These recurring nightmares

Running through tight corners and narrow passageways, I turn back to see how much my pursuers have gained on me. I felt excitement and tension course through me when I saw they had narrowly missed me. I leaped onto an ascending escalator, only to leap off two seconds later onto a descending one in the opposite direction. They cursed and swore, trying to close up the increased distance my two-second decision had bought me.

I kept turning back, fearing for my life. Then they started drawing weapons. A red two-inch plastic ball whizzed out of the gigantic red barrel. The gun looked a lot like a bicycle horn. I tried to avoid it, but another one came buzzing out of nowhere and the first ammunition hit me. The large wave of apprehension which rushed through my upper torso vanished as soon as it came when I realised that that was no penetration. The vibrating round had simply made contact and bounced off lightly. Feeling relieved I took off towards an exit sign and locked myself inside a toilet the size of a janitor's cupboard at the side of a deserted passageway.

My relief was short-lived, for before I could catch my breath someone started hammering the door from outside. I could see the man trying to open the door through the slit between the door and door frame. I scrambled for a weapon, anything, and suddenly something burst into my subconscious - water! My frenzied hands found a hose on the floor and I turned on the tap and opened the door at the same time, spraying a weak jet of water at the mercenary outside. Strangely it worked, and I ran out back into the building.

I had shaken off most off my pursuers, and only one female adversary remained. We were in a stalemate on an isolated sun deck of sorts. There were staircases running down at both the extreme ends of the sun deck, but they were connected by a corridor. There was only one way out, and she was there. We looked into each other's eyes. She was poised, ready to strike, at the foot of the stairs. I was tensed, my legs shaking slightly, ready to give the burst of power I need to get away from her. I moved. Sprinting across the sun deck, I suddenly realised she wasn't following. Shit! She knew I was counting on her to give chase, so I could get her away from the exit. I stopped, coming back the way I have come. True enough, she was still waiting there.

I ran back to the other staircase, then came back again. She was still there. I ran back and stopped halfway, trying to give her the impression that I was really going to the other staircase and thus taking more time than usual. Then I threw caution to the winds and sprinted back. She had taken the bait and was running back up the corridor to corner me. I threw myself out of the exit and sprinted across a deserted HDB estate. My excitement grew with each leap and bound as I observed my surroundings. The female had lost sight of me, and there were no other pursuers around.

I was transported back into the building. Three adversaries were onto me. I was panting heavily. There was really no way out now. I ran towards a door. The sign on top of the door said "Love Hotels". Before I could think of what that meant, I had already burst through the door into a long, narrow passageway. The passageway was lined with what looked like a never-ending series of front-opening washing machines. Panicking, I opened the door of the fourth washing machine and stepped inside, hurriedly closing it behind me. There was a circular piece of glass molded into the door, frosted so that you can only see blurred outlines of the other washing machines outside. My pursuers have disappeared, momentarily, I found out later. I took this while to catch my breath and look around.

My heart skipped a beat when I made a startling discovery; some of the other washing machines were filled with couples inside, making out. When the sound of my heartbeat and breathing slowly died away, I could also hear muffled moans. Then the realisation of what "Love Hotels" meant hit me. These were not washing machines.

I heard the pounding of footsteps. My pursuers had found my trace. I turned my face towards the inside of the "washing machine" and mimicked the motions and sounds of the other "washing machines".

I breathed a sigh of relief when they finally left the passageway.

吃月饼，杀鞑子，音为爱

此刻难以入寝，并不因为睡了一整天而精神饱满；则是刚看了泰语片《SuckSeed》(谐音"succeed")，觉得女主角甜美无比，竟无法入眠。无聊间在网上找寻周杰伦周董的旧歌，阅读金庸的《倚天屠龙记》，顺便查阅关于文言文，月饼，明教等互不相干的资料。


有时俗事缠身，心事甚多，积得胸口窒息、气血翻腾，想要找人谈话散心。
有时却颇为感慨，觉得这一切也没什么，诉苦反而显得懦弱了。

“君子素其位而行，不愿乎其外。素富贵行乎富贵，素贫贱行乎贫贱”
“投身岩下铜鸟居，须是还他大丈夫；拾得营谋谁可得，通行天地此人无。”


www.ilovenattasha.com

It's going to be a long week

I have been craving for sushi, particularly Tamago Sushi! The buffet at Sakura with Team Huat and that at Sakae with 05/10 FT changed my life forever. I believe that up till that dinner at Sakura I have only nibbled a piece of sushi, found that I didn't like the sour taste, and forever swore off it.

