Dear Dreams – Page 234

The legendary man in AVA

There is this celebration I have not called upon, which is Lion’s ORD. It is more of a blessing to us than him.

He is the man of a blessed family, the only child of his rich parents. He is given a car and also pocket money other than his NSF allowance.

Being so much older than us, I always expected him to be more sensible and take up more leadership; but even with his high rank, he had failed to set a decent example, not even up to a standard to “pass”.

– Selfish and uncooperative
As the AVA office required someone to be inside at all time during office hours, we took shifts during lunch time but he did not participle at all. Even when the rules were officially set, he did not follow.

– Irresponsible
He did not inform us of changes and issuing of equipments, nor did he complete the T-loan vouchers especially to include the clients’ contact numbers; such that we could not contact the clients when we finally got to know about the loaning. He did not clear the vouchers after the clients returned the equipments, embarrassing us when we tried to contact them.

– Act blur
For all his mistakes, he pretended ignorant. He was more senior than me but he claimed he did not know many things, which was quite true since he did not meddle in the office’s stuffs often. He repeatedly did not complete the vouchers and each time he gave the same reply “need meh?” when it seemed so obvious.

– Abuse to juniors
He was the one who insisted Friday’s overtime duties should be given to the most junior person (he was the most senior person by then). However, he did not dare to mention it again when the officer found out about this scheme.

– Cause of inconvenience
Other than not fulfilling his daily work, he came late for first parade daily even though he was driving and he stayed near by. He used traffic jams as excuses but weirdly he was late for five minutes without failed; he could leave his house five minutes earlier and traffic jam for everyday was a bad excuse. Hence, he caused inconvenience for the duty clerks who needed to account for everyone. And during last parade, he purposely list out all the repeated news to try to impress the officers because he needed not wait for the shuttle bus.

– Skive
Given even a simple job like pasting some posters around the four-storey building, he took two days to accomplish the job. We knew well what he had been doing – like taking keys to empty rooms to sleep, which was his routine. For this, he had tried to make friends with people from other departments so that he could hide in their offices sometimes.

– Steal credits
He always talked “big” to steal credits whenever possible. One of the dirtiest lie he had told a superior was that he was late for a meeting because he was cleaning off bird shits outside the windows. We had spent hours removing the window plates to clean the outside walls, he went and told us to go and find the superior first.

– Un-contactable
As he was so rich, he subscribed two phone lines. One was for the camp people to contact him, using a lousy phone and another line was for other friends which he did not want to let anyone to know. So, most of the time we could not contact him and he claimed that his phone had automatically shut down.

– Playboy
Since he was good with words and with his family wealth, he could get girls easily. He had a steady girlfriend but that did not stop him from flirting around. He often chatted online with many young girls in camp through MSN and sounded so mushy. I had personally witnessed him try to get contact number from stranger.

Conclusion
I doubt he has learnt many things through skiving in camp. His mindset is like a normal NSF, but he has gone overboard somehow; he knows he need not please any colleague since they cannot give him any benefit but he is creating hatreds for himself. He does not care about having a clear self conscience or maybe his prospective towards life is different. He thinks whoever hates him is jealous of him being able to slack his way through NS life; to me, his absence is pushing of his share of work to the rest of us and that is the reason for our fuss. For all the craps he has done and not done, and not being penalized, he is a legend of my department – AVA.

Downgraded temporary, on the hectic day

[Wednesday, 19 April, 2006]

I never like this day for the hectic work load.

Although Kwang Han and Yuqing were on off and Jonathan was already being pulled down to E-Plaza, it was better off somehow with less manpower. We were left with Ben, Chen De, me and occasionally, unofficial helps from Gilbert (he’s supposed to be in charge of the equipment labs only).

I had a stupid morning due to the HLS (healthy lifestyle) run, because I had to join the walking party instead since I was excused RMJ (running, marching, jumping) by the MO; I would rather run or even not attend the HLS at all.

