Bookout post:

Restored Post

Before booking in last Sunday for Monday duty, I watched Minority Report with Somchaya at Lot 1. Twas good, with only very minor plot loopholes. The explanatory sequence at the end was also good for those who were confused, and to correct any wrong guesses the audience might have had. The thing that really irked me, though, was the parts where you could almost hear Steven Spielberg saying, "Now kids, let's explore some issues!". Erk.

The doors of our bunk and indeed all the bunks in our company (and probably unit too) are very irritating - they are self locking. This is all much more trouble than it's worth, so we make the best of a bad situation and put the key on the ledge next to the door, easily accessible by opening the window.

My first ever Standby medic duty on Monday was rather harrying. Since no one else from 42SAR was around, not least the Treatment Room I/C, whose room I was in charge of and stationed in, I took rather long to accomplish my tasks. There are so many items to check on, and to note down the expiry date of too (the latter task is done only on Mondays, so I was unlucky in that respect). I was stupid enough to close the various logs at 11:15pm (writing that they'd been closed at 11:59pm), and found out later that the most prudent thing to do was to close them the next morning! It's all because of the stupid ISO, I tell you. It requires us to do so much paperwork and track a myriad of unimportant and trivial details excessively often. Not that anyone cares - I suspect everyone just writes the "correct" things on the various checklists with nary an effort, so all the meticulous records are all faked. It's rather ridiculous holding a military organisation to civilian standards, I must say. In future, they should get newly posted personnel to shadow others while they do duty so they won't screw up so much their first times...

Though during my duty I felt that doing guard duty was better save for the air-con and the radio (tuned, of course to either 88.9FM or 92.4FM), I think the next time I do duty I'll be able to finish early and slack for the rest of the day. Yeh. Though now I know why people like being on course - the lack of responsibility is somewhat invigorating.

Through the drudgery of it all, however, there was one bright light. None other than Private Lun Yaodong, Clarence! Yes, this irrepressible personage showed up on Monday complaining of chest pains - evidently doing light fatigue work for National Day stresses him so, but he still has time, through all the strain, to spike his hair - so he was strapped to the ECG machine. What should I have done? Used the rectal thermometer on him? Shot him with a 16 gauge venula? I was siting beside him and he saw me smiling, and asked me why I was "sniggering". Whereupon I ran behind the curtain to hide my mirth.

I asked Yaodong how come he was so lucky that he got posted to Sungei Gedong Camp, HQ/NDP, and he replied that, "I'm always lucky". He asked if I could pass IPPT and when he found out I could pass but one station, he said that "Maybe we can go running together one day". And just before leaving, he asked me to take care. Aww. Actually I realised that this is the first time I've actually spoken to him. He does seem nicer than last time, though. But he's as chao keng as ever - he appeared again Tuesday night complaining of asthma. When he was sent to Tengah Air Base, the Medical Officer wanted him to be IVed but he declined. Bah. And due to his constant appearances, he's reviled among many of the medics for being a skiver and a troublemaker! For tales of Yaodong during his SIT Test, you can read Shawn's account.

The robotic (both in accent and delivery) chinese that all people of Caucasian blood seem to have is really irritating. People of Chinese descent aren't stereotyped as speaking in a Cheena way in Western shows, why should Chinese shows be so parochial and backward in their attitudes?

I heard a radio ad for the latest edition of Cleo, where there was a spread of 100 hunks. Oh well. At last it's time to make their ogling a publicly known and admitted fact I suppose! And speaking of Cleo, PJ Girl's article for Cleo will be in the August issue! I should go check it out. But how much does Cleo cost anyway?

I was making appointments for various servicemen at Hospitals, and all of the 4-5 people I spoke to were females! What does this say about gender biased hiring or position allocation for the front end of organisations?

I saw a drawer in the documentation room that was labelled "Nineki's Cabinet". Laying aside the fact that it should've been labelled "Nineki's Cabinet", I set out to investigate why it was named so oddly. Asking someone who'd taken a bottle of F&N Orange from it, I got the reply that, "That's for me to know and for you not to find out". Opening the drawer later, I found nothing out of the ordinary except for the bottle of F&N Orange. Another mystery that will go unsolved!

