In Continuum.

Like Cassette Tapes

If the 21st century is ruled by the mp3s,and the late 90s was ruled by the CDs,then the 80s and the early 90s were ruled by cassette tapes.I remember those flat plastic casings with two holes in the center of it,with plastic gears connected to a roller inside,winding and unwinding a black film that goes around the roller and over the top of the cassette and get winded into another roller.I am discribing the cassette tape because i am sure it doesnt even exist in some people's houses right now.After all,it existed in an era even before the time when CDs cost $25.

I had a black Philips cassette tape player.I used to turn it on in my room all the time while messing around with toys.My mother bought a set of cassette tapes for me,and there mustve been forty tapes in that yellow box.It was an educational home-study thing,with characters in different stories going through every day routines to teach the listeners about life.For example,what to do during an Earthquake,flood,when a person robs you,or when you are hungry and wants to steal a watermelon from the fridge without your mother's supervision(Yeah,there's an actual episode on that),and of course the story whereby Xiao Pang gets his hair tangled in the hair dryer because he got it too close to the air exhaust.His hair actually turned gold afterwards,i remember.

So those were the good old cassette tape days.You press 'Eject' on the control panel,the tape compartment opens and you slot a different cassette tape in.Very much like CDs but with much lesser capacity.A change of mood can be dealt with by doing the process all over and changing a cassette tape,and there you are with a different set of emotions.A different band,different music,different stories and so much more,just like that.Man,i love and miss cassette tapes.I wish they still make those,really.They are way cool.

So the in-car conversation with my mother while she drives me to camp continued last book in.I was spilling my guts to her about the army,since everything is coming to an end and i have nothing to lose,and i wont need her to worry for me at home whatsoever.Basically,i was pretty much off the hook,and in the car that night with the sky sprinkling slight drizzles,i told my mother about the changes that NS has given to me over the years,despite the price i had to pay with the busting of my knees on rainy days.They ache like crazy when i walk on rainy days,and feel like a million needles piercing my nerves if i run anything more than 5km.But anyway,that's not the point now is it?

I basically mentioned everything in the "I Heart National Service" post to her.But i added something else which i didnt mention.I told her of the change of attitude,the prespective i have towards life after the evolution of ME due to NS.She was rather impressed she told me,that she neednt worry about me as much as she intended to then.I told her that NS taught me a couple of things,and besides the rule of all rules "You can do anything you want,just dont get caught",i learnt that you got to do what you got to do.Because nobody out there is going to accomplish something for you by wiping your ass clean after you take a dump.That is a very real and pressing issue,in reality,our every day lives.Because nobody is going to be nice enough to say,"It's okay,i will help you do this.You go ahead and enjoy yourself".Life doesnt work that way,and the fact that i realised that,makes me feel good about myself.

The other is the attutide of not giving up.Because really,though i cant qualify myself to be a fighter of any kind,i do firmly believe however that though i understand that the problems i am going to face are only going to be more complicated and urgent,i believe that right now i am better equipped to handle these problems and solve them eventually.I remember the days in Secondary School when my exploding brain was blowing a hole through the ceiling above my head all because of Geometry.I'm not sure why i hated it so much back then,since i love and only love that aspect of Mathemetics now,i hated it with a raging passion back then.But anyway,i even remember crumpling a page or two in my A Maths textbook because i was so frustrated with the squares and pyramids.I gave up right there,succumbed to my own failure - the failure of self,for not even trying hard enough to overcome anything.

That August afternoon two years ago,i was sitting at one of those baby blue tables in front of the Staff Room.Mr. Teo was sitting in front of me with his arms crossed on the table,and underneath his hairy arms my Economics test paper,with a big fat F written over the top right across my name.'What's wrong?' he asked,and all i could do was to shrug back then.Because though on the outside i was perfectly calm,underneath that skin and bone i was pulling my hair off and then banging my head against the wall to knock some sense into myself,and of course to bang some bad blood out of my genes.Because really,i blamed too much and i blamed it all.

