That Boat By The Sea - ORD Post Part I
That Boat By The Sea - ORD Post Part I
Well, I'm going to be a free man soon. Its slightly less than two weeks away. Its quite near, yet seems so far at the same time. The hours onboard are even more draggy than usual and for some strange reason or other. As much as I would like to leave this place and start my life anew and afresh in many areas as well as perspectives. Part of me still can't bear to let go. I have much happiness in clinging on to the comfort zones of my life - although life onboard a boat afloat on the sea on a shiftwork basis isn't exactly very safe there and then.
There's been less work onboard for persons like myself, and more thoughts and introspections to do. People ask me how I find my life here so far and what I'm going to do once I leave this place. There is this expectancy of a coming-to-be expiry date of existence in the team. Knowing that it has been a pleasure working as a civilian alternative to the "first line of defence" of our country. I don't know whether its an issue of pride or otherwise, more or less, I feel its just that somehow, things were already drafted out by God in such a manner like this. Perhaps its my view or thoughts, then again, I can't deny that I've had a very different NS life as compared to 99% of the boys my age who are conscripted or enlisted or forced by means of a law to eek out our lives to the country. It is said that No One Owes Singapore a Living. Strangely we have to "pay our dues" for it taking us to the age of 18. I don't know what to make of this - constitutional laws are for ponderings in other times and amongst the kids at NUSLAW.
The team has been very good to me. Things have changed to be very much in my favour. Not to mention that now I'm more or less the "most-experienced" NS personnel onboard all the craft, yet at the same time only the third youngest of them all. Things are good. They are even going to throw an ORD party for me at a chalet. And to top it off - I don't even have to pay a cent. What can I make of such goodness? Well I'm grateful to the people that I have entrusted my life to onboard and vice versa over the course of the past two years. The only thing spoiling the mood, in their ever usual typical fashion, is the Police National Service Departments. The nutcases there have not updated my leave since Christmas last year! It is April now and I am going to ORD so-very-soon and they tell me that they can't even calculate the number of leave days I have left to clear! I really have to take this and complain to the commissioner - about the PNS Department's gross inefficientcy and lackadasical attitudes towards their paid jobs. Oh well, more on them another time.
9th December 2002. Seniors Night. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Singapore. The culmulation of my twelve years of miseducation topped off by two years in the Most Nonsense College in the Country. I walked into our 22nd floor suite at the R-C and was floored by that 30 dollars difference in room-rates - the View was fantastic. I could see Singapore City in all her glory (artificial or otherwise!), Marina Bay, The Esplanade as well as all the ships moored off Clifford Pier. Benjamin Sheares bridge and the cars plying across it as well as the sea beyond. It was a beautiful sight. I sat on one of the couches. Having the responsibility to "book the room" for the class - the rest had not arrived yet at the earliest time of 11a.m. It was a splendid moment for myself to have a beautiful hotel room all to my own. And the view... Too bad I was not interested or trained photographically to get proper photographs of that view. One of the best things that I myself had seen that year.
I spied down on all the boat in bay. And I saw a tiny Coast Guard boat making its way through Benjamin Sheares Bridge, doing a loop through the bay and exiting. It was interesting. I thought to myself for a moment, "Maybe I could get posted to the Coast Guard or something". Contary to the "Public Image" that everyone has of the Coast Guard - No one actually casts a line to do fishing as the boat's engines on standby mode are just TOO NOISY that any fish in the vicinity will be frightened off several nautical miles away. Everytime I tell people that I'm in Coast Guard - they immediately fire back "Woah! Fishing ah!". My goodness. One of the tirades of having a lesser known form of "serving the nation".
Well, after that wonderful prom night. A little bit artificial actually. But I got my picture with her, so I was pretty happy. Had them developed immediately the next day after checking out 24 hours after I had checked into the hotel and just barely a whimsical six days later - drafted into Police Academy. Which is a different story. Later shipped out to the Police Coast Guard Training School (which is really nonsense actually, despite its formal sounding name) and later on to patrol duties. Its been good.
