Waking up slightly before 9 today, I already had my day all nicely planned out, which is something I rarely do.
Watch an hour of cartoons, then go Sitex to check out the computer prices, followed by a trip to Bras Brasah to check out a couple of things. After all these would be a nice long nap back at home to repay my sleep debt and more TV before venturing into Dreamland again. Perfect.
At Sitex, I'd never felt more welcomed. The moment I step into the exhibition hall, a dozen people lined on both sides of me started greeting me. Totally awesome! As if I'm some superstar. That's until they started burying me with piles after piles of pamphlets. It was amazing how efficient these 12 people were. I'd to use my charming smile and a superstar wave to ward off part of the onslaught and escape relatively unscathed.
12 down, dozens more to go.
I'm actually in two minds as to whether to purchase a new computer. One thing for sure, though the antique computer I'm currently using still serves me adequately, it definitely belongs to the Mesozoic era of the computer evolutionary timeline. At 64MB RAM, I can hardly install any new noteworthy programs.
However, if I get a new computer now, even the lowest end model will put a hole the size of a meteor crater in my pocket. That'll invariably ruin my plans for next year.
Oh man. Sponsorship please ... anyone out there hear this? Hello?
The day went pretty well as planned, until when I was queuing up for Beard Papa at Bugis. I received a call from a friend who was in the same army camp as me. He informed me that he saw our mobilisation sign on TV.
Shining Shield. The words that send dread through me. Darn. There goes my wonderful nap.
I took my time going home. After all, I'd yet to receive any call from the unit. Maybe I'm not on the list. I could always feign ignorance of the mobilisation. I truly wouldn't have known about it if not for the call from my friend.
First open mobilisation by my unit in more than 3 years. That was also how long I've not seen my army gear. I took half an hour to dig out those stuffs from the trashes in the storeroom. All except my boots.
I couldn't recall where I'd kept my boots in the storeroom. Since I couldn't risk looking silly wearing my track shoes or slippers with my uniform, I rummaged on. I was about to resign to the fact that I would have to wear a pair of paper mache boots back to camp when I found the boots tucked in a godforsaken corner.
After three years in storage, my uniform doesn't smell good. In fact, when I put them on, I'd a scent equivalent to that of a woolly mammoth that was kept in a closet for 50 years.
My boots didn't fare any better. It was as if winter came in the box my boots were kept in. They were almost totally covered in white with mould. I didn't even dare to envisage what'd made the inside of my boots home when I put my feet in.
If things still don't sound bad to you, the content of my pack was exactly as when they were put in during the first year of my National Service. That is to say, the track shoes inside have their soles almost detached. I couldn't recall if I'd washed the mess tin and accompanying fork and spoon after the last exercise before I placed them back in. The toilet paper will soon be celebrating its 4th anniversary, as will the toothbrush and toothpaste.
If I am really called to war now, I seriously won't mind to take a short side trip to the nearest supermarket first.
I finally received the call from the unit at slightly past 4pm. The sergeant informed me that I should 'preferably be back in camp by 6pm'.
I couldn't resist a sarcastic 'Well done, sergeant!' If my friend hadn't notify me earlier, I couldn't possibly have made it time. And even then, I'd to borrow my father's car. Partly it was also to save me some cab fare and to avoid being a zoo exhibit on the MRT.
Like a hot-blooded Singaporean who's ever ready to defend his beloved country, I sped back to camp. What's breaking a few traffic rules to defending the answering the nation's call right?
Wrong. The nation didn't call me. Back at camp, I was told I could go home after reporting to just 2 out of 3 stations. Apparently, as I was just newly posted back to the unit after studies, I was supposed to be excused.
Curses.
At that particular moment, I felt like stringing all of them up with my toggle rope and stuff my mouldy boots into their sorry traps. Ditto sentiments from the few Radar guys I met who were in the same batch as me. I guess the recall ICs thought it was a funny joke to call us back.
Luckily, the police didn't catch me speeding, running red lights, driving with one hand, talking on the phone and driving into the wrong lane. I couldn't have used my nationalistic fervour as an excuse then.
