I spend more time deleting what it is I don’t want to say, as opposed to writing what it is I actually want to say.
Perhaps it’s symptomatic of age. More likely it is because I am too afraid to name the beast.
Category - IMHO
This is a painting entitled “The Nightmare” (1781) by Henry Fuseli and it depicts the condition of sleep paralysis/night terrors.
I used to suffer from this condition. I probably still have it but its occurrences have diminished somewhat since I started:
- Having (somewhat) regular sleep patterns,
- Getting (somewhat) more rest, and
- Moderating my caffeine intake.
Anyway, I just found out that someone close to me suffers from this condition, so I decided to read up about it again. This condition supposedly affects Asians and teens* more than it does other people, so I thought I’d post up some info here so that you can find out how to deal with this condition if you suffer from it too**:
- All in the Mind?: An article by Paul Chambers.
- Sleep paralysis: Facts and data.
and of course, how could I not leave you without
- The Horla, a short story by Guy de Maupassant***.
Have a good rest tonight.
* Coincidentally (or not), I used to get the worst attacks during my JC years.
** I realise I suffered from it for so long because:
- Of ignorance: I thought it was ‘spirits’, and the people around me weren’t inclined to discourage me from adopting that point of view, and
- It never occurred to me to do research on the conditions I was afflicted with until I was slightly older. Then again, Googling for information has become a norm, so it could also be techno-cultural evolution, I guess.
*** Oh! I think Emily Bronte and Roald Dahl may have made references to sleep paralysis in their stories (Wuthering Heights and a short story about a snake in a bed, respectively) too, although it seemed they might not have known about this condition at those times. I’ll need to dig up the stories again to be sure.
Why? For context:
- I think most people should know by now that I have a keen interest in issues that deal with the Singapore military and with National Service.
- I’ve also been reading David Boey’s blog quite a bit.
- Mr Wang’s latest post provided the impetus to write about something close to my heart.
So I was once a PIONEER writer too.
Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn’t happen during a posting while I was serving my NSF. I managed to score an internship with PIONEER under the Singapore Civil Service Internship Programme in the ‘summer’ of 2006.
According to Edgar Lee, one of the Senior Editors then, the choice was between myself and another girl. We weren’t shortlisted; we were just two kukubirds who were interested (or silly) enough to apply for that position.
Well, I thought I got it because I sounded earnest enough during the telephone interview. Actually, I got the gig because the other girl didn’t pick up her phone.
Oh, well.
The internship was one of the best things to ever happen in my life. I had just finished my second year of University, and was somewhere between being willing to write well and being able to write well.
I thought I was destined for academic mediocrity, but the stint at PIONEER was the turning point.
Being forced to write coherently – and consistently – helped me to see what I was doing wrong before, and provided me with more self-awareness when it came to improvement.
You can check out a list of the articles I wrote here. There is a distinct immaturity in each article but I improved at a very rapid pace.
To illustrate: this is the first article I wrote, this is an article from the second month of my internship, and this is the last article I wrote. See the difference?
Anyway, unlike many other people, I haven’t cancelled my PIONEER subscription.
I still read the magazine every month with a fervour: ripping open the plastic sheet that PIONEER comes wrapped in; devouring the publication from page to page.
Is it because I am a military nut? No. I follow what the SAF does “out of a desire to ensure the system is accountable for the lives of Singaporeans who step forward to serve in uniform”.
That is my only motivation, and PIONEER provides me with one of the few links that I have to a military system that has much room for improvement.
In fact, PIONEER magazine itself provides the most apt example of the change that needs to happen.
The publication is a symbol of how the Singapore Armed Forces wants to portray itself – a glossy, polished, professional entity.
But silences speak the loudest words, and the features that are missing from PIONEER are the very same ills that plague the SAF.
For example, there are no critical commentaries from learned individuals that analyse and evaluate military policy. Neither is there a forum page for soldiers and citizens to air their views.
In spite of this, I will continue to subscribe to PIONEER.
I believe the day will come when more citizen/soldier involvement and engagement takes place. PIONEER, like Singapore and the SAF, has evolved slowly, but surely over the last few decades.
This evolution isn’t going to stop – unless something happens to derail progress, of course.
Change will happen, and I look forward to being able to thumb through an issue of PIONEER and feeling like it’s worth more than the forty cents per issue I’m paying now.