Friday, November 04, 2005
Celebrated 3 of my shift's mates birthday over steamboat at marina bay yesterday. We had dinner at chong pang. It's basically outdoors seoul garden style. It's cheaper and the guys can afford to light up without worrying whether they will get chased out. The standard of food is about the same as seoul garden and it's really cheap. Just 12 dollars per person but I wonder what will happen if it rains. You can forget about your food and just run for shelter. We had to down a 2kg chocolate cake after dinner in which jason had ordered using his contacts with bengawan solo. Like I said before, it's not always the food that matters, it's who you spend the evening with. Treat this as joke for many but I don't mind eating combat rations if I'm in the company of my good friends.
Tekong recruits had to book in yesterday evening after Deepavali from the many guys who donned jockey caps. At least they get to book out for weekends and public holidays. For many of them, the start of their nsf lives is just begining. Met Daniel on my way to meet the guys at Jurong East mrt interchange and he's also on his way to celebrate Eddie's birthday with his platoon 4 mates. Had a good chat along the way until we split to catch our respective trains. It's been a long long time since I've went to Marina Bay. I don't usually go all the way there just to eat steamboat because the location sucks. The scene of Singaporeans pushing each other just to get into bus 400 yesterday really protrays the negative image of themselves. It led to some of the girls screaming and shouting to the rest not to push. I walked past the spot near to the arcade where I used to play with the acs(I) band back in secondary school. I think I was in sec 2 or 3 back then and we were there to play for some carnival. The place hasn't changed much, it's the people who had changed. I remembered it was in the afternoon and the businesses weren't opened yet, we were just playing our pieces to the crowd who had come to watch.
It was different scene at night with Singaporeans making use of the public holidays to have a good meal with their family and friends. The thing about Singaporeans, they are willing to travel half way across the island, just to have good food. The steamboat business is so competitive that it led to touting if you get what I mean. The moment I walked out from the mrt station, there's these 2 buggers who can't leave me alone until we reached the bus stop where Marcus finally told him "our friends have already started eating at some other place".
Happy Birthday to Maverick, Mok and Ri Hua and let's see out the days till we ord. Good luck to Ri Hua with his girl as well. I hope people like Jason, Mok and Ri Hua aren't gonna get posted to Paya Lebar Airbase anymore. They've already settled down in changi and the thought of going to somewhere new really sucks. Not to mention that there's a shortage of manpower here and the co still wants to post people out. Me and my friends often wondered what's the use of conducting the fdc course in changi if they train people just to post them out and not keep the majority of them for themselves. I rather they post the f-up ones out and keep the elite in changi.
I see the beautiful sights of the malay community dressed in their best for Hari Raya on my way home in the mrt yesterday. Their clothes were colourful and brightly lit while others were dull but unique. I must really stand out in my green no.4, I mean most the nsf people are already home having booked out on Wednesday night while I was lucky to book out as Hari Raya was my dismount day. We are really sacrificing our time as national servicemen to ensure the security of the airbase while the whole nation is enjoying themselves during a public holiday. I don't know whether I will be able to celebrate cny at home with my family and relative next year. I might be in camp. The thought is cruel.
We had a fire drill on the first night and a turnout on the second. I missed the fire drill as I was still walking back from delta 5. Apparently, the sergeants said we were too slack? I admit life in the east is good and slack to a certain extent but are they even in a position to comment on us. Sergeant C started the drill which I bet even the pc and sgt HP don't know about it. They were still busy playing ps2 when sgt C came into the bunk and shout fire. It was a night of drama from I heard. They said we play games from day to night but as newbirds we don't touch the ps2. It belongs to the oldbirds and why would we want to go touch it. Indirectly, sgt C is insulting the pc as he has also been playing from 1pm to 5pm and not to mention sgt C himself also plays winning eleven at night as well. So what's the logic? I have no freaking idea. The sergeants themselves stay in the pass changing office the whole day while we man are the ones out there in the hot sun or rain doing duties. Being so shagged after duties, they still want to turnout us.
Reading Gerald's entry on the way his sergeant treated him like he's a piece of dirt really evokes bad memories. How can I forget the fdc days where we were treated literally like dogs. Crawling across the basketball court and doing retarded stuff. it doesn't help that there are sergeant who like to play rank with you when they find themselves on the losing end. Gerald was scolded by his sergeant because he didn't clean his rifle properly. The issue is not whether he did or did not clean his rifle, it's the way he was treated by his sergeant. Like gerald mentioned, if they were back in school doing homework together, he would gladly help him if there's any problems and would not resort to shouting or using vulgar language on his friend. However in the army, it's a different case. It's all about ranks, ranks and ranks. I often wondered, since we are all Singaporeans, is there a need to treat your man like that if you are a sergeant?
My friends who are sergeants are friends with your man and vice versa. It doesn't happen in my vocation. There's only 1 sergeant whom I'm friends with. He's my course platoon sergeant from sembawang airbase. Sergeant Hong Zhen.
If we were given a chance to compete on equal footing, take it that I'm boasting but I'm willing to take them on. I can't wait for the next ippt where I'm gonna kick their ass. I can see from the swimming already that sgt K cannot even swim properly. Are they fit to be my sergeants?
Life sucks when you're a man in an airbase.