2Wo Soh put me in charge of the walking party since he knew me better than others and I was in a more outstanding PT white shirt while others were in admin shirts. I would rather walk fast like how I usually walk alone to ease any lost of pride but the rest were “old birds” of the walking party and they just wanted a relax walk; some of them had real heart problems as well. In order to keep all twelve people close together, I kept it slow, but there was this Blackie (Kuku) who tried to act garang (hardworking) and kept pushing me to hurry up when he was struggling so hard with his breathing; Nicholas abandoned me by slowing down to avoid the Blackie.

Tea break with Gilbert, Ivan and Mani was relaxing. The morning was quite smooth until getting back to the office; I made a phone call to the Medical Centre and was told that they had not received my MRI report from SGH. They asked me to pass my hardcopy to them to fasten the speed of downgrading.

Just as I was about leave the office, 007 came with Logan and I had to accompany them around the building. It was such a shame that 007 as the boss did not even know about the allocation of the rooms. The organisation was paying him more than 3k per month to surf net everyday.

It dragged on until lunchtime, I rushed to the TRMS office to photocopy my MRI report but an outsider was using it slowly with lots of papers. I went to the admin office and luckily Alex was there to help me.

So, I took the original copy to the Medical centre but the MO said the problems were not downgradeable. I seriously had doubts in him for at first he did not even give me any excuse status until the specialist wrote him a letter and now that he told me he would downgrade me temporary for six months to PES C2L2 only after I showed him the MRI report but he told me he did it just because of my more than six years of back pain; if he had considered my six years of sufferings in the first place, he would have downgraded me temporary since long ago. This mouse Chua was full of shit indeed.

I went to take my lunch at the cookhouse without buying Jonshit his lunch at the officer mess because I did not want his food to turn cold. I made a call to Starhub at TRMS office and the lady told me to fax my 11B over but the admin office was almost empty already. I went back to the theatrette to try to help Ben and when both of us were resting inside the control room, ISM told us to go down to join the rest in the defence video; I planned to slip off halfway if we stayed at control room. Attendance was pathetic anyway.

Quek asked me to return the VCR player after the screening; I was shocked by his capability to find it in the medical centre. Anyway, it was just nice since I had to get Jonshit his lunch at officer mess. Just before I could step out of the office, Chen De halted me to help him with the testing of sound cable at the theatrette but luckily the cable cocked up and I could finally leave.

I went to the admin office first to get my 11B faxed over to Starhub with the help of Alex again. Then, I went to return the VCR player. After that, I asked the officer mess uncle if there was sweet and sour pork meat as Jonshit specially ordered for it. Before I could call him to inform him the uncle did not cook it and ask him what else he want, the uncle was holding the box of rice and seemed extremely eager to earn my money. Since Jonshit did not pick up the call, I anyhow ordered the pathetic leftover dishes for him.

I travelled so much for the day and I hated it when I sweated my new uniform so smelly. Rooms in the afternoon were all checked by me when trainees returned the keys; it was still okay when we only had Ben and I inside the office and Ben was keeping himself occupied with his PSP all the while. I hated it when we had so many people around and none would want to entertain clients and especially when I was more senior than them.

My top unwelcome visitor came a few times to the office (to slack of course). I thought it was ridiculous for him to complain about Rehan hiding around to escape office’s work when he was doing it daily since long ago. Slacker was trying to target Chen De by asking for his whereabouts when he came in right on time.

In the late afternoon, we started packing the office to leave a space for the contractors to build partition wall. It was a bad idea to reduce my office’s size this way when we had so many people and equipments. Anyway, since the upper level wanted to do this, we had no choice but to shift the heavy cupboards and equipments once again. Ben was so energetic at the end of the day, packing up the place alone while Gilbert tried to sweep off every speck of dust.

The most satisfactory thing I did for the day was to go up alone to the haunted accommodation block at level six to get a long and heavy power extension bar from the old CAI room. So, our office could easily power up seven sets of computers with the shortage of power extension bars. The rest of them would be very shocked and excited to see our “new” power extension bar the next day.

