Communism — politically-incorrect moé we can believe in
This is not the post you think it is. Now I admit that as a dangerous anti-American foreigner plotting to destroy that great nation through the evil that is globalization, I am an Obama supporter and I am happy that today is his inauguration. That said, this is not a post about him; this is a post about me. The title is just a bait.
Note: This entry can be considered administrative in nature and should be skipped if you are looking for anime-related content.
Change: Current
Yesterday, 19th January, was my birthday. Incidentally, it was also the birthday of KOTOKO and Hikaru Utada. As you may know, I graduated from high school last year (school terms start in January in Singapore) and I am currently spending my days at home as a professional hikikomori like Satou from NHK ni Youkoso! except without the cute girl.
Live webcam feed of my room
Change: Near Future
But that is about to change soon. Sometime next week, I will be conscripted into the Singapore Armed Forces as part of a two-year compulsory military service that all Singaporean males have to undergo unless they forfeit their citizenships and seek permanent asylum from the decadent Western capitalist pigs (as defined by conventional ideas of “East” and “West” on a frigging spherical planet).
I digress as usual. But the point of the matter is that I will be incommunicado for at least the first two weeks of boot camp, after which I will get to come out on weekends. Eventually when I receive my permanent assignment after a 7-week boot camp, I should be able to return home every night, thus regaining a daily schedule somewhat similar to high school. (For Singaporeans in the know, the letter C should suffice as further clarification.)
It’s a whole new world out there
Blog updates have been getting pretty infrequent in the last two years due to high school — more to do with girls than coursework — but I guess long-time readers are already used to the status quo, so the main point of this post is to give a heads-up that things may get worse before they get better. At the very least, there will be no updates for about two weeks.
Once boot camp is over however, I foresee renewed activity on this site, a blog renaissance if you will, keeping in mind that RIUVA‘s peak posting period happened to coincide with tj han‘s service to the motherland as a “war journalist”. This makes sense if you know that the Republic of Singapore has never been at war before.
Obama City in Japan’s Fukui prefecture
So to sum my ramblings up…
- There will be a period of two weeks or so without any updates.
- There may be weekly updates in the five-week period after that.
- There will probably be a great increase in the frequency of posting after those initial seven weeks.
- I am glad this is not Israel.
Change: Distant Future
After that, who knows? I will most probably be accepting the offer from Stanford, although funding is still a lingering question as Stanford is not need blind for international students and I did not apply for financial aid since I was advised that it is a suicidal option. I also applied to Carnegie Mellon, Cornell and Caltech under regular decision, although watching The Office has since then drastically lowered my opinion of Cornell. (And this Cornellian agrees.) Hehe.
Communist red — coincidence or conspiracy?
Ultimately, it will probably be Leland Stanford Junior University (I wonder why they don’t use that more often). My current plan to pay the exorbitant fees is IDA‘s National Infocomm Scholarship. My mother’s backup plan is to sell the house. I’m also praying for legal-tender precipitation.
The Blog
I want to keep this blog going indefinitely and I intend to write about whatever I happen to be interested in at any point of time. For the next two years, this is likely to mean anime or anime-related topics, but who knows what the future holds? Maybe I will totally fall in love with cooking one day and start to share my recipes here, or probably not. In any case, near or far, my blog will go on.
To end off, I would like to congratulate America for electing competence against great odds, to wish a belated happy birthday to me, KOTOKO and Hikaru, and to wish those of you out there who do not fully subscribe to the Gregorian calendar a Happy Chinese New Year!
P.S. Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo is indeed a great show.
Happy Birthday!
And good luck.
<= Puhi!
2 Years….i feel with you. I completed my “military service” this month (reather end of january, i’m on holidays now) though here in germany its only 9 months and if you don’t like the army (like me) you can do civil service (compulsive servantry or something) instead…
But 2 years really is….a giant loss of time.
Wtf does singapore need an army for anyway :p
Another Singaporean male joins the brain numbing meat grinder.
