Quote of the Week: "First-class degrees used to be awarded very sparingly. According to one Cambridge joke, examiners in moral sciences (philosophy) used to shun awarding firsts, because that would imply that the candidate was as clever as the examiner, which would be logically absurd."

Medical Centre Tales

One of the requirements for ORD is a blood test. Drawing my blood has always been hard, and my veins have challenged all who attempt to find them. I decided to try to get my blood drawn before Lancer, and asked the CCO Senior Medic Mr Sam to do the job, he probably being the most experienced in the Medical Centre. When the rest heard that my blood was to be drawn, three quarters of the medical centre gathered in the Treatment Room to watch the spectacle.

Not having had a needle enter me since the SMM days, I was a bit apprehensive initially but the pain was less than I remembered since after all, after you've had the Yakult straw stuck inside you, normal needles are nothing, though it was still something I'd rather not go through more times than necessary. In the end, over two days I was poked by Ban Xiong and Mr Sam 6 times in all - 3 in the right wrist, 1 in the left wrist and 2 times in the inside of the left elbow, and all of those times, either insufficient blood was drawn or the vein could not be located. Looks like I'll have to offer my arms to the needles again after Brunei!


I was involved in a very traumatising incident recently. I was on duty and took a packet of lunch from the sickbay. There was a curious but innocuous looking black shape, and I bit into it. At first there was no taste and I was wondering if the black thing was a flavourless pod, but suddenly, it felt as if a star had come into being. All the fires and brimstone of the Seventh Circle of Hell could not compare to the raging conflagration that was confined in my buccal cavity - it was the hotest thing I'd ever tasted. Grasping a bottle of tepid water, I ran to look for a sink. 2 MO rooms were occupied, so I burst into my Secret Garden. I rinsed my mouth but though it brought some temporary relief, it was soon aflame again. Turning the tap, I quickly swished some water around, but the water quickly became scalding hot. I then ran to the pantry fridge and got a bottle of chilled water from the freezer, but the relief was still temporary and it still felt like I was chewing embers and my tongue especially was glowing with the heat. I tried gripping my Duty Medic staff to distract myself from the pain, all to no avail. I then remembered the soothing properties of milk and sprinted to the canteen. Although my tongue still smouldered after the milk, it was at least tolerable, but I was shaken for the next hour and when I returned to eat my lunch, my hands were trembling and I was ashen-faced, eliciting words of concern from the others.

One reservist was afflicted with gynaecomastia and excused ICT for a while. Apparently he was psychologically affected. I saw him as he was walking out, but didn't find him to be any more well endowed than I am. Maybe he likes to wear tight, thin shirts.

Now when medics pass out from SMM they have an Passing Out talk. Wah. I saw one slide - "Meeting Your Senior Medic". Heh heh heh. I hope they brief them on how life post-SMM is less slack, so they don't get -too- shocked when they go to places like 42SAR. "If you get posted to places like SAFTI, good for you. If you get places like 42SAR, you'll be cursing and swearing for the rest of your NS life. This is normal."

Our sickbay fridge is wonderful - the fridge can't keep things cold, and the freezer can't freeze things.

The new senior medic is apparently going to be my SMM platoon senior instructor. Heh.

42 SAR Chronicles - Preparation for Brunei

We were supposed to get a haircuit before going to Brunei. The 46 barber was closed and I didn't want to waste time and money during my pre-embarkation days off, so I gritted my teeth and went to 42's barber, something I had not done since before he stopped levying a $2 monthly fee on all enlistees in my unit, regardless of whether they used his services or not. When I arrived there, I found that there had been some changes. Price discrimination is now practiced there - Privates and Lance Corporals pay $3, Corporals (!@#$%^&*() - Usually Corporals get put in the same price band as Privates and Lance Corporals) to First Sergeants $4, and Staff Sergeants and above $5. I was leery but had no choice, so I inserted myself into the queue. I found that the service had improved slightly, possibly because the barber had forgotten who I was - he now takes more care, though he still cannot match the 46 barber. A bonus is that shaving of stubble with the razor is now included, and furthermore, he wielded the blade more deftly than all the Malay barbers I have been too. Also, he has now powder for customers' use.

