10th Cycle - Last Duty forever

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.

10th Cycle - Small Updates and iPhone stuff.

09.04.2023

I was very tempted to upgrade my iPhone 14 Pro to the latest iPhone 15 Pro that was introduced earlier today by Apple. 

With how much leaks that had been happening even before the official announcement, I kinda already knew what to expect, which was mainly the introduction of the USB-C port, but then with everything else being pretty much identical, it is really not worth the "upgrade"? Maybe, if I had still been using my Android, this iPhone 15 buy would make sense, but as of right now, paying $1,600 for a phone that is almost identical to my current one, but with the additional USB-C port, is not a very smart financial decision to make. Sure there are internal spec bumps and it's now made of titanium, but the only thing that I am interested in is the USB-C port, the rest of the upgrades are negligible to me because my current iPhone is already way more powerful than what I need it to be for my day to day use.

I will say I am maybe about knee deep into the Apple ecosystem right now, owning the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, but thankfully, because I am not actually a Mac user, getting myself out of the ecosystem is still going to be easy for me, and after seeing what Apple has to offer, I will be steering clear from MacOS so I don't actually end up fully submerged in their ecosystem. I will be saving my money and just get a new leather case for my iPhone 14 Pro instead.

 

Reservist Cycle wise, there's nothing much to update, I have completed reading the Hunger Games prequel today during my duty, actually completed it during the first 90 minutes, and then I couldn't use my phone because there were a few Military Police who came into the camp today to vehicle spot check with our unit, which was really random, but they were only there till 8.45am, so after that, I was able to go back to using my phone again, which I used to watch Netflix and completed the One Piece Live Action series, it was surprisingly good, I don't follow the manga or anime, and I am not about to start because there are wayyyyy too many episodes (20 seasons totaling 1000 episodes) and chapters (also 1000 chapters) to keep up, but it was a fun series to watch.

Right now, I will need another book to keep me occupied for my remaining 3 duties.

15.9.2023

Third last duty today in camp, the active who was doing the duty with me was an active Sergeant, so that was surprising, but I didn't really have any conversation with him during our 6 hour stint together. I could tell he was really bored, but I really couldn't find any topic to start a conversation for us to kill time together.

I spend majority of the time scrolling Tik-Tok and reading a sample of a novel I might get called The Witching Hour on Kindle, it's quite a big sample, according to Kindle, it will take me 3 hours and 30 minutes to complete it, so we shall see how good that book is and whether I will commit to getting the entire novel, because it is actually part of a Trilogy, so that will be many many hours of reading which will definitely extend beyond my Reservist cycle. 

There are only 2 more rounds of Guard Duty left for me and I will be done with it forever! Hopefully I will feel sentimental about it and then the duties will "feel too short" to be over. 

I have also just Pre-Ordered the iPhone 15 Pro Max in 512GB....

... for potential scalping purposes, 

I thought the stocks will be low because....

1.  The official Apple Pre-Order website was not working at 8.00pm when the Pre-Order was suppose to open, I thought it was due to super high traffic.

2. The official Apple Reseller store on Shopee was accepting the Pre-Order at 8.00pm sharp, but by the time I tried to look at what they had that was available, after my attempts at trying to access the official Apple Pre-Order website site failed, most of the stocks had been wiped out.

....so everything looked like it was pointing towards a low stock count.

Which is why when I could finally access the official apple store, I made my order really quickly without thinking too much and right now, got the iPhone 15 Pro Max, 512GB in Natural Titanium, which I would assume is their flagship color, got to the confirmation page, confirmed the order and I got my delivery date.

When that was done, I went back to the Pre-Order page to see how everything was like, to check if the anything had gone out of stock within that minute that I had spend just speed ordering the iPhone.

No changes.

30 minutes later, I  went back to check and still no difference. it seems like the stock is still quite healthy.

The stocks isn't low. I can't scalp the phone if the stocks ain't low, so I will probably just end up cancelling my Pre-Order tomorrow. The phone is $2,319!I can get a 24" iMac with that money,  plus I have just gotten a new leather case for my iPhone 14 Pro along with another Lighting Cable, so I'm not going to be keeping the new iPhone 15 Pro.

