Listening to Frank Sinatra - New York, New York
long day
As usual, I couldn't wake up. Everytime its morning shift, I have to DRAG myself out of the bed. The usually wicked thought of sleeping "an extra 5 minutes" never seems enough. The last time I tried to rest "an extra 5 minutes", I woke up 3 hours later. How ironic. Time flies so fast when you are having fun as well as sleeping in peace.
This morning, after Dad had dropped off my brother at Barker, this SUV suddenly drove in front of us and proceeded to drop off the vehicle's occupants, two Barker guys. One of the Barker guys proceed to the SUV's back door (not boot) to retrieve his bowling bag. As he was doing so, his dad suddenly swerved the car into the bus lane, leaving the Barker guy behind trailing after the door, which shut resoundingly after the SUV stopped. A laughable sight indeed.
Later in the morning, I was refilling the fresh water tank on my patrol boat at the jetty when by accident, as I removed the hose from the fresh water inlet, I dropped the plastic cap that covers this inlet into the sea. Normally, I'd expect plastic to FLOAT, but the thing SANK into the muddy abyss, never to be seen from again. At first, I was rather agitated because, it can be counted as negligence as well as "loss of gahmen property". So either way, I could be charged for "negligence" as well as this be a black mark on my record, that will severely reduce my chances of promotion to sergeant next year.
Well, I had the evil thought to STEAL the cap from another boat, in the sense, to "shift the blame" to another person. But thank God, I didn't actually do that. It was a temptation from the devil, no doubt, but at that time, it was rather strong. Either steal the covering cap and save my skin, or lose a promotion, get a black mark, make a police report and get my crew commander in trouble and risk getting defaulted for losing gahmen property. At that time, it felt quite "right" to go steal.
But then, I didn't. It sounds ridiculous that a policeman will steal something inside a police base. And then I already have a good report for the return of the lost wallet previously. Furthermore, this was more of God's test for my integrity as well as character. Knowing that it takes a very long time to build up trust and integrity, its not worth losing something so valuable as personal integrity just over a piece of plastic.
So I just went to tell my crew commander, wondering if I'd get him into trouble as well. I just quietly handed things over to God and my crew commander laughed and laughed when I reported the unfortunate incident. Apparently, it has happened quite a number of times in the base, so it was no big deal in actual fact. In the end, I went around the base reporting the loss to the key officers, who all felt that it was too minor a matter to even report and laughed it off, saying that they could go get a spare inside the storeroom. So Thank God. I passed His test, increased my integrity standing amongst the people in the base, resisted the devil and overall, it was an eye-opener that God's way is always the best way. If I had stolen the cap from another boat, I'd get other people into trouble, then I'd be guity, and the devil would have a nice foothold in my life to attack me and then there would be the whole slew of police investigations, etc and then I'd lose my integrity as well as standing with God. So yeah, God's way is always the best way.
The plastic cap came back inside my lunch package. The officer personnel had found one spare later on and put it into the styrofoam box holding my lunch, so that I could cap the inlet and prevent our fresh water supply from spilling out whever we went at high speed.
Overall, it was quite quiet in my patrol sector today - the waters off changi naval base. The water was rather ok, not calm, but neither was it choppy. For me, I just spent the time chatting with the crew onboard, while they smoked their time away profusely. By right, policemen are not supposed to smoke, but by left, and given that we're all on a boat and no one can actually spot check us, it doesn't matter. People in Coast Guard are more or less big time chain smokers who while away their time by smoking.
Most of the time, everyone that smokes onboard keeps offering me cigarettes. So far, I have just kindly refused all their offers to smoke "socially". I can't afford the habit, that's one thing. And if I did take up smoking, it would be bad for my health and be even worst for my character. Most importantly, I would be letting EVERYONE from Dad to Church people to CF friends to all the people around me down. So I don't desire to smoke no matter how "cool" or "in" it is. I just wonder whether I'll be able to resist such temptation all the way, believe me, I always have the urge to go grab a free stick and light up whilst on the boat. Its boring, that's one thing. And then everyone smokes like nothing. Seriously, I am a big time passive smoker. The helmsroom is so small and more than half the crew onboard smoke in it, and its airconditioned! Can you imagine how bad and choking the smell is? If only we could sue cigarette makers for health related reasons like in the U.S. I'd sue phillip morris for every brand of cigarette they ever manufactured.
