Two and a Half Men: 2 and a Half Months in 2 Days

After putting my bags down on the marble floor of my living room. I looked around and gave out a long and deep sigh...

A sigh of definite relief. I was back. And was absolutely thrilled to be. Back to my bed, my own bathroom, good ol' home cooking, clean water and etc and etc and etc. Basically, if your reading this, just look around. From your computer to the table it's on, to the floor that the said table stands on, then look at the walls and the ceiling. You don't get that in NS. So after coming back, I realize and of course appreciate all the materialistic things of my life. From the creaky planks of the wooden floor to the green garden filled with dog poo.

Then after a long deep sigh, I look to my father, my grandmother then to my maid (brother was at CF camp)...

Then now I appreciate them all over again. For you see, at NS you don't get family with you (except on visiting days). It's you and your peers. My family is MY absolute everything. So being back with them, their presence even grandmum's annoying nags and father's VERY lame jokes it was great.

After meeting up with my family once more, I walk up the stairs, went into the bathroom, took a long shower...

It felt lonely.

I have never taken a bath by myself for a long time already I realized. It's always together in NS. Even if you do use a shower in NS the bathroom is never empty there is always someone there singing off key, smoking or shouting to the bottoms of hell because his pail broke and now he can't wash his clothes. It was a quiet shower; it was me missing the people of NS.

Changed clothes. Opened my closet looked at all the clothes hanging in there, neat and orderly...

Now I had to choose. Hadn't needed to choose what to wear in a long time. In NS, you wear uniforms. No choices in clothing whatsoever, maybe once in a while you take a sniff of the uniform, only then do you make a choice of whether you can wear it since you hadn't washed it in weeks. (You get two sets of everything, so you DO get to choose, I guess)

The organization and the space of the closet reminded me of my locker back at camp and how it was the opposite of this one. Not orderly at ALL, my fault and small, their fault. This closet at home was of wood and had two doors that closed properly, the one at camp was metal and an gray, rusting and could not close properly and had words written and carved into the doors, words I can't say in public without being stared at uglily.

Put on collared-tee, wore shorts (didn't do that in public in NS it all had to be long pants). Walked down stairs, remembered there were no stairs at camp, put on my shoes and was out the door to IKEA for lunch.

At IKEA: went out shopping and stuff...

Obviously something I have not done in a while. Walking around in a fully air-conned building, taking my time, without caring what the time is or whether I was late for Kenegaraan Class or late for an assembly. If you ever had been a dove in a magician's hat or a mosquito in a palm of an annoyed man in your pass life and had been let go deliberately or not (unintentionally usually refers to the annoyed man who so happens to have deformed non-mosquito killing hands) you have felt what I felt, walking around, free again. Not caring whether I was late or constantly looking over my shoulder to see if a jurulatih was watching me. It was being let go by the annoyed man.

At the restaurant, took the food tray and lined up to proceed to the food counter to order...

No one was pushing, or shouting for the ones in front to move it. Everybody just queued up like, well normal people. In NS, at the canteen/dewan makan, when you lined up for food, without a doubt there will be people commplaining about the long line, people shouting for the ones in front to hasten, people cutting into line, pushing and shoving. One thing I WILL NOT miss of NS.

At the food counter, I ordered and saw the server put the food on my plate...

There were no flies flying around the food, no need to constantly wave my hand above my meal to shelter it from the insects of annoyance, no need to worry "If I eat this, would i get diarrhoea tomorrow?". Another thing I won't be missing from NS.

Paid for the food, went to the table and ate...

The food was delicious. Not like the food in NS. I mean it's not inedible but I mean it should be palatable. The meats (chicken and fish) always tastes like it was cooked days before but just in a different sauce. And if they serve a super strong smelling and strong tasting curry, you can get worried. "Just what are they trying to hide?" Is the chicken so old and bad they need to hide it under the strong tastes of curry? But I repeat, the food is not inedible, just not tasty. Something to bitch about but not to make a formal complain to. But you can actually make a report to the staff of the canteen to improve the food. But we don't know if they ever read that stupid Peti Cadangan.

After lunch, went home. Dad went to work, so I was to chill at home...

House was quiet. Once again, realized that I was not at camp anymore. At camp, after lunch time, I usually go back to the dorm and just chill with friends or sometimes take a nap. This time, there were no friends. No people lounging on their single beds listening to their MP3 some singing to the songs, no one sweeping their bed area, organizing their locker, chatting loudly, rolling tembakau. No more. It was REALLY quiet at home.

Had a normal dinner at night. With grandmum and father....

Normal as it may have been, it was once again nice and well, home sweet home-ish. But of course, the ugly monster which is that of missing friends reared it's stupid ugly head. Dinner times were one of the best times ever for myself at camp. One of the reasons were that I usually don't go to the Dewan Makan but go to the cafe which is a la carte. So you order and pay and it's not bad. But the best thing about it- is friends. The Selangorians spend time there a heck of a lot. We call ourselves the English Language Society since we seem to be the only few people at camp who speak the International Language. ( I didn't use the past tense in that last sentence did I? Darn, I'm missing those times)

We chat at the cafe about NS, we bitch about the people, the teachers and sometimes slip in a joke or two. So the last paragraph goes out to my English Language Society mates: Yin Mun, Hwee Ching, Kenny and Ivana and Sean Foo.

