The long-awaited renovation of the medical centre has begun, wasting $120,000 to upgrade a place that will be rebuilt in a few years. The works are doing weird things to, for example, the water supply. I was in Room 4 (now Observation Room 2) and turned on the tap, only to shriek in alarm when brown water started flowing from it. Meanwhile in the sickbay, the false ceiling boards have been removed. I took a walk there and could neither see, hear nor smell the presence of the rats. Having nowhere to hide, they have finally been eradicated!

As an offering to appease the masses, I bought some Greek sweets to give to my camp mates - 2 boxes, in fact. The first was "Loukoumi Vassaki Greek Delights", overly-large red gelatinous cubes covered with a sticky cream-coloured liquid (probably liquefied icing sugar), and remarkably similar to one of the Indian confections. The cubes were rose-flavoured, but were insanely sweet. Now, I have a sweet tooth, but the cloying sweetness of the Loukoumi was enough to send me scurrying for copious amounts of water. I wonder how the Greeks manage not to get diabetes.

Later, I opened the other packet - "'Vassaki' Akanes Lailia from Serres". Inside were smaller brown gelatinous cubes, with peanut fragments embedded in them, and the icing sugar had not liquefied yet. It wasn't as sweet at the first, but it was still too sweet for my tastes.

It seems that there hasn't been a company run since the return from Lancer, more than 2 weeks ago, due to various administrative cockups. Nonetheless, our motivated medics have taken it into their hands to run by themselves. How laudable, their masochism is.

ORD personnel normally disappear to the canteen for most of the day, and eat canteen food instead of cookhouse food. Unfortunately, I think that I am still banned from there. Normally, no one cares about people who are going to ORD, but I daresay that for a personage as esteemed in their eyes as I, they will make an exception.

24 out of about 120 recruits in Pussy company want to sign on as regulars. I don't know what's wrong with them. I mean, some people in the other companies were similarly conned, but not so many!

Less than 2 weeks after taking over from me, my understudy got an understudy of his own. Hehe.

I don't know why, but though the training in 46SAR is often more intense, and they seem to have fewer privileges and more restrictions, people in 42 hate their unit more than those in 46. I was discussing this with some 46 guy - perhaps the commanders in 46 are nicer. They train you hard, but you don't get screwed, and you don't get the feeling that you are a slave in chains, placed on a treadmill in a workhouse.


I was being given a lecture by a taxi driver on the art of choosing the spots to go to pick passengers up. Most of it was inane drivel, but I learnt that it costs $92.40 a day to rent a cab.

During my last night off, I went with some of the guys to Jurong Point. There, we saw 3 female Officer Cadets (No, I'm not going to comment on their appearances) in NTUC. Inside their plastic bags, I saw some boxes of Yam Yam (the snack with biscuit sticks you dip in chocolate/vanilla), and they were picking at punnets of strawberries. Tut tut.

Orange Julius now has a Pina Colada drink with Nata De Coco. Shameless! I wonder which Malaysian scientist came up with the idea of Nata De Coco anyway. All the coconut husks that go in... Erk.

It is most ironic that Conservatives (or the right wing, rather) is generally permissive economically but restrictive socially, while the Liberals (or the left wing) is the opposite.


In Brunei, I saw a music video of this Chinese Pop song - "Shou3 Qian1 Shou3" (I always remember the middle word as "Jie1" or "Wo4"), whose list of performers read like a "Who's who of Chinese Pop" list.

From the tune, mood and lyrics of the song, I concluded that it was commissioned either in memory of some celebrity's passing or for a governmental campaign (ala the Courage Song).

But then, there were no scenes from the life of any one, nor pictures of nurses/road sweepers/night soil collectors/other unsung heroes that Virtuous and Moral Chinese are so fond of honouring (but not paying decent wages) doing their stuff, only black-and-white clips of people like A*Mei and S.H.E (H.E.R) singing their hearts out into mics with their hands clapsed around their headphones and of a lacklustre choir singing the chorus line.

So maybe it was a self-congratulatory pat on the back by the Chinese Pop industry, though seeing as how half of their songs these days are half in English, I wonder what they have to celebrate. (A source tells me it was for SARS, but I didn't see any nurses. Or intubated people. Or chest X-rays with auras)


Proton

"There is a reason why even patriotic Malaysians are paying 110,000 ringgit for a 1.6-litre Toyota or Honda when a similar-sized Proton costs less than 60,000 ringgit. The Wira, Proton's family saloon, is over a decade old and beset with faults. JD Powers, a consultancy, says that Proton has the worst quality record in the country... the Gen.2's roof turns out to be too low for adults in the rear to sit comfortably. Proton has always violated every principle of economics and car making."

Malaysia boleh!


Estée Lauder

"Young Josephine Esther Mentzer, as she began, was convinced from childhood that women should be beautiful. She also hoped to make a fortune by persuading them that, if they bought her creams, their beauty would last for ever. It is a story, after all, that women tend to need to believe... Whether women actually became more beautiful by applying Body Performance Anti-Cellulite Visible Contouring Serum, or whether they would have done as well with a quick douse in cold water, is impossible to say. Clearly, many felt better for it. The very names of these products, energetic and pseudo-scientific, implied that the limits of knowledge had been searched. Mrs Lauder could have cut prices, but refused. Her Crème de la Mer, developed by a NASA scientist, cost $110 for an ounce of vitamins pulped with seaweed. But cheapness, she said, would shake her customers' faith."

Gender defects are so tragic.

I wonder what people would write for *my* obituary.


Quotes:

[Me on the debilitating effects of NS: Don't you feel disconnected from the world?] I'm not disconnected from the world. I'm on the internet.

[On someone] He didn't disappear very often. He only disappeared often after his car broken down.

[To someone] Yo! You're back from [your] course. [Someone: I'm back] [Me: I'm back too] [Someone else: No one cares about you]

[Sign] Do not disturb us during lunchtime of after working hours!!!! Do not knock/open the doors during these hours! Unlike you, we need rest! Thank you!

[Sign] Negligence and carelessness on your part does not constitute urgency on my part (oblige)

[On my ORD mood] You look so happy nowadays... so unlike your previous self

[To Swee Shoon] You are the new docu [ic]? You got the shittiest job, next to PA. Both [are] about the same.