Feeling adventurous and hungry I took a piece of each sushi on display and thereafter the place of contemporary sushi in my heart changed. I know I should not indulge in such high-calorie food, and especially not at buffets, but how can I resist?!

Fatboy am I

Having a sudden interest in getting off my couch at home, I started hunting for places of interest and good eating places online. Alas, all I could come up with are the ArtScience Museum (to see Dali and van Gogh), tcc the connoisseur concerto - The Gallery (to have a cuppa while looking at fairytale-inspired art), Singapore Art Museum (to see established Singaporean ink artist Tan Oe Pang, Singapore Street Festival, MINT Museum of Toys and the turtle sanctuary at Chinese Garden.

Nobody was interested. Haha!

On a happier note, I went out with JQ and weijie to have buffets, and it's pretty insane that I had so many buffets in such a short period of time. Just 27th june I had Sakae with 05/10 FT. Then I had Nihon Mura (good!) instead of Tarafuku which was the original plan (goddamn crowded) with JQ on monday, and yesterday was Momiji with weijie (sucks! poor variety, un-tasty).

Taking on a more depressive tune, I have also largely overspent for this month.

On a not-so-depressive note, I have converted my 1,3,5 Life Run to 2,3,4,5,6,7 Life Run. Jogging slowly I took my time looking at pretty schoolgirls and office ladies. Awesome.

Time for a sweet morning drink!

with pride They lead

The specialist cadets of 07/11 Professional Term (the obsolete 58th 'ASLC') did their final specialist roar and tossed their berets at Leaders Square, Pasir Laba Camp tonight.

I am glad that I was helping with live feed and most of the time I was closer to the graduates than anyone of the audience. Looking at what both the trainees of Golf Foundation and Juliet Professional Terms have become, I suddenly felt that I have done something right..

Fake

I'm just like a carrot, falsely hard. When put in boiling adversity, I soften and reveal myself as the weakling I am.

ABC about me to you (ew)

Hello bored people/chimerical readers,

I was tagged with a note on Facebook just recently which required me to answer the questions that the tagger had already answered and forward my note to 26 people including the thread starter. I don't know if there would be 25 other people who would be interested in random facts about me so I decided to switch to another social networking medium. I don't know if this still counts as a 'note' but anyway.. I hope ew would pass this up some day. xD

There are no 'H' and 'Q'. And.. what the hell were you arrested for?! Being too fanatical about Happy in a public domain?

A - AVAILABLE: Yeah, you can call to pour your sorrows (in)to me.

B - BIRTHDAY: 241091. No flagpoling or taupok please.

C - CRUSHING ON: Paige Chua in Secret Garden (SG) a couple of weeks ago.

D - DRINK YOU LAST HAD: Ice milo.

E - EASIEST PERSON TO TALK TO: 陈伟祥同学。Haha!

F - FAVORITE SONG: Currently The Show Goes On by Lupe Fiasco

G - GUMMY BEARS OR GUMMY WORMS: Bears. More stuff to chew in one bite.

H - HEIGHT: 172/= :'(

I - IN LOVE WITH: THE ARMY. Just kidding.

J - JUGGLING: Guys are not too good at multitasking.

K - KILLED SOMEONE: Oh I want to, so badly. Don't sound like it? OH I WANT TO SO GODDAMN BADLY!!!!

L - LONGEST CAR RIDE: 1h 40 min? Short.

M- MILKSHAKE FLAVOR: Enfagrow milk powder flavour. NO. Any kind will do but I really would prefer a bubble tea.

N - NUMBER OF SIBLINGS: 1

O - ONE WISH: Become a confident crackerjack.

P - PERSON YOU CALLED LAST: Darren.

Q - TORI-Q: I like chicken balls!

R - REASON TO SMILE: Seeing your savings account grow insanely in the positive direction.

S - SONG YOU LAST SANG: Ahem, can't sing for nuts.

T - TIME YOU WOKE UP: 0738.

U - UNDERWEAR COLOR: Lemme check. Ok, not gonna tell you.

V - VEGETABLE(S): 西洋菜。

W - WORST HABIT: I have too many defects so don't bother.

