Hallo ihr alle da draussend...my first weekend as an officer! But that didn't mean that it wasn't xiong...namely...
EX SILL: Welcome to SILL, your AN/TPQ-37 deployment exercise. Same rules apply as FIREBALL, don't lose steam as officers! Your men are watching you (even if they're already in ORD mood...)
Indeed they were watching. Most of the locators (a.k.a. operators) were already in ORD mood, as mentioned above...but i do hope they were suitably impressed...haha...we were still in cadet mode la...so yes we ran around a lot and hammered iron pickets and pulled the camouflage nets and sat in the Sect Comd Land Rover on recces. Here's where learning starts all again for us...A reminder that learning never ends even if we have been commissioned to become officers...i think we've only just begun to learn as officers. We're not exactly used to people saluting us (which happens a lot due to those poor traumatised GS trainees) and we're not exactly used to not saluting our ex-instructors anymore, but i think even so our behaviour's changed quite some too...i think i've been very patient with the men under me, especially when the Rover got stuck in this shithole and spewed mud all over poor Johnny...I never blamed the driver himself (he was new, too...some good impression about the officers in Khatib already hahaha...NOT!)...even offering men my own water if they were low...things which would have never struck me to do until now...
*beams proudly*
Anyway. It's only the first week, so we'll all find out sooner or later if things work out...ya? I mean, Mark Kay and friends are leaving in April so then we'll be running the show (or sai kang, whichever comes first) so...until then at least got some shield to block arrows. After that...suffer on la huh...
I met Kah Yee today for good food and for some feel-good! That sounded like a rhyme, interestingly...haha...okay no more digressions...had ThaiExpress at Holland V (which although had good ambience was full of people talking with accents...urgh...sounded so i'm-such-a-stuck-up-colonialist...bloody swine...anyway! The 10-scoop-gelato place closed down. Closed down! Shat...so we ended up going to 6th Ave to eat gelato...at the Gelateria Venezia...And ger ah...the girl IS hot la...but kah yee says i looked very humsuplo (sleazy) haha...oh no...sleazepot officer! But...a hot girl serving gelato...sigh...luckily she didn't know i was making eyes at her man...that would've been freaky...We also got to read the papers...something i used to think as a wastage of time but now it's immensely enjoyable...i don't know what caused the change but i certainly had a good time reading it with her...But we were all so full...i hope, dear, that you went home, slept and woke up feeling on the top of the bloody world...well because if you're happy, so am i! It's sinful, but...
Let's just do it again ya. Oh and for your information, Reuben says he's not interested in her in tt sense yet...of course, we know better, don't we? =)
Then we caught Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside) in the evening...It was this discussion about a quadriplegic who'd taken the choice of euthanasia...Actually it was a very comprehensive study of the entire topic of euthanasia in Spain...How life should be a choice, not an obligation. I think that we just believed that life is something everyone hangs on to, so it becomes a natural obligation to live such that it becomes law...About the mental anguish of those who really care for this person; about the mental torture the very sufferer has to go through to reach such a decision; about how Ramon, the quadriplegic man who wishes only death, flies to the beach and the ocean whenever he wishes himself there ('the ocean gave me life, but also took it all away...'); and surprisingly i was very very sympathetic to him. So many touching scenes in a movie...the movie achieved a very difficult feat of balancing...Balancing all the different facets of euthanasia whilst preventing the movie from becoming some empirical documentary about the topic. It was emotional. I sympathised with Ramon for his desire to fly, for his hopelessness, and with immeasurable respect with how he carried himself despite himself being condemned to drink that solution of potassium cyanide. I guess he had a free choice, so he faced every day with a smile.
'After being dependent on so many people for so long, you learn to cry with a smile.' -Ramon said this of himself...sigh. Yet another awesome flick for y'all to go and catch. It's going to be quite a bit to stomach, but such a gem of a movie is really worth the wait. And in the end, even if he died, you kinda felt his sense of release. Back to the day where he should have drowned, yet was snatched back from that embrace of oblivion. You may question his reasons for suicide - after all, he had a caring and loving family, was doing meaningful things to while away his time, and was blessed with the gift of being able to wonder in spite of his disability - to think back to that pristine white beach and be there...So why?
I guess the movie is also named The Sea Inside because deep down, Ramon never left the deep blue seas. It was a place he loved with all his heart and it was fitting for him to go. And i guess he led a fulfilling enough life in between...but he had decided on death, choosing not to become a burden anymore to those around him. Returning to the ocean, even if only in his mind's eye, was his only solace. I think he meant a 'life without dignity' would be a life where you had to cry with smiles everyday because you couldn't thank your loved ones for all the love and care and support they had been showering on you in any other way than to smile and be appreciative.
What i would have said to Ramon? Simple words sum it up.
'Ya did good. Fly.' -Wolverine to Beak, New X-Men VII: Here Comes Tomorrow
posted by quatscherei @ 02:20
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