Update : 16.09.2023

Just cancelled the iPhone 15 Pro Max order this morning. I had went to look at the stock on Apple's website for the model and it seems like they do have the quantity required to meet the demand, it's just a matter of how late the consumers will get their phone.

When I had placed my pre-order at 8.30pm last night, which is like maybe a few minutes after their Pre-Order page finally went live, I was given a delivery date between 27th Sept - 2nd Oct, but when I do a pre-order now with the exact specifications, it will only be delivered between 7th Nov - 15th Nov, which is an additional month, it's not really good for scalping if the waiting period is that short compared to what I was expecting, I was hoping it would be like PS5 level of low stock count, whereby the console cannot be bought by regular consumers for years because the scalpers were constantly buying them in bulk, and those scalpers were then selling it for double the price and people were actually paying those ridiculous price just to own one. The PS5 was released in late 2020 and it only got readily available early this year, it took Sony almost 2 years before they could meet the quantity demands of the consumers, but Apple doesn't seem to be having that problem.

I am guessing a lot of people probably aren't actually keen to get the new iPhone 15 as well, that's why the stock count is still relatively healthy, because it is very similar to the iPhone 14 and most of the major updates are pretty incremental changes, design wise, there is also not much changes, it still looks like the iPhone 14, which looked like the iPhone 13, which looked like the iPhone 12, which is really just a rehash of the original iPhone 4.

Apple didn't just lose Steve Jobs, they also lost Jony Ives.

A part of me was also contemplating to just buy it and then keep it, leave it unopened so I could potentially sell it for a lot of money years down the road, but who am I kidding, the moment I get it, I will most likely open it within a few weeks and start using it. The main factor that really pulled me back on the idea of just have my Pre-Order be processed was the fact that I had already gotten a $70 leather case for my current iPhone from Shopee, along with the purchase of an additional lighting cable, if I hadn't gotten those items, I might have gotten myself the iPhone 15 Pro.

Well, good news is I have saved myself from shelling out $2,319.00 for something I do not need at all, so I have decided to go buy another perfume decant from Shopee. I thought my Perfume obsession is slowly dying down, but the fact that I just went to pay $20 to get another 5ml decant of a niche perfume brand called Parfums De Marly is prove that it hasn't. 

Next item I buy will be a full size bottle of one of the niche perfumes, or maybe the Vanilla Mod fragrance by Ariana Grande. I tried the Billie Eilish fragrance as well because it is a Vanilla perfume as well, but  Mod Vanilla is still superior. Eilish 1.0 smells like Vanilla Ice Cream whereas Mod Vanilla really smells like Vanilla bean.

10th Cycle - Day ?? & Peeing in a Bottle

I am about halfway through my Reservist and so far, this cycle has been a huge improvement compared to the last cycle. All my remaining Guard Duties are in the morning, so my body clock is very safe from getting messed up, I just have to readjust it so I actually can wake up at 4am everyday in order to actually get ready to report to camp by 5.45am.

Today, my duty is in the non air-conditioned emplacement and the weather was quite cooling for the entire 6 hours, I didn't feel sticky, I pretty much spend the entire time reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes on my kindle, which is a Hunger Games prequel, and snacking on my almonds, compared to the novel that I had read last cycle; Dune, the current novel is so much easier to read because it is a Young Adult novel. It is also kind of a fitting novel to read for my very last cycle because the original Hunger Games trilogy was what I was reading when I first entered this Airbase back in 2011 as a private, so to end of all National Service duty with the prequel novel really feels like a full circle moment.

During the Guard Duty this morning, I also decided to pee in a bottle instead of getting a Toilet Replacement because I noticed there were empty bottles laying around in the shed, I had wet wipes on hand to clean the bottles before I use them, I figured I would just give it a try and if it works, it's gross but I manage to keep the place piss free, it took a bit of adjusting but I was able to get everything in the bottle and nothing leaked, everything was where it was intended to be.

I would have called the whole process whole a major success had it not been for the fact that the CCTV Room might have caught me doing something suspicious with my fiddling because my walkie talkie immediately sounded and whoever was manning the CCTV had directed a message towards my emplacement, I'm sure they didn't see exactly what I was doing...

