driving for dummies

You’ve never really seen the world till you’ve learned driving with a private instructor. They’re everywhere, just doing their thing – snoozing, belching, digging their noses with a refreshing refusal to pretend they’re really just scratching, placidly listening to tales of Sun Wukong on a radio channel you never knew existed – but for all I know they are a different species, an extraordinarily advanced breed of ironic subhuman that never has to learn manners, but never has to worry about not being in constant demand either.

The Instructor starts off really nice and patient on the first lesson: only the mildest of annoyances with engine stalls. “Cannot liddat ah!” he warns softly. In fact, the first few lessons are where you get the most bang for your buck. Constant guidance, very hands-on tutoring, minimal attention paid to Sun Wukong and his proverbial westbound expeditions. They’re also the most annoying lessons because you don’t get to go a touch over 30km/h.

After a few lessons his temper rises when you display an unwillingness to learn how to control the clutch. “Control! CONTROL CLUTCH!!! Must control, understand??!” you nod penitently because you’re not exactly sure what else is appropriate. “Very poor!” he mutters, contempt clouding his brow as he proceeds to pay 10 times more attention to your driving for the next three minutes, before a phone call comes in and he starts flirting with a female student and leaving you completely unattended for the next twenty.

(“Why so long never come lesson? Cannot go for test leh liddat!” *throaty giggle* “Busy still must learn what! Call me okeh?” You fix your eyes firmly on the road ahead but you fancy you can still hear his erection over the sound of oncoming traffic. You suppress the urge to cry but a tear rolls down your cheek as you slide into second gear.)

You’re going to be using the same few roads lesson after lesson so it’s refreshing when he suddenly asks you to go a different route. You wind in and out of unfamiliar industrial areas. You’re certain you’re going to end up raped today – must have been the shorts – when he asks you to pull over. “Need to return an umbrella to my friend, you sit here okeh? Don’t move ah. Very fast. Later I give you more time.” He disappears for 25 minutes. You get five minutes back.

Your relief at turning into a carpark quickly dissipates as you realise that you’re learning parking for an hour. For the uninitiated, parking is a skill arbitrarily entrusted to random people. That don’t include me. It doesn’t worry the Instructor though since he gets to get out of the car to eat his apple. “Reverse… not yet ah, continue *munch* reverse… a’ight, one left turn NOW! HAIYAH… too late *munch*. Fail already, understand?” You nod resignedly and move to repeat the drill. Just then, he spots a fellow of his species, guiding his bemused student in another lot. “Okeh you practice yourself ah? I go talk to my friend.” He opens the car and throws his apple core in the glove compartment before traipsing off with all the verve of a primary school kid going for recess. You assiduously check the mirrors and reverse, happy for a chance to FINALLY prove you can do this without any assistance – thud! Struck kerb.

It’s not the most straightforward of educations and for a while the only change you’re going to see is a steady dwindling in your savings account. Slowly but surely, however, you’re not going to stall as much, or even almost kill people as much. You ease into gears and filter with lanes with – dare I say? – panache. Mainly, though, you find vindication in the Instructor’s distraction: he grows to spend the bulk of your lesson scheduling his other lessons, or listening intently to the telling of Sun Wukong’s misdemeanours, or fixing some strange machine he took out of his boot, or digging his ear with a pin he found in the glove compartment. Languid with the scorch of the afternoon sun, he trades in his ever-precise instructions for vague advice. “Left. Right. U-Turn. Brake. Slow. Straight.”

On the drive back he reclines into an easy stupor, his nonchalance further bolstering your confidence. “Not bad lah. Can do well.” His words for once sound more avuncular than malevolent, you note with well-suppressed gladness. No more criticism, no more sweeping declarations of disappointment and threats to “burn my test date” (the species is better acquainted with metaphor than can initially be observed)! Gone are the days where lessons used to be a drag; you now feel like you could go on forever, fed merely on the purr of the accelerator. Just then the Instructor lets out an approving fart – the soundless sort which nevertheless makes its presence felt in an enclosed area really quickly. You gag for breath and your foot slips off the clutch, causing the vehicle to vibrate uncontrollably. “Eh, careful ah! Control!” but he is already half-asleep. Fighting the fumes you check your watch urgently (the clock in the car has been showing 3am since the start of the lesson) – 37 more minutes to the end of the lesson. Gritting your teeth and keeping your nose just open enough to let in air for survival (or at least that’s what it feels like in your head), you cruise through the cross-junction, wishing feverishly for the end of days.

