I've been feeling quite, quite tired of writing here of late. There's been nothing noteworthy enough to be written here, and I haven't been doing, seeing, or reading anything interesting enough to be here, or going through anything sufficiently unmundane to be here.

Even if I did write, you'd be seeing entries that went "Wow. I passed my SOC today. I'm so amazed at myself for passing it despite my terrible fitness, a far cry from how it was in BMT when I was at the peak of my physical fitness after running the SOC continuously for two weeks with monstrously heavy weights; although I flew off the swinging bridge quite literally and smashed my face against the ground I wasn't disqualified but I went on instead and nearly dropped off the balancing logs and ran on and on and on despite having gastric attacks and still I clocked a personal best of 9:00 even if it wasn't amazing".

See, it'd be boring, and a sickening indulgence. It isn't interesting at all. I don't even write crap like that in my diary. (And yes, I do keep a diary. This is NOT my diary. What, do you expect me to have all my thoughts out in the open? I think I've grown up. But, the issue of privacy and all is an issue for another day.)

So, the point is, it's been boring.

Nonetheless, yesterday was interesting enough to be here.

I was smack in the middle of a national controversy, and I was stuck at the National Stadium till midnight, running around continuously for the last five hours, after spending 16 straight hours at the god-forsaken place.

But, think about all the primary school kids who were stuck there till midnight too.

Oh yes, it happened again, so look out for it all over the Straits Times' forum pages tomorrow morning; it's bound to hit the papers and the military is going to take a whacking for sure. Haha.

And I was smack in the middle of it, becoming a marshaller for the hundreds of busloads of primary school students leaving the stadium, directing them to buses. But, of course, being a private, all I was, was an "enhanced walking and talking intelligent signboard that can dynamically receive new instructions", as I'd told my platoonmates. Haha.

Nonetheless, it was rather terrifying and stupefying, the hoardes of students the stadium could hold - despite students moving out from onwards of 8.20pm, students were still streaming out of the stadium at 10.30pm. Wow, how fun. Some irate teachers were shouting at us, complaining at the tops of their voices; some directed their anger at us, some just sympathised ("We know it's not your fault; tell me where's your officer and I'll go bomb him! Haha!" - one rather funny teacher), while some were ostensibly angry at the whole SAF ("Such terrible coordination! I want to complain!" - another teacher).

But, ultimately, it was chaos, uncontrollable streams of students flooding the national stadium grounds, marshallers running around to direct streams of running students, policemen shouting at kids to not run (which only made them run more anyway), students being redirected down wrong lanes that led to chaos and so on. I shall not elaborate on what actually caused the mixup; I'm not here to blame anybody. It was just one hell of an experience.

It was an adrenaline charged atmosphere for everyone, as the bars lost control and the crabs came in; it was a mighty sight, single and double crabs marshalling traffic, taking control, as privates, stripes, bars and crabs all ran around helter-skelter alongside each other working together. Admittedly, I enjoyed the adrenaline. Haha. (And for once I felt that a private is not completely useless.)

A few thoughts on the whole issue struck me.

For one, it was true that the kids are after all kids, and can't physically stand for being outdoors, away from home, so far away, till so late at night - they'll tire and get restless being outdoors for so long, and they become restless, and they might just go out of control, fall ill, fall down, etc. The hazards are numerous. So, it's imperative that they all be shipped home as soon as possible.

And, granted, it was necessary to ship schools out together so that parents do not start worrying if their kids have been left behind at the stadium even if there are whole classes left there.

So, granted, parents' concerns are valid.

But, think about it from the organisers' point of view. You have two hundred primary schools, multiplied by at many as 10 classes of almost 50 students per school. (Okay, that's larger than the stadium capacity. Let's say 5 classes on average). That amounts to: wow, at least thirty to forty thousand primary school kids! How, do you get those kids out quickly and efficiently?

Yes, there were traffic coordination plans and all that I shall not go into detail (hey, I'm a private you know), but on the ground, things get murky, because there's simply so many kids, so many teachers rushing to get their kids out as soon as they can, that: mixups are inevitable. Even the bus drivers can get mixed up.

So, see it from that point. You can organise everything, have plans: yes, there were plans. But do you always expect things to run as you say? Especially when the bulk of your plans involves humans.

It's not just about that.

See it from yet another perspective: it's not as if your kids are kept back till midnight everyday; it's only once a year! And it's for a good reason! It's to witness the National Day Parade! It's for the honour, and pride of your country; it's part of being Singaporean! So, what's staying out a little later? In fact, wouldn't you think it's such a special experience, so unique, being able to be in such an enormous crowd? Think about it: it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it's for our country. So be happy about it!

But, you see, Singaporeans are not quite so nice and sensible. It's a pity, that they can hardly ever see the silver lining in the dark clouds.

On another note altogether, it was interesting too, being in the middle of schoolchildren, the lot we were but no longer are, and being in green.

Many kids were in awe at our being soldiers, some teachers calling us sirs (haha!), some kids saluting us, and many happy children happily waving at us and shouting cheery goodbyes as they boarded their buses, even at midnight (so you see, parents? They enjoyed themselves :>).

It amazing too, the things I overheard the schoolchildren saying as they passed the thermal imaging scanners which I was manning in the afternoon, things like "oh dear are they taking our pictures with that?", that I heard this 10-ish girl saying in a rather panicked voice, worried we were playing Big Brother haha. Then there was this other girl who said "全部又难看,又粗鲁", which was, well, quite offensive, admittedly. But they're kids.

I guess there's this general opinion that soldiers are coarse, ugly and stupid. But they don't realise that all the cabinet ministers, media artistes, and people of high society were all once soldiers too, at least during their full-time national service. Haha. Ugly and stupid? Hmm. I beg to differ, in all humbleness. :)