X - X-RAYS YOU'VE HAD: 2x right knee. Doc says I need surgery for this one. :(

Y - YOYOS ARE: A small part of my childhood, plus the Tamiya cars and Beyblades that I regretted spending so much money on and are nowhere to be found now.

Z - ZODIAC SIGN: Scorpio. I don't have a sting on my rear end. I am a very loving person.

Random Questions About You

Spell your name without vowels: Vncnt

Your favorite number: 2

What color do you wear most?: Should be white. Oh no, green. Pixelised green.

Least favorite colors?: Green, pixelised green.

What are you listening to?: Written in the Stars by Tinie Tempah ft. Eric Turner

Are you happy with your life right now?: Not at all.

What is your favorite class in school?: CCA, recess, lunch breaks, dismissal.. I did enjoy Chemistry and scored 'A's up till Sec 4. In J2, I scored 'D's, 'S's and 'U's.

Who is your best friend: This is a secret. So you can't harm my loved ones.

When do you start back at school/college?: ...

Are you outgoing?: No! I'm a creepy Otaku who spends 24/7 keyboard-mashing!

Favorite pair of shoes?: Paul Frank sneakers.

Can you dance?: Two left feet.

Can you tie a cherry stem with your mouth?: I thought this was some metaphor but Google gave me something else: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n1cLuJknds

Can you whistle?: No, sobz.

Cross your eyes?: I can but I'm afraid that they might get stuck there.

Walk with your toes curled?: How do you do this??

THE DO'S

Do you believe there is life on other planets?: I hope they are highly advanced and handsome and will kidnap me for experimentation to make me into one of them.

Do you believe in miracles?: No, but I hold an irrational belief in chance.

Do you believe in magic?: This is such a foreign notion. I believe in magic as much as I believe that Hermione Granger will fall in love with me.

Love at first sight?: That will really be magical!

Do you believe in Satan?: Yes he lives in my deep, dark heart..

Do you believe in Santa?: Yes he gives my parents money every five years because contrary to popular belief, Christmas falls only every five years and this year, it falls on 7 May.

Do you know how to swim?: Yeah but I hope life never tests my swimming skills.

Do you like roller coasters?: I was pretending to be so courageous on the roller coaster rides in Taiwan!

Do you think you could handle the stuff they put in their stomachs on those reality shows?: Yeah I can HANDle it. Not eat.

Have you ever been on a plane?: Yeah, a Chinook and assault boats too.

Have you ever asked someone out?: Yes. Normal outings.

Have you ever been asked out by someone?: Same.

Have you ever been to the ocean?: What I told you I'm an Otaku already! I've only been to the bathtub in my bathroom. Hey wait, I don't even have a bathtub.

Have you ever painted your nails?: I'm tired of coming up with hopefully-witty answers already.

THE WHATS

What is the temperature outside?: 29 deg.

What radio station do you listen to?: UFM 100.3

What was the last restaurant you ate at?: Some steamboat buffet restaurant in Jurong Point.

What was the last thing you bought?: F&N Energy bars, Pokka Milk Tea, Nissin cup noodles, new Oreo star cookies and Cadbury Bubbly Chocolate (please don't buy this it's nothing different from the normal Cadvury milk chocolate).

What was the last thing on TV you watched?: 少年四大名铺。Nice. :)

Who was the last person you took a picture of?: Joshua Mei.

Who did you last webcam with?: No recollections.

Who was the last person you said I love you to?: Have never. Maybe I did, to a photograph, because it couldn't be said in front of you.

CRYING SECTION

Ever really cried your heart out?: No, not my heart out.

Ever cried yourself to sleep?: No, but I did wake up with tears on my pillow because I dreamt that I couldn't protect my family and everyone except me became vampires.

Ever cried on your friend's shoulder?: My friend was comforting me.

Ever cried over the opposite sex? : No.

Do you cry when you get an injury?: No.

Do certain songs make you cry?: Have no such musical inclination.

HAPPY SECTION

Are you a happy person?: Not much of one.

What is your current hair color?: Pixelised green to better camouflage.

CURRENTLY WEARING

What shirt are you wearing?: The latest Lee Kuan Yew support T-shirts. Hey I live in Hougang la!

Pants?: Cheap random shorts.

Shoes?: Latest patented invisible slippers from ST Kinetics.

Necklace?: Insanely expensive magnetic therapy collar that has no therapeutic effects whatsoever. Joking.