The CCTV is directly pointed into the Shed, so I was pushing myself as close to the wall as possible to make sure the camera can't see my bottom portion.

....but it definitely would have looked iffy on the camera. I have done the CCTV emplacement before in the past when I was still active, so I know how much zooming capabilities the cameras have, if they had zoomed it, they would have definitely seen me doing something suspicious. 

I am not sure if the CCTV had directed the message at me or if they had directed the message to the active solider to mess with him, but I was definitely flustered and had to stop my bottle peeing session abruptly, I quickly cleaned up and toss whatever I had introduced to the bottle onto the grass outside the shed, it wasn't great. No one came up to me to ask me about what I was doing when my duty was over, so I would assume it wasn't a big deal and hopefully, they think I was just playing with my phone and had just requested for me to make it less obvious by keeping my head up, hopefully. 

5 more Duties before I am officially done!  I will probably not be pissing in a bottle anymore and will just call the active to do a toilet replacement for the remaining duties that I have.

The great thing about my remaining duties is that they are all morning shifts, so my only sacrifice I have to make is waking up much earlier than usual, and by much earlier I mean around 3.45am - 4.00am, this will give me time to take a bath, have breakfast, give my stomach enough time to contemplate if it needs to take a No.2 after breakfast, and then take a 40 minutes drive to camp after and hope that for the next 6 hours I am stuck there, I don't get a stomachache.

My days off is also very consistent, which is fantastic, I have a full day off after every 2 days of 6 hour duties per day, so I don't get too tired of it, and of course, with the way the emplacement is now, it is so much better, we literally just have to sit in the shed for 6 hours whilst the active soldiers are the ones who will have to walk back and forth to check all the incoming vehicles. 

Update : 

I brought the Peeing in a Bottle stuff up to one of the active soldier that was also in the CCTV room on the day and he told me no one saw anything because apparently, the cameras weren't even pointed at the shed, it was pointing somewhere else.

So hurray to me not being seen known by the active soldiers as that fucking weirdo ICT who was playing with his schlong in the emplacement. 

10th Cycle - Day 4

I was really looking forward to my Guard Duty today in the afternoon because it's in the new location that I had blogged about previously.

So just to illustrate how the shed looks like, it is essentially a little building with an entrance at the back wall and then 3 big openings on the other 3 walls.

Something like this...

No actual pictures because I can't take any photos in camp, but I did find a photo of how it looks like inside from another website....

The interior is exactly like this, but with a Security Trooper who is older and has less fucks to give. 

Anyways, the prospect of being able to just stay in that shed the entire 6 hours and not have to engage in conversation with the active soldier sounded like a dream to me, plus I also knew it was going to rain, so I was very much embracing the fact that I won't be getting all sweaty and sticky inside. 

Since I was going to be replacing my Reservist Buddy who was doing the morning duty, I had asked him how it was like and he said it was "very shiok", which made my already high expectation of that emplacement just skyrocket.

When I finally reported to camp, I drew my weapon and headed over the emplacement to replace him, I then see a broken sandbag in the shed for some reason and the entire floor was just covered in sand, the stool that was in the emplacement was also in a bad condition, it was quite wobbly, so every time I tried to adjust my butt on it, it would shake, the base of the stool is round metal disk, and every time I tried to drag the chair to reposition it, it would just start screeching as the base would scrap against the sandy floor, but other than that, it was all good.

For the first 30 minutes, I decided to take out my Kindle to read the Hunger Games prequel novel, but then got a bit bored because I had literally just started at the initial few chapters are always on the slower side, so I started to play with my phone and scroll Tik-Tok, about 2 hours into the duty, the sky started to get really dark and I knew that the rain was going to start, which I was looking forward to initially because I was actually getting quite sticky from the heat.

That sense of relief that the rain was going to cool down the weather quickly disappeared when the rain got heavier and the winds got stronger and the whole reason why I have pictures of the shed is just to illustrate how shit it is at keeping heavy rain out because rain can and did come in from all 4 sides because of the fucking wind.

