A Brief Interlude
» Written on March 13, 2008 at 9:51 AM «
Has finally made its way to my weary, blistered feet, allowing me a moment, or, to be more precise: a week and a half of recovery time in which I spent my entire first day taking an extended nap of sorts. This explains why, then, that this post is made on the following day after my graduation parade from the Basic Military Training School that resides on isle horride of Pulau Tekong.
And no, I don’t think I’ve found my army life so far meaningful or memorable, thousands, perhaps millions of claims to the contrary.
I have to admit, keeping myself motivated to continue writing about my experience in Singapore’s military so far has been a momentous task, one that I sometimes questioned intentions underlying about. Too, recent events have only served to further disillusion myself about the workings of life itself, and I’m not just talking about things like this either. When you’re like me, stuck in a white cell surrounded by worthless cretins only interested in reading the latest FHM scrap or experimenting with each other’s nether regions (and I use that term very literally here) with absolutely nothing to do, yet unable to sleep for fear of an instant roll-call, the mind thinks.
And no man, soldier or otherwise, is immune to his own thoughts. At least, I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.
The last few days of my training were a lot less harsh when compared to the rest of the bullshit that I’ve gone through over the past few months. The problem is, this is only the beginning; already I find myself questioning everything, from the chain of command to the meals served to our servicemen. Inefficiency, arrogance and wastage are right at the top of my list of issues to bring up if I ever get the chance to.
But enough of that for the moment: I am currently undertaking the arduous task of scanning in every single last page of my notebook, which I meticulously updated with events that befell our platoon, and more importantly, me. It’ll take a while, but I fully expect to have it done within the next few days with the accompanying write-up.
Do know that we were standing in the fucking rain and lightning for the past 2 days that we had to practise for the parade, for hours at a time. Not fucking fun at all, I’ll tell you that much. Especially when most of your NCOs ditch your platoon and run for the shelter once the water starts a-comin’.
And yes, the actual parade itself was conducted with a full storm in effect. Although it was a little better than the preceding days’ worth of rain since the rain did stop at certain nature-predefined intervals, it wasn’t any less annoying.
In the meantime, though, here are some pictures from the Graduation Parade 2 days ago, courtesy of my dad, who, against my insistence and pleads otherwise, came down to witness a completely pointless ceremony with all my camera gear. Understand, of course, that even with my lessons on the usage of the Nikon D50, my dad managed to forget most of my earlier instructions in the span of a few days, resulting in a tireless night yesterday as I struggled to attempt to claim some shots from the devil’s grip of shittiness.
Chiff is on the right, first man as always. Note the look of detachment enthusiasm he has! It warms the heart of every Singaporean to know that we have such men defending our shores.
Someone else helped me take a shot with my dad. Note my look of distaste unbridled joy!
It would not surprise anyone, then, that this shot was taken with us muttering various amusing things under our breath.
This was the final part of the ceremony, where we had to assume stance pictured before finally throwing our jockey caps into the air, as if that would somehow signify our promotion from mere recruits to that of privates.
And one of the final shots that I took at the ferry terminal right before getting the fuck off Tekong.
I’ll probably upload the entire multitude of shots to Webshots or something once I’m done with them: this is a new experience for me, trying to edit someone else’s shots and attempting to fit them into my usual rules of composition and colour.
My dad kept overexposing a lot of his shots and used rather slow shutter speeds with a telephoto lens, resulting in a whole new headache for me as I attempt to pull off every trick I know in a vain attempt to overcome such a problem. It’s good training, I suppose, after having been kept away from Lightroom for so long.
For now, though, I’m going to enjoy some quality time with Team Fortress 2, and after that, some Chains of Olympus on the PSP sounds like a good idea.
Oh, interludes, whatever would we mere maggots do without you?
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