Free incoming call

It is so nice to have a free incoming call line, such that when someone calls me, I need not rush to put down the phone. Even when strangers dial the wrong number, I do not mind.
However, I get teased by Gilbert nowadays when I start to complain about the poor reception.
I choose Starhub despite this because they charge outgoing calls by seconds and not minutes; it will definitely save up a lot for me.
I have heard so much from almost everyone that Starhub has the worst reception among the three main mobile phone line service providers in Singapore – inclusive of Singtel and M1; I used to think the poor reception means only the coverage of area, until I get poor reception at every place – my house and camp.
Each time you see me stretch my hand up with the phone high in the air, do not find it weird because I’m trying to get back reception in a faster time.
Anyway, I’m currently using this PowerValue100 plan ($25.20) which costs around $20 after 20% discount for Corporal plan. It consists of 100 minutes free outgoing call and 500 free SMS (additional 500 with student pass).
Reference:
I have called the service line thrice; two of the operators said no to my additional of free 500 SMS (privilege of ***, same goes for Singtel services) but corrected themselves after checking it out. Now, I’m waiting for news after faxing my 11B over.
Just a tip for current M1 users, they offer me this free service of SMSing you if you have a missed call when your phone is switched off or has no reception. Try and ask for it if you think you need it.

Damn the specialists

I finally got back my MRI report. I could have got it from the Orthopaedic Surgery and Neuro Surgeon specialists the previous time but somehow I was possessed.

Anyway, I visited the Neuro surgeon specialist today and he told me to just wait for another half a year to see if my condition had worsened before doing anything. He simply printed out my MRI report and thought my condition was too mild for an operation. I told him I must do it before ORD and he laughed.

To the specialists, they have seen too much similar cases that they presume most of the problems are very minor ones and obviously do not want to care too much until things get worsened.

Damn the first few Orthopaedic Surgery specialists (though I cannot not remember them anymore) for not sending me for MRI earlier; The X-ray report had already shown problems to my back and they must be thinking MRI was too costly – more than four hundred bucks – that they hesitated.

The problems will eventually worsen, may not be now or tomorrow, may not be a week or a month later, but definitely one day. Can someone ease my suffering?

MRI report

ORIGINAL REPORT
HISTORY
Low back pain.

REPORT
MRI LUMBAR SPINE

Sagittal T1 and T2W images, axial T1 and T2W images from L3 to S1 and from S1 to S2 were done. The lumbar vertebrae are labelled using C2 as the landmark.

Normal signal is seen in the lumbar discs. The disc spaces are preserved. The alignment of the lumbar spine is normal. No focal abnormal signal is seen in the vertebral bodies.

Mild disc bulging is seen at L4/5. There is no significant spinal canal or neural foraminal stenosis.

The conus medullaris ends a L1 and appears normal. Subarachnoid cyst is seen involving the left S2 nerve root.

CONCLUSION
Mild disc bulging is seen at L4/5. No focal disc protrusion is demonstrated. Subarachnoid cyst is seen involving the left S2 nerve root.

Xinyi's promise

SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. said:
this saturday beach

xXxinyi says:
haa
xXxinyi says:
who’s gg

xXxinyi says:
i got pedicure appointment lei

SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
what’s pedicure?
SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
kachua kok chiang ah bee weitat mingli and i so far

xXxinyi says:
ahaa
xXxinyi says:
i try to put off the pedicure
xXxinyi says:
but i postpone alr lei
xXxinyi says:
if u guys go in the early morning den can lar

SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
how early?

xXxinyi says:
my appointment at 3.30

SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
oh.. aiyo.. hard leh

xXxinyi says:
ahaa
xXxinyi says:
nvm lar
xXxinyi says:
i join u guys next week or so lor
xXxinyi says:
next time i mean
xXxinyi says:
n i’ll bring chio bu for u
xXxinyi says:
okie?
xXxinyi says:
haa

SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
wow
SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
haha
SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
bluff one right..

xXxinyi says:
ahaa
xXxinyi says:
no lar
xXxinyi says:
reali chio bu

SiLlYDuMb: changed hp number. says:
okayyyyy.. you say one hor!!!!!!!!

xXxinyi says:
okie lor
xXxinyi says:
no proB!

If you can hear

Weeks ago, I told Quek that I had developed a phobia in camp and eventually lost my will to do anything.

