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Sunday, July 18, 2004
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Absolutely the Most Trying Day of my NS Life
Yesterday, i cursed. I sweared. I prayed to anonymous gods. I bled, sweated and teared. No, i wasn't reliving my BMT days or crawling through mud in a random dense jungle in Singapore (i don't do such stuff. i'm a signaller. :) ) But it was probably the busiest day in my life. Impossibly busy, not in the 10-chapters-left-to-mug, trying to MSN-ICQ-IRC-Kazaa-hotmail-phone people at the same time kinda busy. But thrown into situations that required me to think fast, act fast, report to my superiors, seek out info from my campmates and ultimately make use of more than 40 sms-es and 20 min of outgoing talk time (ppl, i absolutely DREAD making phonecalls fm my hp, it's jus my frugal (or ppl say stingy) nature acting up tho i dun pay mi bills)
I'm going to give a whole accout of my day. There will be many technical terms i'll need to avoid for the general audience's convenience but still there are some i can't avoid. And it's going to be quite lengthy, i'll try to spice it up but it's hard. it's MEANT to look tedious so it feels TEDIOUS. but that doesn't discount the credibility of the following account.
I woke up at 5:23 am. Cursing. Knew i could be in deep shit cos i was supposed to wake up at 12mn to swap over my generator (generators shldn't run for more than 8 hrs) and now... my gen has jus ran for more than 12 hours. I changed, i fast marched up this tedious uphill that took 10 min even for fast marching. Discovered my entire detachment (my equipment in my vehicle that runs on my gen) was shut down, my gen wasn't running and i thought, " Holy Guacamole. i'm in such deep shit . " But being the super smoker i am (in army, smoke means 'covering up ur shit' ) i thought i would just tell my ma'am it died by itself before 12mn and needs servicing (i figured it'll probably need servicing) since the day before i reported a fault for the generator anyway. Quick thinking : change a gen over, power up my stuff and go down for my duty slot at 6.
Rushed down. 6 - 9 i was just supposed to answer phonecalls and guard some keys in a little office. I thought, ' wat a crappy start. ' More to come. At 8 , i had to run down my generator and equipment so going up the slope, i prayed hard that the faulty gen could work now (after i topped up diesel). Tried. It started! Sputtered some smoke, start vibrating like no1's business and had a low voltage of bout 1/8 of its intended voltage. Holy crap. i jus tried to wish it away (self-denial), turned my back on it and left after shutting down mi stuff. Bad day. need my rest at 9 - 12.
Oh great. A Video link was down. I KNEW my resttime would be spent making phonecalls. Had to contact my ma'am who would contact Singtel, who contacted MCF who contacted me who contacted my ma'am. Conclusion : i made a hell lot of phonecalls. Had to make a trip down to the guardroom (using the army vehicle we had : a Landrover) and escort some Singtel personnel up. So i got down at bout 10.00, UNrested. Stupid guy was late (turned out to be a nice uncle in e end, but for now it's stupid guy) by 20 minutes. Waited. Got him, drew a key at another building to open a door to a stupid room and went in with him. He did his own testing. Ma'am called again. I called chris, huili and lihui up to make small talk. We went on up to my site on his vehicle. Ma'am called again. Sergeant called to say he was waiting for mi checks to be done, be4 he could go. Ma'am called AGAIN. Checks on mi site went ok. Called Ma'am. MCF called. Ma'am called me to call another officer. I called officer. Officer used mi phone to talk to singtel guy. Singtel guy said he would check our end modem. He checked and finally deduced it was e problem with my video link cable!
hurray. i thot. at least sth's gonna be done bout it. Asked onsite commander where the extra cable. he says dun have. i call ma'am, ma'am says have. ma'am chides me for not knowing where mi stuff is. ma'am talks to onsite cmdr. i walk down stupid slope to find spare cables. Called the last guy i took over from. Found cable.
Felt really pai seh for another guy who had to take over my 12-3 slot after his 9-12 slot cos i was busy. he was a bit grumpy too. Guy called mi hp, told me i haven't returned my key. I cursed. Got the driver to drive me to the guardrm. Returned key. Found that lunch rations were here. So i went to collect lunch rations (not mi job). got driver to bring me up to site. Replaced cable. Which was rather tedious. Cos the old cable was STUPIDLY laid underneath and between some really heavy and bulky data cables. Running in and out between the few heavy shit cables. And hell , to top it off, they cased all my cables in some metal trunking. Grumbling, mud on my fingers, sweat in my eyes (justifies my endless tearing), i tried to pull the insanely long cable through each gap between the cables (untying entanglements in the hardest but only way) after unscrewing the trunking. officer helped me out . Done. FINALLY. Informed ma'am. ma'am says good work, go rest. rest. i thot. called sergeant told him he could go now. called ops room.
1:30 p.m. Well well. felt quite bad towards the guy who took over me. So offered to take over him till 4:30 p.m. but he said it was alright. so BOTH of us stupidly stayed all the way . But only till 3 when good news came.
Ma'am : Hey ZY. BIG problem.
Faster than light, i cursed fm mi heart. I hardly sat down for 1 hr (including cleaning up, lunch and keeping stores)and now i gotta do stuff.
Some stupid signaller fm mi platoon FORGOT (so did my sir) to bring 2 terminating cables for use with the generator they brought along, to AUSTRALIA (no i din fly then. haha how i wish i had such a fun army life). So now, being the only person on a Saturday who's nearest to camp, I had to go back my unit. Find as many terminating cables and bring them down to the site to test them with my gen. Cos there were no more gens around INCAMP.