As a NSmen, I wish you all the best!
Wow sharp eyes dude, you caught on! Lol. I posted once or more every single day for the 2 years of NS. But now, once a week is considered awesome.
Anyway, I foresee your blog exploding into Darkmiragechoo.com or something over the two years. I also agree Sorekake is awesome show, though not as awesome as Rideback.
Best of luck on all your future endeavours, though I don’t think “raining money” will occur…
I loved my time @ CMU… Don’t let that stop you from Stanford or the other two (IMO vastly inferior IMO IMO) schools however.
Well, enjoy your indenture servitude to your home country. At least by the time you’re done with school, you wouldn’t feel at all indebted to them :)
Oh wei!
Good luck, soldier! :)
/random lurker
Ah change indeed…coughjapancough….
Somehow for the life of me I can’t imagine you cooking, or　actually liking it.
Anyway happy birthday!
I served my 2 years of conscription as well, as a 2nd generation Permanent Resident. (Call me an imbecile if you want :/)
It’ll be tough, no doubt. But you can persevere as well, like any others that have ORDed.
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Wow. That’s kinda awkward. I just started reading your site the day before yesterday, and now you’re going away. I also just realized that we’re both in Singapore. This is probably the worst kind of time for it, but I’m living here with my wife. She’s a foreign worker with an S-Pass and so far I’m just a lazy American bum who’s blown all his cash while looking for work locally. Kinda hard to stay in Singapore without a pass you know, though that automatic 90 day passport stamp for Americans is nice.
Hey hey… I’m glad Obama got elected. It’s time for some change. My wife said she read a news article that said Bush got “boo”ed when he showed up at the inaugural speech. Serves him right. The US is about diversity. It’s about time we supported and embraced that diversity. We can only benefit from it. Plus, anything will be an improvement after the job Bush did.
I don’t know too much about the national service here, except that the trainees look like a sad lot when they board the train together. You said you get to go home on weekends after two weeks. That’s great! I spent 8 years in the US Army. My basic training was 9 weeks of hell, with 5 minutes on the phone to home per week, and letter writing. Then 13 more weeks of a lesser sort of hell for advanced skill training, but still no home visits for me since my advanced training was 3 states from my hometown. We could call more often, and got passes on the weekends in advanced training. Well, that’s neither here nor there. Yours will be a totally different experience.
Good luck with that training. I hope you post your experiences. I’m curious about them. Oh, and Happy Birthday!
Water, what does “ORD” mean anyways? I’ve seen it on job listing for Singapore… There are a lot of strange acronyms here. I still haven’t taken the time for figure out what GCE O & A level examinations are either.
ORD means “operationally ready date”, a term coined by the holy Singapore government. When you “ORD”, you are essentially released from full-time service, however you are still liable to once-a-year fitness test, random “mobilisation”, and up to 40 days of reservist training per year.
Life will never be the same even after one has “ORDed” as compared to pre-enlistment.
And it disgusted me just by thinking of that.
Well look on the bright side, if everyone’s kids are enlisted, Singapore wouldn’t send troops to other countries for “possibility of weapons of mass destruction”. =/
But yeah~ Happy birthday DM!
By the time you get to the US maybe you’ll have your prayers answered by Ben Bernanke in a helicopter.
Ok. ORD. I see. It sounds almost like being in the active resert component of the US Military. That’s voluntary though. With that you go to training one weekend a month and you have to attend a two week training exercise once per year. Also, you have to maintain physical fitness for a yearly test. Oh, and active reserves are quite frequently called up for mobilizations nowadays. Like I said though, that’s voluntary.
