we have probably dreamed of being a hero; scoring the last minute goal that ends 50 years of hurt, or even diving to save a child from an oncoming bus. it has inevitably made some of us want to be somebody great.

but as age catches up with us and some of us become more knowledgable, we know it is physically impossible to be the next superman, batman or even wonderwoman. thats when we become realistic and try to achieve something that is within our grasp.

i can still vividly remember the time of my gruelling training program - track and field. no wine, no sex; where salad and meals with protein were the norm. to top it, trainings were twice a day and the heat was just unbearable. fatigue sets in and your vision gets blurry - you feel like giving up and yet you know you cant. you have already come thus far.

and when the day finally comes and your name is being called out over the PA. your heart starts to pump faster and you get excited. the adreanaline rush. the eagerness to just go out there and witness how much you have improved. and as you walk out to the track, the crowd roars and your friends cheer. just when you thought your heart rate was at it maximum, it upped again - and you can hear the beating ringing in your ears.

and when the gun goes 'bang', thats when you know its just the beginning.

As i watch, the waves from the shore look fun and almost innocent as they crest and then crash over on another. I can almost taste the salt in the air and watch little rainbows glisten through the prisms of the ocean's spray. The warm ocean water towards the shore is covered with ...

Wait, it is no more than just my little imagination. Over the past months, things have been happening for no rhyme or reason, absolutely no rhythm to its madness. Some worthy of us spending a few moments to savour the stupidity of the situation and yet some just a complete waste of time. It is my fourth week in Safti MI - Officer Cadet School and I am starting to get a feel the process of being an officer.

No doubt my knowledge of being a great officer is subtle, i am positive through all these gruelling training sessions and punishments will we be accustomed and prepared for the challenges up ahead. Call me an enthusiast, whatever, but i am trying to have a sanguine disposition to prepare myself for the next 8 months. Yes, you heard me; 8 months.

However in the course of serving my National Service, I have learned about and understood the behaviour of many people - some to my great amazement. There are those who forsake the logical and objective debate, more often than not, opting rather for emotions, generalizations and accusation.

'' I am not working with him because he... "
" Why do we have to do this when they... ''
'' It has to be him cause he was the last to... ''

And I am sure there's more to come.

i dont really know my father but he always knew exactly what was expected of him. my father was a brilliant father and - here's the killer - he didnt even have to be there to be a brilliant father.

'wait until your father gets home' was enough to get me to behave. his name just had to be evoked by my mother and suddenly i understood all i needed to know about being a good boy. he turned on me, eyes blazing, and for a moment i thought that he was going to hit me. he had never laid a finger on me in my life. but there's always a first time.

wait until your father gets home, she told me. and the mere mention of my father was enough a reason to make everything in the universe fall into place. that was how brilliant my father was.

but you dont hear that threat so much today. how many women ( or mothers ) actually say, wait until your father gets home now? not many. because these days there are some fathers that are home all the time. and there are some fathers that never come home.

Someone just turned off the light, and it couldn't get any darker than this. Our lives have just gotten pitch black with a 'click', but it wasn't just any simple darkness of night befalling or overclouding above our heads. We heard noises. I heard possible losses.

Losing what many would have taken for granted and never thought they would lose.

And then my heart grew heavy and my mind went blank. What is going to become of me? And what is going to become of everyone around me. I reminisce about the past, whine about the present and cry for the future. Just what is going to happen? People come and go and love walks right out the door the minute you leave that door unlocked. Not literally, of course.

You feel and think about how unfair life has been. Life IS unfair. Who said its not? And if it wasn't, there wouldnt be this wedge driving the rich and poor apart. There wont be the healthy gloating with the weak suffering. And if life is fair, you won't see where many of us are today. Life, indeed is unfair, but the irony of it all is that when you actually sit down and start giving thought to what life really is all about, time tend to swift past no slower than you can gulp down that cup of warm milk before bed time. There's so much to life that we all tend to overlook, and there's so much to this overlooking that we neglect. Search deep down your soul and question.
Just what is worth dying for?

LOVE. No more no less. Just love.

No doubt in my quest to know of love is subtle, i've found a treasure that i wont truly trade for anything in this world, and you ask me whether iv'e truly loved before, why don't you take some time off to reflect on whether YOU have truly loved before. Of course, i must point out - my idea of love is not limited to romantic love and pure lovemaking. Sadly, most people around me could only blatantly associate love with what they feel for their spouses or whom they are infatuated/lusted with.

Ultimately, whether we like it or not, or whether its served on a platter, the sum of our lives are pretty much determined (or some would argue, pre-determined) by who we love and who it is that love us. Regardless of how you feel, you know deep down someone loves you or at least once did or even tried to. We are made to love, my dear friends.

Yes, you read me right. We are not made to work for material things that would surely perish. (though a little extra cash always come in handy) These material things are necessary to make-do with life but they do not wrap up our PURPOSE in life. The concept of self is always minimal and negligible in the one that knows the fullness of love for the strength of love can empower and bring its incredible extraordinary spirit onto any individual who is willing.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not pulling any of you into religion but before we stop and criticize individuals who have fallen out of love or souless beings who have lost all hope in affection, i do hope we know exactly where we are coming from.

