Sea surge

The tragedy is "unprecedented", the devastation "unimaginable". So many countries hit in so little time. An earthquake in Aceh measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, detected first by the US Geological Survey, causes a tsunami which hits Indonesia, Phuket, Thailand, Penang, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and even states in the East African belt. The toll is set to rise above the 100,000 mark before the year ends. International relief efforts have been sent from as far as the US, which pledged the highest amount of aid set at US$50 million dollars. Britain and Australia follow closely behind with pledges of US$30 million or thereabouts. And of course, the EU with its 25 member countries and the world's highest GDP per capita, donates a measly US$4 million, dwarfed already by the contribution from Singapore.

It's quite a sight, seeing how many different groups of people band together when a common threat exists. And once that problem goes away, we resort to the same behaviour of fighting among ourselves. Aceh is one of those states which wanted to break away from the Indonesian archipalaego, it's independence hopes crushed when the Indonesian military moved in. Now look at who go begging to that same government who not too long ago it was telling to screw off. And that military which was not too long ago shooting people in Aceh is helping with relief efforts. In Sri Lanka, no matter if you're Tamil or Sinhalese, Buddhist or Hindu, when the waves come, nature gives the same treatment. And because it's holiday season, we have tons of tourists from all over the world scattered throughout the many island resorts, which by the way consists of a large number of Europeans (EU better wake up), a truly international humanitarian crisis exists. It's strange that so many people must die before the rest of us wake up and do something, together. A tragedy of such proportions is necessary for international cooperation?

Furthermore, it's not a uniform level of commitment from all parties. As mentioned already, the EU has the most reason to help but seems to flounder when it is needed most (Iraq anyone?). Further demonstrates that they are just full of Chirac nonsense and irrelevant until they can get their act together. However more tellingly, it depends which country you are from that the aid amount differs. The Bam earthquake in Iran last year was just as bad, but guess what, you're Iranian and since you insist on holding on to some nuclear technology, go rebuild your own damn country. The fault of the government burdens the people. But guess what, in government you get what you deserve, and from a theocratic government which the people ushered in less than 3 decades ago, this is what you get. No aid and lots of bullshit on the international stage. In Indonesia, where the democratically elected President watches as key members of his government who are needed most in this crisis cut loose and run, corruption runs rampant. The disaster is a reminder that unless SBY is serious about dealing with corruption, this is the kind of crap he faces each time the shit hits the fan. Instead of ministers doing their job when they are needed, they find the nearest hole to hide in.

I live less than a thousand kilometers from the epicentre, and felt the slight tremors which reverberated throughout the island when Aceh was hit. No tsunami, thankfully, but no lack of compassion either. The amount of money donated by Singaporeans to date now goes several times above the amount the government pledged. The Red Cross alone has received the same amount the government has pledged from walk-ins to its office, and different organisations, even my former school, is doing something to help the affected people. I'm sure this scene is repeated in about any country on Earth with news channels now. Pessimists may say this is a slow week, and as news channels have nothing else to broadcast, the disaster takes centrestage everywhere and people get out all their year-end bonuses to help. In this case, even the pessimistic view has optimistic undertones. Individuals are doing their utmost in helping others they don't even know, putting money and aid in the hands of people far from their own homes. Shouldn't you too? Go to the Red Cross website and do your part.

They say it's an omen that 2004 ends in this manner, and the beginning of 2005 is greeted with such tragedy. But I say we must see the bright spark in the darkness, that in tragedy we see compassion for our fellow human beings, regardless of race, religion or creed. The event does not signal any change or reveal any new trends in world behaviour. Mother nature does not have a political agenda, if plates have to move, they move. No omens or portents exists, and we should not try to taint the new year with any predictions or otherwise. Right now, the most pressing thing to be done is to do what we can for the tsunami victims, and let learning to empathise be on our list of resolutions for next year.

Don

Faith keeps us standing

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul

Believe.

Ring Out, Wild Bells
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Merry Christmas, and may we remember those who serve and preserve the peace we enjoy. Oh, and screw the last line.

Don

Tis the season, again

I'm feeling totally stoned. 8 hours sitting at the Aeromedical Centre, with a stupid machine blowing air into my eye every hour, to measure my eye pressure. Not only did I discover how boring TV programmes are in the morning, I have discovered Einstein's Theory of Relativity all over again. The PAINFUL WAY. Time really passes more slowly when all you got to do is nothing. At least found a new friend while stoning my time away, VJ's volleyball captain. I look like a complete joke next to the guy, who is buffed and looks ready to punch my lights out. Good luck in NDU bro.

At least tomorrow promises to be an interesting day, with a good dinner and something to do after it. Hope we can make it more memorable, last few chances to meet before I go in, and haven't seen you since prom. I have no idea what to give you for a present, so I hope you don't get me one, and make me look totally guilty and embarassed.

Mogilan comes out on Christmas day, the guys(tm) will probably surround him and find out more about army, and get to finally solve the mystery if the skin under all that hair on his head is truly as dark as the rest of him. Hope we can have a wonderful last meet at my place on the 31st, just like old times, like how we did when we were just getting into J1.

