I Just Wanna Go Home

There are so many issues with Singapore's taxi system that it'll hopefully boggle the LTA folks when they try to "simplify" things. Good luck. I got one if my peeves about taxi fares published in the Straits Times today (snippet right at the bottom) about different fare jumps between regular and premium taxis. But the key thing I guess the gahmen fails to realise is that the current system makes us all unhappy. Seriously unhappy. When we want a taxi, they're never around. Sometimes when you call to book one, you can't get one. So all the money we make can't get us a ride home or to work or to the airport. Or yoga in my case. I waited 40 minutes roadside last week, having given myself an hour to get to class. So my opportunity cost went up in smoke as the longer I waited, the later I would be to class and yet more likely I would get a taxi. I almost went home. I eventually missed 10 minutes of breathing and stretching. I should have just taken a train. I get more upset when I want to take a cab home from working late. They whizz by like nobody's business waiting for a booking to come in to make the additional $3 fare. Customers simply gawk jaws dropped at green lights on blue bodies escaping their reach. How are Singaporeans supposed to live happier lives and have more kids when they can't even get home easily after a long work day? It's just ridiculous. Attitudes tied to profit. The hardest to fix. Have I complained about this before? Well probably.

Writing From An Army Bed

I am lying on my bed in my army bunk in my second week of reservist training. I have showered and powdered my self to comfortably feel at ease. My feet and shins itch though from the unease if being in tight socks encased in snug boots for a good 16 hours. It is 1043pm. There aren't many thoughts running through my head. I am a little tired though perhaps not from any physical strain. There was a bit of to and fro with helping the management plan their activities and recruit understudies. I am hopefully in my final year here having recently turned the ripe old age of 39. The planning help I render requires a bit of brain power - some EQ, some IQ, a little creativity and sometimes sheer determination and steadfastness and a smidgen of sell-in. Otherwise there are templates. I co-opted a few wannabes into this mess hoping they might want to carry on with this next time around. I don't know, maybe I have led them into greater misery. Outside there maybe regular physical stress and manual labour. Here's a semi-cushy time in air-conditioned rooms facing captains and colonels testing their whims and fancies, watching military management runs its course, drawing and typing and measuring and listening. I'll ask them tomorrow. And tomorrow we venture out to the jungles of Singapore, on a mission no less! I should get some mud on my boots and grass on my face for the last time. It's been a hoot folks. I hope to get some shut eye for what promises to be a roller coaster of a day. 

Back To Camp

I'm going back to the army tomorrow. For two whole weeks, I'll be in camouflage and hanging with a bunch of guys I only see once a year. I have met a few of them in 'real life' but those fleeting moments don't amount to much. I use 'real life' because in the army, it's not quite what people are used to. I tell people that going back mostly means using a part of my brain that I don't use at work. Or sometimes not use my brain at all. It's the army, so you just follow instructions. It can be as simple as that. Tomorrow I need to report in uniform with my field pack at 0730. Step 1. What happens next is purely up to my officers and sergeants. I'm in the logistics side of things and we're meant to support the big guns heading out to battle. Water, food, ammo and medical. It isn't as exciting as it sounds. Usually there's quite a bit of prep, a lot of waiting, some confusion, then a flurry of action, and then it's over. There's lots of cookhouse and sometimes canteen food consumed in between.  Out in the field, we'll have rations. I usually consume too many oversweet fruit bars. I also have a tendency to come back injured or diseased. The injury is back related and the last disease I picked up was a fungal infection around my toes. It happens. In addition to all these, there's a lot of silly conversation. I am looking forward to chatting about government issues, housing prices, car troubles, wife and kid problems, holiday plans, stock market options, people we don't like in camp, the old ways of doing things, the new gadgets we have, and whatever else the newspaper flipping throws up. I am not looking forward to waking up at 5am, the long journeys to camp or the work emails that'll pile up. This is the Singaporean life.  

Stuff You Learn From The Walking Dead

Lessons from watching three seasons of The Walking Dead over two weekends:

1. Tie up loose ends - When you've got the chance to sort things out, do it. If you miss the chance it may not only not come around again, it may literally bite you, kill you and have you resurrect as a zombie. Carl didn't kill the zombie who was stuck in the mud outside the farm and what did that walker do? Attack Dale. Morgan didn't whack his zombified wife wgo later ate her son Duane. One may be afraid to deal with the problem at the right time, but you gotta just pick up that rifle or steak knife, pluck up some courage and stare the problem in the eye before fixing it. Andrea should have whacked Philip's one good eye when she had the chance. Fewer people would have died and she wouldn't need to go through all that drama.  

2. Accept what cannot be changed - whatever it is, if you can't fix it, don't waste your time, effort, tears and energy to change it. Unlike a clogged sink, there are some inevitabilities one must simple accept and move on with. Like Herschel who kept his zombie wife, stepson and friends in the barn thinking there's be a cure coming. Nosirreebob. Just let them go or shoot them in the noggin. 

3. A zombie apocalypse changes people - It's an emotional roller coaster that's takes a mental toll regardless how strong you may be. Poor Rick started seeing his dead wife, his kid Carl became a stoic psycho in the making, Carol grew well hardened. Herschel's kid wanted to end it with a dinner knife and asked her sister Maggie to join her. Unfortunately, therapists aren't really readily available during the end of the world. So look out for the signs and talk to one another. 

People can also change for the better in times of crisis. I am speaking about Daryl. From redneck sonofabitch, he became a trusted champ at camp. He tried his darndest to find Sophia, and he whack so many walkers with his trusty bow and arrows. He just needed the right leadership to straighten him out. And when he had to choose between his asshole misguided brother and his new family, he eventually returned to his friends. 

4. There's almost always a way out - You gotta keep looking and figuring out the possibilities. You never know what ingenious solution that grey matter of yours comes up with when put to the test. It may mean ripping off a zombie's arm and using the sharp edge of bone to pierce same said zombie's brain. Daryl started hallucinating about his brother taunting him when he fell off Nervous   Nelly into the ravine, got pierced in his sides by his own arrows, and attacked by two ugly walkers, but that didn't stop him from trying to save himself. 

There are probably more insights but this is all the writing there's time for on this train ride to work.