We wasted the lion's share of an afternoon in an auditorium. Ostensibly there for a Lancer brief, we inevitably spent most of the time waiting. It seems the AV personnel were very bored, for they conducted a disorienting ritual - first all the lights in the auditorium were turned on. Then, the OHP screen was raised. When it was fully retracted, some of the lights were suddenly turned off again. Then, the OHP screen was lowered. This happened a total of not one, not two but FIVE times, and gave me a splitting headache, leading to my covering my eyes with my beret.

For Lancer, the civilian attire for those of CSM rank and above is: long sleeved shirt with tie, pants and leather shoes. Wah. Mere mortals like us need only wear Polo Tees, though the rest of the outfit is the same. Hmm, I wonder if anyone will wear pig's leather shoes.

We are told that training in Lancer is a "privilege". Wth. Sorry, but this is a "privilege" I'd rather forego. In fact - you know what? If I refuse to fight, I'll actually be helping the SAF by not getting in its way with my total incompetence. Why don't I make the "contribution" to Operational Readiness, then? (Further reading: Rant on "privileges")

We were given the Definitive List of Contraband for SAF servicemen returning from overseas. As one might expect, it is considerably more draconian than the Definitive List of Contraband for Civilians returning from overseas. Among some of the more questionable inclusions: Non-MITA approved/censored media (I don't think MITA will go all the way there just to approve/censor media. Therefore, all media from overseas is banned. Bravo!), Chewing Gum (Wth?! I thought Singaporeans can bring in small amounts for personal consumption. It's sale that's prohibited), Computer Media/Software (?! I attribute this to general SAF paranoia) and Audio CDs (I don't think recitations of Koranic verses are illegal in Singapore, unless the SAF thinks they incite people to become suicide bombers). Heck, Brunei is even more puritan than Singapore - if something is banned here, it will definitely be banned there, except for chewing gum, that is. At this rate, the only souvenirs we will be able to get are "I went to Brunei and all I was allowed to get was this lousy T-shirt" T-shirts!

On the list of Dos and Don't for Lancer: "Do not tease the Bruneian women in public." Does this mean we can tease them in private?

42 SAR Chronicles - Misc

Just before we all went on embarkation off for Lancer, we had a movie night, where "We Were Soldiers" was screened. The thought is nice, but I think most of us would rather have slept in bunk or booked out, especially since the MPH (it was the wet weather program - the parade square was wet) was so hot and stuffy that everyone was sweating profusely. I guess some regulars felt the same way, for throughout the movie they were hanging out along the corridor outside the MPH. Furthermore, why is it that we always have to watch War Movies? I'm sure we all have enough of soldiering in the day without having to be subjected to it at night as well. As someone wailed, "Why can't we have a Romantic Comedy?".

We Were Soldiers: The CO in the movie is possessed of an SAF-esque mentality. His grand speech about being the first one on the battlefield and the last one off it, and leaving no man behind makes for great rhetoric, but in reality, having the CO killed due to his foolhardiness would cripple the unit, and risking a whole company to retrieve a few bodies (or seriously crippled men) risks annihilating it. Pursuing "glory" and "honour", you end up losing both the battle and the war. What short sighted thinking, just to keep up appearances and project machismo. (Aside: Of course, this is not what happened in the show, but then - it's Hollywood)

Dennis was saying that the reason why I was targeted so much by 42 at one point was that my words and actions showed that I was "buay gan" (not happy?) with their assaults on me. I suppose that’s true – though I did not engage in active resistance, passive resistance was my undoing.

Recently there has been a new breakfast item - "Nonya Fried Rice" - rice fried with mushrooms, chicken sausages, eggs and corn. What's so nonya about it, I have yet to figure out.

The brooms that the SAF used to provide us with had hollow broomsticks. These were, I presume, cheaper but they lasted a helluva short time, breaking after times as short as a few weeks. The latest batch of brooms, however, have wooden broomsticks. I hope they have realised that the short term cost savings from the cheaper brooms do not pay off.

A regular stayed out without a stay out pass and was charged and fined $100. A NSF did the same, and went to DB for 7 days. Meanwhile, officers stay out with impunity. Ah, the injustice of this world.