It was late, it was time for bed...

Now, sleep is what I love back home. My own bed, my soft pillows not filled with a sort of hard not-to-be-made-into-pillow material given at NS. My sheets are clean and the blanket actually covers my entire body. Oh I love sleeping back at home.

But again it's the silence that gets me. I have not had a quiet night of sleep for a long time. At camp, there will ALWAYS be someone awake chatting till the wee hours, slurping their maggi some even practice their marching or do sit-ups and push-ups at that time.

As for me, I usually chat with Anje

Anje (not his real name) is probably one of my best mates at camp. He comes from Ipoh and is nonsensical, loves rock music and oldies, filled with adoration for his religion and has strong opinions on brotherhood and unity. But that sentence could never define him, only describe him and that description is extremely vague. Extremely.

He sleeps on the bed next to mine. When I wake up, it's him that I first see, still snoring and covered in his blanket. It is he who I have the responsibility of waking up (we all have to wake each other up in the dorm, we don't want to get our company in trouble for being tardy) and it is he who always says 5 more minutes and on weekends loves to "sleep till maghrib".

We chat, every night without fail about anything under sun and sometimes even the moon. His stories and history I know and vice versa. We are both fans of kuaci. But being Raja, he is the King of Kuaci. For our chats are more often than not accompanied with the biting sounds of kuaci eating. Like hamsters our dorm mates will always say.

I miss him the most. We've been through helluvalot of things together back at camp. Me helping him out with his Islamic Forum held at the surau, him helping me with my debate at camp but most of all, it's how both of us help each other cope with NS. Everything from the big things like composing the company song to the small things like helping each other get water from the water cooler.

The above paragraphs go out to my best mate: Anje

Next morning, went back to school to take the SPM results...

Got to see the whole gang again. It was stellar I tell you. The whole day I was smiling. Meeting friends again was superb fun. And seeing Ming's new hair was in itself hair raising (in a most definite good way).

Met up with the teachers again. My lovely mums, Pn. Doreen, Pn. Ernice and Miss Ann. That reunion was nostalgic seeing them again all healthy and already taking on a new batch of crazy students like us two and a half men.

Seeing those teachers also reminded me of the teachers back at camp. We call everyone at camp more senior than ourselves cikgu or to the commandant-tuan.

I LOVE all the male PT (Physical Training) cikgus back at camp. All of them are ex-TLDM, TUDM or TTDM. And their exactly like us trainees but just older. They like chit-chatting with one another at the cafe till late at night. They crack jokes ALL the time. But also get serious when it is time to be.

I am finding it extremely hard to describe what those teachers were like. They were more of friends and more of the crazy uncle in the family which all his nephews like than trainers.

My favourite cikgu at camp has got to be Cikgu Mohd Noor. Unlike the other trainers he's still in the police force. He is a straightforward and non-nagging teacher. Hard to find. He loves to joke around with the trainers and also gives us a lot of spirit when we are down. While other teachers lecture when we fail or do something wrong, he motivates. He doesn't complain about us but asks us to look at ourselves and then tell HIM whats wrong.

The above paragraphs go to Mohd. Noor.

But at camp there are also dreadful teachers. Really boring or non-motivational or seem to have no qualifications whatsoever to be handling a class. But thats just the tip of the grotesque iceberg. The bottom is saved for the teachers who keep favourites, who treat other trainees unfairly, who seem to have a personal vendetta against certain trainees, who bend the rules but only for their "pets", who are OGK (Orang Giler Kuasa) -as they are called in camp. And there was a teacher like that. And I thoroughly loathed him. Ask Ming and Cheeks, I don't loathe people. But for a monster like him I make an exception.

Went out with friends to The Curve, watched 10,000 BC, chatted and chatted and chatted...

Once again missing my friends. But won't use words now. Just Pictures.

L to R
Top row: Kenny, Ivana, Anje, Ching, Mun, Me

Bottom row: Tobek, Yus

Me, Kenny and Yus

Me, Kenny, Ivana, Mun, Sean
At CF on Friday nights

At night, went for dinner with godparents. It was a lovely time with them...

Relived moments in NS and started feeling relieved all the bad stuff of NS like classes and the dorms and the idiotic, annoying, immature, moronic, stealing, smoking, fighting people were all gone. And started missing all the good stuff like friends and the cikgus and the times I had with them.

It was time for sleep again. I slept like a baby-on-sleeping-medication-getting-hit-by-a-rock-whilst-hitting-the-hay. It was a long day. But Anje called at 1 am. We talked till 2. And then I slept like a baby-on-sleeping-medication-getting-hit-by-a-rock-whilst-hitting-the hay; this time with a smile.

Woke up the next day, sat on my ass in front of the comp and wrote this and only finished it now...

PS:Pictures