Everytime I return from shift. My uniform reeks so badly of cigarette smoke. I change into my civilian clothes in the locker and they smell like I've been smoking the whole day. The seriously reek so badly of cigarette smoke. I hate smoking, I hate cigarettes and I hate all cigarette manufacturerers. I have an axe to grind and polish with them. Same reason I hate to go to pubs/clubs/discos. The whole place reeks of nothing but cigarette smoke! I go into wala-wala for a few hours and come out with my hair smelling like a thousand fags. Its ridiculous. I hope the gahmen increases the tax to like 5 bucks a stick or something, to cut all these people out from smoking. Better to tax the cigarette than to increase the GST, I think.
I got to sleep like four over hours today on the boat. No thanks to my crew commande who heartily told me to "sleep until you are not tired". NS where got such thing in pulau tekan one? Ask the recruits wake up at 5 and run them till death at 2a.m and then gloat in the papers that recruits are "given sufficient rest". Fieldcamp anyone? I've notice a steady proliferation in propaganda relating to NS in the papers due in part to the death of the SAF serviceman as well as the hordes of unhappy people in the detention barracks as well as the increase rise in anti-NS posts on the various online political forums as well as websites and online debating journalism articles. So thank God that I have an NS that is really 10 times better than the average recruit in tekong. Besides, I probably sleep more hours than an army officer. And I get more off days as well. So thank God.
I awoke to the sound of three police coast guard boats near each other. One of the other boats had made an arrest and so we were detailed to cover their patrol sector as well. This is the like the first arrest I've seen in my team since I first came to police. And its been like almost 10 over months since I've enlisted that I've seen an arrest made. So in the end, it was more or less a high speed patrol as we coverd two patrol sectors with one boat, while the accused persons were being ferried back to the base pending investigations.
Later at night, one of the other sector boats requested assistance and we were asked to render so. The other sector boat went out of action for a while as one of their engines had basically given up on them. In the end, another coast guard boat had to cover their patrol sector while this boat used its one remaining engine to "limp" back to the base at slow speed. But that was rather late into the evening already and we were about to end our shift, so I guess it was ok, they would probably return to the base around the simliar if they had left their patrol sector with both engines in working order at the end of their shift.
I met up with an old barker friend, Alex and his girlfriend on the bus journey home. I think, he and his girlfriend Liyi are probably the most loving couple I have ever seen in my entire life in my age group. Its not on the superficial or based on intelligence, looks, money, etc. But its just that their love is simple and true. Notably, I met with another AC girl, one of the counsellors from the 27th on the bus as well. Like I said in yesterday's post. ACS people are EVERYWHERE. They are really everywhere!
commentaries about yesterday's reflections
I just wrote the entire thing out of the blue, not expecting to do so. I didn't even edit the entire "hypthesis" of sorts or even read through it again. So I am so sure that they are plenty of grammatical, spelling as well as logical errors. I probably wrote something that is too one sided. It just feels weird reading my own writings, so I dont' really go through them again until a much later date, when I might have a different perspective an understanding of the issue in general.
Well, I was informed at last minute (as usual) that I would be up for guard duty on Kusu Island tomorrow. I have to work on a public holiday, but I guess its ok since I'll get both saturday and sunday off in its entirety. Just that I can't go walk through the Istana grounds tomorrow. Besides, they people at the Base gave us Kusu duty again since word got around that both me and Shadiq enjoyed it. Obviously, I'm going to be paring up with Shadiq again on the last day of this pilgrimage season. Given that its both a public holiday and the last day. I think those who have not gone to the temple and keramat to receive their blessings will go, the pulling factor being that it is a public holiday as well. And those devotees will certainly get both saturday and sunday off.
