Sawasdee Sedap!

I had this for dinner after yoga one Friday night some weeks ago. It's minced pork fried with basil and served with hot rice and an egg. A relatively simple dish that gets me happy. It's just damn good. And I toss on the prik-ki-niu (chilli padi) for the kick that hits the throat like a raging inferno. If you haven't heard me mention Senat Thai Food before, well you have to make your way to Maxwell Hawker Centre and look for the stall nearest the loo facing the Farfield Church. The man and woman who run the stall are Thai and pointing at the pictures helps. They are also famous for their Tom Yum and fried chicken wings. And there's a photo of the couple with President Nathan (erh?). The food is great and so are the prices. Go.

Hasn't It Been A Month Since CNY?

Goodness. It has almost. I haven't really talked about what I did on this auspicious occasion. The holiday fell on a Monday and Tuesday so it became the third long weekend in 2 months (Christmas and New Year's were great long holidays too). I did little that weekend apart from watching a lot of TV. The following weekend the bunch of us trotted off to Joo Seng where Jo was going to prepare her once-a-year creation, lup mei fan. This Cantonese dish is essentially claypot rice with waxed duck meat and sausages. Yum yum yum it was. I think I ate three bowls of it.

She threw the event for her family and friends so there were always people moving in and out. There was the cacophony of conversation, card playing and clashing of mahjong tiles together with sounds of the TV to add to the festive occasion. The pictures don't quite do justice.

The next day I went to my boss' boss place for lunch. She insisted on serving her infamous chicken curry and I had somehow volunteered my mum's mutton curry some time ago. So there was quite a bit of curry at the party. Just a small group in a super apartment in a snazzy Bukit Timah condo. Aspirational.

What Us Reservist Guys Talked About Today

1. How the boots of our platoon IC weren't kiwi-ed. We were warned the evening before to be all prepped and ready with nice uniforms and black boots for the Change of Command ceremony this morning. We were disappointed at the lack of an example he was setting. Yeah right. We took the mickey out of him anyway.

2. How OCBC hid 11% of their profit dive in a $50 million tax writeoff. Hmm, sneaky bastards eh. So the headline read 30% lower profits but reading the finely printed article revealed worse news. Hmm. The discussion turned to the GM bailout amount and how we all know some money would end up in corrupt hands. And we asked why weren't the small and medium firms weren't getting handouts. Sad lah.

3. Why an armour-tank officer is now my commanding officer, of a supply battalion. We figured that being garang was no longer paying off and officers needed to slow down in their later years of service (this guy was almost 40). There was innuendo of hentak-kaki-ness and family pressures. Speaking of family, the outgoing guy thanked his "wife and three children" for their support. Nice but they weren't there.

4. Why some names on the list submitted last year weren't on the list to receive new gear today. I got new gear. I had been asking for it during the last 2 ICTs. Hence my tweet about it taking 3 ICTs to happen. The guys who didn't get anything felt left out, betrayed even. I felt like I got a present and told the CQ guy that he made my ICT. Finally, a helmet to call my own.

5. Where the ice came from. We were shown this safety video about heat injuries. It was quite well put together and had short quips from various NSmen at various levels who blurted stuff about what to do and not to do when it came to preventing heat injuries. In a particular scenario, a recruit on a march fainted from heat exhaustion and his buddies and sergeant came to his aid. They undid his shirt and trousers, and poured water over him. And proceeded to stuff packs of ice at his armpits and groin. Yes, groin. (That would wake me up!) Just then some of us asked out loud "Where did the ice come from?". The trainer had no answer. The other funny thing was that the recruit's undies were red. The only red in a sea of green. Hilarious. Was it the director's call?

6. Why it isn't quite worth it getting landed property. One of my bunk mates and I discussed this issue as I perused the classified property listings. He said there were many costs and issues associated with landed property like repairs, taxes and security that one didn't need to handle if one bought a condo unit instead. I tend to agree now. Then he mentioned "Unless you like gardening lah."

7. Why there was nightsnack at book out. There were sugarless donuts and small, dense pineapple cakes. It was weird that we had to choose a confectionary to leave camp (so were the corny orders). Who asked for the food anyway? I took the pineapple cake - it was pretty good. If only there was tea. But point being, why was there so much food going round? I am so gonna put on weight in these two weeks here.

Not So Secret Place

I went there today. This shot from Google Earth is kinda old and today the place has been neatened up. It's a "secret place" but it's been featured in the Straits Times and the article is copied on the DSTA website.

Go search 1 24'07.07"N 103 46' 05.97"E on Google Earth if you wanna get a fix on the location.

A good change from all the exciting things I've been doing back in camp.