Well, guess I will need to do some shopping and cleaning of my gear now that I'm operationally ready. Hopefully the next mobilisation won't come until I can spare some time out of slacking to restock my gear.
In the meantime, I would need to get rid of the stench of the woolly mammoth in my father's car. And friends, if you see my unit's sign i.e. Shining Shield on TV, please don't hesitate to inform me ASAP. I won't trust Sergeant Well-done to call me with enough time for me to prepare.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
The membership
Today, when I woke up for the second time of the day in the afternoon, I saw an ominous looking white letter on the keyboard of my computer.
With the State Crest and wordings 'On Government Service' printed across the top of it, I got the feeling that I'm being recalled back for the dreaded In-Camp Training.
Luckily, it turned out to be a false alarm.
The letter was from MCYS (formerly MCDS) informing me of my complimentary membership into the government's Sex Deprived Unit (SDU). Selected excerpts of the letter are as follow:
' ...SDU is a one-stop place for you to network and exchange ideas with over 26,000 other like-minded graduate...network may help in your professional advancement or simply widen your social circle.'
Sounds great right? Like a business networking organisation.
Well, not if we already know what SDU's purpose is. And it gives itself away later in the letter when it states:
' If you are already married...alert us immediately...ensure your particulars will not be transferred to SDU.'
I guess in the government's eyes, the married are not entitled to professional advancement. That's good news to people like me. My future is not as bleak as I thought so long I remain single. Pretty soon, I'll be the CEO of certain companies so you guys better suck up to me now.
Of course, I may be thinking a bit too straight. After all, the letter didn't specify what sorts of ideas, like-mindedness or even professions. For all we know, the certain companies I'll be CEO of may be 'private limiteds' based in Geylang.
So, question now is should I reject this membership? As with all kinds of memberships, come great discounts privileges. However, I'm probably the one on discount in this membership.
I believe a friend of mine, Rayner (name not changed to expose identity), will be very perplex when he receive SDU's membership. He took planet origin test I mentioned in my previous post and found out he's from the planet Ur-anus.
Can you imagine his self-introduction during SDU's activities? It'll probably go like this:' Hi, I'm Rayner and I'm from Ur-anus. I'm more than a little eccentric and love everything unusual and shocking. Anything unconventional excites me (winks).'
(Those are the 'qualities' of people from Ur-anus.)
By the end of the activity, his cheeks will be so swollen he'll have permanent winks on his face.
No wonder he's vehemently denying the result of the test.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Big Brother
I write this entry with great reluctance. If I hadn't been ordered to write this entry, I would still be indulging in one of my favourite activities i.e. slacking.
Yeah, that's the reason why I haven't been blogging in the past week. Not because I'm busy with work, or that I'm tired out from work. Rather, it's the act of sitting down in front of my computer, typing pages of gibberish to put up on my blog that turns me off. In fact, just the thought of it makes me want to slack already.
But alas, at least for today I've to continue for as I've mention, I've been ordered to blog.Who actually has the authority to order me to blog?
Well, that would be the da ge (big brother) of my band of brothers. Unlike the TV series of the same name, we guys don't carry weapons around shooting anything that moves. Instead, we're as harmless as cockroaches. When we get together, we'll at most make people, mostly girls, scream and cringe. Nobody will ask us for autographs. The braver ones will try to shoo up away with rolled up newspaper. Aside from that, we're not much of a social threat.
What we usually do is just sit around and reminiscence about old times like a group of centenarians. Like them, we too suffer from Alzheimer. Every few weeks, our chat topics go back to the same questions and answers brought up previously, forgetting that it'd already been covered. A sociologist studying us won’t have too much trouble compiling a book of Q & A right down to the exact pauses, coughs and farts.
Yesterday, in the first gathering involving da ge since he returned from Oz not a few days ago, he 'politely informed' me that he visits my blog daily. For the past week, he has been disappointed whenever he doesn't see any updates there. Obviously, he's using my blog as a form of Big Brother. Even though he didn't explicitly spelled it out, I can sense the implications if I don't blog soon.