And since both Shadiq and I did duty on the island the last time they had the thus far largest crowd of 12,000 odd, the people up there trust that we have sufficient "experience" to handle the crowd tomorrow as well. One thing's for sure, we got to take care of the crowd at the jetty, the keramat, the temple and espcially the marketplace, to thwart theft. Let's just hope everything goes as planned and everything will be in order on the last day of this whole pilgramage season.
Joline: Oh ok. You mention Jazz and I'll probably be there already. David Lanz will be secondary. After all, I still prefer JAZZ to classical piano. Although Jazz Piano bodes very well emcompassing both areas for my listening pleasure. I don't know, I always find it a habit to drop by HMV whenever I'm in orchard. I think its part of the "learning process". I did end up in HMV almost everytime the class guys skipped school and headed to orchard road. Not to mention that the Heeren as PK COMPUTER STORE as well as the whole 77th Street theories at the Annex. Although its more of a bengish and lianish place, I still just walk through the place to keept tabs on the local subculture of the youth who are striving hard to forge their own identity.
Ah NAT KING COLE! HE is GOOD man! He has such very smooth, yet deep voice that blends very well with the double bass jazz style. Its almost like Frank with a deeper voice with much less overtones. But in the end, I still think the jazz duets by Ella Fitgerald and Louis Armstrong is jazz music at its best. Excellent work on the piano, the double bass, the drums and the whole lyrics thingamajig.
En: Ya you can contact me at 24carriers at usa dot net. I'm writing it out in colloquial form to prevent robots from harvesting my address and spamming me with enlargement pills and viagra. The last time I put my email addy on my blog, I just kept getting spammed. Yeah, you can add me to friendster using that email address as well.
I'll talk about the whole girl business another day. Now I am going to sleep! I have to be on the island in 8 hours time!
long day
As usual, I couldn't wake up. Everytime its morning shift, I have to DRAG myself out of the bed. The usually wicked thought of sleeping "an extra 5 minutes" never seems enough. The last time I tried to rest "an extra 5 minutes", I woke up 3 hours later. How ironic. Time flies so fast when you are having fun as well as sleeping in peace.
This morning, after Dad had dropped off my brother at Barker, this SUV suddenly drove in front of us and proceeded to drop off the vehicle's occupants, two Barker guys. One of the Barker guys proceed to the SUV's back door (not boot) to retrieve his bowling bag. As he was doing so, his dad suddenly swerved the car into the bus lane, leaving the Barker guy behind trailing after the door, which shut resoundingly after the SUV stopped. A laughable sight indeed.
Later in the morning, I was refilling the fresh water tank on my patrol boat at the jetty when by accident, as I removed the hose from the fresh water inlet, I dropped the plastic cap that covers this inlet into the sea. Normally, I'd expect plastic to FLOAT, but the thing SANK into the muddy abyss, never to be seen from again. At first, I was rather agitated because, it can be counted as negligence as well as "loss of gahmen property". So either way, I could be charged for "negligence" as well as this be a black mark on my record, that will severely reduce my chances of promotion to sergeant next year.
Well, I had the evil thought to STEAL the cap from another boat, in the sense, to "shift the blame" to another person. But thank God, I didn't actually do that. It was a temptation from the devil, no doubt, but at that time, it was rather strong. Either steal the covering cap and save my skin, or lose a promotion, get a black mark, make a police report and get my crew commander in trouble and risk getting defaulted for losing gahmen property. At that time, it felt quite "right" to go steal.
But then, I didn't. It sounds ridiculous that a policeman will steal something inside a police base. And then I already have a good report for the return of the lost wallet previously. Furthermore, this was more of God's test for my integrity as well as character. Knowing that it takes a very long time to build up trust and integrity, its not worth losing something so valuable as personal integrity just over a piece of plastic.