One fine day. As I was on night shift duty. I just went to the cabin to eat my dinner. And I came up to the Helms, just in time, to see our boat pass under Benjamin Sheares Bridge to see Singapore City in all her full glory. Its a beautiful place, undoubtedly. There are always photographers as well as tourists taking pictures of the buildings and landmarks in the area. And it stands as a testimony to the development from Third World to First in the eyes of the international community. It was a breathtaking sight. I never forgot that day on duty.
Well, some things never change. I still go the the CBD with NICO to snap pictures at least once a month. Besides being a terribly over-photographed place in Singapore. I guess that if I kept snapping pictures here over the course of many months. I would come out with at least some postcard sales-worthy images. Not that I care about the sales - it is just a way to generating a vision. Ha Ha.
Oh well, Just a small tid bit that links two parts of my life together. The real last official function of my life as a student, to my NS life. Its like a bridge, the City. I've seen it from 6 nautical miles out at sea. I've seen it up close. I've seen it on the Singapore River (literally ON the river) - sailing up all the way to Zouk and passed under the Esplanade Bridge and flyover. I've had the chance to watch the formula one boat races from sea level, while photographers with their papa bread 600mm f/4 lenses are on the bridge above me. Its been a pleasure actually. Small but interesting place. Our CBD. A City within a City.
Too bad, another year or so and this whole segment will be dammed up to become a freshwater catchment reservoir. And one whole duty segement area, one chunk of my patrol sector in my life in NS will disappear as I know it to be - a saltwater enclave. To become a place for the seasports in fresh water - for more Singaporeans to enjoy. Perhaps what would be highly excellent to top this whole image up, would be to preferably own an apartment in one of the housing developments that will be built around the Bay a decade down the road. Old and New. A development constantly in progress. Singapore City. This will probably continue to be the most well developed and happening part of Singapore, for many years to come.
Well, I'm going to be a free man soon. Its slightly less than two weeks away. Its quite near, yet seems so far at the same time. The hours onboard are even more draggy than usual and for some strange reason or other. As much as I would like to leave this place and start my life anew and afresh in many areas as well as perspectives. Part of me still can't bear to let go. I have much happiness in clinging on to the comfort zones of my life - although life onboard a boat afloat on the sea on a shiftwork basis isn't exactly very safe there and then.
There's been less work onboard for persons like myself, and more thoughts and introspections to do. People ask me how I find my life here so far and what I'm going to do once I leave this place. There is this expectancy of a coming-to-be expiry date of existence in the team. Knowing that it has been a pleasure working as a civilian alternative to the "first line of defence" of our country. I don't know whether its an issue of pride or otherwise, more or less, I feel its just that somehow, things were already drafted out by God in such a manner like this. Perhaps its my view or thoughts, then again, I can't deny that I've had a very different NS life as compared to 99% of the boys my age who are conscripted or enlisted or forced by means of a law to eek out our lives to the country. It is said that No One Owes Singapore a Living. Strangely we have to "pay our dues" for it taking us to the age of 18. I don't know what to make of this - constitutional laws are for ponderings in other times and amongst the kids at NUSLAW.
The team has been very good to me. Things have changed to be very much in my favour. Not to mention that now I'm more or less the "most-experienced" NS personnel onboard all the craft, yet at the same time only the third youngest of them all. Things are good. They are even going to throw an ORD party for me at a chalet. And to top it off - I don't even have to pay a cent. What can I make of such goodness? Well I'm grateful to the people that I have entrusted my life to onboard and vice versa over the course of the past two years. The only thing spoiling the mood, in their ever usual typical fashion, is the Police National Service Departments. The nutcases there have not updated my leave since Christmas last year! It is April now and I am going to ORD so-very-soon and they tell me that they can't even calculate the number of leave days I have left to clear! I really have to take this and complain to the commissioner - about the PNS Department's gross inefficientcy and lackadasical attitudes towards their paid jobs. Oh well, more on them another time.
