Musings of a Daydreaming Wanderer

With the clearance forms signed, items dekitted, stores returned, certificates collected, well-wishes accepted and handshakes shaken, I am now officially an NSman of the RSAF. However, its a half-happy and half-sad event for me, I guess. Knowing that you have been through tough and good times with other guys of your own age, and disbanding our little band of brothers makes me feel uneasy about the future of each of us. Will we see each other again? What interesting things will your platoonmates do? The world suddenly seems like an intimidating and scary place, compared to the sheltered confines of a camp and seeing familiar faces everyday. It’s as if I were an uncivilized barbarian who left his home in the polar north of Faerun and headed down south to the temperate lands where civilized people and claustrophobic cities are found. What happened over the past 26 months of military service now seems like an old film playing in Technicolor. The greens of the grass and trees, the browns of the soil and sand, and the blacks of the roads and waterlogged grass now all seem to lose their colour. Some things that are still clear in my mind are the reddish orange hue of dawn breaking and dusk setting, the pitch-black darkness of the night being colorized by the grey moon, the feel of the cool breeze as it blows past your wet face and sweaty body, the merciless hot yellow light during the day and the freezing pale grey world of the night. Not having to feel these for a long time suddenly makes me feel detached from something that feels familiar - it has been replaced by a sense of strangeness and wierdness about it, an imbalance that must somehow be corrected.

Additionally, it happened today that things didn’t turn out normally as well. My friend’s brother was keeping his elder brother’s MSN session open so I could send him a photo (which is what you don’t see everyday), and a Malaysian (whom I have an inkling of the notion that he is a “colleague” - no, wait, its more like “coursemate” for the job that both of us signed up with HP for) just added me to his MSN list just because we happen to be in the same group of people who are going for an on-the-job training course tomorrow. Sheesh. Can’t today be an uneventful but joyous and normal day for me?

Well, it was Flight run day again last Friday, at East Coast Park, near the newly-constructed lagoon. Remember what happened last time? Yes, another “incident” happened again - we saw Campus Superstar’s Theresa running! Too bad there wasn’t anyone around to take a photo when that happened. Its a small world after all…at least in Singapore.

Whoa, time really has flown - it’s been a year since I OOC-ed and have been in my squadron for a year already.

Last month we had a short chemical defence training, where we had to wear chemical protective suits and do some physical exercises in a CS chamber. Quite fun to do it, and I had a few laughs from it - one guy couldn’t change his canister in the chamber and had to be brought out, and another one after talking to the instructor, straight away walked out of the chamber while the instructor was asking him to repeat whatever he said. Lol!

I’ve been reading the newspapers and watching TV for news on the stock market, ever since I bought some stocks through DBS Vickers. Its quite fun to play on the stock market, and given the odds of 4D and Toto, I’d pick the stock market anytime.

I also bought the $210 Genographic Project Kit from the National Geographic Society online, and have sent in my cheek cells for analysis by their labs. Hopefully Customs won’t reject the article and my cells won’t die out by the time it reaches the labs.

I’ve stopped going for driving lessons because my test date is in January, and I’m waiting for the test date to arrive so I can book a few sessions for revision before the big day. Thus, my Saturdays and Sundays are now more “free”, and I’ve taken up an online course for taking MCP Exam 70-228 in Installing, Configuring and Troubleshooting Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Still got $225+ to fork out for the actual test. Luckily the course is 90% sponsered by MINDEF and I only paid $10.50 for the course. I’m currently looking for a good japanese language school to enroll in, but the course fees (all around the $400 to $600 range) will take me 2-3 months to save up for and by the time I’ve got cash to enrol, I would have 5 more months to ORD. Wish I’d taken up lessons earlier.

Its Christmas again, and I remember spending Christmas day at my friend’s church last year, and my sec 2/3 school days of lounging around at home in the cool of the morning rain (compared to now). Ah, the days of youth, when you were carefree and so energetic… but I’m an old man now, shouldering more responsibilities, and planning for my future has taken its toll on me. Bah! Humbug!