In the US when you sign up for military duty, you will do X number of years active service, and X number of years inactive time, during which you can be called back to active service if the government feels like it. Total years is 8. I went ahead and did all 8 on active service. I spent a little over 16 months of that time in Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq. It sucked. Hard. Especially since most of us didn’t think we should be there. Talk about low morale. Thankfully, since I’ve done my 8 years total obligation, they could probably ask me to come back, but I could just as easily tell them to shove it up their ass. ^_^ I did manage to make the rank of Sergeant and get some decent leadership training in before getting out, so it wasn’t all a waste, but I certainly wouldn’t go back.
I stumbled upon your blog in a completely random way (from googling anime stuff). Wish you well on your military service. I’m a Thai and I have some friends in SG. At least you’ll get to try out some cool weapons tho :) stay safe and healthy!
DarkMirage, remember to steal a Gundam while you’re there…
And also, I hope you’ll be able to meet there a crazy female blond pilot ;)
Happy belated bday dude! Enjoy your time in the military? O_o
Damn that suck, the military.
As soon as I gradute from High School I am going to Duke University
Thank God my dad and Grandpa went there, I bet it would be almost impossible to get in with my little over above average grades
Standford, go for it man. Screw the money. Once you gradute you will make above 100 thousand a year
Happy birthday!
Happy belated birthday~ To think you are younger than me… >_<”’
Haix…
From the sound of it, you will be heading to SAF soon… Wait… You graduated last year and you are entering SAF this year?! And I thought the intake is every december… What a surprise…
But really, army is a tiring place… Not that I need to do army… But do take care of yourself while in there…
Are you planning to study oversea?
Happy belated birthday~!
haha,.. >_> i’m like a 4.5mth old soldier currently on Attend C (remember this sacred term), aka MC for 1 mth due to a bone fracture on my right hand’s tiny finger..
Currently “resting” and waiting to become a C from an A..
have fun.. bring in 2 weeks worth of doujins just in case..
happy bday DM. by the way, have you decide on your major?
Dude, this sucks… I have found, for the last year or so, your blog to be extremely fascinating. Good thing in my country we don’t have forced conscripting, lol, we just have forced Reggeattoning (the act of dancing reggeatton) and extreme corruption in the government and police force. He he he, well, nobody is perfect, and the fact that my country is in the top corrupt list in the world, it means we really aren’t. It saddens me to see you thinking about posting recipes… If you do, then, there and then, I know the world is coming to an end.
Well, good luck on your military service. You’ve inspired me to start a blog, well not anime related, but I tend to look up to this blog and see what I should and shouldn’t do. Hope everything comes out fine in the end.
P.S. – Does Singapore, by any chance, have Gundams? If so, could you invade my country? If not, could you invade Guatemala? lol. Kidding, maybe.
P.S.S – OBAMA ROCKS!!!! And that’s coming from a guy who is not black.
Hey Don’t forget Use 00 Raizer while you are in the military and a GN Gun just in case for save your life. XD
I am lucky I’m not in the military it sucks and thanks is no mandatory :), im currently living in USA.
Good luck in college [I’m in one too :) ]
welcome to the army ^^ , just hope you don’t become an ammo tech(pes C vocation) . Or you don’t end up in my unit.
Oh and you will wear the new uniform, congrats!
Financial aid options are indeed suicidal unless you’re ranked globally in something. With that said, I wouldn’t worry too much about the Stanford tuition (though scholarships never hurt). In these crappy economic times (doubt we’ll be blowing any new bubbles in the next 2 years anyhow), you can easily get informal loans at low interest rates–I know my family would be more than happy to give you one.
On another note, start praying your currency doesn’t tank against the dollar :/ I don’t know much about Singapore’s currency, but the Koreans studying in the US have been gotten screwed in the last few months.
If you’re heading to
LelouchLeland Stanford Junior U, what about your non-coursework high school disruptions?Hope like hell your workplace is at least near your home. Lord forbid you end up with the Navy at their Changi bases.
Happy belated birthday DM.