For now I realise it is not due to the extension of the two extra months, but mostly of the working attitudes of people around.

There are doubts everywhere, some scheming and also pushing of responsibilities. Everyone has already lost trust in one another, including me.

With a clearer thinking, it is not anyone’s fault for the low paid shitty jobs. Who will want to put in his best for the $300 to $700 job when some morons are leading the teams?

If you do more, it will increase the number of faults you make, and if you do them neatly, you will not be promoted nor have a pay rise.

I’m just too sick of this unsung dispute.

Tennis at King's Mansion

Fcuker Sam.

Taken at Mac Cafe.

The chair.

Pigeon at the swimming pool.

Pigeons.

The tennis court.

[Sunday, 16 April, 2006]

I gave Gilbert a message “Let’s be late since Sam won’t be early” and he told me he would take an extra half an hour. In the end I regretted telling him since he was actually late for an hour.

I was late for around twenty minutes and Sam arrived shortly after; I was right to take my own sweet time after all. We took a seat at the Mac Cafe where Sam had his breakfast. Meanwhile, I called Ruoci and she told me she was not going down anymore, in her sleep perhaps. It was so disappointing for Kailin had backed out as well when I messaged her in MSN hours ago.

Since Raymond’s house was so near, we decided not to trouble him all the way there to fetch us. We took a bus though it was only a stop away. He told us “12 Amber gardens” but we could not find it and he was still not around after a long time after I called him.

Gilbert started to get aggressive then and he threatened Raymond to come down in ten seconds. He told us his place was greenish and after dragging on, he finally arrived and brought us into the condominium with orange buildings. He could have annouced the name of the condominium instead of the street name.

Gilbert gave him the cruel attitude ever since. He had to go up to fetch the tennis balls even though he had already brought four rackets with him.

There were some people at the poolside and from far, the girl in white was so sporty and charming, but I never had the excuse to get close. I could have used my camera instead to take a closer look.

We finally started to play the game after Raymond came down. The fence was not even half as tall as the tennis courts’ at Rehan’s place. This time, I had a better control over the balls but still could not keep the balls down. It totally sucked when my middle finger had not recovered since more than a month ago after going beach with Zhengfang and his friends, that I could not even hold the racket properly. In the end, I got two balls over the fence, which was better than Raymond had expected.

I wanted to go for a swim but none of them agreed. Sam went up with Raymond to bath while Gilbert and I took the shower room besides the pool. Gilbert almost drove me crazy with his quick change of mind to dip ourselves into the pool before bathing. I had a really quick shower and waited by the poolside for them for a long time.

One thing I found it ridiculous was that Raymond had told me that he would be free for the whole day, which turned out that he had to go to church again. We could have gone to his place for tennis on Friday or Saturday but I decided not since he would be only free for half of the day (in morning or afternoon), which was quite stupid.

I felt like teasing him like how I did to Jonathan in camp, but somehow I tried to control myself. It was so kind of him to offer so much cares for the elderly, but certainly wrong to abandon friends like that. I finally realised how Peh felt about him. Anyway, I really could not get it why some people could do wrong things in the weekdays because they thought they could just apologise in the weekends. They even tried to invite me along.

So, the three of us took the different gate as him, as we heeded towards Parkway Parade again. This time, I felt stupid again since it was so nearby and we were taking the bus for a stop.

Gilbert fulfilled his desire for lunch at Yoshinoya, having Sam and I watching over him. We even played a trick on him by hiding his chopsticks so that he had to go back to get one pair.

After that, we stopped at an optical shop because Sam wanted to get a pair of sunglass. Both Gilbert and I suggested a silver frame one so that his eyebrows would not be joined with black frames. In fact, he was so cool looking that he looked nice in all the sunglasses, just the matter of which was the best. I started dozing off on the display table and we left without getting anything.

Sam and I had our lunch at the hawker centre. We took Chay Kuay Teow at this stall which Sam recommended but I thought the food really sucked. The Kuay Teow was not dark enough and was quite sticky, giving the feeling like they were going to melt anytime. The onions were disgusting as well.