The roof of the shed only extends about 60cm outwards, and there isn't any rain guard for the 3 fucking huge openings of the shed, so whilst it is good at sheltering people from the Sun in the day time and maybe prevent one from getting wet during a small rain, it does fuck all during thunderstorms and downpour, which was what I got...

This is a a POV of me braving the rain, in the shed. I am supposed to be sheltered but look at how fucking wet my umbrella got, this is from the strong winds blowing the rain in.

The umbrella was only enough to keep my upper body dry, my pants were soaked and that heavy rain lasted for nearly a whole hour before it finally calmed the fuck down, since whole floor was covered in sand, all that sand also got wet, I felt like I was at the beach, but in a really bad way, I could have literally built a fucking sandcastle that could hold it's shape because of how wet the sand ended up getting. it was miserable.

Thankfully it was only an hour of  downpour, after that it was just a regular rain/drizzle that lasted pretty much the whole day. It was still drizzling when I was on my way home.

The journey home was also not great, I am very happy to know that this will be my first and last afternoon duty where I will end at 6pm and have to brave the evening peak hour traffic because the jam at highway was INSANE. 

What would have normally been a 35-40 minute drive took me 70 minutes! Google Map was directing me to a different Expressway when I was leaving the camp just now, but because I didn't want to veer away from the familiar path that I had already driven more than a dozen times, I just stuck to it and pretty much ignored Google Map for the entirety of the journey home. It was really bad, and because it was raining, the car's rear window started to fog up, I had to turn the air-con down to the lowest setting so it won't cause any more condensation as the heating coil to clear up the condensation isn't working. It didn't help, I was pretty much blind in the rear-window the entire drive home.

I did manage to get home safely and the good news is I will only have to return back to camp for my next duty on Friday, which means I am off the whole day tomorrow! Might end up going to work if I am feeling hardworking.

On to perfume related news.

My Baccarat Rouge 540 dupe has arrived and I have added it to my collection! 

This is my current perfume collection, it's mainly decants at the moment, if my perfume phase doesn't end anytime soon, I think more full size bottles will start to appear.

The X54 on the right is the dupe, the real Baccarat Rouge 540 decant is in the small black bottle right beside it. I will say that it smells similar but also not really, the real Baccarat Rouge 540 has a slight spicy scent profile that the dupe doesn't, and most importantly, the actual one has that caramelized sugar note that the dupe doesn't have.

What makes the authentic Baccarat Rouge 540 so special was not captured in the dupe, and whilst I do like the smell of the dupe, it feels very one dimensional because the scent profile smells pretty much stays the same throughout the entire wear time and what I like about the perfumes that I have gotten so far is when it mixes with the natural scent of my skin and starts to changes. That being said, I will still be spraying a copious amount of the dupe 540 on myself because I still do like the fragrance of the dupe very much.

Oh, and the 2 Ariana Grande perfume that I got has also arrived and is on display on the left, I even have matching  Pusheen figurines to match the perfume colour aesthetics. Those are the 2 AG fragrance that I think is Unisex, I think the next one I will get will be the Mod Vanilla once I get my next paycheck.... maybe.

10th Cycle - Day 3 and more perfume stuff

 Today has been a day of good revelations. 

My reservist buddy who got charged today for skipping his IPPT was able to talk to the commander who was charging him to confirm if him and I will actually MR after this cycle, and I am happy to announce that he got confirmation we will in fact ROD and that this will really be our last cycle.  So hurray to the last 3 weeks of my NS commitments forever.

Today is also the start of my very first Guard Duty and I have come to find out that the non air-conditioned emplacement will now have a separate area for the sentry to be stationed at, which is in a little shed facing the main gate, that means when cars drive in, they will see us and we will see them head on, I actually think the set up is great because it separates the ICT from the active soldier that we will be doing duty with, which means I won't feel obligated to have to start conversations with them and can just really do my own thing, like read my Kindle. Now I wish I had one or two evening or midnight duties just so I can actually have that private spot to myself to snack on my tidbits and just watch Netflix and Disney+ on my phone, but all my duty timing is in the daytime so I will never be able to experience that at all.

Being alone honestly sounds a lot more enticing then being in the air-conditioned emplacement for me, but of course when the heat from the afternoon sun hits, I might be singing a different tune. 