9th December 2002. Seniors Night. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Singapore. The culmulation of my twelve years of miseducation topped off by two years in the Most Nonsense College in the Country. I walked into our 22nd floor suite at the R-C and was floored by that 30 dollars difference in room-rates - the View was fantastic. I could see Singapore City in all her glory (artificial or otherwise!), Marina Bay, The Esplanade as well as all the ships moored off Clifford Pier. Benjamin Sheares bridge and the cars plying across it as well as the sea beyond. It was a beautiful sight. I sat on one of the couches. Having the responsibility to "book the room" for the class - the rest had not arrived yet at the earliest time of 11a.m. It was a splendid moment for myself to have a beautiful hotel room all to my own. And the view... Too bad I was not interested or trained photographically to get proper photographs of that view. One of the best things that I myself had seen that year.
I spied down on all the boat in bay. And I saw a tiny Coast Guard boat making its way through Benjamin Sheares Bridge, doing a loop through the bay and exiting. It was interesting. I thought to myself for a moment, "Maybe I could get posted to the Coast Guard or something". Contary to the "Public Image" that everyone has of the Coast Guard - No one actually casts a line to do fishing as the boat's engines on standby mode are just TOO NOISY that any fish in the vicinity will be frightened off several nautical miles away. Everytime I tell people that I'm in Coast Guard - they immediately fire back "Woah! Fishing ah!". My goodness. One of the tirades of having a lesser known form of "serving the nation".
Well, after that wonderful prom night. A little bit artificial actually. But I got my picture with her, so I was pretty happy. Had them developed immediately the next day after checking out 24 hours after I had checked into the hotel and just barely a whimsical six days later - drafted into Police Academy. Which is a different story. Later shipped out to the Police Coast Guard Training School (which is really nonsense actually, despite its formal sounding name) and later on to patrol duties. Its been good.
One fine day. As I was on night shift duty. I just went to the cabin to eat my dinner. And I came up to the Helms, just in time, to see our boat pass under Benjamin Sheares Bridge to see Singapore City in all her full glory. Its a beautiful place, undoubtedly. There are always photographers as well as tourists taking pictures of the buildings and landmarks in the area. And it stands as a testimony to the development from Third World to First in the eyes of the international community. It was a breathtaking sight. I never forgot that day on duty.
Well, some things never change. I still go the the CBD with NICO to snap pictures at least once a month. Besides being a terribly over-photographed place in Singapore. I guess that if I kept snapping pictures here over the course of many months. I would come out with at least some postcard sales-worthy images. Not that I care about the sales - it is just a way to generating a vision. Ha Ha.
Oh well, Just a small tid bit that links two parts of my life together. The real last official function of my life as a student, to my NS life. Its like a bridge, the City. I've seen it from 6 nautical miles out at sea. I've seen it up close. I've seen it on the Singapore River (literally ON the river) - sailing up all the way to Zouk and passed under the Esplanade Bridge and flyover. I've had the chance to watch the formula one boat races from sea level, while photographers with their papa bread 600mm f/4 lenses are on the bridge above me. Its been a pleasure actually. Small but interesting place. Our CBD. A City within a City.
Too bad, another year or so and this whole segment will be dammed up to become a freshwater catchment reservoir. And one whole duty segement area, one chunk of my patrol sector in my life in NS will disappear as I know it to be - a saltwater enclave. To become a place for the seasports in fresh water - for more Singaporeans to enjoy. Perhaps what would be highly excellent to top this whole image up, would be to preferably own an apartment in one of the housing developments that will be built around the Bay a decade down the road. Old and New. A development constantly in progress. Singapore City. This will probably continue to be the most well developed and happening part of Singapore, for many years to come.
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