Monday, November 01, 2004
1. Happy Birthday, Doraemon. We'll definitely ensure you have a soggily unforgettable event.
2. Listening to ABBA. ABBA rocks! (I mean, they're also a rock-and-roll group . . . okay, that's lame . . .)
* * *
Pride Camp is held at the Coasta Sands Resort at East Coast Park. We have half a day off in the morning for burning our Saturday for live-firing in September; the other half will take place on Wednesday. A half-morning off-in-lieu is pretty useless, as you can't do much. Think of it: you wake up, wash up, have your breakfast, and then consider the time you have to take to travel to your destination; you are merely left with one or two hours to enjoy and do whatever you want.
I decide to cycle to the resort, although I live further away than before. I don't really like the idea of having to walk quite a distance into the resort from the bus stop, the nearest being outside Mandarin Gardens. It means having to take an MRT to Bedok, thereafter hopping onto a bus to get to Marine Parade Road. Besides, if I cycle there I can go cycling with the guys if they want to, without having to pay for anything.
It can be frightening leaving Lau Kel Wei to look for a place on his own. He hasn't been to a lot of places, so he's not familiar with the routes and all that. There is the danger of him getting lost somewhere, and he can't even identify his location, which makes it difficult for us to pinpoint him too. Instructions on travelling have to made clear to him as well, which means phrasing our sentences in such a way that he does not misinterpret it for something else. This afternoon, he is at the McDonald's at East Coast Park, looking for the directions to get to the chalet. He calls us. I am given the phone to pass directions. I tell him, walk in the direction of Changi Airport. But DON'T walk all the way to Changi Airport. The chalet consists of red-coloured buildings. I offer him a landmark: the huge pond opposite VJC.
Time passes. Still, he isn't here. It begins to pour. I call him. He's with Ang. They are seeking shelter. Which shelter, they don't know. They can't identify any nearby landmark. We decide to organise a search party to get them. Not knowing whether they are on the side of the resort towards the UDMC Seafood Centre or the McDonald's, four of set off, two to tackle each direction. I decide to call him again to ask which barbecue pit he is near. He tells us he is inside the resort compound. Thank goodness. We walk towards the clubhouse, and there he is, with Ang and Shi Hao, walking towards us.
Sometimes, being in the military, you can't even escape from it in civilian life. In order to count strength, PS David has to resort to using "fall in platoon level", while pronouncing "pra-toon" instead of "pla-toon" to make it less obvious, though ineffectively.
The first part of the day is spent cooking up ideas for our WITs. We're pretty burnt out after that brain-writing session last week, where we threw up most of our ideas on the spot, but then all that we thought up were eventually thrown out. Lieutenant James tells us that out of 160, only three have been accepted. Now, that's bad.
Not wanting to cramp up inside the chalet's single bedroom, Alvin, Zhiwei, BH and myself head to the club house. We're going to eat, drink and think up of ideas. Yet, after two hours or so, we've only come up with four ideas, which are promptly rejected when we return back to the chalet and let PS Goh read them.
Before the barbecue, we go cycling. Quite a lot of things have changed, I realise. The old ticketing entrance next to the Seafood Centre has been demolished. So has the fencing surrounding the lagoon. In fact, pavements have been built about the circumference of the lagoon. The cycling track takes on a new direction: a more direct route to the food centre, rather than taking a longer way around the knoll, following the service road.
We cycle to the jetty. Some of the guys decide to take off their shirts, either because they are sweating and feeling hot from the humid though stormy weather, or they realise their shirts are getting dirtied by the water that is shot up from the revolutions of the tyres against the road. My bicycle happens to be the only one that has a carried - the basket behind my seat - so they put their clothing inside. Still, they get wet, because water can permeate through the holes in my basket, and the basket is even closer to the rear of the wheel.
