He somehow managed to get to a point of mentioning about someone possibly getting shot, of which he exclaimed “Touch Wood!“, and proceeded to touch the top of his head.

I have always maintained I can write a book on the actions & quotes throughout my army life, and it continues even when you go back for reservist. Absolutely brilliant.

What for? Cos’ a small bit of my orange cloth was sticking out of my cupboard during stand by area. In fairness, he did recover me when I was 2/3 way through the 30. But then again … ! The army never ceases to amaze me.

On the contary, I know what word to describe myself – utter frustration.

As we brought our field plants (field plants consist of chainsaw, generator, etc) outfield to test to ensure they were all in working order, we happened to brought the handsaw along.

That was when Cpl Lee asked 2 of my friends (in the tonner):

“Hey, we need to bring down the handsaw to test or not ah?”

Cpl Lee tends to spend endless minutes every morning pushing his hair up, such that it stands and I’m not sure who he wishes to impress (?) So when my friend was joking as our CSM had made a previous joke that Beckham’s mohawk hairstyle was not in fashion anymore, and my platoon sgt said we could always shave off his hair. To which Cpl Lee promptly tried to push his hair down! Haha, that really left me and my friend in stitches.

Again just yesterday, another friend was operating the bulldozer trying to level the area when Cpl Lee promptly asked him to stop, and took out a small branch that was in the way. It left my instructor shaking his head as well, baffled as the dozer could easily have cleared the vegetation away – something Cpl Lee “risked” his life to do something the dozer is specifically used for.

This has just been another chronicle of an uneventful week in Cpl Lee’s life.

Now I understand why it has taken the workers this long to construct a court of some sort at the open field downstairs. Having experienced the manual labour required to construct a simple platform for a land rover to park, its hard not to comprehend, the planning, effort and beads of perspiration taken for a construction of a shelter over our heads. Although current workers don’t have to wear SBOs and rather heavy helmets to do the work we do, nor carry 50 kg bags of cement, under the sweltering heat, nothing is simple.

Therefore, the next time you should think about looking down on the foreign or construction worker, look at the shelter above your head and appreciate the effort taken. If not, then maybe you should slap yourself, look in the mirror, and try some manual construction work. Then, you would truly appreciate and like me, feel like saluting those that have toiled to construct our nation.

Our CO came today due to an accident to one of my platoon-mate yesterday, though I’m not at liberty to disclose what happened as its supposed to be a hush-hush incident, what I can say is at the moment the stands aren’t as stable as they were 1 week ago.

Disgusted people wearing our vest slacks through Raffles City, you could tell by some of their disgusted looks. However, I can’t really be bothered about how people perceive us anymore, not when you are in the sweltering heat and all you want is a brief washup in a clean (and not mobile!) toilet. Besides, no one gives a damn whatever we are doing for our nation.

The upside of this though, it means I can stay out everyday (other than the transport fees which we can forget about claiming when in green), go out with the missus more often, actually not book in for almost 3 weeks, and most of all – nothing beats being able to sleep in the comforts of your own home. Seriously even if you were to ask me to do all the hard, manual labour for the remainding one year or so of my army life whilst allowing me to stay out, I wouldn’t mind. Yes, I certainly feel brighter not having to be in camp.

Once again, we’ve taken on a new role for the next two weeks – sun tanning at the Padang. Well, seriously as my CO (commanding officer) puts it (as he spoke to us today), we are construction workers. Yeah, we are the ones to do all the manual labour as my battalion dismantle the stands. We are on a pretty tight schedule as well, with the army half marathon in about 4 weeks, thus for the 2 weeks we are working, we have to work like mondays to saturdays (football nights!)

Our CO came today due to an accident to one of my platoon-mate yesterday, though I’m not at liberty to disclose what happened as its supposed to be a hush-hush incident, what I can say is at the moment the stands aren’t as stable as they were 1 week ago.

Disgusted people wearing our vest slacks through Raffles City, you could tell by some of their disgusted looks. However, I can’t really be bothered about how people perceive us anymore, not when you are in the sweltering heat and all you want is a brief washup in a clean (and not mobile!) toilet. Besides, no one gives a damn whatever we are doing for our nation.

We have Tricon sponsoring our meals everyday, leaving the Padang guards closed to being super sick having eaten it for the past 2 months (well about once every three days). However, I foresee myself growing sick of it too eventually and probably abstaining from KFC/Pizza Hut for the subsequent 2 to 3 months after.

The upside of this though, it means I can stay out everyday (other than the transport fees which we can forget about claiming when in green), go out with the missus more often, actually not book in for almost 3 weeks, and most of all – nothing beats being able to sleep in the comforts of your own home. Seriously even if you were to ask me to do all the hard, manual labour for the remainding one year or so of my army life whilst allowing me to stay out, I wouldn’t mind. Yes, I certainly feel brighter not having to be in camp.

My auntie upon seeing me today … (thinking she was going to commend on my red lobster imitation):

“How come some parts of your face red and the rest not red?”