Some of the powers that be are playing with my rank. One day, in the Routine Orders, I was mentioned 2 or 3 times - and was a Corporal. And in the meal file that we're supposed to sign to mark our consumption of meals, but which is signed on behalf of everyone by the first to consume his meal - even if no one else turns up in the end, I am unranked. Maybe, in their records, I've ORDed! Hurrah!

While I was reading the Routine Orders one day, the Company Sergeant Major came by and advised me to downgrade: "Good for you, good for the unit". Haha. I have a feeling that I'll get injured during all the Remedial Trainings. My MO's said he might downgrade me, so let's see what happens.

On Tuesday, our night off was taken away because we had to do paperwork! Gah. Well I think that beat sitting in the parade square during "Movie Night", where the movie in question was enthralling - a video recording of the last half dress rehearsal for NDP.

We had a SOC test on Wednesday morning. Erk. My number tag was taken away at the first obstacle, the low wall, because I couldn't cross it. Aww. My muscles - shoulder, arm and stomach - still hurt. Erk.

After SOC, I was hanging around the Armskote to send my arms in when I got to talking with a disruptee. He'd dyed hair, and had disrupted to study Accountancy at NTU. When I told him that at least one of my friends was going to pursue the same course at the same place, he said to "ask him to think again". Haha.

I visited Somchaya's den of unspeakable pleasures again! Yeh.

Zhang and I were having a debate (via SMS, of all media!) about free will and whether the situations we find ourselves in are due to God's will and we should accept it and live happily (re indenture of course) - if you're a child soldier, does that mean that He means for you to be one and you should go about your job with zeal? In the end, he either conceded my point, gave up or decided it was a waste of too much money :)

I was tasked, with Andrew, to cover the Batallion Run at East Coast, the games following that and the NDP System Run at the National Stadium. After coming back from my wednesday night off, I was rather drained, and waking up at 4:45am, with less than 5 hours of sleep, didn't help. During the run, I was stationed in the safety rover, which was parked near the halfway point of the route. And promptly fell asleep.

A Racial Harmony Day message was read out by Commanding Officer, about how the SAF promotes racial harmony. Rather tall stuff, considering there are no Malays in my unit, or indeed in the whole of Armour, Artillery, the Commandos, the Air Force and the Navy.

Later, during the games segment, they played "Pushball", a game involving 2 teams of 30 people each pushing a chin-high inflated ball around. It was rather violent and reminiscent of rugby - when the whistle was blown, people would run from each side of the field and crash into the giant ball. At many points, I saw people going under and the ball rolling over them. All in all, it looked like a rugby scrum with more people and a bigger ball! And all the while, I had in mind one of the silliest cheers ever - "Push Raffles Push!". Though it can't beat the "Oei, oei, sat sat" rubbish.

Later, we had some time before the system run commenced, so we lingered at Kallang Leisure Park, which I believe we're all sick of by now. But it beats the stadium, so. After we had our lunch, Andrew went to catch Forty Winks in the ambulance while I sat down around Leisure Park and read the Economist. While there, I noticed that Burger King has updated the look of their menus. Sneakily and oh-so-conveniently, the prices have gone up in tandem with the change. And the Broiler has vanished, to be replaced by a "Chicken Whopper Jr", or the like.

Before the System Run, the CHIJ kiddies were running around practicing their item. None of their T-Shirts were tucked in, but that didn't get them scolded. As they ran onto the tarpaulin, they shrieked and yelped, sounding like birds! And because they moved slowly, they got shouted at quite a bit by their teachers. I'm surprised they didn't cry, actually.

Andrew'd bought the New Paper, that trashy tabloid, to read, though in the end he mostly read his manga. I briefly browsed through, and learnt that NDP volunteers are paid $5/day, get Haagen Dazs ice cream, tim sum and get to win prizes in lucky draws. Gah.

For the Batallion run earlier, we'd been made to collect ice to treat injuries, when it was actually the job of the QM department. Of course, this created a moral hazard, and indeed, many people attained injuries which were suitably treated with ice. Later at Kallang, Andrew and I went to Shop And Save to buy drinks (including a carton of Florida's Natural!) and confectionary to put inside the ice box, so we had a constant supply of refreshments during the system run. It was then that I tried, for the first time, Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer, which Tim had lambasted. It was okay actually, better than he had described. Though A&W's is richer, more flavourful and overall better. I also bought Allswell Rose Mineral Water Tea, but I think they overdid the citric acid because it tasted like Apple Tea with a hint of rose.