Phew, another 2 weeks gone by. We went for a combat shoot yesterday, but because of a glitch in the computer program displaying the targets, the results that we had were forfeited, and another day has to be scheduled for combat shoot. Not that I mind in any way - my team barely made it through the day shoot, because one of my teammate’s rounds got jammed in his rifle, and by the time he remedied his magazine, he’d missed 6 targets. This was half good and bad - good, because if his magazine wasn’t faulty, we’d gotten one of the highest scores. Bad in the sense that when it comes to night shoot, most of my teammates will go blind and miss the target. Ah well, there’s another shoot, so its nothing to worry about too much.

Today we went to Wheelock Place for the Brickfest exhibition. We all thought that it was a big gallery with lots of bricks from the Old Times House fashioned into works of art, but actually it was just 2 small exhibits and one signboard on the ground floor, and a really bad gallery upstairs on the third floor. This is the arts development in Singapore.

We went to selegie centre to play the arcade and LAN games there in the afternoon, and that was the end of another platoon life day outing. Quite boring lah. Hopefully the next life day our (lazy, slacking) life day IC will plan a better one.

Of all times, I had to get chickenpox for the past 2 weeks. Sigh. 2 weeks Attend C. The first few days I had headaches and boils cropping up all over my body, face, and scalp. Strangely there was no itching, but more of slight inflammation I think. Thank goodness the doctor gave me antivirals, otherwise I’d die of itching.

Well, before I had chickenpox, we had just finished an exercise. During the exercise we had NSmen taking over us for 2 days before we went back to take over them. Before the hand over to the NSmen however, everyone had the general feeling that the NSmen have a certain “style” of going outfield. This is witnessed first-hand by me when I was on the 3 tonner going downhill to fetch them up the steep hill, and also to collect rations for the entire platoon. I got off the tonner and limped (because I was the recce party, I had slightly injured my ankle, and since then I’ve been limping about for the past day and a half.) to the pass office to change my 11B for a camp pass, but I left it up on the hill in my field pack, so I had to sit outside the camp with the NSmen while my seargent took the tonner into the camp. During this event however, there was an NSmen officer who saw me limping and came up to say “Soldier! You shack (tired) is it?” Sigh. That’s only a small matter. For us active NSFs, we brought our standard stuff (i.e, fieldpack, no. 4, etc) when we go outfield, but the NSmen are “smarter” than us - they brought a Coleman tub, 2 cartons x 24 cans of Coke and 100 Plus respectively and 6 x 1.5 litre bottles of distilled water. Now that’s “style”. When we took over them, the 6 guys who stayed behind (to ensure “safety”) told us stories of huddling in a big group, smoking out in the open at first and last light during our “high alert” drills (it was heard that all 6 NSFs were on high alert while all the NSmen were smoking/talking cock) and not doing sentry duty properly (rumours of being absent from sentry in the middle of the night, and not wearing helmets and just standing there when you’re supposed to sit, or sleeping on duty). Nsmen - Gotta respect them. This exercise was one of the funniest ones also, because one of my platoonmates thought he saw an aircraft, and directed us to shoot it (it was a split second decision), when in fact it was an eagle.

Ah well, time to book in now. See ya!

Well, another week has gone by. What happened over the week was that on Friday two weeks ago (2nd Sept), one of my platoonmates was operating a hangar door when the sliding door came crashing down, when I was standing 2-3m away from the door. WHOA. CO came down, then followed by our RSM and WOs, and S3, etc. The end result is that the entire complex hangar doors were taped up with white tape the following Monday, and notices pasted on the door and control boxes to not operate the door until further notice. Way to go, dude.