Underwear?: Yes I'm wearing underwear but I have two colleagues who don't.

IN A BOY/GIRL

Favourite eye color: No frightening concoctions please! Like white pupils on red iris.

Short or long hair: Either.

Height: 1720 mm and below

HAVE YOU EVER

Been to jail: Yeah I was such a riot. No, duh.

Mooned someone: Does this mean 'to gaze dreamily or sentimentally at something or someone' or 'to expose one's buttocks as a prank or gesture of disrespect'? (From dictionary.reference.com)

Laughed so hard you cried: Nope.

Cried in school: Yeah..

Wanted to be a model: No. :O

Done something really stupid that you still laugh about: Yeah.

Seen a dead body: Seen lots of dead bodies in my favourite martial arts and kungfu shows.

Been on drugs: High on you.

Gone skinny dipping: No abs to show off.

THIS OR THAT

Pepsi or Coke: Coke. (Not the drug.)

Single or Group Dates: Single.

chocolate or vanilla: Chocolate.

Strawberries or Blueberries: Strawberries.

Meat or Veggies: Meat. Seoul garden.

TV or Movie: TV. Free-to-air for the poor like me!

Guitar or Drums: Guitar.

Adidas or Nike: Adidas.

Chinese or Mexican: Chinese.

Cheerios or Corn Flakes: Milo breakfast cereal.

Name one random thing about myself: I like to look nice but am afraid to stand out.

Hunger

DTG: 281430
Location: HQ SWI
Activity: Reading/journaling in bunk

Finally, a break in such a long week. But I guess it was an even longer week for the trainees of Juliet Company. Just two weeks ago I clenched my fist victoriously and said 'yes!' in front of the noticeboard outside my bunk. I have been happily posted to Bravo Company foundation term. The next day it was confirmed that I have been transferred to professional term. Oh no! Still, there were some things that I would not have learnt if I had stayed on in this foundation term.

I have not written a decent article for a rather long period of time, nor had I felt like writing one. I have lost the intrinsic motivation to do things which were previously enjoyable to me for quite some time, such as acrylic painting, cow doodles, making simple notepads etc. There are now tons of unrealised ideas stashed away in my hard drive, such as painting Billy 'Joe' Armstrong of Greenday; making cards, envelopes and notebooks for fund-raising ventures; putting up my amateur paintings into an online gallery and setting up a blog for volunteer projects. I did set up a blog, but I wrote 'Under Construction' since a few months ago and left it at that.

Of late I have difficulty concentrating on tasks at hand or listening to long conversations - mission Ops Orders, team briefings and the like. The moment a briefing extends beyond 10 minutes my mind wanders and I would catch myself two or three minutes later. I also suffer from a lack of short-term memory.

On a rather irrelevant note, while looking through random Wikipedia articles I discovered that I may possess Hyperfocus.

Mission Impossible

Disorganised

It's reflected in my sleep.

'Look Ma, permanent SBO (skeletal battle order)!'

I'm doing all these unhealthy things, to get away from the anxiety burrowing in my mind. Getting away from myself.

Escapism

I dread Taiwan's training, mostly because I am sick of seeing the faculty instructors in charge of us. I experience this low, swooping feeling when I see them. One has too much imagination; the other just talks too much to attract attention.

Yesterday marks the beginning of a low weekend before we fly. I kind of wasted today doing nothing, planted in front of the computer all day. I think I have a computer addiction. It saps my energy and time, and at the end of the day I accomplish nothing.

I kind of dread the R&R too, because I don't know who I am going with during free and easy. I am envious of Jet and Loke 'cause they just chum together. To think that I spent the last two months in a depression. Each passing day I toyed with the idea of visiting the medical officer, but of course I did not do it, for fear of being charged for malingering. It seems like everything is a chargeable offence.

Recently a closer bunkmate dropped out of the course due to back injury. He has come so far, and out of all the guys in my bunk I feel closer to him. My morale certainly took a beating.

Sometimes I wished I were never born.

I realised that I tend to do two things when I am stressed/sad:

1) Eat a lot.

2) Spend a lot.

(Previous) fulfilled/unfulfilled food wishlist:

- Nissin cup noodles

- Shihlin chicken cutlet

- Bobo chacha

- Random Macs EVM

- Teh si siew dai

- SME

Impossible wishlist:

- Casio Exilim Ex-FC100

- Canon PowerShot S95

- Leica V-Lux 20

- Nokia N79

- Nokia C5

I know what's bothering me now.

