Home, at last.

~Warren

I can finally sigh in relief! I'm home, permanently. You've no idea how much I've waited for this. WOW. "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom...OOHH, FREEEEDDDOOOOMMM!!!" - quote from Aretha Franklin song.

For all you ignorant people out there, I was in NS for six weeks, and in da midst of the period, I decided I was fed up...so here I am! Lolz. Alright, seriousness. Well, I wasn't unhappy in NS. I've met pretty great friends whilst I was there. And aside from this and unique physical activities, everything else wasn't exactly worth it, I feel. It was like a waste of valuable time. For instance, the nights when we gather at 9pm, these trainers would give us lectures about how shitty our attitudes are, when really it's just a handful of idiots who have those.

This would be the shortest paragraph. The food sucks most of the time. Period.

And the singing....oh my Lordie Lord, how I begged every night it would cease. The trainers would play this Malay song called Kini Disayangi every two nights that would make everyone seem like they're having fun, when it's the opposite. I don't say it in front of those who actually enjoy it because I wouldn't wanna be labelled a party pooper. So, when I get with my people, we would bash the song so much. There's this other song that they play that was writen by a third catch trainee last year. Alright, I gotta give it to the dude that he can write songs, but the song sucks terribly! Holy cow, you guys, the song tempo is SOOOOOOOOOO God-wrenchingly slow, it basically summons the dead back to haunt the very grounds we walk on. And since my camp is surrounded by a forest, wouldn't that be convinient? Bear with me. There's more.

There's this teacher, who by the way, I happen to dislike. Here's why. I was sitting on some stage with our Malaysian flag painted over it. I was reading The Vanished Man by Jeffrey Deaver at that time. I was there first and then some girls followed by another herd of them came and sat around that stage. This teacher saw me sitting among them and came up to me and this was how it went.

Trainer: Hey trainee, what's ur problem?
Me : Ermmm, nothing? I'm just reading...
Trainer: What are you doing sitting among the girls?
Me : I came here first.
Trainer: Go away!

And I did. Now, what the hell is this mentality? I'm just reading a book and I get busted for that! This whole boys-and-girls-can't-mix thing is getting abused. Like, if I'm sitting and chatting with aboter girl, this other toooooooot of a teacher would come up and make these stupid narrow-minded comments and I, being totally annoyed, would answer in a provocatively polite manner. It's not like we're doing anything illegal, right? I mean, trainers who have been doing this for so long should be able to discern between the harmless and the ones who are, well, the opposite ;)

I gotta tell you about my Bravo leader, Ramadhan. Bravo is my company in NS, by the way. So this dude, right... After 6 weeks being under him technically, I've come down to the conclusion that he is a little retarded. Seriously. I know it's bad of me to say that, but seriously, he is! There was this time where we were talking about some water sports competition. This was how it went...

Me: Ramadhan, if you put me in the team, I will sacrifice you for Ramadhan in a pot.
He: OK, OK, chill, bro, chillllll!
Me: Good.

And as I turned around to leave, he suddenly goes "WARREN!!". I turned around.

Me: What?
He: I gotta ask you something.
Me: Ask then.
He: Do you eat pork?
(a moment of speechlessness)
Me: WHAT??? Hello, I'm Chinese!
He: No, no no, you see... I see right you don't speak Chinese and you speak English, so I thought
maybe you didn't eat pork.
Me: And which idiot in your life gave you such information?
He: eh, don't get angry... I just thought...
Me: So your fancy theory is that Chinese people who can't speak Chinese don't eat pork?
He: Eh, errrr,,,no .... I...
Me: You know what, Adan.... just put a sock in it!

That was probably the stupidest conversation I have ever had with someone.

Then there are these trainees who fight without reason and smoke. I have one word for you trainee smokers.... cancer-lovers. The trainees that constantly fight, however, are just plain stupid. It's not like they're fighting because one owes the other money or some dude provoked the other. No no no. They fight because apparently, THEY ARE NOT SATISFIED. Who acts like that? Who talks like that? I mean, even if you guys wanna fight (which is totally not my style of settling problems), the least you guys could do is have a reason, which obviously neither of you possess. THIS is the unfair part... those innocents like me get punished too! This makes me boil. I mean, why can't the disciplinary committee just punish those who are involved only? Why take us along in their rollercoaster of hell? I think they're just pure lazy. Unwilling to deal with matters properly. Thank God I'm out of there.

Let me tell you something funny. There was this one time the Commanden came out of his shell (office) to come and scold us all (the lazy alternative for dealing with problems) for fighting. This was how it went.

Commanden: What's your problem, wira and wirawati (the terms they call us trainees)?
Why are you all fighting? Don't make me call the police to cooottttchu!

Oh, that made my day! He was actually trying to say 'caught you' but obvioulsy he failed, even after the 2nd attempt. I know I'm so cruel to make fun of his English, but I lived for this sorta of funny moments in NS to laugh about later. It's still a joke right until this day amongst trainees.

Another time, would be this. You all who know me well, You guys know very well I'm incapable of speaking Mandarin, yes? Well, the whole lot of Orientals here speak it and it's hard for me to communicate, especially to those who don't know a single word of London. So there's this dude whom we nicknamed Captain. He's Chinese-educated and he speaks very lmited English. So he avoids talking to me and only speaks to me when he needs to tell me something that's necessary.
After six weeks, a thought suddenly occurred to me and I told a friend of mine called Joseph who is multilingual, tell Captain that he can talk to me in Cantonese, cuz I did understand some Cantonese. When Captain heard this, he ran up to me and this is what he said in Cantonese:

"HUUUHH??? You can speak Cantonese ar? Why didn't you say anything? Oh my God, I suffered trying to talk to you for these past six weeks, and now you tell me? Aiyoh, good la good la... now no need to suffer so much... You give me a headache when you speak English la..."

From then on, we could deliver messages to each other smoothly.

And now, for the blessed friends the Lord gave me in NS. Thank God for them really. Job, Joel, Joseph, Edmund, Nicholas, Cash, Sean, Raj, Kugen, Aris, Badrul, Risman, Jeevan, Adeleena, Jessie, Abigail, June, Krishanthini, Jean, the two Mei Yi's, Ka Ling, Angeline.... So many countless of other people. If it wasn't for them, I would be so upset there. These people brighten up my days there. Thank the Lord I met them. These people are the ones that make NS less shitty, seriously. The thought of getting up in the morning to spend time with these people is so reassuring. I laughed my head off with these people and I miss these guys. I pray we'll continue to keep in contact for now and always.

I have a friend called Jeevan from NS. He recently gave me a new nickname. Warren Kay. Each time I pass him, he would be like "Warren Kay!". So funny, but I quite like the name, really.

There's so much that I wanna talk about NS here, but there's simply too many. I shall edit this post should I remember some events that happened.

Until now, I still dunno how to feel about NS. To simplify the matter, from a scale from 1 to 10, I gotta give NS a four. That's just the way I feel statistically. The whole point is, is that I'm home and will be going to study soon. I'm studying Psychology in HELP University, KL Damansara. Enough obvious signs He has given me to know for sure that the subject is for me :)

Till next time, anticipate the next post, readers! Cheerio!