So I just went to tell my crew commander, wondering if I'd get him into trouble as well. I just quietly handed things over to God and my crew commander laughed and laughed when I reported the unfortunate incident. Apparently, it has happened quite a number of times in the base, so it was no big deal in actual fact. In the end, I went around the base reporting the loss to the key officers, who all felt that it was too minor a matter to even report and laughed it off, saying that they could go get a spare inside the storeroom. So Thank God. I passed His test, increased my integrity standing amongst the people in the base, resisted the devil and overall, it was an eye-opener that God's way is always the best way. If I had stolen the cap from another boat, I'd get other people into trouble, then I'd be guity, and the devil would have a nice foothold in my life to attack me and then there would be the whole slew of police investigations, etc and then I'd lose my integrity as well as standing with God. So yeah, God's way is always the best way.
The plastic cap came back inside my lunch package. The officer personnel had found one spare later on and put it into the styrofoam box holding my lunch, so that I could cap the inlet and prevent our fresh water supply from spilling out whever we went at high speed.
Overall, it was quite quiet in my patrol sector today - the waters off changi naval base. The water was rather ok, not calm, but neither was it choppy. For me, I just spent the time chatting with the crew onboard, while they smoked their time away profusely. By right, policemen are not supposed to smoke, but by left, and given that we're all on a boat and no one can actually spot check us, it doesn't matter. People in Coast Guard are more or less big time chain smokers who while away their time by smoking.
Most of the time, everyone that smokes onboard keeps offering me cigarettes. So far, I have just kindly refused all their offers to smoke "socially". I can't afford the habit, that's one thing. And if I did take up smoking, it would be bad for my health and be even worst for my character. Most importantly, I would be letting EVERYONE from Dad to Church people to CF friends to all the people around me down. So I don't desire to smoke no matter how "cool" or "in" it is. I just wonder whether I'll be able to resist such temptation all the way, believe me, I always have the urge to go grab a free stick and light up whilst on the boat. Its boring, that's one thing. And then everyone smokes like nothing. Seriously, I am a big time passive smoker. The helmsroom is so small and more than half the crew onboard smoke in it, and its airconditioned! Can you imagine how bad and choking the smell is? If only we could sue cigarette makers for health related reasons like in the U.S. I'd sue phillip morris for every brand of cigarette they ever manufactured.
Everytime I return from shift. My uniform reeks so badly of cigarette smoke. I change into my civilian clothes in the locker and they smell like I've been smoking the whole day. The seriously reek so badly of cigarette smoke. I hate smoking, I hate cigarettes and I hate all cigarette manufacturerers. I have an axe to grind and polish with them. Same reason I hate to go to pubs/clubs/discos. The whole place reeks of nothing but cigarette smoke! I go into wala-wala for a few hours and come out with my hair smelling like a thousand fags. Its ridiculous. I hope the gahmen increases the tax to like 5 bucks a stick or something, to cut all these people out from smoking. Better to tax the cigarette than to increase the GST, I think.
I got to sleep like four over hours today on the boat. No thanks to my crew commande who heartily told me to "sleep until you are not tired". NS where got such thing in pulau tekan one? Ask the recruits wake up at 5 and run them till death at 2a.m and then gloat in the papers that recruits are "given sufficient rest". Fieldcamp anyone? I've notice a steady proliferation in propaganda relating to NS in the papers due in part to the death of the SAF serviceman as well as the hordes of unhappy people in the detention barracks as well as the increase rise in anti-NS posts on the various online political forums as well as websites and online debating journalism articles. So thank God that I have an NS that is really 10 times better than the average recruit in tekong. Besides, I probably sleep more hours than an army officer. And I get more off days as well. So thank God.
