Backdating

In medical centres, a very major part of the daily life of the medic is to backdate things that one has failed to clear days or perhaps even weeks ago. Things that were not cleared for months and years are not unheard of. And here I am backdating an entry that I have written when I was stuck on a cover for an entire weekend. Given that I was bored out of my wits, please forgive me if I appear less than coherent.

It is indeed a blessing for me to able to write some nonsense to pass my time during the long and boring periods of time on cover. Since I do not want to write anything remotely meaningful, I would just babble out whatever comes to my mind.

The first thing I want to talk about is being a combat medic with a service job. While many people (specifically my fellow NSFs) think that this is one of the best postings one can get, and I do admit that it is not without its perks, at the same time there are tremendous burdens being placed on the shoulders of the hapless medic. In addition to being a medic, the roles of a clerk and storeman are thrust upon him as well. For my brethen in the combat units, life is even worse since they are involved in combat roles as well. With so many responsibilities, the pay of the medic is decidedly average, despite having a job scope comparable to specialists.

The other dominating issue in my pathetic life revolves around girls. Or rather, the lack of them. I wonder whether this is one of the side effects of coming from a boy's school as well as serving National Service at the moment, as a much larger majority of my friends are male (as running through my friendster can atest). While there is nothing wrong with it, one cannot help but wonder whether this is a contributing factoe to my current single status. With a bigger pool of female friends, the chances of me striking a chord with someone would have increased exponentially.

However, is it possible that the problem is at a more fundamental level; Or as what economists would put it, a structural rather than a cyclical problem? Is it possible that, heaven forbid, I am actually repulsive to girls!? While I have never been described as handsome, neither have I been considered so ghastly that girls whould shy away from me at the first opportunity. Something wrong with my personality? Too nice at times, a little crazy too, but mostly quiet and psasive lest I am with some close friends. Perhaps people can't classify me clearly, for neither am I the strong, silent type nor the cheerful outgoing variety, and thus girls do not know what to accept me as. Does that not apply to everyone? Hopefully fate is still waiting to deal me a better hand.

Another thing is my weakness for JC girls. I know people have fetishes, whether they admit it or not. Here I am though telling anyone who bothers to read it, and it must be the tremendous boredom that turned me a little bonkers. On the other hand, I think that my weakness can actually be explained. Coming to JC from a boy's school, I carry the burden of four years of longing for meaningful female relationship. Alas, JC life came and went and still nothing has changed. Part of me still sturbonly refuses to let go of this unfulfilled dream, holding futilely to non-existant memories.

You have to admit girls in JC uniforms are awfully cute though...

Disclaimer: This is me being bored out of my senses. Please do not take it as my usual self.


Quote of the day

"It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over."

-Edna St. Vincent Millay US poet (1892 - 1950)

So fit and yet so fat?

Well here comes one of my frankly quite infrequent entries, and its just because its a weekend and I'm stuck on duty that I have enough time to actually write something properly... For despite the fact that new medics have arrived at the medical centre, the bulk of the duties are still being done by the more experienced medics (i.e Lao Jiaos). The fact that my moods have been on a roller coaster ride depending on the sucess (or the lack of it) of my favourite baseball team did not exactly get me in the mood to write. But thank heavens ESPN is now showing baseball again!

Well I have been looking at myself in the mirror recently and I find that while I may not have girls going all gaga over me, I consider myself to be at least decent looking. Unfortunately though, while going through some of the photoes that I have taken with my gang, I have noticed that my face has grown fat, and though my clothes tend to hide it, so has my stomach. The unfortunate effects of being a service medic that is overworked and without sufficient time or motivation to be trim and fit.

It has not always been like this. During my Basic Military Training, my weight went all the way from 76.5kg to 69.0kg, thanks in no small part to some tender loving torturing from my most affectionate instructors. Following that though I was posted to 1 Guards, and being fit there is a matter of pride since virtually everyone there keeps themselves in fighting trim, and running 10km every other day is a matter of course. The slide however begin when I was posted to the service units in Stagmont and then Nee Soon. There was just no motivation there since the work there is already a very heavy burden and you only look forward to booking out and ogling at girls... Furthermore, despite the fact that I am hardly considered atheletic, I am one of the fittest personnel in my current unit.

