Autopilot

you will never know what it's like to wake up at 4.30 am and sleep at 5 the next morning, only to wake up at 6 am, to change out of your uniform and prepare to carry your bags outside the gate.

and you will also never know how it feels to wake up on a friday, thinking it was a sunday, only to realize minutes later that you still have 2 more days to relax before doing everything all over again.

_____


everytime i get to hold a gun, i get a rude reminder that life is not like the movies, that i can't run into a building full of bad guys with nothing but a trusted gun and a badass attitude.

you know how the universe likes to remind me, by making me wear my LBV and doing basically anything, including being on high alert, where you must, MUST bend your back forward like some cripple trying to speak to someone much taller.

i read somewhere in an article about driving that, people actually go into autopilot mode when they drive after some time, because they think they are already above average drivers. you only truly understand how dangerous that is the next time you try to slice a tomato in autopilot mode, essentially your whole mind zones out and you go into your own little world while your body carries on doing the same action over and over again. Autopilot in itself is not dangerous, when you're maybe doing homework or running from one place to another, but when you put the lives of other people into that equation, a reaction that is just simply one second slower can cause numerous losses of lives.

and why am i talking about autopilot mode, scientists say that people slip into this is because human beings weren't designed to do mundane tasks. everytime you do something new, your brain absorbs all the new information and as a result become sharper and more alert. on the other hand, doing something repetitive creates boredom and causes your brain to focus on other non-old things, turning your attention away from what needs your attention most, the old lady crossing the street.

so i talk about this autopilot mode because i want to illustrate the sheer redundancy of certain military activities. while i'm glad we no longer need to clean our own plates after meals because that has already been outsourced, there are still so many activities that remain pointless and redundant and often, the excuse of "maintain discipline" and "conditioning" is often used.


actually i'm just pissed the haven't invented a car-wash-like machine to clean our rifles.

i hate cleaning rifes.

___


also, people other than sam have not yet responded to my idea, i needed to call al, before she "approved" anything. so yeah there's that, nobody else seems to remotely use their emails.

last bookout felt like labour day, so everytime i see my watch and see that its already 20 something of may, i get shocked. repeatedly.

little time

within this short span of 12-ish hours. i must

pay off sleep debt for the past 25-ish hours of waiting for live firing with micro naps in between

try and get as healthy as possible after being out in the rain for 1.5 hours and before tekong field camp

choose what to appeal for and what to accept for uni

prepare my clothes and make sure they are dry and relatively clean, which is dirty by most civilian standards

and have a good enough lunch and dinner so i wont crave anything during 4 days outfield, even though i still will.

---

anyway, planning to accept architecture from NUS and trying to appeal for either aerospace eng or psychology. haven't really decided which yet. probably going to put aerospace this year and if i fail, go for it again nxt year with psych as 2nd choice.

also, the srjc sc investiture is on july 20th, so if any past councillors read this, try and make it there, anyway, we should try and keep a close connection with the school and our old teachers who helped us out so much, it would only be unreasonable to forget them once we leave school.

i'm trying to write an email (just like old times) to convince as many people to go as possible and if even better, go there a few days earlier to give them some tips and advice on what their next 2 years will be like. something like a presentation and open table kind of thing. i don't think mrs tay would have any objections so i think the hardest thing to do is to convince ex-councilors can make it

anyway, unusally optimistic about helping out others. the lack of sleep must be doing something to me.

so umm yeah

(btw i can't rotate them properly)

so umm i kind of got into architecture. i got the letter on 12th while i was away for field camp, my dad sent me the sms.

some of you guys may know that i wasn't selected for the interview. i actually thought i sucked too hard at the aptitude test itself. because i did suck. all i did was take the cardboard, fold into 3 parts and then fold up into a pyramid prism thing. so yeah, i did what a kindergartener would have done, and i got in WITHOUT an interview. seriously wtf school of architecture. oh yeah i cut a hole at the top so i guess that separates me from the rest, i guess????

if u were there at the exam hall, you would see throughout the entire hall was filled with much better peices of work than mine, i was just like, better start preparing for the next choice.


oh and i also got the letter from ntu, which accepted me into mechanical engineering, which honestly sounds like a better choice for me now. i don't know.

my priorty now is still to become an air force officer first and foremost, if that can be done, i wouldn't need to get into architecture.

also, at the college day thing, i told some of my teachers how i flunked my test in architecture. so they proceeded to tell me bad stuff about architecture like its going to take quite a long time of studying before you can become an architect and stuff like that, which was ironically left out when i asked them for advice. this goes to show, people like to tell you what they think you like to hear. so if you want to know what they really feel, tell them the opposite, like if you're marrying this particular girl, tell them you're breaking up so they will give you their honest feedback.

also, just came back from field camp with possibly throat infection because my throats going out and i have coughing