Someone got scolded because his hair was too short but apparently this hairstyle is accepted in the MRF and Guards. Wonderful unit we have - you can neither have long hair nor short.

Miscellaneous

Over the past 30 years, 3 principles have stayed constant in the SAF: Stupidity, Sadism and Senselessness.

It is said that the greatest threat to security is the belief that there is no threat. Perhaps, but surely the next greatest threat to security is an obsession with imagined or inflated threats (eg CDRs and Camera Phones)

The SAR21 is lousier than the M16 for drill purposes because, for one thing, it is hard and awkward to keep it cocked for the clearing of arms, and so synchronising this among a large group is hard.

SFI finally has a new night snack - orange muffins. They're not bad.

There's a speechwriting course. Wah. I want to go.

Scent manufacturers have a secret catalog of scents, which includes the New Car and Hotel Lobby (including, among other things, a whiff of cigarette smoke and maybe carpet cleaner) scents. It seems there is also an Auditorium scent (partly the furniture polish used on the parquet floors of the stage) - walking into the ATC auditorium put me in mind of RI's "New" Block.

It seems that often, SAF awards and decorations go to people who do not deserve them one bit. I'm not surprised, really. The principle is the same as that behind why Third World dictators make themselves Six-Star Generals and bedeck themselves with as many medals as innocent civilians they have massacred in putting down uprisings.


I finally got down to trying to solve my phone's problems, and went to a Nokia Care Centre. The man there said he'd upgrade my firmware, but that all my data would be lost. Why they could not backup my data when even I can easily do it at home (at least when Hwa is around), I do not know. Maybe it's a disincentive to discourage customers from pestering them. What pissed me off was that the firmware version remained the same after the "upgrade". However, worse was to come. A few days later, I was in camp and taking an MOP back to bunk, and somehow the MOP smashed the phone's screen (so I conjectured). The warranty covered replacing the screen, but the new screen will take 3 weeks to come (coincidentally, the length of time I'll be in Brunei) and future replacements will cost $85 (not $100-$150 like what some people had told me).

Singapore's Wheel of Fortune is intolerable. I watched one episode and wanted to kick the television. The contestants speak english atrociously, kept using country names to make the host understand what letter they wanted (eg "T for Thailand, probably because their enunciation was so bad the host would have misunderstood otherwise), and are even more TSAF than me; I hope the host was being sarcastic when he complimented one contestant - "You're quite fast" - when she solved the puzzle only when one letter remained obscured.

Thanks to parallax error, I withdrew $1000 from an ATM. Gah.

I loved the survey - Business In China, for it debunked many commonly propagated myths about China and its impact on the world economy:

"China has 31 provinces, 656 cities, 48,000 districts, seven major dialects and 80 spoken tongues. Climate and geography vary from the freezing northern plateaus to the semi-tropical south. There are enormous disparities in income, education and lifestyle between city dwellers and farmers, and between the wealthy east coast and the poor west and north-east. For most products, there is no such thing as a national market. China's consumers are too dispersed, too inaccessible and too different from each other... Average disposable income per person was 4,520 yuan ($545), nowhere near the $5,000 level at which economists say discretionary spending takes off."


Quotes:

Do you believe in an afterlife? [Someone: No] You only believe in life after NS. That's your afterlife.

You all will carry out your ong activities (own)

[On water in Brunei] Please make sure that it is portable (potable)

[On the Lancer briefing] Go and give a speech [Me: On what?] [Someone: How to get downgraded] [Me: Go and die]

[On Lancer] There will be 2 slut... 2 flights

All of you are to note where you are sleeping (sitting)

[Me: 'It is a privilege to train in Brunei'] Fuck you, then don't send me there

[On the future launch of a photo scrapbook] We call it - the Armour Coffee Table Book [Someone: Coaster]

[Me on Movie Night: Would you like to see a Wo-hen music video?] Go and die... If you ever show it to me I'll skin you alive (one)

The Bruneian FAD [Ed: First Aid Dressing] has one big chop [on it] [Me: Halal]

[Me: Airpork is healthy and tasty] You get on the plane, then you become 'Airpork' (???)