So while I am considered to be fat, in some ways I have not felt the impact of it since I am still considered fit among my peers. And since I am not coming into contact with female friends as often as I do back in my schooling days, I am content with looking at girls instead of them looking at me. From what I've heard, I would also not get any rewards for getting a silver or a gold for my fitness test due to my physical status, giving me even less motivation.

Shall I just give in to the loser inside of me? Never!

But who am I joking? I am very much still in the same situation, no new motivation has appeared, except the RJ girl I found living near me... (maybe I should try to know her...), and perhaps with my second year fitness window oppening and the burning desire of my vain self to show the rest of the medics in my medical centre fow a real medic should be I would get myself in shape. Unlikely to work though, since they are not the least bothered by how well or lousy I do in the fitness test.

But I may do it for YOU! Just let me know for what... and I'll think about it.

P.S: It would do wonders if you happen to be a really chio girl!

Quote of the day

"The argument that making contraceptives available to young people would prevent teen pregnancies is ridiculous. That's like offering a cookbook as a cure to people who are trying to lose weight."

-Jerry Falwell

Baseball: The Passion Revisited

On our sunny little island, I am part of an extremely rare group of people called baseball fans. While people are fussing over whether is it going to be AC Milan or Juve to win the Serie A, I am panicking when my team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, lost a four game series to the lowly Pirates. Perhaps other than Newcastle, I realise that I could not care less about football, other than knowing it makes a very good conversational topic with the rest of my football crazy mates (with their money on the line, it is little wonder they are slightly mad). Somehow I just could not find the same passion with football or any other sport that I have with baseball.

When the baseball season is on, there is a game virtually every single day of the year, with every game having some sort of effect throughout the league. It may in someway affect the standing of your team in one of the six divisions, which is of prime importance for deciding the playoff picture. I this way it is similar to football leagues when you are cursing the other team and hoping your team would pull off a victory. With the number of games however, a week can have a drastic effect on a team. Lose tract for a week, and your team which is leading your division may have went on a seven game losing streak and are now struggling to stay in contention. So you follow everyday, willing your team to just one more victory in a winning streak or hoping (often against hope: my team has a 51 - 111 record last year with losing streaks lasting seemingly forever) that they finally break out of a losing streak. The tension is often unbearable and you see me down for an entire day just because my team lost, or grinning like an idiot for just one miserly victory.

team having so many close games, the pain or elation is often multiplied many times because of the buildup of emotion. I enjoy close games in other sports as much as the next guy, but with a set time limit, some contests just becomes waiting for the game to end. Never baseball though, or like the great Yankee cather Yogi Berra says: " It's never over till it's over." There is simply no short cuts for one team still has to play the requisite innings, and a game is only over for a team who thinks its over since for every inning you have three outs to score as many runs to overcome any possible deficit. With around three years of following the sport, seeing a team come back from seemingly impossible is sports entertainment without parallel.

Even when your team loses however, following the statistics of your players is another reason why baseball has cast such a spell over me. No other sport is as conducive to statistics as baseball, and a player's performance can very easily be seen in black and white though certain on field factors still remain relevant. Baseball fantasy leagues, as being the grand daddy of fantasy leagues, is thus another way of enjoying the sport. Other pretenders (*cough*football*cough*) are just lame in comparison. From what I know of other sports (with the possible exception of cricket) the stats are just there for entertainment purposes. Not baseball, where stats are taken extremely seriously.

And if you want to talk about colourful history, baseball will simply dazzle you with the number of stories. In fact a documentary series about baseball spans several DVDs which I fully intend to buy when somehow I find enough money(read: never). The white sox scandal, the Noble experiment, the curse of the Babe, the curse of Billy Goat are just of the few historical episodes that almost all baseball fans would have heard of and add a degree of historical passion to the sport. And a rivalry that lasts more than 80 years? Top that all you football fanatics!

Somehow though baseball fans are also a very superstitious lot. Once something works, they will try to keep as many of the conditions the same till finally and inevitably it fails. Players will keep wearing the same pair of underwear for weeks during a winning streak for a more extreme example. Me? Somehow whenever I see RJC girls my team seems to lose... Which puts me in a spot since I have a soft spot for them in my heart... but that is another issue for another time.

We can't have everything now, can we?

Quote of the day

"Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand"

-Leo Durocher (1906 - 1991)