Thursday, April 23, 2009
My exams are finally over but let's not make this the main focus for this entry. My sleeping hours, like many other undergraduates around Singapore are really off the road. It's gotten even worse now that I'm finally freed from the shackles of revision and writing pages of answers. The thing is that it's perfectly understandable to sleep late to revise but now that it's over, I kept on telling myself that time is too precious to be spent sleeping. Which means that I'm surviving on just a few hours of sleep daily and don't even get started on what I do at night to pass the time.
After breakfast and a daily routine of reading the Straits Times, I washed up and left the house for the journey to the east. Singapore ain't exactly that big but sometimes I wonder how my geography mates who don't stay hall can sustain the daily trips back and from their homes to good ol Boon Lay. Sometimes you cannot help but envy the eastern personnel because they live in a location that is pretty much self-sustained. Unless they need to enter school or to work, there is really no real reason to head to the west or even to Orchard Road to shop. It was mentioned in an article written to the Stomp website 2 days ago that SMRT should consider hiring those station personnel that are designated to push people into the already crowded trains during morning peak hours. Looking at the scene that greeted me today (not that I'm not used to it), I cannot help but agree. With a population that is expected to hit 6 million soon, you wonder how many trains you have to miss before you can finally board.
Now the question is, what is a western guy like me heading down to the east for? There's no mobilization nor trips to Pulau Ulbin but simply a journey to Tampines Safra to return the squash materials that I've borrowed from SSRA. I had to stand all the way till Raffles Place before I got a seat which allowed me to sit all the way to Tampines. Very much like how my army mates BK finds train rides a joy sometimes, I cannot but agree too. When I look out of the window from Kallang onwards, I see the bustling of life as people scurry to work or school. Life after exams allow me to slow this hectic pace of life and allows me to do things at my own pace. I didn't have to rush back to school for lessons or anywhere else so I could really take my own sweet time. Along the way, memories of army always come flooding back to me. Like how I used to wait for the shuttle bus to the East camp at Tanah Merah station and watch the navy people linning up too. Reaching Tampines, the sight of the mee fern stall which always satisfy my hunger pangs in the morning before I book in. Memories they always will be.
After being taken for a ride on the previous trip to Safra, I decided to choose a bus service which would allow me to reach the destination faster than being taken for a 'tour' around Tampines first. Instead of buses like 8, taking 23 was a more direct and faster route - only 4 stops. I'm very thankful to Mr Nair, the General Manager of SSRA for providing me with the necessary resources for my squash assignment all at no cost. Instead, I photocopied close to 80 pages of stuff and borrowed 13 books without even getting charged. Feeling bad, I initially wanted to pay for the papers but he wanted none of that last time. Even today, he didn't bother checking the resources I returned - it was really based on the element of trust. He believes in this connection that exist between Singaporeans sometimes that makes you want to help each other without feeling suspicious.
We had a good chat before I left and he probably thanked me more than I did because he believes even a simple task like this brings a much-needed publicity to the sport in Singapore. I passed him the assignment which would be placed/added in the association's library and to me, that's really a honour which money cannot buy. It's not to say that my piece of work is top quality, it's far from that. Basically, it's the hard work and dedication that I put into the work that made it very satisfying. One thing is for sure, hopefully the interest in the sport will slowly return to the sport. I left SSRA a very happy man because I felt that I've done a good deed. The assignment was not just a piece of homework but it had the additional 'load' of having to answer back to the association. I couldn't do a bad job and return a lousy piece of work.
With lots of time to spare, I didn't want to head down to queensway so early to get my sandals. Knowing that I probably won't be heading down to Tampines again so soon, I decided to wait till most of the shops were opened in Tampines One before I left. I decided to walk to Tampines Mall instead to kill time and I was pleasantly surprised to see walking towards me a very familiar figure. My OC from CAB shopping with his wife! What surprised me more was the fact that he actually stare at me for a good few seconds and then waved at me before leaving. He's probably having a day off from work and seems to have gotten a bit rounder but still the same old person. The fact that I was the last person to contract chickenpox while serving my ns probably left a lasting impression on him.
In fact if you ask me, I am not even afraid to write down this on my blog. There aren't many regulars in the unit who I really respect because many of them don't treat us like humans. You can go all on the fact that we are supposed to be training and not in a chalet but where's the moral support and welfare during the times we need it? Instead of making us tougher soldiers, they only succeeded in creating resentment with all that rank pulling. It's a fact that exist. That's why 2 of my superiors continue to be popular on my list and they are sergeant Hongzhen who I see now and then in NTU and now Captain Sam whom I saw today. Maybe the fact that they have adopted a mentality which puts them in a different league from the rest. Punishment unless we deserve it, is not really going to solve any problems and that's the mentality I hope to bring into my teaching career too.
I kinda appreciated the fact that he actually even bothered to greet me first because most regulars I know won't even bother with their specs, let alone corporals like me. One's thing is for sure - I wouldn't like to see him back in camp so soon, I don't want ict to arrive straight after graduation. I remember seeing Leng Soon (one of my platoon specs) conducting a survey at the train station where I lived for his insurance company. He approached me but I just blatantly walked past him and never even give him any attention. You might say that it was bastard of him but compared what he did to me and my platoon mates, I can never forgive him for the rest of my life. It's that bad. We all make mistakes but scolding and threatening me with 60 pushups within a span of less than 10 minutes just because I forgot how to strip a saw is abit too much. The situation improved when Hongzhen came over and took a patient approach and within minutes, I learnt how to deal with the weapon. Yes, I will definitely be the 'Hongzhen' to my students, not Leng Soon.
I'm quite impressed with the range of shops that the mall has on offer and honestly, I feel that it's a bit unfair that they have 3 malls to cater to their needs while I only have one miserable West Mall. I even managed to catch Kym Ng, Guo Liang and Lai Yi Ling filming their show at this Yamazaki bread shop in the basement. You heard it from me first, Kym is a bit short and she wears high platform shoes. In a way, I pity celebrities don't really have private life because everything they do, eat or talk is under the public's eye. Can you imagine Fann Wong taking the mrt? It's going to create a huge topic in the forums. However, like many of us, she's a human and a Singaporean too. Despite the lure of making big bucks, the celebrity life is definitely not for me.
I left Tampines One vowing to make a return sometime soon because I didn't bring enough cash and there are couple of polo shirts that I would like to purchase at uni glo. There's the Japanese 'Marche' which I hope to try out one day and a few other shops that have yet to open. With malls like these, do the eastern residents even need to head down to town anymore? I don't think so.
It's been a tiring day because I headed down to queensway on the way back and got myself a new pair of nike sandals. I jacked myself because I didn't realize the ones with bright colours soles that were on display were actually for females (it meant that one of my classmates had also bought a female design too). Honestly, it doesn't even look like it's for females. After checking with the sales personnel, there was only the black or grey colour for males (for the straprunner design)
That's what nike left the guys with, boring and dull colours while the females get like yellow or green on the soles. I eventually settled for the grey one because black was simply too boring. At least I am satisfied with this purchase of mine because I couldn't wait to get home, bathe and get a good nap. It's been a long entry and I guess it's time to take a break. Time to get my daily dose of sports news from Sportscentre Asia.