The duty today was only 3 hours long, so it was pretty quick, the active solider that is suppose to be doing the duty with me switched 2 times over that 3 hour period. When I first went in to replace the sentry who was doing the morning shift, I started conversation with the active who was already in there, assuming he was going to be doing the next 3 hours with me, we made small talk but then about 15 minutes later, another one comes in and replaces him because it turns out he has been doing the morning shift and his replacement was late. I am not someone who has the energy who keep starting small talk with strangers, so when that second guy came in, I honestly had no mood to do small talk and kinda just did my own thing, he also didn't make any effort to start a conversation, so we did our own things quietly, but then about an hour into the shift, a third person comes in and replaces the quiet active soldier, I made eye-contact with the new guy, said a quick Hi and then went back to reading my Kindle. This third active was more proactive in trying to have a conversation, so we ended up having small talk every few minutes very sporadically, and then my 3 hours were up. I also ended up driving him out of the airbase afterwards because he needed a lift out, so I dropped him off at the nearest bus stop, which is still 2km away from the camp. 

Nothing very eventful happened, I went to top up the car petrol after that and filling it to full tank cost me $100, the car was about 25% full when I went into the petrol station, it's so bloody expensive, I might have to end up spending $400 on petrol for the next 2 weeks and I have already spend so much on my perfumes. Literally just spend $90 in camp yesterday to get a Baccarat Rouge 540 dupe. 

This is the Baccarat Rouge 540. I got a 5ml decant from Shopee, it was not bad but getting a 35ml bottle of this from the official website would set me back $260.00.

So I got the dupe from a local perfume maker instead at $90 for a 100ml bottle. I thought I like the smell of the original, that is why I went to get the dupe, but after spraying it again AFTER I made the purchase, I came to realize I don't actually like it as much as I thought, the only reason why I liked it in the first place is because I was comparing it to another 5ml decant I got from the same shopee seller.

The Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille.

I really didn't like it because the clove smell is way too strong and the tobacco note is also very prominent, which should have been obvious because it's literally the first word in the perfume's name, but I was so focused on the Vanille that I overlooked it and that's why I ended up not liking it very much. It does smell alright once the perfume dries down on my skin like 2 hours after the intial spray because that's when the clove and tobacco notes kind of take a back seat and the vanilla starts to come out, but even then, it's still too much for me.

So when I am comparing the Baccarat Rouge 540 to the Tom Ford Tobaccos Vanille, I thought I loved the former, but it turns out I just really really dislike the latter a lot. It's also not cheap, the 5ml decant for the Tobacco Vanille was $28.00.

Sigh, I will be expecting to get the dupe today, it's a bit upsetting honestly, that I made that impulse buy, I could have used that money, topped it up a little more to get the Mod Vanilla instead, which is a scent I know I like, but what is done is done, hopefully the dupe will have some slight differences from the original Baccarat Rouge 540 that will make me really love it as much as I thought I did.

10th Cycle - Day 2

The long weekend has come and gone and today is my 2nd day back for my reservist. 

Everything went by really quickly today, weapons training was done within an hour, after which we were given a 15 minutes break that ended up lasting for 2 hours, during which time we also had our lunch and froze our ass off in the training room because there was air-conditioning with the ceiling fan and wall fan all turned on at the same time.

Right after that excessive break, another training spec came in to run a few more slides with us and it was great, he jokingly asked us what time we wanted him to end and someone said 1.30pm,  it was about 1.15pm when he started, so he opened the slide and started reading what was on the slide word for word, but when he moved on to the next slide, he looked at it for a bit and went...

"Okay, not important, next."

....and then for the next few slides after, it was all mainly just....

"Doesn't concern you guys, next."

"Not important, next"

... and we ended up skipping like 80% of the slides, which allowed him to end the training at 1.27pm.

I really like his style. 

He doesn't waste our time going through all the unnecessary fluff that had been prepared solely to hold us in camp, he only went through what was relevant to us and that was it. Sweet and simple.

After that, we were released and our training for this cycle is officially over, so that's day 2 for me.

The next time I report to camp, it will be to properly starting doing our Guard Duties. 

Our Guard Duty schedule also came out and I will be doing as much hours as I did for the last cycle.

