Tuesday, January 03, 2006
My first entry for the year 2006 and it's not typed on the first day of January because I was still in camp. I guess people would have been pretty bored by the fact that I've spent another weekend and public holiday in camp yet again. What's new really? While fireworks and lots of partying were going on elsewhere in Singapore, it was pretty quiet in a certain part of Singapore and that's my camp. Alarm bells rang for a while when I saw headlights heading towards the pass office and thought that was the macdonalds guy. However, I was quite surprised to see a car and it stopped at the wall barricade for quite some time. Wen Guang decided to coms control in case the car tries to be funny. Sergeant C came out to check and realized it was a false alarm. The damn driver was just looking for a place to camp for the night. All of places to camp, in a camp? Pun intended.
I don't believe in setting new year resolutions because I don't believe in keeping them anyway. I wanna set goals and aims for myself as the days and months progress. No point setting them so early in the year when everything is so unpredictable. I counted down to 2006 with Michael at Viper 2 and it was nice of the rest of the guys to come down as well. It wasn't the esplanade nor was it sentosa but it was a heartwarming scene nonetheless to be able to countdown with the guys from shift 3. When the clock struck 12, Michael coms to control and we all shouted into the com set "Happy New Year". Sergeant C must be pretty amused and surprised but he said thanx anyway. Got a shock halfway through all the chattering when we saw a police land rover heading towards the base but it was just carrying out their routine patrols. Like what jason said, let's not play around when it comes to days like the new year. Terrorists like to strike when it's least expected.
2005 has been a year that's quite different from the rest. It marked my transition from a civilian, a jc boy, into a soldier. Trust me when I said it wasn't easy at all. The begining was difficult but somehow I managed to pass out from bmt and here I am in unit life. I didn't enlist till March 11 so I had some time to relax. Wasted my time away till the cny period where I found myself a job as a merchandiser for F & N. It was my first working experience and it was certainly one that I wouldn't forget. Just like in the army, you meet all kinds of people and you learn to take orders from your superiors. However, they won't go to the extreme to knock you down in a supermarket, unlike in the army where you get knock down anywhere they want you to. The pay came in handy towards the payment for my laptop. I burnt my weekends but I never really minded cause I enjoyed what I was doing. I like interacting with people. I even volunteered for the night shift so I could earn more. The supermarket where I was working at was very near to my house so going home wasn't a problem. How can I forget the friends I've made at work and the late night supper with them as well. I was probably the only A level student that was working as a merchandiser, the rest were mostly students waiting for their O level results.
Time passed by very quickly, it was soon time to collect my A level results. Let's just say I did better than expected. I'm being realistic and I know my own limits. The last min revision for literature was a nightmare and it didn't help that I had to go around to borrow notes to study. My literature was in dire straits to say the least. I went to school, got my results and accepted it like a man. I learnt after the O levels that we reaped what we sowed. I told Paul we weren't going to walk out the gates of jjc with our heads bowed low, unlike the days of acs(I). Yeah, we did not in the end. Paul did pretty well, I even told him he could'n't have done it if he had gone to acjc. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that I was an average student. I don't have to worry about what courses to take, what scholarship to apply for, what university to apply to. In my mind, my course and the career path that I will take is roughly mapped out. Apply to MOE to become a pe teacher.
It helped that I'm such a slacker and even my pe teachers in jjc know it. Perhaps I was influenced by them and they were role models that I look up to. I like to keep fit and play sports. It's a job that I can do for a life. I want to prepare the guys for army, keep the girls fit even though they don't have to enlist. At least I will treat my students as friends and humans most importantly. I won't treat them like shit literally. I won't play rank like my sergeants. I went for the moe interview at their hq at bunoa vista and got in. Passed my physical fitness test at nie and finally cemented my place in nie/ntu in 2007. It's certainly something that I look forward to, something that keeps me going.
3 more months to becoming a 1 year soldier. Let's just take things nice and slow. It'll be depressing to countdown. Let's just take it one step at a time. Like what Philip used to tell me while we were booking out during course time. I was talking about passing out and he told me to take it one step at a time. Let's just walk through the gates and book out. Pop will come soon. How true.
Every passing day is a day closer to my ord.
Happy New Year guys!
