Its been 2 weeks since I graduated from SISPEC and got posted to Combat Engineers.
The regimentation there is horrible and the days are awfully boring.
Lectures, practical, lectures, practical.

In between, I have had time to wonder why the SAF is so backwards in many areas.
For one, some of the lecture slides have terrible spelling, grammatical and vocabulary errors. I am not requiring them to be perfect, but at least they should be understandable. And it doesn't help if the lecturer has no idea that his slides are wrong either.
For another, some of the instructors here at ETI give me a poor impression. I do not think a duty instructor who listens to the strength report while leaning on a rover and standing literally on one leg deserves any more respect than a new enlistee who behaves in the same manner.
It is absolutely pathetic. I don't see the officers behaving in such a manner. Perhaps that's the reason why they are officers and these people are just sergeants.

Sometimes you also have to think about the people who sign on in the SAF. There are many who sign on under forced circumstances, such as a poor education certification, making it difficult to pursue further education, or being urgently in need of money to get by. More than often, the former is usually the reason why people sign on in the army.
I am not promoting any discrimination here but personally I feel that a person with a higher education level appears to behave in a more appropriate manner than his counterpart of a lower education level. I have seen this through my platoon commanders back in SISPEC, where the platoon commanders with a lower education level can act unreasonably sometimes.
I see this once again in ETI where some instructors hold themselves poorly.

The WOSPEC is the backbone of the SAF. So how can the SAF stay strong internally if the backbone is so messed up?
Perhaps, for the sake of argument, we can say that the SAF is a huge organisation and it is difficult to maintain standards within such a huge organisation. But this screwed up syndrome is visible everywhere I go within this organisation, so something definitely must be very wrong.
in my opinion, they should engage some external auditors to audit the management and instructional level in the SAF.
If not, the SAF will only be 3G in terms of technology and equipment, but the protocol and system will forever stay in the 1G days.

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I watched Wall-E on Saturday. It was a great movie, very original and very creative. Absolutely deserving of its 97% rating on RottenTomatoes The movie portrayed a lot of messages open for the audience to interpret. Do catch Wall-E if you can spare the time!

Kanna guard duty on Monday, unfortunately. Its my first guard duty in the SAF, lol.
I guess I have been too lucky in avoiding the grasps of regimental duties for the past 6 months. Not anymore I guess. Ahh. I do hope its not so bad.

That's all for today then. Gotta report back to camp soon. Might blog again next week!

The last week has approached. 5 days from now, I will be donning my corporal rank - the fruits of my 8 weeks of hard training in SISPEC.
I strongly believe I will be sent to 1 Guards as a Recce commander after BSLC; they sourced me out and interviewed me for that specific vocation. (On the surface, its an interview, but its more like them coming to inform you that you are in.)
That's unfortunately one of the toughest vocations available in the SAF(after commandoes), which is ironically also the path I set out to simulate a NSF who will suffer throughout his NS life. Lol. Talk about irony.

But I am not depressed or feeling down about it. In fact, I am perfectly fine with going to this vocation. Sure, its tough, but I will gain more exposure and learn more. It is also definitely a much more interesting vocation than being an infantryman. I ain't in the mood to spend my next 1.5 years doing FCO lol.

This week has been a very tiring one. I never thought my morale could go as low as this. It is even lower than the time spent enduring tough training sessions and sleepless nights.
Sigh. I was looking for someone to talk to a few days ago. But it turned out to be a difficult task to find anyone who had the time to spare a chat. Oh well. Its a busy period lately, so I shouldn't bother people anyway.

- Warning: Spoiler alert!-

Watched Money Not Enough 2 with the peeps today. It was a show mixed with opinions, teachings, suggestions, and lots of advertisements. But one part that caught me was the way the brothers managed their ailing mother.
It reminded me a lot of my grandmother when her health was going downhill. Her sons and daughters also came together to decide what to do with her. They initially went for the idea of hiring a maid, and they even thought of sending my grandmother to a nursing home, but eventually it was my mom that volunteered to take care of my grandmother till the end. She took no-pay leave, and stayed at my grandmother's side till she passed away.
I am very proud of my mom - its not an easy task to take care of a patient. Her patience and love for her mother was reflected through the sleepless nights she spent everyday taking care of my grandmother.
After seeing how the brothers in the movie managed their mother, I finally understood how much my mom must have gone through during that period of time. It was very touching indeed. I really hope all the sons and daughters in the world can take good care of their parents and never ever send them away to be taken care of by others. They will never receive the same care, and they will never be as happy as they were by their own children's side.

- End of Spoiler -

National Day was considerably boring this year. For some reason, I have lost the enthusiasm I used to have while watching the national day parade each year. Maybe its because I am currently serving the nation every single day so I do not think much of the parade. Oh well. Didn't catch the fireworks this year either. I was thinking of buying a camera but I think I changed my mind again. Maybe I will consider it when I got enough cash to spare. Haha. NS pay is so miserable.. Can't afford too many things now.

That's all for this week then. Next week there's just 1 more field camp to go. I think Charlie is like the only company which has field camp on the last week. After that, its 28km and the graduation parade! Woo. POP lo!

6 weeks has passed!
Omg. the last week was horrible.
Sickening weather which is gg to last for the next week as well.
And i got Ex Wonderer + Ex Glandslang next week >_< .. in that weather. Haix.

On the bright side.. I passed my SOC ^^
Ran like there was no tommorow.. which was pretty much worth it cos there was a retest on Fri. Heh.

Did something I really shouldn't have on Fri.

So that's that for now. Gonna get ready to melt next week. Field camp, Field camp, Field camp! Rah!