Restored Post
Ah. The joys of a super-long weekend. Below is my usual recounting of my week in concentration camp.
The main event in this short week was Range. My third range so far, this was perhaps the best range, in many senses of the word.
The Nee Soon range, where I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday, is reputed to be the best in Singapore, and is always fully booked. It's certainly well furnished - the training sheds have fans, the canteen does not come in a van but instead is in a concrete building (though the variety of refreshments on offer is parlous, and expensive besides) the toilet has soap in the dispensers and there's free toilet paper provided (!). And to top it off, they have metal detectors to check shooters for any live rounds, empty cartridges or any other form of pyrotechnics. High tech!
160 Squadron was having range at the other range, and Saravanan the Younger from BMT was there. He gets to drive for them, but Air Defence isn't stay out. Aww. And it turns out Joshua knows him. There was also this guy with a very pronounced Australian accent (which reminded me of my cousin Marc) who went up to the Pepsi-selling canteen to ask if could "have a Coke".
During range, I realised that my CSM-to-be's laugh sounds unnervingly like Krusty the Klown's. And they both've a husky voice, a paunch and are balding ;)
Anyhow I screwed up my first day. I suspect that, to some extent, the more I shoot, the worse I score - I failed the worst I ever have the first day. Though I was a few shots short of Marksman the second. They can send me for range as much as they want (for one Specialist, this was his 9th range. And he still didn't get Marksman) - it's just going to waste their money on ammunition. I don't really care if I get Marksman, except that I'll not have to go shoot till next year and I'll get a day off. There *is* the $200 incentive, but that's tainted money, so. I am as ambivalent about passing or excelling in IPPT or SOC - many may be proud of their achievements in those, but passing them would give me about as much satisfaction as gassing Jews. Since I was doomed already, so to speak, I fired off a shot each into the lanes to my left and right. Maybe I helped someone get his $200 :) Kudos go out to Kelvin, though, who OOCed from BMT in the first week. He got Marksman though this is only his second range!
We had our share of skullduggery, though it was not as bad as what a certain unit (Best Combat Unit, ahem) was reputed to have done - magic rounds. Namely, we, many of us, were cajoled into declaring IA (Immediate Action - your rounds won't load or the empty cartridges get stuck in the chamber of the M16) during the rundown of one stage of the range, so we could retry it. I was one of them. Unfortunately, the 3 times I retried the rundown, I *really* got IA, and I scored worse than my first time, so my 3 rundowns were for naught. And at the last stage on Day 2, Figure 11 Illuminated target, one guy needed 4/4 shots on target to get Marksman. To improve his odds, he moved one round from the "Sensing" Magazine (so you get a 'sense' of where to shoot) to his Test Magazine. But he only got 3/5. Aww.
I booked out Wednesday night at 10:40pm, and caught the last train back (11:30pm). Then, the next day was the Battalion Ops Anniversay, held at Sentosa.
It was hot. Scorchingly, mind numbingly hot. They should've held it at 5:30pm instead of 12:30pm, then we could've had a foam party after that :)
It was larger scale than normal Games Days, but one station involved building a sandcastle (?!). Creative, they are.
Most of us arrived at the end point earlier than the stipulated time, so we sat down and drank hideously expensive drinks - my 616ml bottle of Gatorade Apple set me back by $4.00, while watching some of our Unit Mates play Beach Volleyball... with Beach Lians and Beach Bengs!
The people who run Sentosa have really upped the bullshit factor - now there're quite a few exhibits retelling the "Legend of the Merlion" (Yeah. 'It appeared in the 1970s magically, conjured into existence by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. STPB wanted to con tourists and make up for our deficit in historical character'), and how it saved Singapore from a flood. Bah, I suppose this is how legends come about. There's also this point they proclaim to be the "Southernmost point of Continental Asia", and the fuzzy logic goes - it's connected to Sentosa by a suspension bridge, which in turn is connected to Singapore by a bridge. Ergo, it is the Southernmost tip of Continental Asia. Right. They forgot the part about Singapore being linked to Malaysia by the Causeway and Second Link. I hope, for their sake, that Malaysia and Indonesia never get down to building that bridge between West Malaysia and Sumatra. Give me Tierra del Fuego anyday.