Afterall, love is not about possessing. if we want what we want, thats wanting, not loving.

Sure, i dont really understand the whys of love. It's just something so magical. There is indeed so much to know about love and so much for love to find its way to us, but do bear in mind that love knows the meaning of delaying gratification intimately. There is the highest and lowest point, the very beginning and end of what love can achieve. I am very fortunate to learn of love through great experiences. No doubt some of these experiences are not all too pleasant, at least they were experiences.

Go dwell upon it well and come to a conclusion of your own for love can be subjective. very subjective, but if you really would beg to differ and are convicted by your thoughts that would prove otherwise, then settle it with a private discourse with me. Afterall, i would love to know what all nineteen of you think, as much as i want to know what i know is proven wrong.

As cliche as can be 'in every cloud there is a silver lining' and 'after the rain comes the sun' yada yada, you get me. Even if love gets sifted away in the process of growing up, you all do know, as long as we're true to one another, nothing beats having close friends you can really count on.

i couldnt agree more with this title i chanced upon few days ago, 'teenagehood is one of the hardest transitions of life to go through.

it definitely is not so much because it is intrinsically more demanding than all the other stages of life but more so because it comes when we are mentally and emotionally inexperienced. In light of this, we teenagers need steady social relations that provide a smooth process of socialisation - to help us deal with our responsibilities and rights.

being teenagers, in us lies the child which seem to have been cast away, as these childish ways of ours have brought much distraught to the people all around us, hurting our loved ones in the process. inevitably, we're all forced to chuck aside this side of ours and face the stage of growing up.

everybody eventually grows up, at one point or another.

myself included - and in this process of growth, i have learned ( and still am learning ) valuable lessons that none other living thing will be able to impart or even, will it to me. no doubt through this transition in life am i opened up to a frightening plethora of challenges with a paucity of assistance, but i am convinced through all these mistakes and hard knocks in life that we teenagers face will, to differing degrees, gear us up for something bigger, something grander.

many of my peers ( not forgetting yours truly ) are victimised under the hands of the 'wicked' education system. a system that has inevitable dragged us into this rat race - forcing us to 'kill' our fellow classmates and peers on pen and paper ( rather than on the battlegrounds ) through this meritocrate system. No, its not so much about me resisting against education vociferously but rather how that in this time and age, it is no longer about having zilch qualifications with only sheer bravado and street smartness. our society has conformed to this idea of possesing the competent behaviour and eagerness to strive for a viable career or lifestyle option.

therein lies our parents' mantra: 'study hard for your future; thats all you are required to do for now.' look here uncles and aunties, do not extenuate the difficulties we teenagers are in as time has changed and it no longer is how it used to be decades ago. just take some time off and spend a few minutes observing the on-going 'trend' of the people around you - only then will you get what i am trying to bring across. our pace of lives has quickened and we've all succumb and fallen victim to the repurcussions of technology. without a doubt technology has in a way, mollycoddled our lives, make it 'easier' and more 'adaptable'. But as much competition the adults gets in return in this time of information; it must come to their understanding that we - children, are not spared from this vicious cycle either.

it is indeed lucid and evident that teenagers are facing an ever-increasing pressure from all external factors and that it has no longer become as easy to graduate with ease was it was for our older siblings, and some - parents. remember how a degree would suffice in guaranteeing us a well-paid job? and yet now, a degree WITH honours is not much of a biggie. without a doubt, the benchmark has risen unprecedentedly and we teenagers, just happen to be the next in line waiting to be enslaved.

and when he finally thought there was a glimmer of hope. all was lost.



and he started walking away, back to where he first came from.
he hated that perfect stranger.

i remember vividly scribbling over my notes a few months ago when i still had the grasp for something greater - expect no more than what you can achieve. then it hit on me just minutes into my physics lesson therein lies the most terrible flaw any mankind has ever made or even noticed.

i can still recall the times when the voices circling around my head echoed the words 'give up, max' when i almost reached nadir. as much as i longed for the easy way out, i decided to perservere. no, i didnt want to settle comfortably amongst the losers. no, i didnt want to settle for something lesser than what i can achieve. i think im made for something better. i think some of my friends are made for something better. not all, some.

but i realised, everytime i expect - the disappointment is always greater, no less.

its not that we cant push ourselves and reached for the stars. its not that we cant pass the finish line in the shortest possible time. but because we're only humans and only want to fit in nicely. we're all just too lazy to go that extra mile. someone once told me - 'do your best in whatever you undertake, else you can just save the effort. ' for you and i both know, as much as it makes sense, majority of us behave otherwise.

and the past few days were no exception for me.

not that i didnt predict my performances, but i guess i should have just known better. its not so much about the imperfection or flaws that im constantly rambling about.

its really about something good gone wrong.

kudos to those that truly perservere - my idols than to those ordinary of the ordinary. and you tell me to count my lucky stars, id give you no less than to what i can do. its just fate. its just fate yadayada. and at times you really wonder who are the true ones that are there to support you. and oh! the piece of paper that possesed the 8 words were being striked out. instead, it read...

dont expect - you never know what shit might actually come your way.