I pray hard my sister can get a decent PSLE result. Only time will tell. How I wish I could be at home to see her results, sit her down and help her choose the appropriate secondary schools.

But (sadly) I’ll be in camp. Sheesh. At times like this I feel that I ought to be at home, tending to these kinda family matters especially when my mum’s health isn’t really that good nowadays. Having high blood pressure and being a single parent with a son in NS already looks tough on paper, what more when I see her go through it all with my own eyes.

Everytime when I get home, she’ll be resting on the bed and on days that I book in, she’ll wake up just to see me off.

I try to help out as much as I can - wash my own laundry, clean the toilet, vacuum the house - but somehow it just doesn’t seem to be enough.

Every week I really hope that I can meet Babe ’cause given her tight schedule, even meeting her at ungodly hours is good enough for me. It’s tough ’cause we can’t contact each other as often due to our own commitments and summarizing 1 week’s worth of incidents in 2 short hours, with eyes half-closed, isn’t really justifiable.

But Babe, trust me… 3 weeks from now, when everything’s wrapped up for the both of us, we’ll do a proper catch up and look back at those shitty days that we have aye. Then we’ll know how much we’ve toughen up.

And I still wanna watch Salawati and Madagascar 2 with you, Babe.

Ya Allah, tabahkan lah hatiku ini. Kuatkan lah iman ku supaya ku dapat merempuhi segala cabaran-cabaran yang telah Kau bentangkan bagiku. Sesunggunya kau lah yang Maha Esa lagi Maha Mengetahui. Amin ya rabbal alamin.

Going through the field camp week was like being in confinement week all over again. For nearly 2 weeks I wasn’t able to smell the air in mainland and my (bad) perception of field camps didn’t make things any better either.

But perhaps it was the combination of Babe’s positivity plus being in Leopard coy and just taking things as it comes that didn’t make my 6 days stay in the outfield that bad after all.

No doubt there were a lot of “shitty things” that I experienced like digging a hole aka shell scrape and sleeping in it, not bathing for so long and watching a dozen mosquitoes buzzing in a group just a few centimetres away from me.

For the record, I find sleeping in the shell scrape much more comfortable than in the basha. And I realized coffee doesn’t really help me in keeping myself awake during my shift in the 1/3 alert.

There were no wild boars though but a huge millipede did die a dreadful death of being burnt with solid fuels.

Yet despite all those, I was thankful that the field camp at least reminded me how a rainbow looked like. I thought I could see Carebears too but, no. The evening skies never failed to wow me every other day. And the last night reminded me of the nights when I was in Tioman. Stargazing with friends, hah! How often do you do that?

But it was so cold on the that night and even with my jacket on, I couldn’t help but to join the others and build a fireplace just to keep myself warm.

And I thought the food ration sucks but having pasta, mee goreng and briyani rice was just more than all of us could ask for. On top of that we still had our fair share of canned drinks, fruit bars and biscuits to keep us going. So, it wasn’t that bad eh?

I kept thinking of Babe throughout especially when her first day of work in her new workplace coincided with the fact that I’m unable to use my handphone. I was worried but somehow deep inside I felt consoled ’cause I knew that she’d be fine.

During the BIC, when the leopard crawls across the sandy paths were just too unbearable, it was Babe whom I kept picturing in my mind.

To top it all off, the field camp demonstrated who are the wayang kings, the garang monsters and the ones that you can really rely on.

The best part for me? To be able to talk to my loved ones once again and be updated with their lives. It meant a lot to me ’cause I got confined right after field camp. Hah! I misplaced my tent pins.

But everything happened for a reason for the confinement particularly, was really a blessing in disguise.

Exactly 1 month from today, I’ll POP. Oh goodness golly…

Frankly speaking I don’t have much time to blog nowadays. My clock ticks like a time-bomb whenever I don the civilian suit and touch my heart, touch my soul… I do miss writing or in this case, blogging.

And I do miss a-hundred-and-one more things like photography and even the simplest of stuff like kicking a soccer ball. Gathering every Saturday morning for a kickabout is really tough lately.

Tekong is scenic, really. The sea view is awesome with planes soaring high every now and then. There the moon seems bigger, the stars seem brighter and the skies really feels like its protecting me with its endless hues of blues and blacks.

Usually I’d take out my cam, close my left eye, look into the viewfinder, frame the shot and press the shutter. Hah! Now I can only smile silently as I recall those carefree days.

For those who frequent my virtual space, I guess you’ve realized how being a recruit has changed my virtual life too. My heartfelt thanks for putting me on your bookmarks for easy access but my updates are only gonna be as frequent as the Great Singapore Sale.

But I do go to every single one of my links on my site, keeping myself in occupied in each and every one of your stories be it going out jalan raya with friends, posing so cutely for group shots, or your endless raging banter about the things happening in your life.

Keep on writing guys, I’ll be more than happy to be drowned in your words. Heh.

For the record, I haven’t gone Raya-ing except the first day of Raya when I went over to my aunt’s place. Raya this year to me is not about the ketupat, kuih or green packets. Attending the prayers and hearing the takbir are already more than I can ask for.

Every time I book out, I thought the 1-month Hari Raya celebration is over but seeing families still wearing matching baju kurung and friends laughing sheepishly over the number of green packets that they got, I can only smile as I turn my view back to the fast moving world outside the window that is unfolding as if it’s out of a movie reel.

Pretty soon, I realized that I am reaching my bus stop. I put on my jockey cap, slung my field pack over and made my way down from the back of the bus.

For it will be then will I know who I really treasure the most  in my life,
who I have been taking things for granted all these while,
who I have been closing one eye on all the sacrifices that they’ve made.

***

Reminder to self:
Alang, you need the money more than I do for your chemotherapy.
Mum, you need the rest more than I do to recover and sustain the family as a single parent.

 ***

It’s 9.34pm and I’m already feeling damn weary. It must’ve been those early wake-up calls for sahur these past few days. Damn man.

2 weeks, or more likely 17 days, is all that it takes

for gigantic insurance companies to melt down…
for me to miss the F1 fever which I think is way too over-rated…
to decrease that Hari Raya mood in me…
for Man Utd to struggle at the start of the season (again)…
to make me wear my jeans like a hip-hop guy…
to see someone from fall from cloud nine to ground zero…

My soiled clothes smelt sour, as testified by my sister’s nose. And Mum said I can only start washing tomorrow.

It’s only 3 more fucking days to Hari Raya, can you believe it? My table top should have kuih-kuih already but it still looked the same from 2 weeks back. The curtains have remained in their sedia position for a record timing but their counterparts - the cushion covers - have managed to camouflage themselves with the wooden rattan surroundings with their new brown, yellow, orange uniform.

Coming from a country that has a high possibility of rain-shine-rain-shine-rain-shine within an hour, it suddenly became foreign to me that the pattern changed to shine-shine-shine-shine-shine-shine-rain. What’s up man!

I’ve never toasted to countdowns all these while but they soon become inevitable when they are your REAL source of motivation. Digging deep down to climb back up and move on is the toughest challenge I encountered thus far.

Are there any other big or hot news that I’ve missed out?