some namby pamby stuff

I normally trust my eyes the first time but I had to reread this email at least three times in a row, in the middle of a dinner with OCS platoon mates. Truth is, I wasn’t expecting to see anything that didn’t start with “Dear Mr Chan, I regret…” I never really told anyone but it felt like the worst interview I’d ever had, and it started something like this:

Scary Interviewer Looking Small in Skype Window: So Matthew, right?

Me: Yes, that’s right. (hehehe, nicely handled, Matthew)

SILSiSW: Right. So please tell us (for there was another woman beside him that didn’t really do anything but silently take notes, OH THE HORROR) why you want to study law.

Me: Oh, uh, hmm, uh, *random stuttered nonsense, tripping over own tongue and all that*

I could blame two years of speaking and dealing with army personnel but anyway that was how I managed to bungle an interview in just under two minutes – a record, even for me. The burden (but maybe relief) of a Christian comes in knowing that nothing we ever do could ever be sufficient, and I felt that a bit too keenly over the 37 ensuing days the Oxford lottery took to pick their winners.

But I like to think that over the past two years I’ve gained tons of perspective. From without – seeing the army guys fantasising about local uni placings or struggling to complete secondary school – but also from above. I guess somehow after myriad disappointing failures it dawned on me how ridiculous it was that I was trying to fit God’s will into mine, and how my feverish specific prayers made that painfully evident. The fact is, if we accept that God is sovereign (and not merely the “friend” or “comforter” as He is often, rightly, portrayed) and that He has a will that will inexorably be carried out, we see that when we pray from a shopping-list we express nothing more than a wish that our wills coincide, an act rendered meaningless whether they do or not. When we pray more generally, however, we actually affirm (more for our own benefit and recognition, since He already knows what’s in our hearts) our decisions to subjugate our wills to God’s – while resting assured that in His omniscience He already knows our specific desires – and it makes it subsequently easier to accept whatever happens.

And maybe it’s because my horrendous Skype interview had already braced me for failure from the start, or maybe it’s because this time I wasn’t surrounded by a bunch of humanz kids each determined to out-achieve the next, but for the first time ever I felt truly liberated from the shackles of expectation. I really felt like this couldn’t matter or hurt me the way it used to. Like a uni application failure (and to my discredit that felt increasingly likely with the passage of days) could no longer dent my self-esteem firmly fixed in faith.

And so it was that on the way home from dinner, still marveling, still bemusedly recalling the fiasco of an interview and the times I thought I’d never get a decent reference from my civics tutor, what really struck me was the voice of Christ, meekly soft: “I am enough.”

resolution

k i definitely NEED to run a marathon. (or bi/triathlon of respectable distance)

brb

i ain’t got the time

Conducted my last thing yesterday! It’s an army thing and hence Shouldn’t Matter but I guess you only really know it does when you reach Sentosa and see storm clouds paint the skies with swatches of grey and check the weather website to see that the whole island’s under lightning risk and you find yourself praying fervently when you think no one’s looking.

The clouds (and lightning risk) lift and the cohesion (an amazing race/Running Man variant) plays out just fine – as fine as it gets, because Commander specifically told me to mix up the groups, so we had hapless NSFs paired with surly regulars from other departments who evidently couldn’t be bothered to “make new friends”. One group had two very hungry regulars and Owyang, a storeman that weighs in at about 160kg.

“Look, guys,” one of the regulars told the whole group right after we’d dispatched all of them to their first stations. “Since we’ve Owyang it’s clear we’re not going to win. Let’s just go to McDonalds for breakfast first.”

They ended in last position, with -13 points.

