Bruised and Scarred

Well it's been a long time, as always. I don't have much time to blog now, going to Jurong Camp to stay in for M203 range. I'm shooting M203 tomorrow, so if I die because of premature detonation or whatever, know that I lived a happy life.

That's all folks! Oh and check out Mayday Parade if you have the chance to, awesome music there. Check out 'Bruised and Scarred', also check out 'Jamie All Over'. Of course, there's 'Miserable At Best' and 'I'd Hate To Be You When People Find Out What This Song Is About'. Lol.

Hope to blog again soon lol!

Io Che Non Vivo Senza Te

Okay I feel really dirty now cos of all the shit we did in the workshop today, I somehow still feel that dirty clinging to me like a leech. Not sure how to get rid of it. Lol. Maybe after I sleep and wake up it'll be better.

Anyway, Sean Tan from MOS (not Ministry of Sound) who lives in Kembangan can now give me lifts to camp because his dad is on some overseas business trip! Yay! That also includes rides home. I'm damn happy. Haha.

Well anyway, the purpose of this blog post is to share what Mom messaged me: She's damn cute.

Remember to off the slow cookery

Lol.

Remembering Sunday

Okay hello everyone, I apologize for the lack of updates but really life's been a whirlwind. I'm trying to keep everyone updated through Twitter. I've also put a small widget on my blog which shows my Twitter updates, so check it out if you guys want to.

Off to Cafe World! (Y)

Parallel Worlds

I'm sick of having to deal with arrogant, pretentious fuckers who think they know it all. People who fucking think they're the fucking kings of the forest. It might be a little overboard but I hate people who behave like this. It gets on my nerves. Fuck away please, fuck away. Oh wait, before you do, listen to what others have to say about you, and think about what they're saying. People don't say things for no reason at all; ie there MUST be a reason why people are calling you xxxxxx all the time, and talking about you being such a xxxxxxxx. Think man think. Okay, after that then you can go fuck away please.

Electric High

Okay this might sound damn retarded, but here's the lowdown. I got my PDL on 11th July this year, that'll be 11/07/2009. And until now, I haven't gone for a single driving lesson. Why? Too lazy to find my driving instructor. And my PDL lasts till 10/01/2010. I forgot, do I have to retake my FTT to renew my PDL? If so, FUCK MAN! But yes I'm going to go look for instructors... now.

Anyone wanna help? Lol it'll be good if the instructor can come to Seletar camp at like 6.15pm to pick me up for my lesson, have the lesson then allow me to drive home. (Y) Lol!

New Divide

Today was rather okay, thought only had F4 servicing to do. Turns out at like 4pm+ the spares for the F5 servicing came in, and Staff Lock wanted us to do the vehicle ASAP so that we can bookout the vehicle ASAP. Long story cut short, we have to rush the vehicle tomorrow after we come back from IMT @ Jurong camp (which means rushing the F5 in the afternoon).

Last night, something happened which made a friend of mine rather disappointed. I only found out this morning, and I felt rather disappointed with myself also. I always tried to find excuses for myself so that I could continue smoking. And The Logic of Life by Tim Harford helped me do just that. Let me elaborate.

Tim Harford is an economist, and he looks at life through the eyes of an economist. Meaning that he subscribes to the school of thought which advocates rational choice theory through cost-benefit analysis. For example, if the cost of parking illegally (which would be paying a fine, demerit points) is less than the cost of finding a proper parking lot but being late for a meeting (you might lose your job, your customers etc), then a person would naturally take the route which costs less, ie he would park illegally because that costs less. Costs don't come in mere monetary terms, of course. Let's say you're on MSN, but at the same time you want to play... Call of Duty (for example). You'd have to pick between the two, and then you'd see which decision "costs less", or in this case "benefits more". Does playing Call of Duty give you more satisfaction? Or talking to people you like give you more satisfaction? We all adopt this thinking inside us, but it doesn't seem apparent because we don't literally think about it. It just comes to us naturally to do the thing that "costs less" or "benefits more". That, is rational choice theory and that is also how Tim Harford believes human beings make their decisions.

In a similar manner, he applied rational choice theory to smoking and discovered that smokers are actually rational people, that means that their choice to continue (or start) smoking is actually perfectly rational, however irrational it may seem. Simply put, the cost of quitting is greater than the cost of not. Thus, we don't quit smoking. Let me elaborate.

The cost of quitting involves withdrawal. No matter the degree of withdrawal, it still exists. And to most, it entails discomfort, "kek-xim"ness and to some, fatigue, moodiness etc. It's similar to the feeling you get when you forget to bring your music player out, and you've a long bus ride ahead of you, or the same feeling you get when you forget to bring your phone out (but you don't have much urgent need for it anyway). You just feel like... "arrggghhhh why didn't I bring my MP3 out, damn irritating now." And this cost is immediate. Which means, once you decide to stop smoking, the feeling of withdrawal comes damn quickly, like within 2 days you feel like, "Omg why don't I have cigarettes with me now!"

Now lets look at the costs of NOT quitting, which means you continue to smoke. Of course, the health risks exist - cancer and all that shit. However, most of us have relatives/friends who smoke. And how many of them actually get cancer and die from it? A minor percentage. In fact, I don't personally know of anyone of my family members who has "smoked to death", to put it crudely, even though I have a large number of family members who smoke (on my mom's side). Thus, this cost of cancer seems minute, and at the same time this cost is not immediate. Therefore, we choose to continue smoking because there is no immediate pain. The immediate pain comes when you stop smoking, and since the pain is immediate it seems to "cost more", as opposed to when you continue, and 20, 30 years down the road you get cancer. But you don't feel that pain now, do you?

However, it might have slipped Tim Harford's mind that there is another cost involved in smoking. Somehow, this might seem mildly trivial, but you might lose the respect of your peers who're strongly against the behavior. You might lose your friends, the trust of your family, your spouse. And that only hit me today when I found out how much I stood to lose, socially, when I continue to smoke. And that cost, is of far larger significance to me than the uncomfortable feeling I get. Hence, today, my cost of smoking has just risen an enormous level. So much that it has surpassed the cost of quitting. Follow my argument here... now the cost of quitting is lower than the cost of smoking. I can bear with the uncomfortable feeling, but I cannot bear losing my friends, especially the ones dear to me.

As a result, tonight I will throw my cigarettes away. And smoking buddies, don't stop me please. You all know it's bad to smoke (you say so yourself, and so did I!) so support the decision and stop offering me new cigarettes (EH I JUST BOUGHT THIS ONE, DAMN NICE YOU TRY!) or jio-ing me to the smoking corner (eh shio hun kee leh, nothing to do now). It's a big step for me so don't fuck it up. But if I do end up taking another cigarette again, I admit it won't be anyone's fault but mine. My mindset is slowly, but surely changing.

All the way ah.

Secret Valentine

Sorry I wanted to blog about my day today, but I'm really exhausted. Basically my day was horribly tiring. I was drenched in oil. I ate SAE15W/40, and hence I never want to touch it ever again. It's kinda salty. And oily. I'll blog about it another day when I have the energy. Zomg got to go back to workshop tomorrow and get back on track with the work we were actually TASKED to do. :(

I like the rain, it washes many, many things away.