As with the last time, canoeists trooped in to change out of their wet clothing. SRJC has a shirt which says, "Veni, Vidi, Vici", the connection to sailing of which I don't see. And a RJ girl was wearing a "Raffles Dragonboat" T-Shirt - don't tell me they have a Dragonboat team now?

Bored, I SMSed part of the lyrics to "We Will Get There" to various people. Their responses were either along the lines of, "that sucks" or "what the hell is that". Looks like the media blitz isn't working.

When we got back to camp, I was confronted with the task of having to finish filling in the list of >250 names that I'd though I'd escaped previously... and I have finished finally! Flipping through dockets, I realise that very few people are Rh-negative. Though I have no idea what being Rhesus negative does. And on a few dockets was written "Social conduct dis-mild". Odd. Well, I don't have that on mine, so. And one person is allergic to, of all things, sulphuric acid!

Folie has been complaining that I've been going around smiling all the time and attributes it to RJC stress. Maybe I really am going crazy.

Tentatively, I have christened the Mandarin-English hybrid spoken in Singapore "Mandlish". And perhaps one reason why it exists is the fashion for Chinese Pop songs to include English words, phrases, clauses or even verses!

I am going to stay in HQ, yay! Though some say that the Company line is not as bad as it is made out to be - Lion is quite slack apparently. The downside is that I am to replace Yiliang as the Documentation I/C and an MOPA. Woo. Of course this is assuming I don't get posted out. Or get injured during the weekly SOC and IPPTt tests, and the probably daily RTs and get injured.

Our little Australia sojourn will be cut short - it is confirmed. So it'll be less than 2 weeks - yay! And it will include a 2 day "educational tour" too. And for the Army Half Marathon, we will be running 10km and not 21km, because since we're busy preparing for NDP, we don't have the opportunity to "train up".

I went for dinner with my parents after booking out, at Captain's Table at Raffles Marina. And I heard a familiar tune being piped in. After a while, I realised it was the tune to the "Chao keng ah chao keng ah chao keng chao keng. Chao keng ah chao keng ah chao keng chao keng. You say I chao keng you say I chao keng. Actually everybody chao keng chao keng hey!" army song. I should've realised that army people were not capable of composing even a tune so simple as this!


Quotes:

"[On someone who's seemingly been hyped terribly beyond the honour due to her as a published poet] What's so great about her? All she did was write a stupid book called, 'Katong and Other Poems'"


Quotes:

"[On RGS Girls] B(R)id(G)et Jone(S)... bridget jones is fat, neurotic, ambitious, strangely likeable. familiar?... likeable sometimes lah. not most. i mean c'mon, they're weird" (sms)

"SAF teach me to be racist (has taught)"

"You just bring your A4-sized photograph (passport)"

"You prefer me to call you Shuqi or Gabriel?"

"[On his reservist briefing] The minute I put on No 4 I felt my brains dissolve and an overwhelming desire to sleep." (sms)


One guy found my weblog while searching for the lyrics to the infantry song. I was rather amused, and found that nowhere on the web could they be found, so I have reproduced them here.

Background information: The infantry song is a song that recruits in BMTC, Pulau Tekong, have to learn to sing on their Passing Out Parade day. It was introduced the batch before mine, and the tune was most probably stolen from some other song. Apparently the lyrics were written by a Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Chan.

"We are the bedrock of our army, wanting to keep our people free.
Committed to the independence of our nation, we are the men from the Infantry.
There will never be a mountain too high, or a route too tough for us.
We are about to rule the day and the darkest night, we will never rest till the wrong is right.

Chorus
From the land, air and sea, we will strike our enemies.
They have called us 'The Queen Of The Battlefield'
We are brothers-in-arms, we are brothers proud to be.
We are the first, the one and only infantry.

We are a special band of soldiers, raised to guard our nation's shores.
We base our lives upon a set of 7 values, to defend our nation's shores.
And when our country says she needs us, we are always there by her side.
We will protect the lives of every Singaporean, for Singapore we will give our lives

Chorus

Musical Interlude + Monologue (2nd Verse)

Chorus"

So the Infantry have a song, and so do the Medics. How about the Clerks? Or the Storemen? My favourite of the posters depicting the various branches of the SAF is "Logistics - we supply the Army".


Just what's the difference between all the different ISOs? Is 9002 superior to 9000? And 10000 superior to 1000? Or something like that.