Just read about the bombing in Iraq, this one hitting the mess tent for the troops. It's odd, the season for peace is just around the corner and militants are taking the chance to hit out at the troops. US is closing the consulate in Surabaya because they are afraid that with Christmas, they are most likely to be bombed by militants. What respect these barbarians show for a peaceful celebration, and this gives proof of how stupid religion can make people become. The holier the day is on the religious calender, the more likely violence is about to break out, even if it's the celebration of peace and joy. What irony. Perhaps if we spent less time celebrating the birth of Jesus, and spent more time on actually building peace around the world, perhaps if we stop spending money on gifts for people we know and put that money in the hands of those who deserve it, perhaps if we just stop fooling ourselves in mindless beliefs which are more than 2000 years old and totally inapplicable in the world which exists now, and put that faith into people who actually do a goddamn thing in making peace possible today, we would have that world of peace and joy every damn Christmas carol goes on and on about.

The iconic hypocrite, I am. I have no idea how I'm going to build that peace and joy, even the chance seems slim. MM Lee just gave had a Q&A session to some foreign correspondent's society in Singapore, and damn if that the guy isn't the most well informed man this side of the world. Who ever heard of the Maastricht Agreement? He can talk about the state of the Euro, the state of Sino-Singapore relations, and the state of Myanmar with impeccable knowledge on all of them. Anyway, he was asked if Singapore would commit troops to Iraq, and to that he gave a flat no. Although the reason was valid, parents would probably object if their sons were forced to Iraq during NS, and the corp of regular soldiers are all officers, I couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment. Singaporeans still can't give a shit about lending others that hand. I hope when I get in, maybe one man can make some things change, and that deployment may be more than just a dream. And wearing a blue helmet won't just be another unfulfilled promise to myself.

Charity sees the need not the cause.

German Proverb

To be. Or not.

It's quite an experience, when you sit in a chair facing an interview panel which not only holds the power over allowing to get what you want, but loves to get into friendly conversation with you as well. Irony? It's not been my first time facing such high stakes cloaked in cheerful banter, prefect and council interviews, head-prefect interview, GC, AC interviews. I guess this is different because for once, I was not sure if what the panel had to offer, was what I wanted.

"So why do you want to be fighter pilot?"

"I'm not sure I want to be one." Ouch. You can imagine the stares I was getting for that one. Facing a trained psychologist, 2 senior pilots and a lieutenant colonel, I did as I usually do for interviews, tell the truth. The whole, bloody, stinking truth. And nothing but it. I swear.

And sweat for my answers too. The interviewers were relentless, giving me the rope to hang myself. I guess I was quick enough to tie the lasso and throw it back on them, because surprise surprise, they gave me the letter. With a contract in it, to be a pilot trainee and work with the air force. You would think I'll be jumping for joy, being offered a career before A level results are released. I thought I should too, but look at me now.

Confused, totally and utterly without an idea what the rest of my life should be spent on. I looked at the contract all night in the chalet, and this morning I look at it again with the same feeling. This was a dream come true, that childhood dream which I had not too long ago. But as I told the interview panel, I'm not a child no more. We grow up, we learn that there is such a thing as responsibility, the rose-tinted glasses come off.

I spent the night at Sentosa with the Group, playing Risk and listening the GC debate the same things we did not 2 years ago. They still have the idealism to carry it through, and I envy the innocence they still possess. The old boys were just there to relive old times, when the world was so much simpler, just Scouting and schooling. I look at those faces last night and the guys no longer seemed young and eager as they were when I met them in Secondary Two. But they were just as passionate to get that innocence back. We played and drank the night away, with Risk and stupid dare games and lots of Coke, no beer or alcohol. Just as we had before. We talked and listened, stoned and did lots of thinking. What future to come, what had past, didn't matter because the important moment was the present.

And now, the letter stares me in the face again. The future. What's to come, and I can decide it now. I must.

"The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past."
Robertson Davies

Hold the line

"For the honor of the fallen,

For the glory of the dead,

The living line of courage held the faith,

and move ahead."

Hope.

The end, prom nite came and went. But the devil is in the details. It started off on a wrong foot, and almost ended up a disaster. But I guess the saving grace was not in the event itself, but what it meant to me and the rest of those I know.

Many saw prom as the end, graduation as goodbye and farewell. But I guess I got a better deal, making a new friend, hopefully a good friend, in one night. It started off rather coldly, but I guess all things take time. The photo-taking went like the flash of the camera, many snaps but soon it fades. Then I thought I had lost her in the crowd, or she had gone back to the room, and I had absolutely lost my chance to have the chat I had looked forward to all evening. But she didn't disappoint. The long walk to the Esplanade, the initial reluctance, we overcame. We talked, walked, sat, and talked some more. So many things I learnt in just two hours, and I so wish I had known her earlier. There was so much yet to be said, but I guess, the rest of it will have its own time and place. I hope to meet you again soon.

Sitting at the lobby at Conrad, I was stilled psyched up, and I'm just the luckiest guy around I guess. So many people popped by, and conversation was light, but poignant due to the inherent goodbye. Pamela and her uniqueness, Lingli (rest assured we haven't said our final goodbye) and ... , 'Mum', the scouts, the old classmates. I just sat on the sofa as the world popped by, alone at first but soon enough surrounded by familiar company.

0400, though not everyone appeared, it was still significant. Shows one thing, the scouts never play out. Never disappoint. And I guess the sense of virtue and honor which 01 instilled in us still holds strong, we are still the 'guys of honor'. No one can ever take that away.

Then silent walking, along the Esplanade, WWII memorial, Padang, City Hall, all the way back to the hotel. It was precious time spent on precious thought, memories. I have eluded sleep long enough, but in the process, found some hope, of something new and promising. I'm going to do my best to make sure this night has not gone to waste.

"Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible."

Stanislaw Lem