Friday was our SQN’s HEARTS programme, where we interacted with kids from Chen Su Lan Childrens’ Home. The location was at Sentosa. so early morning we had a bus ride from our camp to the island, where we went into Sentosa Cove, and into private property still under construction called One°15. It had berths for your boats to park there, and an unobstructed view to the CBD area (once completed). The whole place, even just by LOOKING at it, is only for the rich, by the rich. Anyway, the kids arrived there had two quick programmes before lunch, and then took a ride in our SQN personnel cars - decorated with balloons, streamers, ribbons, etc. - (CO, S1, S2, S3, RSM, my PS and probably one or two more personnel’s cars that I forgot) to Palawan Beach for games there. Our RSM had this idea that me (cameraman) & a 3SG colleague (SQN photographer) and 2 other photographers (Air Force News magazine) should sit in his car and take photos of the convoy while moving to Palawan Beach…and I’m the one to video the whole thing from the sunroof of his station wagon. Whoa. Visions of a 3 ton car jamming the brakes and my body being sliced into two comes into mind as I remember the rumoured accidents that happen to the people in tanks, APCs, etc. in the Armour units during training. Fortunately we were travelling at a slow and constant speed, so there wasn’t sudden deceleration which would cause me to fly out or get cut in half. Overall, it was a cool and fun experience to film standing on the front passenger seat, facing the rest of the convoy behind my RSM’s car.

Saturday was my birthday, but it was pretty much a normal Saturday like any other. I had driving lessons in the morning and after that, took a trip to Pasir Ris Park for a telematch organized by my friend’s church which lasted from about 4pm to 7pm. On the way back, I stopped by White Sands’ Comics Connection outlet, which stocked alot of stuff that the outlets near my place don’t. Also spotted Gundam Seed Destiny episodes 1 to 13 out on VCD. Got for myself as a birthday present, Battlefield 2. After the short stop, I went back home to have a takeaway Pizza Hut dinner with my family.

Well, I’m off to camp now. Won’t be contactable over the weekend because I’m outfield, so don’t be surprised when you guys try to reach me by phone.

I have a tanline. No, I didn’t go swim, but I am in the parade for the upcoming RSAF Day. My beret has made a section of my forehead whiter than my entire face. Had 3 days of rehearsal this week, and I think if I continue like this, I’m gonna get sunburnt. Well, at least there are funny moments at the parade:

1) The crazy bugger who was in the present arms pose (hormat senja-ta) and my PS was checking everyone’s pose, when his phone rang. A warrant officer was standing just 2m away from him and he didn’t hear it, but my PS heard it and came over near his spot. She (yes, my PS is a female) tried to listen for the ringtone and locate the guy who had his phone in the pocket in the parade square, but she eventually gave up. When she turned away to focus on other guys, this fellow, in front of the people in the shade with other senior ranking officers vetting the parade, took out his phone, turned it off and then resumed the present arms pose. Strangely no one complained about him afterwards when the rehearsal was over.

2) The driver who was supposed to drive CAF to the parade square, after the GOH doormen opened the car doors and closed it, sounded a very cute and short horn before driving off.

I went to the 2Exits musical this afternoon that was organised by my friend’s church. A pretty good show, especially the parody of the “I Love You Baby” song - “I Love You Money”. The food was also good (if you exclude the bread and the grey “ang ku kueh”). Sigh. Today, again, I am forced into rethinking about sins, choices, destiny, the very existence of myself, God and Jesus. (The last time I did this, I couldn’t sleep for 3 hours. Maybe I’ll try this thinking method when I go outfield and manning sentry post at 0300 hours) This is one big headache for me. As much as I try to be sensitive to my Christian friend, I can’t help but keep finding excuses and neutral-ground reasons for her (my friend). During the prayer session, I asked God why in the world am I doing there, and what should I do now, because I had sworn not to interfere and keep a distance from her fellowship due to the fact that I do not want misunderstandings and complications to arise if I joined her fellowship on a long-term basis. Again, a simple trip to enjoy musical turned out into a headache-inducing and depressing one. Sigh. Can’t the world be much simpler?

Final entry of the day - saw Gundam Seed Destiny HGIF 2 at Suntec Toy Room. Argh. Time to spend money again.