From the Lost Pages (i)

8 April 2005

I finally ORDed! =)

The feeling of having completed national service is not as great as what those who had completed before acclaimed to be. To me, there is no special excitement in getting back the pink IC, which has been unjustificably jailed for 2 yrs and a 4 month. Its a kind of anticlimax after all the hype surrounding ORD.

Rather than feeling happy about completed national service, I feel a bit sad, like in all partings and separations. To leave people whom you have been working so closely with for 2 years of your life, to continue on your own separate journeys of life, probably seeing each other less frequently in the future; To leave a workplace where you have spent the bulk of 2 years, whether it be eating, sleeping or shitting; to leave an environment where you are so familiar with it for the past 2 years (maybe even more familiar than home), probably will draw some nostalgia from even the most unfeeling creatures on this planet.

As such, I would probably be justified in saying that Ord is more of a sad event than a joyous occasion. Yes, it is true that there are aspects of army life that i loathed, there are people inside that i condemned and there are so many nonsensical activities i dreaded doing while being clad in the dirty green attire. But there are so many worthwhile things inside army, the learning and mastering of new skills , and more importantly, the constant forging of male bonding which make even the most ardous journey and the most difficult task a sheer pleasure to complete.

Is ORD dat wonderful afterall. To some, maybe. To others, maybe it is just another phase in life that we are forced to go through, with no special happiness involved. Instead, it may have been touched up with a tinge of sadness.