I get coerced into lanning after that (I’m horrible and WHY DO THE ZOMBIES ALWAYS GO FOR ME IT’S LIKE THE AI CAN SMELL NOOB). On the way there, my storeman Darren tells me about the relief teaching stint he did at his old JC before he enlisted.

“$70 a day, and you don’t always get classes everyday! Tons of photocopying and admin work though.”

Me: “Oh oh I’m totally going to do primary schools! I love little boys.” (a bit dreamy)

The stares give way to practiced indulgent smiles.

Darren: “It’s gonna be quite tiring though! You’d need to keep asking them to keep quiet.”

Me: “Dude, that’s not going to be a problem at all. I’m great with kids. I’ll just pump them. Ten for every spelling mistake. ‘EH F*** LA MARY, YOU DOWAN HAND IN ON TIME RIGHT? LEOPARD CRAWL AND HAND IN YOUR HOMEWORK NOW! C*** C*** B** U CRY SOMEMORE. GUNIANG AH’”

As I said all these, it dawned on me that I was definitely on to something. Something bigger than relief teaching. I could start the new premier institute of education, founded solely around a religious belief in negative reinforcement and the uniquely edifying effect of pushups. Hard Knocks Primary School (HKPS), staffed primarily by ex-army regulars and gym rats, where every student eventually knows his shit or develops huge chest and core muscles trying. Top students will sit for the PSLE and hopefully get places in secondary schools. The rest will be given a three-week course in elementary Hokkien and be drafted for early regular service with the SAF.

…or alternatively I need urgent rehabilitation

la la how the life goes on

I’m at the stage where I stop anticipating the end and start learning how to accept the letting go, counting off lasts on my fingers. Performed my last ever overnight duty last Friday, fortuitously with my colleagues – the spec and the clerk in my office. Opened, cleared, and closed, the armskote for the last time. Handled a SAR21 for combat training for the last time on the 24th of last month, for SOC. I’d have to look back to the 23rd for the last time I’d ever enter the office on a Tuesday, etc. (Though, with about five more working days, I’d have to be pretty optimistic if I think I’ve taught an encik twice my age how to send a bloody ASIS report on the computer for the last time)

It’s silly to feel as much as I do about an organisation that has more or less constantly struck me with a sense of mediocrity (however a well-meaning one), even sillier given that I was all too ready to up and leave a week or two, boasting about the intricate arrangement of half-day leaves. I guess what’s holding me back are the friends, who have been refreshingly various; also the (probably unjustified) fondness with which I remember the places and the activities etched persistently in association. Sweltering Tekong and leopard-crawling in any conceivable uniform and for any conceivable reason; the gaudy pink of Delta Wing, remote from book-out, E-mart and the gift shop, and where we once had to fall in in a sandal on one foot and PT shoe on the other (“so have you learned how to listen to instructions?”); the Bruneian jungle with commando ants and grotesque thorns (which I caught my ear on once when I was shagged, which was admittedly often); Stagmont, where we traded in the chiongsua for endless lectures on physics and radio waves but the challenge remained staying awake; the endless yawning roads of Taiwan (again, sleep deprivation), the 72km, but the monstrous ji pa and bubble tea at the end; finally, air-conditioned Seletar, where finally having any authority was both the relief and the challenge.

In the first day of army they gave us everything at once – our 11Bs, our gear, our uniform, our haircuts, our fear. But two years later we learn to let them go one by one. Slowly regaining authority over our hairstyles, gradually swapping in rookie fears for confidence or even masterful nonchalance. Packing our helmets and body armour back home to fester in some ill-dusted corner. Sending away the memory of stripping a rifle in half a minute, or of the incentive of running 2.4 under 9:30 (which was overtly monetary but was really always about pride), or of the first time I realised the apex ladder couldn’t daunt me anymore.