Myself “…”

Whilst walking with Pte Lee today, got reminded of something he wasn’t really proud of when we 1st went back to camp from our course. We had a parade at that time so he wanted to shave his sideburns, but somehow or rather he shaved it all away right up to his forehead level! Haha the whole platoon were laughing their head off at that time and eventually he managed to salvage the situation after the parade by going to shave the rest out evenly.

Isit strange seeing a guy in uniform holding a stalk of sunflower walking through the City Link mall? Seems to be, apparently from some weird stares I got and as Pte Lee was saying, 2 gals who passed by us were mentioning something about “Sunflowers”. Wouldn’t happen in Europe would it?

Whilst walking with Pte Lee today, got reminded of something he wasn’t really proud of when we 1st went back to camp from our course. We had a parade at that time so he wanted to shave his sideburns, but somehow or rather he shaved it all away right up to his forehead level! Haha the whole platoon were laughing their head off at that time and eventually he managed to salvage the situation after the parade by going to shave the rest out evenly.

Isit strange seeing a guy in uniform holding a stalk of sunflower walking through the City Link mall? Seems to be, apparently from some weird stares I got and as Pte Lee was saying, 2 gals who passed by us were mentioning something about “Sunflowers”. Wouldn’t happen in Europe would it?

I was manning the underpass leading up to the Esplanade and giving directions and it got pretty hectic as it got closer, at one point of time I was literally surrounded by people asking for information. Well, fortunately for most who were asking questions about where to go to see this and that, I was probably one of the few who knew what happened, at what time, and at where. It was also probably because I was busy answering and slowly explaining to them where to see what, that I ended up being surrounded! Of course, I got the ludicrous questions like “Where is the Padang” not once but thrice. Pte Khor, you are not alone.

As the audience had mostly settled in, I was hoping to get the go-ahead from my officer to leave the area, for people were exiting from the underpass at a massive rate. As the sun set, more and more people set on the Esplanade and Marina Square.

There were throngs of people in the Esplanade, so much so that they had to setup barriers to seperate people going in and out and the shops at the Esplanade would definitely never see another night of such thriving business.

Helping out ensure that people did not try to illegally cross Raffles Avenue proved to be a headache, some clowns didn’t heed our advice at all and persisted in crossing, moving further down before jumping over the barricades and orange netting. Some kids even went as far as lying on the road to take photos. I mean, its not as if I want to stop people from jaywalking, but if anyone were to get hurt, who would have to heed responsibility? That’s us of course.

It got to a point where our officer decided to call us all away from the barricades. He then told the police there, “No one is allowed to cross the road [unless at the traffic lights], you are welcome to arrest anyone who flouts the rule.” The police sure then put his words to action, and when someone didn’t stop when asked to do so, one of the policeman took his baton out and wrestled the guy to the floor. Splendid.

What is undeniable at the end of the day is that Singaporeans are definitely still fervant about the National Day Parade, and for every one Singaporean that doesn’t show an interest, there is another that is all ready to lap up the party, and for every one person who wants to sell their ticket, there are ten more ready to snap them up.

Then, she started asking me questions like my name and stuff. I tried increasing my pace but she trailed us all the way to the entrance of City Hall. There, she probably revealed her true motive – asking if we would be around on National Day itself. Figuring she wanted to smuggle her way in or something during NDP itself, I told her I would be doing guard duty back in camp (which was true at that point of time) and left it at that thinking that would be the end of it. Then, she started asking if it would be the last time she was going to see us. Having told her it probably would, she asked me for my number and when I refused to give it to her, she was like “do you miss me already”.

Alright, it was getting freaky, I had deduced she was either a christian preacher or someone who just wanted to smuggle in on National Day itself. What she said bordered on lunacy and I wasn’t going to hang around much. Despite my “reputation” as an Auntie Killer, this was like too much to stomach. Damn pretty pathetic ain’t it, no pretty gal comes up to me asking for my number and instead I get a zany lady coming up.

My weekend got burnt for the 2nd week in a row, due to some people who I don’t wish to elaborate on, if not it might antagonize me even more. All I can say was that it pissed me off so much that I did something you could classify as insubordination.

There are a few interesting guys in my platoon I would like to share about. Of course, as many others, we have christened them with unique names.

Mr. Chou Chou (a.k.a Mr. Smelly)

For starters, he does resemble a pig (alright I’m being a little mean here but his behaviour certainly reminds me of one). He was thus dubbed chou chou by one of my platoon-mates for a real simple reason. Guess how he distinguishes his clothings from the rest on the rack outside? (I do so by my hanger). No, Mr. Chou Chou does so with the unconventional method of sniffing his clothes out. Yep, you heard it right, he sniffs through all the clothes to identify his distinct body odour.

Something hilarious about him that isn’t exactly all that smelly, we were doing guard duty and he happened to be on sentry duty. Myself and 2 other friends were on desk duty. The gate was closed and a tonner happened to approach so Mr. Chou Chou was heard over the TRS …

“Gate … Gate … Gate”

Hahaha I seriously had no idea why he was saying that as if a bomb truck was approaching but it certainly had us in stitches. Another time and the same thing happened. Finally, a 3rd time and we heard an encoded message which we deciphered and deduced it should have been “Gate … Gate … Gate”

However, all we heard was actually:

“zzzz … zzzz … zzzz” (muffled reception)

Mr. Guai Guai (a.k.a Mr. Think-Out-Of-The-Box a.k.a Mr. Lazy)

Well, let me declare that he is nowhere lazy, but simply cos’ his initials read L Z Y so one of my friends decided to dub him that. He is the Pte Lee I’ve mentioned before, and the infamous one who volunteered for the stripsearch.