The implications are not good I can tell you. I remembered once he told us he crushed a cockroach using his dumbbells. Having make references of us to cockroaches above, this recollection sends shivers down my feelers.
I guess I ought to be afraid of him. After all, I didn't give him any face last night by being absent for his welcome back dinner. However, that wasn't entirely my fault. My manager had insisted I returned to the island yesterday for the Aquabike Championship event.
That turned out to be five hours of work put in on a Saturday from five till ten. I don't really have any grouses with that, honestly speaking. Not when work involved staying out on the beach watching bikini babes (beach hunks for my female colleagues) and a sumptuous buffet dinner courtesy of the organiser.
Sorry da ge. Bikini babes and good, especially when free, food over you anytime.
One comment my da ge made when I met up with them after my work confounded me for a while. He pointed out that I've grown thin, especially my face. This totally contradicted with what a friend wrote in his blog. This friend stated that my belly has grown to, to quote, 'cosmic proportions'. Thin face and a belly that'll put all the patients in KK's maternity ward to shame? Guess that make sense now. Boy, I hate gravity.
By now, some of you may be wondering why da ge is called da ge. Well, among the band of brothers, he has got the most eye glaringly bright future in front of him. That's an asset to the rest of us. So I sincerely hope that none of you out there ruin it for any of us.
If there's any girl out there wanting to know my da ge, for a 'nominal' fee, I can help you make the introduction. For another 'nominal' fee, I can eliminate other competitions for you.
If there's any people with spare cash and don't mind someone calling him or her da ge or da jie, please contact me at 1800-SUCKERS.
Monday, November 08, 2004
My first day at work
Being the first day at work, I didn’t want to make an impression by being late. Adding to that, I’d no idea how long it would take for me to travel from one part of this island to one part of another island.
Hence, there was a need to ‘test water’. Waking up at the time when the rooster was still dreaming about being henpecked just didn’t agree with me. It had been eons since I’d to wake up so early, aside from times to ‘open the dam’ before I drown myself in sleep.
The only plus side I got from getting to work so early this morning was that I managed to get a seat on the train before the rest of the morning zombie crowd started to pack the train at the next station.
I took that as a sign from Uncle Zhou (Chinese god (?) associated with sleep) to grab a short shuteye. 40 minutes and a transfer later, I reach Habourfront station, near Sentosa.
You know the motto ‘a good deed each day’? Well at Habourfront station, an old man asked me for direction. Feeling charitable from my brief rest, I did my good deed of the day by pointing out the exit to him in my barely passable Hokkien.
The thing was, ten steps after stepping away from the old man, I realised I’d pointed the wrong exit to him. But hey, exercise is good for health. At the very least, the wrong exit was at the same side of the road as the exit he should have taken. So I guess it was still a good deed done. In any case, we should look at the intention behind and performance of the deed rather than the outcome. I’m sure all of you agree with me wholly.
Anyway, my first day at work was quite productive. My main contribution was helping to convert the air inside the office into carbon dioxide. That was a tough job nobody else wanted to do a lot of. Sacrificing myself, I had to compete with many air purifiers in the office. My nose and lungs definitely put in a lot of hard work today. Then again, I didn’t really expect much on the first day.
Other than that, I also managed to go through last year’s documents on the Nation’s Countdown Party'04. 3 thick files of it. I wouldn’t divulge more on this in case I get the cuttlefish treatment. But I would say, I was quite befuddled by some of the steps and choices made. Given the brand, Sentosa, I’d expected more quality.
Tagging along for a site survey for this weekend’s Aquabike competition, I didn’t really see much. Except a familiar crop of curly hair on the way back to the office. That crop of hair belongs to the best contractor in Singapore and JB. And some say Batam. I suppose he’s donning a beach boy image in the new season.
Hmm…if we combine curly hair, wobbling mole, hairy chest, red speedo swimming trunks and yellow boots. Definitely will become every girl’s beach hunk. Mediacorp sure can use me as an image consultant.
