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It really is a bummer.... It all started way back in Primary school... My parents when they have the forms to sign, they actually signed it, whereas us kids had to go and use thumbprints... Of course, being the kids that we were, we always wanted to be able to do the things that adults could do (like stay up late, and eat ice-cream more than twice a week etc etc), so of course, to prove that we were more grown up, we all started coming up with our own signatures...

My signature was originally a cursive form of my Christian name. And I thought it looked pretty good. All was well till Secondary school. (That's course up till then, we were forced to use thumbprints, irregardless of whether we had signatures or not, much to our displeasure). Anyway, finally came the day that I had to make a new passport. So me and parents toddled down to the American Embassy (I am American, in case you don't know or don't believe) to make the new passport.

Anyway, there, the customer service officer told me that I had the option of signing the document, or using my thumbprint. And of course, being the geh kiang little idiot that I was, I decided to use my signature. Many thanks to the officer there; he did tell me that it should be how my signature would look for a long time coming, since the passport would expire in 10+ years...

Anyway, back to present day. Youth Min going up to Kong Kong on 1st December. I can only go on 2nd December cos my unit has an out-pro on 1st December. But I digress... Anyway, I took out my passport to ensure that it was still valid (OK, so actually Mum took it out), and there, horror of horrors, I realized that my signature was actually a horrible little squiggle that with great imagination, could be construed to have been my name... I mean, in army, since I have to sign documents regularly, I've gotten a newer signature, based somewhat on the old one, but newer, more streamlined, more stylized, looks a lot less like a squiggle...

NOW I'M IN TROUBLE COS I CAN'T FLUIDLY SIGN BACK MY OLD SIGNATURE!!!!!

Bummer... hence I will be going down to the American Embassy to see if there is anything that can be done. Hopefully they will be able to help me, but security is a whole lot tighter now, and the passport situation may not be so easy to resolve, no thanks to that idiot Osama and his minions...

Bother...

Cheerio