Haha, the thing is that sometimes he takes double time to think and he himself said that he could think out of the box. One of the examples he quoted us? That if we took one piece from the mastermind box, he could determine what colour it was, of which he picked 4 colours and said it was one of the four. Really out of the box thinking.

That is only the saturday bit of doing the national day parade, I play the reserve for the Padang guards, so whenever someone decides he wants to have a longer weekend, he takes a MC and my sunday sleep gets disrupted to rush down to the Padang. Having done ticketing calls and more, we also help out in packing and loading/unloading of funpacks up into containers. Sounds easy? Try carrying 10 funpacks at one go (approx. 30kg) and then up the container. Still pretty simple it seems, how about getting about 20 men to load up 10,000 or so packs a day.

Why pay people to pack and do the dirty work when we have NSF to do the job as cheap labour. Yeah fine, but to work us about 12 hours a day doing this kinda work? Precisely why I say its thankless because no one appreciates the work we put in. Kinda explains why you find some of the stuff in your funpack smashed. Yeah, go complain whatsoever, we don’t really give a damn anymore.

However, we might be CHEAP labour, but when you get primary kids to come do some work, that really is called FREE labour. Yes, apparently the NEWater labels had some error so they got some primary school kids to come over and change the labels. Seeing the small fragile boys drag a bag of NEWater really left me pondering, how did their parents actually agree to signing the consent form to get them to help out? Doing their bit for the nation? Oh, spare me that crap.

Do you know why we will always get complaints from the public? Simply cos’ we are following orders, and this stems from the officers at the top themselves never coming down to the ground, so they never know what goes on exactly.

Note on Pte Khor
Pte Khor must really like me, well according to his partner. Apparently, Pte Khor is always raving about how good I am, and I guess since he didn’t sneeze, cough and fart in my face (as he does to his current partner), I’m very much appreciated … I guess.

Full of Shit
Everyone around seems to be loaded with shit recently – literally. Enroute to the Padang on sunday morning in the MRT, I was about to disembark with everyone @ City Hall when someone had left a memento before he left, he or she had farted! How nice then, when we were playing cards in one of the rooms whilst waiting to leave, Pte Khor also joined in and let ripped with a gas bomb of his own. It was really a stinker and despite opening the windows the smell still lingered.

It must be precisely because of people like Pte Khor who leave stinkers around. Whilst taking a bus to Bishan, some boys also left their mark with their own bombs. What isit these days with all that additional pollution?

Road Measurements
Whilst staying over to close the roads in the wee hours of Saturday morning, one of my platoon mates decided it was safe to jaywalk across the junction to 7-Eleven. Except, he didn’t expect to run straight into a sergeant major from another company, who gave him 2 options – either he would have reported him to our sergeant major, or he went back to where he came from, and crossed the junction properly via the traffic crossing. So there he was, going one round around the junction, to an amazement of a tourist nearby, probably thinking soldiers have a new job – taking road measurements.

Apparently, the duty times had changed from 12 – 12 and my friend who was supposed to report at 11 am didn’t turn up and 2 hours of incessant calling turned up fruitless. He did call eventually about 5 hours later, overslept and in a blur about what to do, so I told him the best option was to report sick and to claim he had taken medicine. I know not the best advice to give, but at least it saved his skin.

I had mentioned slightly under a month back that I hoped I would never see Pte Khor again, (though my friends did jokingly mention he did ask after me) and I really did think I would never see him again, but alas as fate would have it, I would run into him again … and guess what was the first thing he said to me as I stumbled into the room …

“Hey friend! Wah how come you come back liao … hey join my detail leh …”

Myself – stunned in momentary silence, trying to compose myself …

“Erm no thanks … “

Then as with little warning he was in there as I entered, I left the room abruptly, preferring to hide in the next room. Its not like I’m trying to be mean or what, but as you should know from my previous entries, I just can’t stand him, and some of his antics hasn’t exactly pandered him to everyone around him.

Apparently one night he decided to take a nap on the grandstands and his partner left him there, and called the other 2 guards to have a laugh at him. He intelligently dropped his mobile whilst napping, and suddenly back at the ops room, unwittingly confessed to his crime in front of the BOS (1st sergeant on duty with the group)

“Alamak I lost my handphone, must be dropped while I was sleeping”

Spilt right in front of the 1SG no less, he escaped with a chiding for dozing on the job, and subsequently returned to pick up his mobile.

The duty wasn’t as frustrating as it was with Pte Khor, and went by without event, though as we left City Hall, his 3 friends stood by and watched as we were coming out … to see Pte Khor carrying the rubbish bag, ensuring the security guard didn’t see him, before dumping the rubbish into the Supreme Court dump. It certainly gives a whole new meaning to taking the mickey.