Also, thought you were aiming for Carnegie Mellon. Either way, all the best :D
Happy belated Birthday, darkmirage. I’ll miss you every second you aren’t blogging. *cries*
*sniffles* Anyways, enough with sentimentality, I shall wait with great (im)patience for any updates and I’m always happy to add my cynicism and assholic tendencies to anything you post.
Good luck with everything. :P
If life gives you lemons, I’m sure you could find a good way to blog about it. Whatever comes your way, best of luck with now and your future :3
Finally time for NS, eh. Happy belated birthday too, DM.
Glad to hear you’re continuing on blogging, and I hope to be still able to read your ramblings in 2020 or beyond. Would probably be a record of sorts since I remember reading you from 2003(i think, if memory serves me right).
Since your higher education is still a full compulsory, two-years away, take the time to decide properly (unlike me). I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to get the scholarship you’re applying for. I’ve heard of your various academic achievements wwww.
Wow, congratulations on the SCEA Stanford acceptance (really curious about your application)! I was rejected :( , and CMU and Cornell are on my RD list as well.
Reason why you (all) should come to CMU (they should pay me for this):
http://i.gizmodo.com/5137441/new-nasa-carbon-material-could-make-space-elevators-possible
ORD lo~
Ah, my Hikkikomori days will come soon enough.
For personal reasons, I highly doubt I will be going overseas for Uni. Besides, the home sickness will kill me. I so have to work harder to get NUS or SMU…
Being the Otaku type that’s more into visual animation and IT, I’m so gonna die…
Happy B and congrats on your Stanford advancement…
But…to think that you actually believe Obama is going to change something… man, you know even less about how the world works than me and believe me I don’t consider myself an insightful one by any chance _^
And why apply to a US university NOW of all times? Is it because you believe that getting a degree there will maximize your future career potential across the globe or something? If I had China and Japan right outside my backyard the way you do (I bet you can speak Mandarin too), I’d set my sights there and by all means explore the plethora of opportunities while still on campus _^ The US are no longer what they used to be, as much as I personally hate to admit it for my own stakes, there is no future there anymore…
Anyway, that’s just my personal view for you to bump into or ignore as you see fit. Believe what you want to believe. Now excuse me while I go brace for the treasury bond bubble burst…
happy birthday.
dont worry about your ns, 7 weeks is easy compared to ptp and bp. If you are lucky you might even get 8-5 stay out desk job and heck you can even do daily posts.
I read the whole of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand during free time at BMT. It was an interesting experience. I am now helping with office work at CMPB.
How to get 8-5 job:
1) Do your best for everything
2) Fail at everything
3) Find a way to demonstrate your clerical skills
4) Play it cool
Or you could just get a medical exemption.
Happy belated birthday and congrats on getting into Stanford.
I actually voted for Macain during the election presidental election. Since Obama is president, I hope for the best that he can undo what bush has done to our country.
Happy Belated Bday! Have fun and congrats. Hey, whatever you wanna blog about, we’re here to read it :P.
Best of luck to you and all on this site. Cheers!
At least you’re a C… I’m a B. I’m glad I’m done with it and moving on with my life. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.
Good luck!
This is real late…but good luck
MIA? :D
Have fun in boot camp. While the USA doesn’t require service, if you do join them it’s for 8 years(6 active, 2 inactive) and chances are you’ll get deployed. Not to mention basic is 8 weeks then you spend 5-52 weeks doing AIT which is basic with weekends off. You get zero time off in basic training.
Don’t say we elected competence yet. It hasn’t been 4 years. When Bush was first elected people thought we elected competence too. Look how that turned out. Things are already looking worse actually and I even had hope.
hate to sound like a newb and seem inconsiderate,but how the hell do I get one of those chibi anime gravatars? msg me on my site
Good Luck oh great anime blogger. Your critical and humourous method of conveying news shall not be forgotten. Start blogging soon. I need something to read.
Hey good luck man
I am in the canadian armed forces, but our basic is 13 weeks for an NCM. And my contract is 5 years, but it was my choice to join. But looking forward to your posts again.