The benefits, however, is that you get spared from being collided into, when the guys decide to ride dangerously and scare one another by swerving or breaking with warning. Their clothes are at stake if your bicycle collapses; they will tumble out and hit the floor, and then you'll hear their owners gasp with stifled horror, while you pick yourself up, bloodied.
The evening is spent eating. The food for the barbeque is provided by the courtesy of SFI. Well done. I hardly eat much - I think my dinner really consists of cuttlefish balls, satay, a piece of curry chicken, two curry potatoes and two slices of baguette.
Many people get carried away to the sea to get dumped. JJ, Ronald, Sergeant Joel, Sergeant Dexter - the list goes on. Every time a party of guys lift the victim, there will be a procession trailing behind. You know there's a photograph of Lee Kuan Yew, wearing a garland around his neck, being lifted up on voters' shoulders as he celebrates his party's first landslide victory. Well, think of something like that, but the victim is not sitting on the shoulder of the carriers. Rather, he is carried by the arms and legs. Yet, the trail of "supporters" following behind retains the same enthusiasm.
At night we celebrate the birthdays of those who have been born in October and November. The two cakes exist no more within minutes, as a food fight erupts, beginning with Doraemon splashing one whole cake onto Guo Yong's face; Guo Yong retaliates with the other cake. The fight soon pulls in other battle players, including the 2IC, PS David, Garfield aka CSM. It's pathetically funny, as the battle players run in and out of the chalet, through the back and front - it's practically a stage of reality drama, or rather, comedy, as we the audience stand on the pavement outside the chalet watching all that is unfolding. New people get provoked to join in the fight, with just a simple splash of cake onto the face in his unknowing. The grand finale: Doraemon gets lifted up and processed to the sea, where he is soaked in "holy water" like all those before him.
* * *
Leg cramp from fast cycling all the way from Coasta Sands to Aljunied. Think of the distance between the halfway-point of Kembangan and Bedok MRT Stations to the Aljunied MRT Station. Now that's how far I cycled. Perpendicularly, it’s the distance from the Tanjong Katong flyover all the way to the Shop and Save near Paya Lebar MRT.
¶ 11/01/2004 11:51:00 pm 2. Listening to ABBA. ABBA rocks! (I mean, they're also a rock-and-roll group . . . okay, that's lame . . .)
* * *
Pride Camp is held at the Coasta Sands Resort at East Coast Park. We have half a day off in the morning for burning our Saturday for live-firing in September; the other half will take place on Wednesday. A half-morning off-in-lieu is pretty useless, as you can't do much. Think of it: you wake up, wash up, have your breakfast, and then consider the time you have to take to travel to your destination; you are merely left with one or two hours to enjoy and do whatever you want.
I decide to cycle to the resort, although I live further away than before. I don't really like the idea of having to walk quite a distance into the resort from the bus stop, the nearest being outside Mandarin Gardens. It means having to take an MRT to Bedok, thereafter hopping onto a bus to get to Marine Parade Road. Besides, if I cycle there I can go cycling with the guys if they want to, without having to pay for anything.
It can be frightening leaving Lau Kel Wei to look for a place on his own. He hasn't been to a lot of places, so he's not familiar with the routes and all that. There is the danger of him getting lost somewhere, and he can't even identify his location, which makes it difficult for us to pinpoint him too. Instructions on travelling have to made clear to him as well, which means phrasing our sentences in such a way that he does not misinterpret it for something else. This afternoon, he is at the McDonald's at East Coast Park, looking for the directions to get to the chalet. He calls us. I am given the phone to pass directions. I tell him, walk in the direction of Changi Airport. But DON'T walk all the way to Changi Airport. The chalet consists of red-coloured buildings. I offer him a landmark: the huge pond opposite VJC.
Time passes. Still, he isn't here. It begins to pour. I call him. He's with Ang. They are seeking shelter. Which shelter, they don't know. They can't identify any nearby landmark. We decide to organise a search party to get them. Not knowing whether they are on the side of the resort towards the UDMC Seafood Centre or the McDonald's, four of set off, two to tackle each direction. I decide to call him again to ask which barbecue pit he is near. He tells us he is inside the resort compound. Thank goodness. We walk towards the clubhouse, and there he is, with Ang and Shi Hao, walking towards us.