The last cycle, I did a total of 60 hours worth of Guard Duty over a 2 weeks period, that was the maximum hours that could be imposed on us and the Active Commanders took full advantage of that. The ICT commanders for the last Reservist Cycle was just really shit at negotiating a better arrangement for us, so all the ICT personnel's had no choice and ended up suffering because of it. 

The ICTs were doing more Guard Duties hours than the active personnel's, some active soldiers were even doing less than half the hours we were doing. Looking back, I really should have just written in to MINDEF to complaint, but alas, that was back in February, so it's probably too late to do that now.

Thankfully, the ICT Commander for this cycle seems to be better at negotiating, so he also got everyone 60 hours worth of Guard Duty individually max, (I might only be doing 54 hours and my friend will probably only be doing 48 hours worth) but that is 60 hours spread over a course of 3 weeks, which is a significantly better deal because that means I don't have to report to camp everyday. 

The Specs have already planned out our duties earlier this afternoon, and my emplacements are actually not bad, a lot of morning and some afternoon duties but also a lot are in air-conditioned areas, compared to my last cycle, this is considered amazing, it's not the best, but it's definitely not the worst, as long as no one goes get an MC and fucks everyone else's schedule like that celebrity bugger during my last cycle, I will say I am generally quite satisfied with the arrangement.

10th Cycle - Day 1 and Meet Up.

Today is the first day of my "final" reservist cycle and the reason why "final" is in quotes is because I recently learned from my friend that another mutual friend of ours who is currently doing this "final" cycle was told by the Commanding Officer that he (CO) cannot answer as to whether or not the 10th cycle will really be the last cycle before the mutual friend officially MR because the airbase has limited manpower and will need all the manpower they can get.

In order to MR, we have complete 10 Cycles of Reservist, out of this 10 cycles, we will need to have at least completed 7 High Keys and the other 3 can either be High Keys or low keys. 

The situation that I am in right now is I have completed 7 High Keys and 3 Low Keys, this is the same with my friend and our mutual friend, we have completed the minimum requirement to officially MR, BUT because that is just the minimum requirement, we can still be expected to called back for 3 more High Keys because the maximum requirement to MR is to complete 10 High Keys, this means you could potentially be called back for 7000 Low Keys, but as long as you did not complete 10 High Keys, your CO or whoever is in charge can choose not to let you MR.

First they increase our Reservist from 2 weeks to 3 weeks, and now they are pulling this shit on us. I really hope they don't end up calling me back again after this cycle. Please just let the ones who have already endured through 10 cycles be over and done with our NS Commitments and not fucking call us up again unless it's to attend our MR Ceremony.

Our Guard Duty schedule has been getting bad to worse, now the active soldiers are doing lesser hours than us...

.. I had wanted to write in to MINDEF during my last cycle because of how bad it was, but decided not to because I thought things would improve after so many of us brought our complaints up to the Encik, I also left comments on the Out-Pro survey form about the whole situation, but they were clearly not taken seriously because nothing has changed. It's still the same shit according to our mutual friend.

Anyways, "final" cycle started today and I got to drove the Mazda 2 into base, the ride was smooth, and this time, I was actually like 5 minutes late, in the past I would always be 15 minutes early, but once you have gone through that many cycles, you eventually learn to accept the fact that being early means fuck all if we are always only going to be starting only 90 minutes after the reporting time, which is actually fine with me really because that means I will never actually ever be late.

As per usual, today is all about watching a bunch of training videos that I have already watched multiple times, I don't think there was anything planned for today aside from the videos, so after 2 to 3 videos, we had lunch, followed by another 2 to 3 videos and then we got released. It was a pretty early release but I am not complaining, and since tomorrow is the Presidential Election, that means I don't have to go back to camp and will also be able to enjoy the long weekend like everyone else, it's pretty awesome.

After that, I met up with some of my ex-colleague from my previous job for my ex-Manager's farewell get together in Chinatown. I was seriously contemplating whether to drive there or not because the traffic there is usually quite bad, plus with the long weekend happening, I was sure the area will be packed. But after thinking for a while, I decided to just go for it and just brave whatever traffic comes my way, it would be nice to actually be able to drive back then have to take the train home, I could also take it as my way of acclimatizing to the road again.