This is going to sound silly but becoming a civilian isn’t going to happen on Dec 7, when I trade in my 11B for my pink IC. It’s not momentary. It’s an exercise in making discrete what used to be decidedly seamless, and we all know I’m horrible at that.

late night bike ride

(always feel so blog-lethargic but then I visit the blogs of the few friends who still blog substantially and I decide that, yes, yes I still have something left to say)

1. maxing out the gears on infinite strips of park connector, pedaling to Fire Burning :’)

2. wheels make slopes excruciatingly self-evident. on the gentlest downslope you’re freewheeling to a point it gets crazy fast and you’re touching the brakes warily for any traffic or cracks; whereas your quads start feeling the tamest upslopes long before your eyes perceive them, your momentum grinds itself away all too quickly and your coasting segues to painstaking pedaling. totally need to do more squats.

3. throwing my voice to the breeze, almost inebriated with adrenaline, ’cause who’s going to hear me except a bunch of weirdos running way past their bedtime anyway?!

4. (and this was my destination; back at the fitness corner of my estate where I’d started. I went back home and checked out the song again on iTunes and realised I’d rated almost the whole album 5 stars, back in a time of eager understanding)

Wanted single F
Under 33
Must enjoy the sun
Must enjoy the sea
Sought by single M
Nothing too heavy
Send photo to address

Is it you or me?…

hard headed woman

In romantic comedies, each man and woman marries their own true love. In real life, some people settle for second-best, which can lead to lots of trouble. If John and Mary love each other but are married to other people, they will be tempted to leave their current partner and marry each other. But if John loves Mary, while Mary loves her husband more than John, both will stay put.
Mr Gale and Mr Shapley devised an algorithm for matching an equal number of men and women that would guarantee this second, more stable outcome. Each man and woman ranks their preferred partners. Each man proposes to his highest-ranked woman. Each woman rejects all the proposals she gets except the highest-ranked among them. But she does not accept the proposal, in case a man she prefers even more proposes next time. The algorithm is rerun until all women have a satisfactory proposal.
(Free exchange, Economist)

Call me slow on the uptake (I haven’t actively followed econs stuff in like two years, even if you count lazily cramming for H2 econs with a three-month side dish of surprisingly delectable game theory) but this seemed like great fun to me. As with most other econs stuff it’s elegantly efficient in theory even if there’re a million doubts in practice, some quite serious-sounding and some just plain trivial. Here I list just some, and counteracting male- and female-side policies that governments across the globe would do well to implement.

1) Imperfect information for the males. Bob’s never going to end up happy if he only knows three girls in his entire life, especially if two of those support rival football clubs and the last one reveals that she’s more interested in other girls. Even accounting for the fact that many of the girls he’s never going to meet are almost consequently girls he’d never consider anyway due to distance or cultural differences (and opinions on those differ from person to person anyway) – we need to set up Bob with as many girls as we/he can so he can find the perfect Mrs Bob. Governments need to set up speed dates, online or off – government mandated Chatroulette, anyone?

2) One-itis. What’s going to stop Bob from dwelling on Bobbina, the very first and only girlfriend he’s ever had? (who dumped him 12 years ago in fifth grade but is still very much The One) Bob’s not alone, so we don’t want throngs of men quitting the auction after just one failed bid, or bidding for the same girl repeatedly in a desperate abandonment of dignity. Policies mentioned in point 1 go some way toward mitigating this, but for a more targeted approach, the media needs to step in with lurid and offensive items about how quantity trumps quality any day – music videos of Justin Bieber slowly grinding ten black rappers while yammering about “layin’ on all the hoes, don’t matter who” would be especially effective and poignant.

3) Asymmetry. It’s obvious from the onset that this system greatly empowers the women who can sit on a decision indefinitely – why should Bobette choose hapless ol’ Bob if she thinks Bobbytonelli might be taking a swing in ten years? The asymmetry of power between the sexes leads inevitably to fickleness on one hand, unresolved pining on the other, and in the long run a lot of dissipated affection and virility. Let’s just assume that the asymmetry’s going to have to stay: we don’t want a system where some but not all women get to bid for their favoured men, because that’s controversial on so many levels. What we can do is mandate the strapping of large and noisy timepieces on every single woman that blare “tick tock” in an annoyingly nasal voice every second of the day. These patented Biological Clocks™ will cause great distress to every female and make her more decisive on marital matters. They will also open the market for neo-Elvises wanting to croon about “love terrorists” and, uh, stimulate the economy.