Five Six... Pick Up Sticks...

Venkat messaged me today to tell me that he saw Master Lian in the train. Master Lian is the notorious old man with a snobbish mole who oversees my army camp's cookhouse. He roams around the cookhouse during meals and makes unintelligible bellows from time to time. With backing from evil and influential HQ office ladies, he bullies the cookhouse aunties and uncles and makes life difficult for poor soildiers in charge of rations. I was once under the power of his malicious presence.

I just hate it when he shouts at the aunties and uncles. It makes my blood boil when he is terrorising Neo, our hyperventilating CSM PA. It prompted me to do one of the few righteous things that I have done so far.

Once when he was helping out to serve some satay, I noticed that he was not wearing any gloves like the rest of the workers. So I went up to him and told him in Mandarin, "Master Lian, if you want to serve, can you wear gloves? It's very unhygenic to use your bare hands."

Master Lian was totally embarassed and pissed off. He put down the food immediately and went to the side, lost for words. My friends were shocked at my actions. The aunties and uncles were so amused they kept on laughing. One uncle even noted my name and said that he wanted to promote me to 2nd Lieutenant.

It was hardly a thing a corporal would do to a master sergeant. There were more conflicts later on and even led to an email attack between our units. It was the first time I got so offensive for the sake of upholding justice. It was so much fun.

Now I kind of miss the days back in camp, where life is so much simpler and there are fewer things to be troubled with. The life can even be spiced up with occasional quibbles with master sergeants. There is no need to worry about food and I always get to eat at fixed times.

In NUS, life loses the discipline. I sleep late, wake up late, have irregular meals and I hardly exercise. Not to mention panic attacks, depression, paranoia and anorexia. The good thing is that my brain is working a little more.

I remembered we were each given four sticks of satay every time the rare treat is served. Eugene taught me how to place these four sticks in such a way that they are fixed together even when you are just holding one stick. I had difficulty doing it and I could never figure out how. My sis bought home some satay today and I tried doing it. It took me a while before I finally did it myself! Eugene wasn't there to help me this time. The formation looked like this:

Notice how each stick manages to either 1) get below two sticks and above the third or 2) get above two sticks and below the third. Now you can hold any one stick up and the whole structure remains. You can make lots and lots of them and imagine them like little houses or mini chrismas trees.

School does do wonders to your brain.