Really?

Grandslammed

Arcanewolf has remarked that I should clear some of the moodiness here since I wasn't feeling moody so much anymore. Actually I'm not sure, especially today, since it's a bloody Sunday and I have to book in half an hour earlier than usual. :/

Home-d after booking out at 4pm yesterday. Was not as tired as I expected myself to be after field camp; had expected to spend more time with my own bed but couldn't sleep in this morning. Just couldn't get back to dreamland after 6.30am and went to get some McDonald's. So uhh, yeah! McDonald's. The Monopoly thing is on again and I am kidding myself that I have a chance of winning that SGD80,000!

--------------------------

I was just thinking about my army life so far and I realised that ever since I became a conscript I've only heard things like:

"Eh dun blur!"

"C***B** (all in block letters)! WTF are you doing?!"

"Eh you know what you are doing anot?!"

"Eh you know what to do anot??"

"F*** you la flexible! Follow the f***ing drill can anot?!"

"Vincent can you see the enemy?! Shoot la c***b**!!"

"Eh f*** la! Throw properly can?!"

"Use your brain can anot?!"

"Where is your common sense?!"

"Aim and shoot la c***b**!"

It's kind of screwed up when you are putting in the effort and you are still getting screwed from all directions. It happened so frequently that I don't even bother nowadays. I was rather enthusiastic in BMT, still alright in Foundation Term, until Professional term. All the screaming and shouting, and the dirty looks people shoot you assuming that you are not putting in effort. It hurts the most when people think you are not putting in effort; I just want to tell them I'm not cut out for this! I'm just too stupid for this and I have no cognitive ability in leading a group of six people to go rush the mountain. I don't know how long I can stand all this nonsense. All those instructors who don't admit their wrongdoing just make it all worse.

Damn I shouldn't have typed that it made my mood down for a while.

Anyway I'm trying to get myself to paint again, because at one point of time that was something I had confidence in. But I just get hooked on the computer playing CounterStrike, Medal of Honor, backyard monsters on facebook or just doing random facebook quizzes. Otherwise I would be out catching a movie and some lunch with friends.

Yeah and I wish I have more friends in pro term. I don't get along very well with my bunk guys because they saw how badly I fared in the simulated battlefield and think that I'm just a loser. The guys whom I know better have their own cliques now and I don't want to force myself into a crowd and try to mesh. Just thinking of this makes me not want to go Taiwan. :/ All the tiring missions! Imagine going R&R alone! Wtf!

ARGH I keep having these bubble of negative thoughts that wouldn't stop worming themselves into my cranium.

Recently I borrowed this book on card-making and I wanted to start doing some of the crafts, although doing this kind of thing doesn't seem very manly. But I felt cheered up all the same. Doing something related to art. :) Which reminds me of skyetch :) (skyetch.blogspot.com)

This is probably the least organised of my posts.

damn damn damn this probably doesn't sound like me eh? like my blogger account got hacked or something..

gotta go gotta go shower and pack. later still need to wash that god-damned iba.

wish i had more time. wish i was a clerk. wish i can stay out. wish i had better results. wish i were more optimistic......why am i so f-ed up wahahaha

maybe should start thinking about being a social entrepreneur. a part-time one. primary job is home decorator. yeah. that kind of thing. hobbies: painting, archery, reading, staying off the computer as much as i can.. that kind of life. yeah.

80%

"And when you feel like giving up, think of the reason why you held on for so long."

And I don't know.

I don't know what's worth fighting for anymore.

And I feel that I'm suffocating.

The pain, physical and mental, it weighs out the pride. What is this pride that we talk ever so proudly of?

Everyday I hide myself in my camouflage cream/under my goggles/in the rain/beneath my helmet/behind my cupboard doors/behind my laptop screen, pretending that the teardrop is sweat/the result of dust in my eye.

Something in this heart has died, and I think it is care.

Depending on a can of Redondo

I haven't posted here in a while.