Finally, we headed homes. I was so exhausted that my mind was in total blank. It was due to the lack of sleep as well as the exercising; even my fingers were too stitch to press the keys on my phone.

We brought laughers around

[Saturday, 16 April, 2006]

I was a crap today. I brought my camera along without the memory card as my elder brother had left it on his computer’s card reader; I brought my umbrella cover without the umbrella as I had left it dried somewhere in the house after using it the previous day.

It was a karaoke outing at Marina Square. I was delayed for so long as to settle my phone lines. Seah, Gilbert, Tze Siang, Peh and Ivan were already there, singing like a concert performance.

Gilbert helped me with the order of food and the girl arrived with her sweetest smile, which almost got me into drooling. Well, she was not that pretty but quite seductive with a kind of charisma; she looked fresh and had this sunshine smile.

I could not really hear her at first and then I looked at Gilbert, and she started to follow the direction as well. I must admit I had not recovered from my shocks that I was not so calm to listen anyway. She cleared the rest of the food containers before she tried to leave the room and I failed to be quick enough to open the door for her.

I realised she did not leave a pair of chopsticks behind. After waiting for a while, I decided to stretch the phone outside the room to call for service. She was approaching then. As we went in together, I claimed to the rest that the service was so fast that she came immediately and she laughed.

I finally decided I could take a picture with her for my sudden increment of braveness, until I realised the memory card was missing from the camera. I decided to get her number instead but the next attendance who came in was a golden hair girl instead. I gave up.

Anyway, singing was not smooth as usual since I was having sore throat again. I could not even hear my voice clearly for whatever reason. We rounded up with paying $11 each for the karaoke cum lunch, which I actually thought was $7 plus only.

Next destination was Millennium Walk at TCC (The Coffee Connoisseur), which Ivan and I did not really like the idea since it was much less crowded and we had less scenery to see. Seah and Tze Siang left shortly after we arrived, leaving Gilbert, Peh, Ivan and I behind.

We had some craps to talk about and then started to play with my new phone. That was the first time I tried using Bluetooth. There was no indicator telling me the progress of the file sharing, which turned me off.

Next destination was Suntec city, where Gilbert bought a three quarter shorts at a shop. We teased him so badly especially with his waist length that the salesgirl was so impressed by our craps.

The Shopping King (Gilbert) led us to Hereen after that and we met Jimmy. It was where I saw a couple of handphone pouch which I was very interested in, but they persuaded me not to buy as it was more expensive than others; I thought it was quite worthwhile for the quality. So, my 6230I continued to house in that original plastic.

We met two ghosts outside the HMV at the third or fourth storey and the more I looked at them, I felt more like puking; fancy some people still approached them for photo taking. Geisha? That was so disgusting. We went to the toilet and as I was coming out, they passed by and I had this greatest shock of my life that I shouted and flee back inside. Then, I hurried them to get out of the HMV building.

We proceeded on to Cineleisure and had our lunch at Long John Silver. Since it was supposed to be a budgeted meal, I took the Combo One, unlike them, who were enjoying the chicken at around $6 each. That was the last stop of our day at around six plus; however, we camped there and chatted until near nine, and left when the old auntie indirectly chased us away. In fact, we were not the only ones, but I supposed she was the only displeased with us for the day.

Finally a new handphone line

I had an $11 mobile phone plan that my mum never had to pay extra money for my bill each month except for the $5 caller-id charge. It was an old plan from M1 services.

Every month, I saw my friends or my elder brother having exploded bills, but I restricted myself so well that I maintained a clean sheet record; I never chatted long on the phone even with babes. It was my pride and certainly the certificate to my sensibility to show that I was a thinking person with good self control.

It was until my army life as a permanent staff in my unit after my driving course and ROC trip, I could never redress for my guilt. I was quite depressed over the extra charges for my overused amount of airtime. It was unfair for me because most of the calls were for the army’s matters and army was not paying for my excess charges. I was not even working outside as a businessman to earn big money and why would I need to use the phone so often other than SMSing with friends?