But during my drive there....

I. Missed. So. Many. Fucking. Turns

It was ridiculous. What was suppose to be a 30minutes drive ended up taking almost an hour because of how many turns I missed,

The driving app was giving me directions like...

"Keep right, make a right turn, now turn left."

... like I will make a right turn and be in the extreme right lane, but then be expected to switch to the extreme left lane to make a left turn immediately after. If the app had told me to stick to the outer right lane before I actually make a turn, I would still have a chance to make that immediate left turn, but it didn't, and the map was also zoomed in so I couldn't properly plan the drive until it was too late.

I was also blocked by a few large vehicles multiple times, couldn't switch lanes because they were literally matching my speed for some fucking reason, and ended up missing more turns completely.

The drive was so infuriating I was honestly contemplating on just giving up and going home at one point, but I did eventually reach Chinatown, found a parking lot at the public carpark in Hong Lim Complex because it had "200 LOTS" available, so parking was actually a breeze,

I did get a bit lost trying to navigate the carpark and ended up taking a very long way to reach the bar, which would have been literally just right across the street, but I walked the opposite direction to try and get to Chinatown Point first to properly orientate myself, so that was like 5 minutes of extra walking that I did. 

For some reason, I kept expecting the bar that my ex-Manager found was going to be one of the quiet ones that plays jazz music while the patrons are sipping on Whiskey and talking really quietly amongst themselves, but it wasn't. It was a bar with a live band that was singing covers of pop music and it was so fucking loud.

One thing about me is I hate crowds and I hate loud music, that bar had both, especially the loud music part. I was very happy to be able to see all my ex-colleagues again, but the atmosphere was just such a buzzkill for me. I could barely hold a conversations with anyone because I couldn't hear myself speak, I also didn't drink since I was driving, so whilst everyone was busy cheers-ing away with beer and shots in their hands, all I had was a mocktail that I finished within 20 minutes, so all the cheers that I joined in after was with a bottle of water, and by the the 4th or 5th cheers, I just started to zone out.

My Apple Watch was also sending me warnings during my time in the bar and informing me that the current volume I was experiencing was very unhealthy. I was actually looking around to see which table was the loudest and I realized it was ours, almost everyone was screaming and singing along to the live band and just really enjoying themselves.

My ex-Manager was actually planning to stay till 3am, and I thought I could maybe stay till 1am and just catch up, but I was naïve in thinking that the bar will actually quiet down the later we stayed because it's a bar, it's only gets louder and more crowded the later it gets.

By 10.30pm, I was already feeling mentally drained from being in that environment and just wanted to leave asap, almost everyone was buzzed except me, some were half drunk and being really really loud. I told my ex-colleague whom I was going to give a ride that I wanted to step out for a while to take a breather, so I grabbed my stuff and tried to head over to the entrance that I had came in from, but for some reason, the club locked it, and I was just standing there, desperately trying to unlock and unlatch whatever I could find to get it opened.

Luckily one of the staff was nearby so I told him how to get out and he directed me to the main entrance at the other side of the bar, I walked pass the table where all of us were, told my ex-Manager I was going to step out for a while, and honestly, I had no plans to get back in anymore after that.

I then texted my ex-colleague whom I was offering a ride home to that I am not planning to go back in anymore, so she also excused herself and came out in like 10 minutes, her fiancé was also around the area so I ended up driving them home together. The drive home was also riddled with a lot of miss turns as well, so it was maybe 15 minutes longer than it should have been.

So that's how the day ended for me, rather abruptly with no proper goodbyes to anyone, I also didn't want to say my goodbyes to them because everyone was buzzed. I did drop a text to my ex-Manager and told her we should meet up again for a proper meal and do a proper catching up, so hopefully we do because I barely had time to actually chit-chat with her in the bar, and my voice was sore even though I didn't talk a lot.

Overall, didn't have a good time in the bar, absolutely hated the setting, but I am very happy to have at least been able to see all my ex-colleagues again one more time, would have been a 10/10 if it wasn't in the bar, but because it was, I will rate this experience a 5/10, full points for the company, zero points for the location.