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.
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