting question or something. I know what you're thinking, "It's YOUR blog, think of yer own damn blog topics." but seriously, I hardly have enough material for a blog post of any significant length, or something that you guys would probably be interested in. The more I blog, the more I feel like it's a very narcissistic.....thing. It's so very self-absorbed, and presumptuous. We write these things, little inconsequential things about our lives or whatever, and we put them online, thinking people care what we think or say, and sometimes (or most of the time) I think people don't. We're just bored or something, looking to kill time, so we read stuff or look at things on the internet until we feel sleepy, go to sleep and get up the next day to do it all again. Which then brings to mind the question of why I even bother blogging, which can be explained with 2 reasons
1) I get bored.
2) I am that narcissistic. Love hearing myself talk/think.

And maybe an odd sense of duty or obligation, having had a blog since Primary 3. It's been that long. Sometimes I look back at old posts and cringe.

So, to end off this post, feel free to ask me any questions or suggest blog topics, privately or otherwise, and if I don't have a problem with it I'll probably write a post about it or something.

Speaking of the word thing, did you know it comes from an old english/norse word (also thing), meaning an assembly or meeting?

From Middle English, from Old English þing (thing), from Proto-Germanic *þingan; compare German Ding, Danish and Norwegian ting. The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare the Latin rēs, also meaning legal matter. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norseþing (thing), Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.There, you learnt something new, albeit useless. Isn't that fun.

Cue ridiculously overplayed Vitamin C song.

Alrighto we're finally graduating so I feel obliged to say something. I'm not very good at this sort of thing but still.

While many are feeling nostalgic and shit, I haven't yet begun to feel so. Maybe at grad ceremony. It's been 6 years in this hellhole wonderful learning environment, and though it has never hasn't always been fun all these 6 years, it's gonna be over in 2 months or so, whether we're ready for it or not. Speaking of ready, for all those gentlemen who still don't know how to tie a tie, yet for some reason are reading this blog before learning to tie one for tomorrow's grad ceremony, here. You are welcome. Back to graduating. From the obnoxious little buggers arriving in Malan Road campus on day 1, to the obnoxious buggers graduating from Boon Lay campus tomorrow, we've grown and learnt quite a bit. I wish the graduation ceremony, as impossible as this is, would be held at Malan Road campus though, so there's a sense of closure. But I guess it isn't really right to say closure, because it's not the end. As Gandalf the White puts it at the end of the Lord of the Rings, "End? No, the journey doesn't end here." He goes on to mention death but then, "And then you see it... White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise." So for people feeling sad, don't, because it isn't an end. It's just the beginning of the rest of our lives.

I was going to write down a list of thanks for everyone I know, but then it started feeling cheesy so for people who feel like you deserve thanks from me in one way or another, give yourself a pat on the back and feel free to approach me for a verbal confirmation of my thanks if/when you see me. Special mentions, however, are in order.

My subject tutors, without whom I wouldn't know anything. Not that I know a lot now. But a lot more than I would if they didn't teach.

All the people I hang out with all the time after lessons/stuff. I was going to list out all the names, but it started feeling a bit too homo so to avoid that I'll just leave it at that.

Everyone who has smiled/laughed (even a little bit) at all the stupid little jokes/puns/ I have made over the years, thank you as well. Whether you genuinely thought it was funny or not, sometimes these little bits of laughter and smiles are great ego/morale boosters. I promise to make more groan-worthy puns in the future.

Moving on. I've sometimes been asked, if given a choice, would I still have chosen to come to RV? Honestly, up till now I can't say for sure. I don't regret being in this school, per se, but I'm always curious about how everything would have gone down if I had gone to, say, RI or HCI. Probably wouldn't be there for long, looking at my results, but still. Or what if I had gone to a school which didn't have such prestige? I think the biggest difference lies in the people. I wonder, always, if I might have made as good friends as the ones I have now, if I had gone somewhere else. Whether good friends exist everywhere, waiting to be found, or whether it was an incredible stroke of luck that the people I click with happened to be in the school I chose? Sometimes I wish I'd gone to a poly after year 4, as the poly people whom I do know seem more adventurous and fun, but maybe it's because I don't know them that well. Ultimately, I guess it doesn't matter now, because, well, it doesn't matter.

Expect nothing to be smooth sailing from now on. By all accounts, life's a bitch. Expect to fall. Expect to get knocked down. But always expect to get up and keep going. Even though we haven't even taken A-levels yet, I just wanna say a few things. Some of us may not get good grades. Heck, I'm not expecting exactly stellar grades myself. But no matter what kinda grades you get, always know one thing: There's always a way out. I trust that most of you guys know (or have at least heard of) the channel 8 drama from long long ago, 出路. Remember that line from the intro to that show? "飘扬过海，我吃得起苦，相信天无绝人之路。" I didn't actually watch the show, but this line I feel is a great philosophy to live by. Actually just the last line. 相信天无绝人之路. And it's true. You always have a way out (not suicide pls). You may feel bad if you scored badly, or if you didn't get into the university you want, but remember this: life's gameplay style is a wide-open sandbox, not a linear action game. There is no fixed path you must traverse. No one says you have to get into a university right after JC, spend 3/4/5 years on a degree, then come out and get a job. You could choose to work for 2 years, to save up money and study overseas, and then choose to get a job that's not even related to your degree. Don't trap yourself within a single path and ignore all the other possibilities. Sure, doing things differently may get a little tough, or may take a little more time, but who's keeping score? It's not Super Mario Bros. You don't have to end the level in 600 seconds, and you don't have to collect the coins. The only thing that matters in the end is that you're alive, and you're happy. As long as you're happy, it doesn't matter if your highscore is 20 and you took the longest route through the game. It's not a speedrun or WCG.

Ending this post now, because I have to sleep in case I miss my own graduation tomorrow lulz. I just wanna say, thank you to everyone I've known these 6 years, even if you aren't from RV. My life has been just wonderful so far, and if I can say nothing else for my life the past 6 years, I will at least mention one thing. I had fun. And that's always......well, fun. Here's to 60 more years of fun, before we end up being lowered into a hole in the ground to rot, or burnt to a smoke crisp so your living relatives can gaze upon your remains and think it means something.

Also, being as it's graduation tomorrow, you can bet your ass they're gonna play that ridiculously overplayed Vitamin C song (hence the title of this post). You know the one. Yeah. Guys, just because the song is titled "Graduation" doesn't mean you have to play it at every single damned graduation. It's always bugged me a little. Sure the song is nostalgic and all......graduation-ish and stuff, but why couldn't we use a different song for once, like Into the West or Don't Stop Believing? Sheesh.