For my initiation, I was brought to the country club for lunch. That meant an hour’s worth of pay digested and expurgated out not an hour ago just like that. Tomorrow, I’ll be catching the lunch bus out of the island.
The afternoon was spent in the same productive way in contributing products to the atmosphere. Time was taken out to be parade myself to other departments. Names, department locations and administrative procedures were quickly erased from my hard disk as they were introduced.
I was surprised to run into one of my army mates in the office. He’s engaged as a temporary staff till end December. Me till end March. He’s given a reasonable monthly pay. Me, a measly hourly pay.
Bummer, we both murmured to ourselves, each envying the other for different reasons. In days to come, there’ll be more catching up to do.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Urgent call? Nay...
How would you react if a friend suddenly message you on the phone and ask you to give him or her a call at a quarter to one in the morning?
You would probably think that he or she is in trouble and need dire help or at least a willing listening ear, right? That was what I would be thinking at least.
Well, obviously, some friends need more help than a listening ear when they make such request, as it happened to me last night.
After watching the Fifth Element for like possibly the fiftieth times on TV last night, I was ready to rest my already throbbing head. It was one of those headaches that heighten my hearing that I could even hear the cockroaches playing mahjong a few floors below. Then again, it might just be my neighbours who were playing and the innocent roaches tap dancing to the tune of curses and laughter from the game.
My head hadn’t even had a chance to make an impression on the pillow long enough to take the first step towards a date to Dreamland when I heard the ring from my handphone signalling a message.
I reluctantly forced myself up and picked up the phone to read the message. Stupid fool! I should have ignored it and taken the express train to Dreamland, you may be thinking. Yeah I know, but my body is wired to always take the rickshaw to reach there and it’s a habit to reply messages promptly if I know there’s one.
It’s a message from D and he asked if I’m asleep, one of those redundant questions I could have ignored and let silence be the answer. However, being an honest guy, I replied ‘Now I’m not. Y?’ though that answer was just a teeny weeny bit dishonest since I was on my way but not yet there when his message came in.
His next message was ‘call me?’ The question mark was what did me in. It sounded like a plea. As if he’s deep in crisis up to his permed hair. Maybe he finally gotten his head stuck in the toilet bowl or his hair caught in the fan from goodness what he always does. Add on to the fact that we rarely communicate through phone calls, I honestly thought he needed help.
Wrong interpretation.
When I called him, he was chirpy as ever. Maybe he likes having his head stuck in the toilet bowl.
That, I wouldn’t know. But I did know that I wanted to stick his head in one, wring his neck dry and pluck all his permed feathers when I learned of the purpose of the phone call. All he wanted was to ask me if I’m interested in joining him and Q for a movie marathon on Saturday. My goodness! A call at a quarter to one in the morning for this!
For one, why me? There’s no need to ask such a brilliant guy along when you’re on a date with a girl. It’s unnecessary illumination in the darken world of the cinema. For another, why can’t this wait till a quarter to one in the afternoon? Why did it have to be a quarter to one in the morning?
This morning, when I opened my email, I saw an email from him regarding the same matter. Unrelenting guy.
Tsk.Okay, I admit, I requested for the email so I could cut the call short, save on my free minutes even though I hardly use them and get back on the long journey towards Dreamland. He’s not guilty on this account.
Seriously, when D asks someone out, he’s not holding a lighter to that person’s wallet. He’s holding a bloody flamethrower. One must be armed with dozens of credit cards, thick wads of notes and bags of coins in order to go out with him.
Take the last occasion, karaoke, followed by a twenty plus dollar dinner and a movie. Luckily I took a last minute raincheck on that, or else I would have to apply for membership in the Beggar Sect.
This time, his email mentioned ‘we’ll have a damn cheap dinner’. I’ve got to mention ‘damn cheap’ is relative and I don’t believe we’re moving on the same scale.
Three movies and a ‘damn cheap’ dinner. Hmm. I need to confer with my wallet. D, let me get back to you on it soon. Meanwhile, I may be able to spare enough cash to get you one of those inspirational posters which reads 'Self-Awareness: Sleep's important. Don't bother others on unimportant matters after midnight!'