I awoke to the sound of three police coast guard boats near each other. One of the other boats had made an arrest and so we were detailed to cover their patrol sector as well. This is the like the first arrest I've seen in my team since I first came to police. And its been like almost 10 over months since I've enlisted that I've seen an arrest made. So in the end, it was more or less a high speed patrol as we coverd two patrol sectors with one boat, while the accused persons were being ferried back to the base pending investigations.
Later at night, one of the other sector boats requested assistance and we were asked to render so. The other sector boat went out of action for a while as one of their engines had basically given up on them. In the end, another coast guard boat had to cover their patrol sector while this boat used its one remaining engine to "limp" back to the base at slow speed. But that was rather late into the evening already and we were about to end our shift, so I guess it was ok, they would probably return to the base around the simliar if they had left their patrol sector with both engines in working order at the end of their shift.
I met up with an old barker friend, Alex and his girlfriend on the bus journey home. I think, he and his girlfriend Liyi are probably the most loving couple I have ever seen in my entire life in my age group. Its not on the superficial or based on intelligence, looks, money, etc. But its just that their love is simple and true. Notably, I met with another AC girl, one of the counsellors from the 27th on the bus as well. Like I said in yesterday's post. ACS people are EVERYWHERE. They are really everywhere!
commentaries about yesterday's reflections
I just wrote the entire thing out of the blue, not expecting to do so. I didn't even edit the entire "hypthesis" of sorts or even read through it again. So I am so sure that they are plenty of grammatical, spelling as well as logical errors. I probably wrote something that is too one sided. It just feels weird reading my own writings, so I dont' really go through them again until a much later date, when I might have a different perspective an understanding of the issue in general.
Well, I was informed at last minute (as usual) that I would be up for guard duty on Kusu Island tomorrow. I have to work on a public holiday, but I guess its ok since I'll get both saturday and sunday off in its entirety. Just that I can't go walk through the Istana grounds tomorrow. Besides, they people at the Base gave us Kusu duty again since word got around that both me and Shadiq enjoyed it. Obviously, I'm going to be paring up with Shadiq again on the last day of this pilgrimage season. Given that its both a public holiday and the last day. I think those who have not gone to the temple and keramat to receive their blessings will go, the pulling factor being that it is a public holiday as well. And those devotees will certainly get both saturday and sunday off.
And since both Shadiq and I did duty on the island the last time they had the thus far largest crowd of 12,000 odd, the people up there trust that we have sufficient "experience" to handle the crowd tomorrow as well. One thing's for sure, we got to take care of the crowd at the jetty, the keramat, the temple and espcially the marketplace, to thwart theft. Let's just hope everything goes as planned and everything will be in order on the last day of this whole pilgramage season.
Joline: Oh ok. You mention Jazz and I'll probably be there already. David Lanz will be secondary. After all, I still prefer JAZZ to classical piano. Although Jazz Piano bodes very well emcompassing both areas for my listening pleasure. I don't know, I always find it a habit to drop by HMV whenever I'm in orchard. I think its part of the "learning process". I did end up in HMV almost everytime the class guys skipped school and headed to orchard road. Not to mention that the Heeren as PK COMPUTER STORE as well as the whole 77th Street theories at the Annex. Although its more of a bengish and lianish place, I still just walk through the place to keept tabs on the local subculture of the youth who are striving hard to forge their own identity.
Ah NAT KING COLE! HE is GOOD man! He has such very smooth, yet deep voice that blends very well with the double bass jazz style. Its almost like Frank with a deeper voice with much less overtones. But in the end, I still think the jazz duets by Ella Fitgerald and Louis Armstrong is jazz music at its best. Excellent work on the piano, the double bass, the drums and the whole lyrics thingamajig.
En: Ya you can contact me at 24carriers at usa dot net. I'm writing it out in colloquial form to prevent robots from harvesting my address and spamming me with enlargement pills and viagra. The last time I put my email addy on my blog, I just kept getting spammed. Yeah, you can add me to friendster using that email address as well.
I'll talk about the whole girl business another day. Now I am going to sleep! I have to be on the island in 8 hours time!
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