Last year’s ICT achievement was about an arcade game. This year, I couldn’t advance to the next level because the fire button was broken. Oh, too bad. But we didn’t have a lot of time to spend in the mess anyway. What would this year’s most significant ICT achievement be? Hmm, I can’t seem to pin it down to anything specific. So perhaps I’ll just mention a few.
I told Vanessa on the second day of ICT, as I was preparing to head out: “Papa has to go army now.”
Vanessa looked at me, her face was painted in shock and disappointment: “Again???”
I told her, “Yes, and there will be many many more days.”
She asked, “But why you always go army?”
And I said, “Well, I also don’t want to go army you know. But the government wants me to go.”
Vanessa: “Why?” Yadda, yadda, yadda… “The government naughty?”
It’s almost 20 years since I first stepped into Tengah Air Base. In all that time (well, mostly just the two years of active NSF service), I’ve been to all over the air base, either on wheels or on my two feet. But there is this exclusive piece of real estate that I’ve only travelled on for less than a handful of times, and until now, never actually stepped on with my two feet. This piece of real estate is actually quite huge, and is, in fact, a significant part of the air base. It’s the runway.
As you might have heard, it’s ICT time again, and today’s the third day. It’s IPPT day. For the first time ever, I went with the over-graft hand grip, and cleared the station. I’ve been using under-graft since forever, but always felt it was an uncertain struggle, so results were a bit inconsistent. Over-graft is supposed to achieve better results, but it’s difficult to get started. So there’s this great inertia to overcome to give over-graft a fair chance to show some results.
Yes, it’s ICT time again. This year with a slightly older Vanessa who can ask intelligent questions. Questions like: “Papa, you go army again?” Or: “Why need to go army?” On day one, she was amused that my No. 4 uniform is green like her child care centre’s uniform. She commented, “Green, green, same!” Yah, but army is so unlike going to child care centre eh. But anyway, on day two, I think she wasn’t very pleased that I had to go army, again. I told her it will be for many more days. She asked, “Why?”
This ICT I achieved something. It is not something very spectacular or terribly significant. But as we try to spend the long hours as fruitfully as possible, this is nevertheless something notable, at least on a personal level. What’s that? Well, there is this flight simulation arcade game in the spec mess, I cleared the Intermediate Level.
I’m surprising myself by writing something about SAF PT shoes. But the new SAF New Balance shoes are pretty good, so it is something worthwhile to write about. It looks quite unique (in a good sense), and the mesh material that covers most of the shoes make the shoes very airy and comfortable to wear.
There is a certain even that is an annual necessary evil for Singaporean men. At least almost year, and for many Singaporean men. It’s reservist service, or In-Camp Training. Some like it, don’t like it, but almost everyone has lots to complain about it. In fact, it is so strange that even those who are not serving are part of the complaining lot.
I’ve been expecting some action from Mindef for some time. There is so much on Facebook about our military organizations, reservist units, operations, training, etc. My reservist flight has a Facebook group. So does the squadron, and some sort for the air base too. I was quite amused when I first discovered it. Particularly since even photos, even photos of myself (not taken by me or uploaded by me), appear in the groups. There’s nothing confidential or sensitive, but I just thought it quite interesting to learn about their existence in Facebook.
It’s the RSAF’s 40th anniversary this year. The last couple of years, the RSAF (and to some extent Mindef as a whole as well) seems to be making lots of effort to reach out to its “men” in more personal ways, to re-invent itself and to run itself like a modern private corporation. This is not bad, of course, since there are certainly some things that military organizations can learn from the private sector too.
I think we had 11 oysters each, from The Line restaurant at Shangri-la Hotel. It's a big buffet with plenty of food.
Lunch at Lerk Thai some weekends ago.
