30 seconds with God

i can't seem to get onto my msn today. just as well... considering that i ACTUALLY have work to do. man... this DMSC bullshit is getting to me. on the bright side, when this rubbish is over, it would mean that i would be one milestone closer to ORD!!!!

and guess what my swansong in MCIOO is going to be? i'm going to do that OO booth thing again. this time at some IT Security Seminar. and guess who the GOH will be? PS(D) and CDF. and apparently, they'll be spending at least 30 seconds at each booth. so, for 30 seconds i'll have the full fledged attention of 2 of the most powerful men in MINDEF/SAF. joy. what shall i tell them? shall i tell them about the wonders of OpenOffice? nonono. that would be such a waste of a golden opportunity.

what shall i tell them then? shall i tell them about the bloated bureaucracy that is MINDEF/SAF? shall i fill them up with the warm and fuzzy feelings that come with messages of peace? shall i tell them that about the unjustifiable long tea breaks and lunch breaks that people in MINDEF/SAF take? shall i politely inform them that of the billions of plates chicken rice (that can feed probably thousands of orphans for life) that the Singapore Government can buy if they don't spend so much money on trying to bomb the living shit out of poeple? shall i gently point out that if we can solve a lot of the education problems that children with special needs face if we divert all the resources currently being pumped into SAFTI/MI into setting up a SPED school?

nah. if anything, i shall just tell them how screwed up NS is.

i'm just bitter. actually NS isn't all that bad. there are its defining moments. the question is what are the opportuninty costs of these defining moments.

but actually... if i were to think of it in another way (more optimistic manner...), then yes, a lot of good did come out of my NS time. especially of my injury. see, without my injury, i wouldn't have had all that time to slack. without that time to slack, and the desire to find a meaning for the injury, i wouldn't have went out to seek something to do and thus wouldn't have joined the MCYS Youth workgroups and thus wouldn't have met a group of rather interesting poeple. i wouldn't have learnt so much about so many things about my own country. i also wouldn't have went on to do this Culture Shock stuff (which incidentally is not going to be as successful as i thought it would be... but read on... it has its saving grace) and wouldn't have gotten to know some people better (e.g. Jasmine, Aileen, etc.). there are a whole lot more things that i can go on yaking about... but i realise that it's actually rather tedious and not too interesting. so yar, i won't go on. i think you get the idea. i guess... if it wasn't for NS, if it wasn't for a fateful fall that tore a ligament, i wouldn't have had the chance to do all these things, learnt these lessons and met all these people.

then my pessimism/cynicism kicks in. so what if i learnt all these things, did all these things and met all these people. what have i achieved? thinking seriously about it... not much. really not much. the only sliver of hope is that what might seem pointless now might bear fruit in the future.

i guess i should must remain hopeful. tomorrow will be a better day. or will it?

right. back to thinking about what i should say in the 30 seconds i have.