Perhaps the reason they need so much bullshit is that the beach isn't sufficiently attractive. Sure, the sand is fine, the water is clear (for Singapore) and they built islets offshore, but look beyond and on the horizon you will behold the sight of... container ships. They ingeniously try to turn this drawback into an attraction with a poster proclaiming that Singapore is a busy port, so if you just look you will be able to see ships of all sorts, and maybe even an occasional warship. Right. And bedbugs on mattresses are good because they draw off excess blood - leeching is healthful, but we don't have any leeches, so settle for bedbugs. Enjoy!
The thing that made us most happy, though, was not the romp across Sentosa, but the 1 1/2 days of FREE off. Unprecedented. At least in my limited experience.
And the usual short soundbites and one-liners:
In the ongoing re-regimentisation of my company, we've now been told to lock our cupboards. Oh bother.
Having been somewhat tardy all along, I was pushed by the Senior Medic to speed up the screening of obese regulars. Apparently, they are worried because if they don't lose enough weight by next April, they lose some pay. Aww.
Joshua from my BMT section has popped up in my camp. He's a signaller at HQ Armour, so he just stays indoors. Gah.
Nigel likes to sing in falsetto. How rare.
On Monday night, our CO came to talk to us. For 1 hour straight. Ugh. Luckily, his speech at the Ops Anniversary in Sentosa was less than 10 minutes! I was beginning to fear for my sanity when, at the Games Day at Bishan Park last monday, he ended his discourse at 10 minutes and said that he would "say the rest" of what he had to say at the Ops Anniversary.
In Tim's camp, you get 1/2 a day off if you do Sunday duty, and you can't do such 2 weeks in a row. Gah.
Disturbing dream: Somehow I dreamed of a certain someone frolicking in bed with a colleague from another unit. Ugh.
I got asked, "Eh, your name is really Shuqi ah?". Gah. Even after so long, they still haven't gotten over it. I wonder if the Shu Qi in the RGS Choir gets this much unwanted attention over her name.
We were recently given an FM Receiver by our unit. This is much more useful than the miniature face towel we got the last time, which is so small it can't be used for much.
The latest thing to be spirited away - my towel. In the morning it was hanging outside the bunk. At night, after range it was gone. Someone really doesn't like me.
Quotes:
SAF creed: "we are the unfortunate, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary, for the ungrateful." pls pass this on -to let everyone know the dark truth (sms)
[To me] Eh, your name is really Shuqi ah?
[On marksmanship money] $200 means a lot to me. It may not to you... Use the $200 to go for a spa.
[On the New Paper New Face competition] Beauty need not be flaunted in pubic manner (public) (sms - a Freudian slip, mayhap? ^_^)
[On my suggestion that she join the New Paper New Face competition] sounds great! Why dun u join with me, kimberly? (sms)
I know sometimes I say things, very boring. Teoh boh? [2 people: Teoh] Those who say 'teoh', go and carry on 20 [pushups].
Proselytisation troubles me somewhat. I'm supposed to spread the good news, but then I wouldn't like someone trying to convince me by convincing me of the benefits of fasting a month a year, praying 5 times a day. And yet.
There was something on the BBC about the benefits of fasting during Ramadan. Many benefits were touted, but what I wonder is this - if it is so beneficial, why don't they fast the whole year round? During fasting, Muslims are supposed to be spiritually pure, not get angry and generally be paragons of virtue. Why can't they do this the other 11 months of the year? Perhaps the world would be a better place then, with no more Palestinian suicide bombers (not to mention the fact that they will be so weak due to the fasting that they will not be able to kill anyone), manipulating of oil prices through OPEC for material gain, threatening of Singapore when they have an Israeli Prime Minster over for a social call and such. Ariel Sharon and friends should fast too :)
I was at Concorde Hotel's Melting Pot Cafe yesterday for lunch. Horror of horrors - they're removed their excellent, unequalled pork satay from the lunch buffet, because Muslims complained about the pork fumes. !@#$%^&*() They're renovating next year, though, and apparently plan to install something to suck up satay fumes, so there may still be hope *crosses fingers* The pork chop was still excellent though. At least there's still City Satay, though if and how long they'll be able to hold out against the temptations of going Halal is unknown...