I have officially completed my very last Guard Duty that I will have to do ever this morning and I am finally free from having to do six hour long duties!
I will start off by saying this cycle was such a huge improvement over the last cycle,
1. Our manpower was healthy. So everyone had on average 60 hours of Guard Duty that they had to do in total for the entire cycle, I had about 54 hours and my friend, who was super lucky, only had 48 hours because of the way the schedule had been planned, that had indirectly been in our favor. The Sergeant who planned it didn't specifically plan them according to each individual, he had simply planned 8 different schedules and those 8 different schedules were then assigned to the 8 of us randomly.
2. Our Commanders were competent and were able to negotiate for better duty arrangements for us. Each of us had originally been required to do another 6-12 hours worth of duties each, so I am very thankful that the last Commanders from my last cycle didn't come back for this cycle because they were too soft and ended up becoming completely useless.
3. The duty schedule was amazing, I pretty much had a full day off every 2 days and my duty timings were always either in the Morning or Afternoon, majority of it was in the morning, which meant that my body clock didn't get fucked from having to stay wake at odd hours in the night and morning.
I have mainly just been getting up at 3.45am and going to sleep at like 8.30pm a lot the past 2-3 weeks, but I appreciate the consistency and it's so much better than being given the graveyard shift.
The graveyard shift is great on paper because the weather is generally cooler at night and the camp is also pretty much dead during that timing, so we will usually have more freedom to openly do things that we usually can't do, like using our phones or eating at the emplacement, but the main problem I had when I had to do the graveyard shift in the earlier cycles was the struggle to get any sort of shut eye in the day time to prepare myself for it, I would usually end up not getting any sort of shut eye because the harder I try to get myself to fall asleep, the harder it actually is to fall asleep, and it gets worst when I am constantly looking at the time and telling myself I need to fall asleep because I only have "X" amount of hours left before I need to get up, so I am very grateful I didn't get any midnight shift this time around.
4. The new non air-conditioned Sentry emplacement has got to be one of the best changes during this whole cycle, it was such a welcomed change and it is such a pity this was only introduced during my very last cycle. because I could have really used it during my last cycle when all my Guard Duty was in the non-airconditioned Sentry emplacement!
I didn't have to worry about potentially being paired with some weirdo active soldier, I didn't have to be on alert, which meant getting up from my seat and holding my gun, whenever a car was driving into the airbase, I could use my phone much more comfortably, so I was just watching Netflix and YouTube when I am not reading my Kindle, in broad daylight, when all the army personnel were booking in and the base was at it's most busy. I was also able to pee without having to call for a toilet replacement, it wasn't ideal to pee in a dirty bottle, but this was not something I could have done previously.
The Mazda 2 I ended up renting was also another huge improvement this cycle, it's such a far cry from the Picanto I used to drive, so driving has been a breeze and I will miss that car when I return it to the workshop on Thursday. I always get so tempted to want to get a car of my own at the end of my Reservist, I miss having a car to drive because the family car was gifted to my brother after he moved out and I stopped having the chance to be able to brush up on my driving every once in a while when I wanted to.
Overall, this has been a fantastic last cycle, my only complaint right now is that I have yet to receive my Make-Up pay, only my service pay has shown up in my bank account. I have called the NS Hotline to ask and they think my company's accountant might have messed up, my accountant did tell me it was her first time submitting the NS Make Up Pay Claim, so I can't say I am surprised with this potential screw up. She actually told me SAF will look at our CPF contributions and pay us based on that after she did a bit of research on how to submit the claims, so she technically didn't submit anything and I am hoping it's just a matter of time before the amount comes in.
Also! The temptation to get a Pink iPhone 15 has fallen over me, I blogged about how it's not a good financial decision and how it's a pointless change to go from the iPhone 14 Pro to the iPhone 15 Pro, but I just have the itch to get a new tech and I think it's also because I had been waiting for the iPhone 15 Pro to come out for months now, I mean that's the whole reason why I didn't get a new case for my current iPhone 14 Pro sooner, because I kept telling myself it was pointless to get one if I was going to change to the iPhone 15 Pro soon. There really is nothing appealing about the new iPhone except for the USB-C port, and only the iPhone 15 Pro has USB-C 3.0, the iPhone 15 only has USB-C 2.0, which I don't understand why Apple didn't just introduced USB-C 3.0 to all the models, well I do, because Money. Also, if I were to go from the iPhone 14 Pro to the pink iPhone, it will be the regular iPhone 15, not the Pro, which will be a bit of a downgrade because I will be losing the 120hz refresh rate screen and I guess 1 back camera. I really don't need to get the new iPhone, I should just wait for the Pixel 8 and see how that goes.
Speaking of phone case, I really like the new leather case I had just gotten for my iPhone 14 Pro, I really wanted to get a leather case ever since I saw my friend using one for his iPhone, it just feels so soft and supple, so I got one, the leather smell is also quite nice, it's not an official Apple one because the available color they had were ugly, it's also a pity Apple has also decided to discontinue the leather case for the iPhone 15, but huge win for the bulls I guess. The one I got is from a brand called Nomad on Shopee, it's like $70, and I also found out that there is another brand called Bellroy that also does leather cases, which I can consider if I switch to the Pixel 8 next month or the Samsung S24 Ultra next year.
I also just spend more money on Perfume Decants. I think it's only going to be matter of time before I start shelling out $300 - $400 on a full bottle of perfume from one of those high end perfume brands like Tom Ford or Parfum De Marley, I am just waiting to find that scent that will really captivate me enough and make me bite that bullet. Right now, the scent I want to get is Vanilla Mod by Ariana Grande, it's not a niche fragrance, but it's really nice, I'm just waiting for the only Shopee Seller who sells the full bottle to come back from her vacation so I can actually buy it because non of the physical stores in Singapore sells it.
Song(s) of the Moment -
New Dance - XG
I wasn't specifically playing this song on purpose, it just kept playing on the radio and I think it will be one that will trigger memories of this10th and final Reservist Cycle when I listen to it again months or even years down the road.
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