And I have promised myself not to post about my momentary fits of displeasure of living in this sometimes-disatisfactory world. I decided to break this promise; I also voluntarily broke a promise of calling home every night the first time yesterday night. What should I tell them? That I wake up every morning not knowing who I am, that being sad and demoralised is now a regular state of my mind, that I feel frightened before every outfield training or exercise, scared of that insane 12km fast march in under 90 minutes, afraid that I have to do a technical handling test in the breaks between the oncoming 32km route march, and having the knowledge that I am going to fail my SOC test when I have to take it? I never had so many fears before. And when I did, I laughed them off, suffered tough training, and came out laughing again.

I feel alone, in this latest chapter of my life, and for the first time, I don't like this loneliness. The loneliness of the last man lagging far behind his fitter colleagues, the loneliness of not knowing where to go when there is nights out, the loneliness of a person fighting the loneliness itself.

Every now and then I think back to my childhood days, and I felt that I have gone back to being the young boy who stood wide-eyed, alone, in the middle of a vegetable farm store, with two dollars stuffed into his inside pocket but not knowing what to do, while everyone else swarmed the cashier or displays and bought a little of this and a little of that. After what seems like an eternity an over-40 years old man walked up and squeezed two dollars into his small hand and walked him near a sweet corn store, laughing heartily and pointing out to him some vegetables on display...

I guess that didn't make much sense to anyone reading it, but it feels like a large part of my memory and it makes me recall that some of this loneliness I am experiencing now has always been a part of me.

I don't really know what made me post this, but I think I wanted to leave a journal behind that someone can refer to in case something happens to me. I am a soldier right now, accidents happen all the time. The only thing that's stopping me from quitting is my family now.

Eccentricity

Don't accept rides from strange men - and remember that all men are as strange as hell. ~Robin Morgan

These strange people around me; they puzzle me. And I am ever so concerned about their emotional well-being... They surround themselves in a state of unhealthy affairs - they taint their turf so, and they make the air unhygienic to inhale. They dissipate a negative aura.

For these sad and hungry men I offer my condolences and best attempts at empathy. I offer you a warm hand of encouragement. I will try to empower you with some optimism. But if you push us aside, rejection and dejection scrawled stubbornly on your face, again and again, I will lose my patience. And you will lose a friendship (not at face value, though). I will be a hypocrite and talk to you still, but these will be empty words.

I have been an immature, despicable and desolate soul. Allow me to backtrack to correct my mistakes. I shall preserve this orange element.

Jackie Evancho

Man can she sing.

〈羡慕与陶醉当中〉

Aug 9 is a public holiday (and Aug 10 is payday)

At times I view with disgust what I have written here. Some things are so lame and '...what?'.

I try not to delete them so they would stay to remind me to write better. It is like the personal portfolio of an artist. All that you see in a gallery are masterpieces; great skill and effort went into each of them. But back at home there exists another gallery of broken, spoilt, screwed-up, incomplete, but mostly amateur works.

While revisiting I Wrote This For You, I saw this article from The Daily Maverick:

Yesterday, in South Africa, where I live, a journalist, who had recently written an article on corruption within the government, was picked up off the street by 6 police cars. He was whisked away, in an unmarked car, to an unknown location. His “questioning” started at 2:30am this morning.

As we write this, the exact whereabouts of Mzilikazi wa Afrika are still unknown. Erik van den Berg, lawyer for the Sunday Times, says they know he was booked into the Watervalboven police station at 5:30pm on Wednesday. Then he was booked out. He has not been booked in anywhere else in Mpumalanga. Needless to say, this uncertainty really gives this story the fear factor. No lawyer has yet been to see Wa Afrika. Is that what the country ruled by the “greatest liberation movement” in the world has come to? This is behaviour reminiscent of one of the worst kinds of government - the one we thought we had relegated to history in 1994.

Strangely, the spin side of “Operation Arrest Wa Afrika” has been much quicker. The Hawks' Musa Zondi (you ask why the Hawks were involved here - so do we) was on the radio, talking about Wa Afrika's arrest, claiming it was a normal operation and that the arrest had nothing to do with Wa Afrika's work as a journalist. Which then turned out not to be the case. In fact, he was arrested for receiving a fax that was supposedly Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza's resignation letter to SA President Jacob Zuma. After the Sunday Times checked with the Presidency and they claimed never to have received it, editor Ray Hartley decided not to run the story and it was spiked.

Perhaps someone realised that public perception matters when you arrest a journalist in the same way you would a serial killer armed with automatic weapons and on the run. But the awareness of public perceptions didn't go far enough to arrange for Wa Afrika's appearance in court or to let him see a lawyer immediately. If they needed to ask him a few questions, couldn't they just have followed due process? No spin doctor in the world can fix such crude conduct.

