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Being the fish in a really big ocean

Surround yourself with the highest-calibre people you can. In this environment, you become both highly accomplished, but don’t view it as important both because it’s normal, and because it’s humbling how much better so many of your peers are at thing than you are.

How to do this? Don’t seek adulation and respect, because the easiest way to get that is to choose a pond small enough that you can be a big fish. Seek the biggest hardest pond you can, such that you struggle merely to not lag too far behind. This will haul you forward further and faster than you could otherwise manage, and simultaneously ensures you have enough perspective that it doesn’t go to your head.

Side by side, the tiny fish in the big pond is bigger than the “big” fish in the small pond, but unlike the big fish, knows how small he really is, having swam in the ocean.

Run with the big fish. Hang out with the kind of people you talk about. Hang out with the kind of people that they hang out with. Not just socially – get involved in projects or collaborations with them. Become their peers, though you may involve struggling to keep up.

Struggling to keep up is how you grow, and in growing, you find you can handle adversity. And in learning that you have the resources to handle adversity gives you that calm self-assurance.

Forgetting

“It was a little like Into the Sands, with Claude Barron, which she’d seen a couple of weeks ago. In that picture Claude Barron enlists in the Foreign Legion because Rita Carrol marries another guy. The other guy turns out to be a cheater and drinker, and so Rita Carrol leaves him and travels out to the desert where Claude Barron if fighting the Arabs. By the time Rita Carrol gets there he’s in the hospital, wounded, or not a hospital really but just a tent and she tells him she loves him and Claude Barron says, “I went into the desert to forget about you. But the sand was the color of your hair. The desert sky was the color of your eyes. There was nowhere I could go that wouldn’t be you.” And then he dies. Tessie cried buckets. Her mascara ran, staining the collar of her blouse something awful. ”

-Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

14 points

15 minutes of pure mayhem and panic later, I am now licensed to terrorize for a lifetime.

Where our hopes and dreams come true

Tonight, I am prouder of my club than I have ever been.

I am unspeakably proud over what we’ve achieved over the last few years. How we’ve rebuilt ourselves, to become better and stronger. How we gutted ourselves from the inside out to re-establish ourselves on the shooting scene, to show everyone that we were a force to be reckoned with. How we endured the torturous training sessions to be back on top again.

Today, we showed everyone that Hwa Chong is back.

If I am hyperbolic, it is because what we’ve done in the past few days has defied imagination.

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C’Div Boys Rifle – Gold

C’Div Boys Pistol – Bronze

B’Div Boys Rifle – Bronze

B’Div Boys Pistol – Silver

A’Div Boys Rifle – Gold

A’Div Boys Pistol – Bronze

A’Div Girls Rifle – Gold

A’Div Girls Pistol – 9th

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Of these, the A’Div Boys Pistol medal and the A’Div Girls Pistol placing means the most to me. We’ve waited so long for this day. We promised ourselves that one day, it would be our time in the limelight, that the promised day would come. And it finally did. Words fail me. I can only say this – that I was utterly glad and nostalgic that that I was there to witness this.

Their medal win will undoubtedly mean a lot to the shooters, but for my batch of pistol shooters, this carries another meaning altogether. It is the sum total of all our efforts to mould this club and make the pistol division a viable one, when from the get-go it was merely a bastard child. By laying the groundwork for this team, by pushing for everything we could, by fighting for attention in training, we did all we could to make sure this team would grow. Our contribution to this club did not lie in our medal wins, however meagre they were. Too, they did not lie in our mentorship and guidance of our juniors, I admit. No, they lie merely in the setting of that critical first step. So this day, is the ultimate vindication of our efforts and faith in them.

This day, history has been made. They have not failed us. This day has been a long time coming, but it has come. And there will be many days just like it to come.

-

Though they will never read this, I wish I was capable of elegant and grandiose prose to immortalize what they’ve done. To the juniors:

You’ve made everything we’ve worked for possible. You’ve showed everyone that we can make this work, if only we try hard enough. You’ve realized our dreams, beyond our wildest imaginations.

And for that, I can only offer you this: thank you.

At the -

Red string, pomelo leaves, jossticks.

Because no one should have to do it alone.

Click, thud

You remember how the lens squeezed
unimportant details into stillness:
the essential trail of rain down glass,
the plummet of autumn dead leaves,
your grandfather’s last blink when
the breath moved on.
Your startled hands compressed
the shutter when you realized: this is it,
this is the last movement he will take
away from the silent fall of morphine,
beyond the soft gasp of the nurse,
past the sick, slow thud of your heart
moving in the luminous silence.

-How to Photograph the Heart, by Christine Klocek-Lim

Attention, world.

Contrary to popular belief, I have not died and gone to heaven; I have merely gone down the never-ending rabbit hole of binge coding and sporadic reading. I am still breathing.

Count ‘em, 10 days of freedom

Why hello there, (temporary) liberty, you’ve been a long time coming You sure weren’t easy to come by…

12/12

Today, I am a 1-year soldier.

12/12/2009 marks a year into my 2-year bond in serving the nation. It has been a hard-fought journey, though some might not believe it to be so. At each stage of the way, I’ve had friends who’ve helped me along, encouraged me, and  maybe most importantly, were there to go through the tough times with me.

From BMT, to SISPEC, then the Air Force, each part of this 2-year story had its own ups and downs, its own share of giddy happiness and bitter sorrow. Some highlights were the POP from BMT, the 28km route march from SISPEC and most importantly, the POC from the Air Force.

In the one year that has passed since stepping off that ferry and onto that island, I’d like to think I’ve grown as a person. I’ve learnt patience, discipline and tolerance. I’ve known what it means to command (though not yet to lead) and manage. I’ve learnt the importance of friends when you’re down and out. I’ve known the significance of having people you can rely on.

I’ve had the fortune of being surrounded by people who have been through hell and highwater together with  me, and know what it means to be a specialist. They know what it means to wear the 3 chevrons on their chest, and all the duties that they entail.

I’ve had the fortune of having operators who have been patient with me, and coped with my sometimes unreasonable demands. They form a unit that I know I can trust to do things when the time comes. There is still much to learn from them.

I’ve had the fortune of having seniors I can look to for advice. In the early stages of BMT when I was blur and lost, there was a listening ear ready for me. In SISPEC when I tried to find the energy to pull through the training, they were my source of inspiration. In the Air Force, their impending ORD was my motivation. And now, in the unit, they taught me to survive, and survive well.

Now, I am the senior in this marathon. They have completed their bond, and are now free. It is my turn now to slog out that remaining year, and patiently wait for ORD. This day has passed without much fanfare nor excitement on my part. It is true that the anticipation makes the actual day anticlimatic, but nonetheless, it still marks an important day for me.

If I may, allow me this – ORD LO!

Everything is possible again

Browsing in Borders earlier, I came across Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book on his journey in vegetarianism. He writes that on the birth of his son, a friend commented that “everything is possible again”.

While this quote is not attributable to Foer, it nonetheless speaks powerfully to me of hope – hope that with a new beginning the slate is wiped clean, and a new journey begins; a marker that the past is left behind.

Ah. Maybe a little too sentimental, then.