Sometimes, being in the military, you can't even escape from it in civilian life. In order to count strength, PS David has to resort to using "fall in platoon level", while pronouncing "pra-toon" instead of "pla-toon" to make it less obvious, though ineffectively.
The first part of the day is spent cooking up ideas for our WITs. We're pretty burnt out after that brain-writing session last week, where we threw up most of our ideas on the spot, but then all that we thought up were eventually thrown out. Lieutenant James tells us that out of 160, only three have been accepted. Now, that's bad.
Not wanting to cramp up inside the chalet's single bedroom, Alvin, Zhiwei, BH and myself head to the club house. We're going to eat, drink and think up of ideas. Yet, after two hours or so, we've only come up with four ideas, which are promptly rejected when we return back to the chalet and let PS Goh read them.
Before the barbecue, we go cycling. Quite a lot of things have changed, I realise. The old ticketing entrance next to the Seafood Centre has been demolished. So has the fencing surrounding the lagoon. In fact, pavements have been built about the circumference of the lagoon. The cycling track takes on a new direction: a more direct route to the food centre, rather than taking a longer way around the knoll, following the service road.
We cycle to the jetty. Some of the guys decide to take off their shirts, either because they are sweating and feeling hot from the humid though stormy weather, or they realise their shirts are getting dirtied by the water that is shot up from the revolutions of the tyres against the road. My bicycle happens to be the only one that has a carried - the basket behind my seat - so they put their clothing inside. Still, they get wet, because water can permeate through the holes in my basket, and the basket is even closer to the rear of the wheel.
The benefits, however, is that you get spared from being collided into, when the guys decide to ride dangerously and scare one another by swerving or breaking with warning. Their clothes are at stake if your bicycle collapses; they will tumble out and hit the floor, and then you'll hear their owners gasp with stifled horror, while you pick yourself up, bloodied.
The evening is spent eating. The food for the barbeque is provided by the courtesy of SFI. Well done. I hardly eat much - I think my dinner really consists of cuttlefish balls, satay, a piece of curry chicken, two curry potatoes and two slices of baguette.
Many people get carried away to the sea to get dumped. JJ, Ronald, Sergeant Joel, Sergeant Dexter - the list goes on. Every time a party of guys lift the victim, there will be a procession trailing behind. You know there's a photograph of Lee Kuan Yew, wearing a garland around his neck, being lifted up on voters' shoulders as he celebrates his party's first landslide victory. Well, think of something like that, but the victim is not sitting on the shoulder of the carriers. Rather, he is carried by the arms and legs. Yet, the trail of "supporters" following behind retains the same enthusiasm.
At night we celebrate the birthdays of those who have been born in October and November. The two cakes exist no more within minutes, as a food fight erupts, beginning with Doraemon splashing one whole cake onto Guo Yong's face; Guo Yong retaliates with the other cake. The fight soon pulls in other battle players, including the 2IC, PS David, Garfield aka CSM. It's pathetically funny, as the battle players run in and out of the chalet, through the back and front - it's practically a stage of reality drama, or rather, comedy, as we the audience stand on the pavement outside the chalet watching all that is unfolding. New people get provoked to join in the fight, with just a simple splash of cake onto the face in his unknowing. The grand finale: Doraemon gets lifted up and processed to the sea, where he is soaked in "holy water" like all those before him.
* * *
Leg cramp from fast cycling all the way from Coasta Sands to Aljunied. Think of the distance between the halfway-point of Kembangan and Bedok MRT Stations to the Aljunied MRT Station. Now that's how far I cycled. Perpendicularly, it’s the distance from the Tanjong Katong flyover all the way to the Shop and Save near Paya Lebar MRT.