Of course, none of that happened, and it is no surprise that the media is so concerned here. It took nearly 24 hours for police to even tell us where and if he would appear in court. And, according to Hartley, Wa Afrika’s interrogation began at 2:30 this morning - hardly a standard time to sit down for a chat with a journalist.

Of course, political reaction has been fascinating. Mabuza released a statement last night, at the witching hour, saying he welcomed the arrest which, he claimed, was further proof of a political conspiracy against him, and that Wa Afrika was a journalist who had ignored the gains being made in the province.

Mabuza's midnight statement told you all you needed to know about the province, and about how it’s governed.

It is clear that there is bad blood between Mabuza and Wa Afrika, and now it would appear that Mabuza has the journalist in his power. That may not be technically correct, as the police are run as a national “competence”, and officially premiers have no say and no power over them. But this leads us to the real issue.

The entire arrest, the outrage and anger that followed it and the giddy response from Mabuza all point to the same problem. The fact is that in this country the same people make decisions about who to arrest, which officers to use to do it, what to charge them with, and sometimes, it seems, who will do the judging. The checks and balances that are marks of a functioning democracy are simply not there.

In this country, Luthuli House decides how and who gets the power jobs in the civil service. The ANC decides who will head the police that will arrest a reporter and who will prosecute him. And we do know the nature of relationship between media on one side, and Bheki Cele and Menzi Simelane on the other.

The reaction also tells us another sad fact about our country. Your reaction to Wa Afrika's arrest will pretty much depend on your identity and whether you belong to the ANC or not. If you voted ANC, you’re probably pretty pleased that this rabble-rouser journalist who dissed your peeps is getting what he’s had coming to him. If you’re middle-class, educated and would consider voting for someone else, you’re bloody worried.

The reaction of the media is, naturally, more than just one of shared concern. For reporters and editors the sight of one of their own being bundled into a van by police officers with overwhelming force because of a story that is not even going to be run certainly looks like a sign of very bad times to come. The fact that it happened outside a building hosting a meeting of the SA National Editors’ Forum about defending media freedom can justifiably be seen as a crude attempt at intimidation.

To the older and greyer journalists' the developments of late, with the ANC hell-bent on railroading a raft of the laws through Parliament that will effectively muzzle the media and shield politicians behind even darker windows to keep them from public scrutiny, the Hollywood-style spectacular arrest of a journalist sounds way too familiar.

And we all thought it would never happen again.

Update: It is now understood that lawyers for the ST have finally been able to meet and speak to Wa Afrika. They have also been able to gave him a change of clothing. The lawyers are in discussion with the Nelspruit control prosecutor about a possible date and time of appearance and what charges he would face. Wa Afrika is now on his way to Kabokweni magistrates' court. By staff reporter. (Thursday, 12:20 SA time)

By Stephen Grootes

It is reiterated rather strongly that many Singaporeans often take for granted the safety and security of this tiny red dot. But let us make a rededication to our nation today; let us not forget the turbulences our nation had endured to get to the stable city it is today.

There are times when we feel dissatisfied. For example many of us probably feel much better if YOG 2010 is taking place in Moscow. It is ridiculous for motorists to have to give way to YOG vehicles. It is ridiculous that if they don't they will be fined S$130. It is ridiculous that S$387 million is being spent. It is ridiculous to think that YOG is going to affect our lives drastically. It will be ridiculous if our own athletes fare poorly in their home country, the hosting country.

But at least I can sit safely in my room typing this.

Disclaimer: I am not feeling particularly appreciative at the moment. We cannot always use the fact that people take for granted Singapore's security and political stability as an argument every time citizens face major discrepancies in the nation's policies and complain. (Does this sentence make sense to you?) Because the nation's security and political stability (and prosperity, racial harmony etc) are not everything. There are the micro elements to life. It is not always about the big picture. If the people say something we must listen and come up with better plans, not just hear and just go ahead anyway. I figure that if a lot of people day "Oh no I don't think we should do this" then it is better not to.

Happy National Day.

Update: The National Day Parade has begun, and as with all parades, I am left wondering why can't the ministers or big shots enter the parade grounds with everyone else so we don't need to wait for them to do all the salutations?