Not So Exciting This Time Around

I wonder how many guys are disappointed with reservist training. Someone said today "maybe they are training our patience". That was a good one. Admittedly, it hasn't really been too exciting back in camp. We had two lectures on semi-relevant stuff, some repeats from 2 ICTs ago. The rest of the time we didn't really do very much. Management hasn't really been very forthcoming with information as well, so we're left to our own devices in our bunks.

This reminds of the movie Flight Of The Phoenix - one guy started walking off into the desert when he knew there was no hope of being saved anyway. His excuse for running off was "All a man needs in this life is someone to love. If you can't give him that, give him something to hope for. If you can't give him that... give him something to do."

That's what I need - something to do.

I know this isn't very encouraging for non-NS-attendees. But there are other folks who seemingly have things to do, just not my bunch of guys. So the defence of the nation is not at stake.

Someone else said "Relax lah, this is the reservist of the old days, when it was a 2 week holiday". Gentlemen, is this your dream ICT too?

The food hasn't been spectacular either. Considering the $ per head MINDEF is paying Singapore Food Industries, we aren't sure the economics work in the Ministry's favour. I didn't get any vege today because the vege wasn't ready when I was in the queue. Like WTF.

At about 5pm, the CSM came to me and assigned me something new to do tomorrow. I am so happy I wouldn't be bored out of my mind. But I got to get into camp half hour earlier. There's always a catch eh.

www.twitter.com/gurms

My tweets today:

0857hrs - The day starts out with being sent to the wrong waiting area. After attendance we wait some more.

1228hrs - My unit wants to be the "pillar of confidence" for the army.

1250hrs - There's a guy here at reservist who went to prison for manslaughter. Like WTF.

1504hrs - We're watching a tipper truck almost slide into a ditch at construction site next to the army camp

2123 hrs - At home. Gotta major headache from not drinking enuff water like I do when in the office. Tmrw there will be more adventures in uniform.

Join the fun.

Last Week And This Week

Alrighty then. Bad boy I am. Have not posted a thing for a week plus. Are you anxious to know what's been going on, my fateful reader-followers? Yes all 7 of you.

Haha. Last week I was mucho busy at work. There was an enewsletter to prepare for, do 2 web reports as well as redo a strategy doc for the livelihood and future of my project. Yikes. It was a pretty intense week and I missed one yoga lesson.

Oh yes, I was also trying to book flights and hotel rooms for a trip to KL for 9 people. Insane man. Especially with 3 sets of friends leaving at different times. We're eventually flying Tiger, Malaysian and Air Asia across the border. An interesting blessing came out of not being able to book return flights. Having encountered a communication error in the final transaction page on one day and hence not having confirmed any bookings on one night allowed me to make the same booking at more than 50% the next night (or two nights later) when the airline ran promo fares. Woof. But our hotel price went up (curses!) so we got a next best one (bestness!). Oh, we're going up for a friend's wedding.

Back to my last Friday, it was madness. The boss' boss tore apart the strategy deck with little mercy. I just nodded my head but argued when required. I'm not there to see what happens there this week because...

I AM ON RESERVIST TRAINING!

Yes, in green I am and back in glasses too. I'll only be back in the office when March comes around and heaven knows what happens in 2 weeks. I am hoping to have an early book out tomorrow so that I can make yoga.

The last time I was two weeks away from any work was in National Service when I got the chicky pox. It was a casual, spotted 10 days away from serving the nation when lo and behold, I came back to find my job had been changed! I was given a more stressful appointment accounting for ammunition. Fark I went. But that was 1994. I hope this doesn't repeat itself.

This is only my third in-camp training. They called me back real late, the first time was I was a fat 30. What a waste of all that time not racking up the 7 high-key and 3 low-key trainings. Sigh. Anyway, it's interesting meeting all these other guys who don't really want to be there too.

I hope to be able to blog more about the army life in the next few days.

Signs, Sometimes We Need One. Or Several.

These 12 minutes 12 seconds will change your life. Maybe. It's just nice. Watch.

Pick Your Favourite Lampost

Apparently I have shot quite a few. I like the funny purple one with the tree. A good jux of natural and artificial. You like any? I do installations with a negotiable fee.

28. The Nightmare Scenario

Synopsis - Lucy has a bad dream and wakes up in a panic. Just then, the monsters in her dream break through the windows and attack her. She screams, only to wake up, once more. A dream in a dream, or had it ended?

I have had one of those, a dream in a dream. I can't quite remember what either dream was about.

This chapter makes one ponder about the truth of reality. Are we dreaming now? Have we woken up? Did we ever really wake up? 99.99% of us probably go through life as a sequence of consequential or planned events. We don't think about what else could be happening around us or to us or whether we were really in control. Deep questions, perhaps too soon.

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