Maybe it would be a different story if I was not posted to my current unit – an institute; a combat unit would not require so many phone calls I supposed. So frequently, I was thinking how the army would function without mobile phones; life went on in the past till now and things were still going smooth.

So many shits had caused my phone bill explosion – “Clients” calling my phone directly instead of my office phone maybe because they knew I would do my best to serve; colleagues asking for my location when they obviously knew I did not like to hide around to “eat snake”; colleagues asking me to call others; colleagues borrowing phone from me as their batteries were low; and other ridiculous things.

Even if someone else was to pay for my bills, I would not take it low-lying as my own integrity for clean sheet was relegated.

After hesitating for so long, I had decided to sign up for a new plan. The problem was that I wanted to change my line only after I ORDed so that I would not be receiving any unwanted calls from the few mad people from my unit or my clients who did not know I was already released from hell; however, the recent phone bill explosion threatened me to do it immediately so that my mum needed not pay more than double for my bill each month.

The reason for choosing Starhub was that their outgoing calls were charged by seconds. Since I usually would use it for short enquiries, I could have saved a lot from it. I had considered Singtel for the less lagging and higher reception coverage but never for M1 because of the latency in SMSing and sometimes my friends did not even receive my SMSes.

Since Anqi was working at the Starhub Centre for corporate plans, I had decided to go to her directly. I had checked up with the telephone operators some weeks ago and that I could get Powervalue100 plan for around $20 with 100 minutes outgoing airtime and 1000 free SMSes. I had decided on Sony Ericsson’s 750I for its camera even though I would only need a phone mostly for calling and SMSing.

I went to find her on Thursday night and was greatly disappointed. Firstly, she told me I could only get 500 free SMSes for the plan unless I could produce a student card from anyone and that this batch’s 750Is were always giving problems. She could have told me earlier a week ago when we were out together.

Anyway, I decided to stick to the plan and maybe, tried to get help from my friends to get a student card. As for the phone, I changed to Nokia 6230I since N6230 was my previously targeted phone, even though now that the newer version N6230I was already out for quite long already. Nokia phones were not as good as other brands’ ones nowadays but the battery life was still one of the best and since I was used to all the navigation, and being cheaper, I supposed I had made a good choice.

I spent so much time to separate those more commonly used contact numbers between my SIM card and 3120 so that I could transfer them over to the new SIM card. My plan was to stick to 3120 first since I could not bring the 6230I to camp. Since the older line would be terminated soon, I left it on the new phone without the excess contacts.

Since today was a Saturday, the operating hours would be from 9am to 2pm but my mum had left home at 9 plus before I could wake up. I called the M1 line 68438333 to try to terminate the line but I could not do it without my mum by my side as it was under her name. Since I did not want to miss the outing with Peh and the rest at Marina Square KTV, I called my mum who reluctant to do it on her own due to poor communication skill, but she did it in the end.

In the meantime, I called Starhub to check for my plan. The lady told me I could not use the Student plan for another extra free 500 SMSes as I was using corporate plan. Then, after checking out, she told me I could even do it using my 11B instead of a student card. However, I had to wait on as my details were not in their system yet.

I waited for quite some time and called her to find out the status since she did not call me back. She told me she was on phone and was going to call soon. Then, she told me the operator had told her about auto-roaming stuffs.

So, I had to call them back and they could only tell me the status when I could provide them with my mum’s details, but not to amend anything. She told me we might have to cancel any auto-roaming with another service provider – Singtel or Starhub. I asked if my line could be only terminated at end of the day and she told me my mum had to do it personally herself again to get it done since it was already terminated. My mum called and she was told that it could not be done.

The reason for continuing with my old line till end of the day was to finish the excess SMSes to use them to inform my friends of the change of number. Out of the mess, I decided not to let myself be bothered with M1 anymore; so, I started mass SMSing my contacts with my new line – a waste of SMS.

I was not that lazy that I did not want to SMS my friends but some of them were at overseas, especially for the army friends who might be at Taiwan now for exercise. I spent the whole journey from Tanjong Pagar to Marina Square doing the SMSing as I was afraid my friends would contact me through the terminated line soon.