A difficult equation,the blending of the numbers.The convergent of the letters and the alphabets,followed by the sweat rolling down the side of my head due to the increased beating of my heart.Yeah,i was panicking,and at the table next to the window,on a hot and humid October afternoon,the C Maths Prelim Paper stared back at me with blue lines across the foolscape,workings crossed out and a spot on the corner of the paper - the falling of the fearful sweat.

I failed that paper,and i failed it bad.My confidence plummeted,it came down the side of my morale hill like a mudslide,and everything was going under the self-esteem graph,rocketing in the wrong direction - not upwards - under the zero mark,through the X-axis and into the land of the negative numbers.I was dying with my confidence deteriorating,and i was killing myself with an invisible knife,stabbing myself over and over for this self-inflicted sense of utter stupidity.Mrs. Lee gave us back the papers weeks after,and the pile of test papers sat on the table,with the best student right at the top.I wasnt expecting my name to be read out anywhere near the top,and as i expected i was the last to recieve the paper.

I saw the results,the lowest result for anything i have ever obtained,and crushed the paper in my hands in front of her.She didnt say anything,and neither did i.I placed my forehead on the table,feeling the cool surface of the wood,and then staring at the crumpled test paper - myself,my life - on the floor next to a ball of rolling dust.

I gave up,i really did.I gave up,throwing a table across the classroom in my mind,and then tossing a chair out of the window.I was frustrated and i was pissed,screaming underneath the smile and the shrugs.Not even Mr. Teo's concerns or my mother's constant encouragements broke that mask of mine,made of titanium and screwed tight on my face.I gave up,all too easily,and i crumbled into bits and pieces of utter shame,with a mirror above the ruins and mocking at myself through the reflections.

*

Low wall,the first obstacle.The parallel bars followed by the barbwire jump.Next is the swing trainer,then the deadly ropes.The killer stations in the SOC,of course that is not even taking into considerations the murderous runnings before and after the obstacles.The nausea was crazy,my brain was spinning around at the speed of sound and the world was turning upside down.My breath was short,not enough oxygen going in and definitely not enough carbon dioxide going out.Cells,cells dying in my body at a rapid rate,with my legs buckling under the weight and stress.I was breaking apart,the SOC finally has taken its toll on me,pulling me down into the ground like what a quicksand would do to a heavy body.My will was fading,fading like the light of the day,into a sunset full of utter shame from a prideless day.

But then,something happened.Something triggered something else,whatever it was i cant tell you right now.It was the will to complete and to finish perhaps,the emptiness that came with the lightheadedness.I overcame myself,conquered the inner demons all in the matter of seconds,and i found myself overcoming obstacles after obstacles,pushing on with one step after another and then down the slope towards the finish line.I mentioned just how close you are to death everytime you put in your full efforts to complete SOC,and i remember the life it took out of me the moment i crossed the line,the moment i collapsed and was dragged away into the emergency room.

But i passed,i passed the test.I conquered and overcame myself once again,second year in a row and i felt proud of myself,despite being out of breath and feeling totally sick.I felt like hurling,puking my intestines out with an incredible jet of vomit.But i held on,i pulled through,i overcame and i won.I thrashed my inner demons and most of all,i thrashed myself in a race to the finish line,with the final destination full of honor and glory.I left the self-depreciating self behind to rot,to feed on depression and to weep,because the new self is now at the finish line,half dead but more alive than ever.

*

I wish at times that attitudes can be plucked into a human body like cassette tapes.You know,like putting a certain set of mindset or attitude to a certain situation.I imagine myself back in JC,facing the same subjects and the same dreadful lectures.In the same heated classroom,with me sitting next to the window on the fourth floor.If i am able to pluck out the attitude i have right now and slot into the person i was back then,i wouldve been able to conquer all obstacles,overcome all self-depreciative attitudes.Because really,with who i am right,i have so much confidence to take over myself back then,and break through the doors of my JC with a smile on my face - genuine and true.No more masks and no more screws.Just me,and - if not the results - the fact that i tried and tried so hard.