Bookout post:

Restored Post

As expected, many of those who'd done guard duty on Saturday got an MC for Sunday and Monday. 5 of the 13 of us, in fact. And 3 reported sick on monday morning. Though the Duty Officer kept his promise and gave the 4 who stayed back 2 hours more (till 11+) an off pass from about 12pm to 10pm.

The paos (buns) that we get for breakfast are provided by As-Sufi Islamic Food Industries. They often give us all sorts of disgusting and foul tasting paos, like sardine and sambal paos. To say nothing of the fact that our food is "islamic".

Sometimes, I feel like writing quite a bit, but often I just feel so weary, both physically and mentally, and apathetic, as a malaise comes on me. Especially when people are being asses and antagonising others to no visible end. Perhaps they are sadistic, bored, or trying to kill time, or they don't see it as antagonising others, merely as following their acerbic tendencies. Anyhow it is often easiest just to ignore them.

1/5 of my indenture is over! Yeh.

Tutty (Fruitti) keeps lots of goodies in her webbing pouches! Sweets, Oreos and who knows what else.

Quanxing and Xiankun are among the latest batch of people posted to SMM for the Combat Medic Course. They've been sweeping leaves the whole week (aww), and sleeping too. When I visited them Friday morn, the former was sleeping on the floor and the latter, playing Magic. Their course starts July 8th. Meanwhile, Chin Xiang's MP course starts in October. Gah.

We had an IV session on Monday, and I missed both Yew Yew and Zhang, 2 very easy to hit people! I put it all down to my (previously mentioned) sore eyes, of course. At least I didn't get poked at all that day due to my being in a threesome with Yew Yew and Chris.

Last week, my G2 Pilot pen disappeared when I lent it for the bookin/bookout book. Gah.

We had BCS practice on monday, and I was chosen to be a casualty. Poor riflemen.

Zhang is our Song i/c, but people don't like the creative songs that he comes up with, so he doesn't lead us in marching songs nowdays. Aww.

Inspired by Jeremy's putting a picture of him and his girlfriend on his cupboard door, I put a pic of Blue Bear on mine :)

Mr Ass Man came into our bunk at about 10pm on Monday to declare Lights Off. On the protestations of the rest, as they hadn't finished packing, he said "This is part of your night training". 15 mins later, everyone was spooked as his voice echoed down the bunk, but it turned out to be Jeremy doing a mean (as in good) impersonation of Mr Ass Man!

I finally found out why the MOCC always has 2 people marching at the side - one is the cadet platoon sergeant and the other the cadet platoon commander. Mmm.

As mentioned earlier, due to my fortuitous infection of sore eyes, I missed the field camp. And boy was I lucky. Though the first day was very slack - there was an opening address for some reason, and from 5pm-10pm, it was admin time, the other days were very taxing, mostly because it was very hot, and they failed to follow safety guidelines and have sufficient water parades - almost 10% of the trainees had heat exhuastion and concussed (and most were subsequently sent back to camp, with the more serious cases sent to hospital). At least they ate better than before - there are now 5 menus for field rations, and they've gotten rid of the most vile of the choices, like Pineapple Rice with Chicken and Chestnut Rice with Chicken. Every day now has one pasta dish, too.

I on the other hand had lots of fun :) Though I was the only one in quarantine, making it quite lonely, I did talk a bit with Yong Gen, Jason Lau and some of the medics. I caught up on sleep in the air-conditioned sick bay (until I got a headache), and also on some reading, finishing 1 1/3 issues of the Economist, and a good portion of Magii of Cyador. I also got to practice chortling to myself, thinking of the fun the rest were having at field camp. Oh yes and there was the terminal with Internet access which I used after office hours, when everyone'd gone home, and only the duty ambulance driver, duty medic and me were left.

There was also a small TV in the sick bay, which the duty medic carted outside to watch football on at night. I watched a bit on the first day, mostly Who Dares Wins (which now comes with a "kids, don't try this at home" warning). It was rather blurry, and after Who Dares Wins was America's Funniest Home Videos, which consists mostly of either animal antics or people falling down. Yeech. I didn't feel like further viewing, so I availed myself of the radio that had been left in the sick bay the first night and listened to 92.4 and the BBC.

My weight now is somewhere between 92.5kg (electronic weighing scale in the Basic Training Wing store) and 95kg (analog weighing scale in Maju Camp). Yeh.

Yong Gen claims that the SMM food is better than that found in BMTC2 cookhouse. I find that hard to believe. They forgot to indent my food for tuesday's lunch and thursday's breakfast, so I had to pay for canteen food (someone helped me buy fried rice for the former case and I was allowed to buy beehoon in the latter). Gah. Though they did provide Maju food for Wednesday's dinner and Thursday's lunch, and indeed it is substantially better than SMM's :)

I got tetracycline cream for my sore eyes, and it was very powerful! But then I'd already seen how powerful it was, having it seen its effects on the face of a certain someone who used it to clear up pimples :)

The driver who drove me back to SMM on Thursday (in one of the dinky station wagons) made a pit stop at the Maju mess to buy 4 Cornettos (they were on buy 1 get 1 free) for his driver friends. He was actually going to stop at Caltex, but the mess sold Cornetto :)

Most of the regimental police (RPs) in Maju are reservist! Their reservist duty is just to come back and sit inside the guard room, or stand around with a rifle. How fortunate! Apparently what my sergeant in BMT told me isn't true, that those in service vocations would become riflemen in reservist. For the drivers, only those who meet certain criteria can serve their reservist obligation as drivers, so the driver driving me told me.

My buddy tells me that during field camp, he smoked some. Sigh.


Quotes:

"Very funny - Gabriel. Every once in a while he will take out his notebook and write something down."

"[On kit replacement] You want [a] helmet, just go [to] HQ block and steal. There's a dummy of a medic with [a] helmet"

"[Sign] Nothing we do in peacetime warrants unnecessary risk of life (So what you do in war can warrant unnecessary risk of life?)"

"[Medical Officer on Quarantine] Don't you find it very enjoyable here? [Me: A bit lonely, better than field camp though] Yeah, I'd agree."

"[Medical Officer on Quarantine] Good life. Whole day, lie there, read book. I haven't had a day like that in many many years. [Me: Get sore eyes lah] You know what they'll do if I get sore eyes? They'll make me carry on working. [Medic: Wear sunglasses]"

"[Medic on Maju] All the medics here are quite plump"

"We went to Richard's funeral (grandmother's wake)"


After I booked out, Andrew asked me over to his place. He played with my polar bear and we had some fried popiah his mother made. I also gave him 24hrs worth of field rations (Menu 1), for him to give anorexic girls - one taste and they'll not want to eat anymore :)

Side-splitting SMS of the week: "Oh would you ever host me on your page ;) as a kiddie i fantasized abt gettin to live near yuchen and timothy."

Xiankun tells me they've skipped the silly idea of the 10 (effectively 13 because of the SIT Test) day field camp. Mmm.

My sister ate most of the Kettle Honey Roast Ham chips that Andrew Gan got for me! Gah.