Disappointing Thoughts

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Sometimes the reality disappoints.

I feel like an idiot working hard. It's just not worth the effort. It's just not worth the time. Look at the people around me. Look at what's really happening now.

People can get over things without doing anything. People just don't bother. People don't need to put in any effort to get things done.

It's a very hard pill to swallow. But I know I don't have the talent and neither am I that smart. I have to work hard for things.

It's the same case no matter during school, army or work. Everthing is like that.

I'm also very tired. Just let me rest and let me heck everything.

Floating Thoughts

Sunday, November 26, 2006

This week seemed to pass ultra quickly =) and I think I should be happy about that. 3 more weeks and I'll get to fly to HK! Really excited about that...Since I will not be updating the blog during this period, I shall upload my China trip entry (which I posted in my prev blog, now I found my source code) and fill up the space =D

2 weeks since mum is not at home. Don't really know what she's doing at HK. But at least she doesn't need to tidy up the place and doesn't need to help me with all the things over the weekend. Didn't do much during the weekend, just rotting at home and try to save money for HK trip =)

Have to move bunk again~ and I managed to get a better bed position. Actually the bunk we got became ultra small (8 people in 8 man bunk - fully utilised) not like those days whereby it was 5/8. The drivers are going for their course also...but time will really fly after this week I think.

I came across this chinese article quite some time back. But now this mother was interviewed in a Phoenix TV programme recently, so I managed to know her name and surfed the net about her incident


Link to the Article

It's a very touching report. It is about a mother, who was examined to have a bone marrow failure, giving up all treatment procedures due to the heavy cost of the treatment. Although her sister's bone marrow can be donated to her, she cannot operate with no money in her hand.

Then she waited for her days to end...but all this while she was thinking of her 3 year old son at home. So she wrote many letters to him, for him to remember his mother after her death.

This mother saw an article in the newspapers asking for submissions. It asked for essays written by the parents to their children. So this mother submitted these letters to the publisher.

And the readers were very touched by the letters, so they donated a lot of money, so that she can operate. And she has already carried out the operation. Now she is recovering well in China.

(I'm not very good at narrating the whole incident. Please refer to article)

I'm quite touched by the article. I wonder if parents are always thinking about their children. Everything they do - it's for their children.

It's unconditional love.

Big Dip of Reality

Monday, November 20, 2006

What a week...really very happening week.

The weekend was unusually unhappening. Tons of things happened. Tons. It's so much more exciting to be a civilian than to be inside camp. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three days that made me feel much more fulfilling and lively compared to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Friday. My singing partner (lol) wanted a K-box session a lot. And thanks to the early book-out we managed to start singing at around 3. Actually this time was not as "high" previously, but it was still very fun :) and I think it was very worthwhile (only paid $12 each). Our singing group became a bit larger - 6 people, with me, Bear and Justin being the 3 most frequent member...now with Winston John and Sunat...



(Photo thanks to Bear)

Then we went to eat at Billy Bombers. Long time didn't visit since JTS from 05s64.


Saturday. Even more happening. Now me and sunat goes to swim every week at Civil Service Club. I was one train late and there's already a big crowd at Bukit Batok station.

Then I see sunat kneeling down beside this old man who is lying down. There was lots of blood. Apparently sunat is trying to attend to him.

There was really a lot of blood (even more blood than in medic training course IV) from the head. This poor man fell down and hit his head. The blood was quite fluid (luckily) and the blood seemed to clot quite quickly.

Then the MRT staff came to help and came with the First Aid Kit. Without the First Aid Kit we can't even help this old man :( So sunat and the MRT staff did a bit of just pressing the bandage on the wound. This old man didn't want anyone to call his family and kept saying he's OK (But he really isn't)

SCDF people came around 5 min later...and I think they are also NSF and just like us are not very skilled paramedics. Just checked Level of Consciousness and did a bit of checks.

Although it was a short incidence, I was sweating all over already. My whole shirt was wet before going to swim. It was quite scary. Don't know if I can still think calmly during this kind of situations. But as a medic somehow you feel an obligation to help, no matter you are afraid or not...

Sunday. Went to the ticketing agency to book airline tickets to Hong Kong. EVERYTHING IS SO FULLY BOOKED. Went into quite a lot of agencies to ask. X agency said their SQ, Cathay and United Airline are fully booked. Panic. Y agency only has tickets for SQ, but not on the days that I prefer.

So my stay in HK is shorted, and have to come back on 20th. Only have 2 days to make all my necessary documents, hope I still have enough time to do some shopping and bring some souvenirs to everyone here...but schedule will be really tight. Guess I will make a proper trip there (as long as 1 month) when I'm going to ORD.

Weekdays. My emotions were at rock bottom. Felt very tired. My team has a lot of people who "keng"s and don't want to put in their effort. Sometimes really feel quite an idiot to put in effort in deployment or helping to move stores. Everyone in the bunk is just having this "fatigue" and don't want to work.

"Things may be done in the end anyway"

But...I just don't feel right.

Something is just not really right.

I don't want to make my friends worse off to make myself better off. (Allocative efficency?) It's the teamwork that makes the entire thing work. That's why we are all in the team.

Eventful week.

Halfway Mark

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Finally ended my trainee life in 10 months. It was really really long, with so many things happening especially during the last few months. Being a trainee in my unit is not really easy - not to mention Exercise Titan which we have to do in order to pass out.

4.5 hours of intensive physical exertion. 2.5 hours in MOPP suit. 2 hours in the mask. 1+ hour of pure mental torture.

Was quite proud that my team did quite well in the exercise. Despite all those disputes (our team is quite infamous for having people unhappy with each other) we worked very well with each other and completed the exercise as one piece. Our team had the least number of deployable people, and not to mention we have people with several conditions.

Moving down the tentages, pallets and the stores were still fine. The equipment standby was fine. Our team was really fast in loading up loading down and deployment, but we just cannot take the Casualty Management.

Could not mask off to treat the casualty for the entire 2h. MOPP-4 with mask and under 30+ deg hot sun. After treating each casualty we had to kneel down to take our breath. I pleaded my teammates to carry on. All of us know that it was the most difficult training we ever had.

Casualties just stream in, and we had to carry casualties 10m into the treatment site, carry onto the stretcher stand, then to the disposition. Our casualties were quite big sized - imagine the workload.

It was all very tough. But what I couldn't stand is my teammate who didn't give in all his best just because "it was very hot" and didn't know that "we are just as hot and if not hotter after doing more work."

But I was really proud to say that the platoon completed the exercise and pass out together =)

We are already halfway there.

It marks how far we have come through, and how far are we to the finish.

It is the halfway mark.