Hell. So i agreed. damned sian. Got driver and rover to bring me back to the unit. tried to find but found none on the vehicles. Went up to my bunk, to open mi cupboard to get my own spare store key to check mi storeroom for the cable. Help. I realised the key to my lock was in my wallet which was back at the site. So i realised i could only get the other storekey from the key press in my office. So i RAN to the guardrm to draw my office key. Went back. thought, 'this is it. no more shit for me once i get mi store key "
Key In. it BROKE. Half the key was stuck inside.
I was speechless. Fate could not be more blatant in its attempt of throwing me a shitty day.
I stoned. Ma'am calls. She shrieks. She calls the overall in charge for the other office where the emergency exit leads to MY office. Ma'am calls me to draw the office key for this other office, called Alpha. RAN back to guardroom. Drew the key. Went back. I realised the lock for the emergency exit was the same one for the office. And there was only one key for this kind of locks. Tried. Thought there must be another key since the office key wasn't working. Went to draw fm guardrm again.Guardroom can't find it. Guard keeps running off to open the gate , answer phonecalls. Me pissed off. Called campmate and asked which key he used to open the door this morning. He says dunno. Called e other campmate who opened e door. Couldn't get through. Called ma'am : second shriek. Tried looking again. Ma'am called. ma'am wanted to me to ask duty officer fm also from that office. I asked. he dunno. Called ma'am. brainstorm. ma'am ask me to contact any of their personnel to ask abt that key. I called. He dunno. Called mi campmate again. He said the other campmate opened it. Called the other. He said the key was correct but the door is seriously sucky.
RAN BACK. tried. ONE key. One knob. 20 min of in-and-out. No aircon, suffocating little office. I almost went mad. Sweating all over. Called ma'am. Ma'am shrieks for 3rd time. She says no choice cos i had to go back to set up my eqpmt for daily checks with our HQ at 4:30 but it was 4: 20 already. She says she'll probably recall one of my sergeants. I think that did it. I thot it's realli crap to recall some1 to open a DOOR. So with some praying. DOOR opens.
Goodness. I ran to open key press, get mi store key, run to open mi store. get mi cables. run up bunk to keep mi store key there first. run down. get driver. stop by guardroom, return my keys. On the way back to my site, they saw our rations, i collected lunch for the sergeant in charge. By the time i got back it was FIVE.
Ran to start up my eqpment. No problem. The 'faulty' gen suddenly worked. FINALLY some good luck. Tested the cables i got with the generators. Got so much sweat in my eyes, i was actually crying pretty badly. Topped up diesel, couldn't rub my eyes cos my hands were greasy. Threw all my cables down after they were done. Onsite cmdr calls my hp. I run over to him. He says to start the checks but nth much to do. I get back to pack mi stuff.
Go back to onsite cmdr and was thinking. heck finally time for me to rest.
Okay. great. Primary eqpment down. I got to put all my lines to the secondary eqpment. No problem. I jus did the necessary. Cut my finger by the steel wires in my cables. Then they asked me to go down and rest 1st. since not much point for me to stay up there.
7-9 : tried sleeping while i could cos i knew when the spares came in for the Pri Eqpment, they would ask me to go back up there to put the lines back to where they were. 8.00 i jus slept for bout 15 minutes, my warrant comes in asking me to go help out with area cleaning (GOD! i dun do STUPID stuff like cleaning ok! i'm do REAL stuff) . I decide to heck him and go back to sleep. Sergeant i/c comes in asks me to wake up and do. I wake up sweep the floor , realli sleepily. Go back to sleep. 20 min later, spares arrived. They page for signaller. I go down. Take a rover up put my lines back , come down and FINALLY i get to rest at 10:20 p.m. Ready to wake up tml at 5:20 to change my generator.
Call duration :
I resetted my handphone 3 days ago.
Now : Incoming calls : 48 min
Outgoing calls : 22 min
SMS : 83 (not entirely cos of this, cos i was trying to arrange outing for 3 cliques at 1 go)
I am just totally wasted. I'm not really physically exhausted or traumatised. By all these out-of-nowhere disasters jus come in my way at such precision and punctuality that it seemed like it was all planned! Cables not brought over to Aust, keys breaking, modem spoilt, people asking for keys when i'm busy. Gosh.
It felt like some trial i had to overcome. I didn't really whine or moan. But i felt TRIED. I felt like i was being tested , being challenged by i dunno who. I kept talking to myself as i climbed that impossibly steep and long slope repeatedly. I kept telling myself : " I need strength. I need resilience. I need fortitude. " And all the problems were REAL time. i had to solve them there and then or else things weren't gonna work or mi campmates were gonna get recalled down. I had to entertain more than 50 phonecalls regarding work or related. From angry ma'am to pai seh ma'am, from sergeants who wanna leave camp early to sergeants who dunno how to tell me how to open a blasted accursed door, from guards who rather masking tape their log books instead of helping me find a key (claiming its jus as urgent. wat a f*****r) to guards who take their time to open the gates when i'm in a rush, i've seen the faces of inefficient people, slackers, losers, no-brainers, dreamers , cockanadons, nincompoops , kind helpful officers, useless officers and sweep-the-floor-pls officers.
And i'm not embarrassed to say that i think i'm a determined person. Honestly. I think the kind of attitude i had when i faced all these 'ordeals' was very positive, even to myself. i could see all my campmates in the exact same scenario, wishing they were dead or that their ORD dates brought forward by 10 years or sth like dat. And i also realised, i am a person who assumes things work out. (not 'presumes') I always thought everybody thought so too. But i HONESTLY think they do (at least work-wise). And somehow, in a very logical argument,
If it is True that things always work out in the end,
Assuming end cannot be at the end of time because the end is used in context (for my case, end = 10 p.m.)
And assuming time passes as it does,
things always get better while you're at it!
Logical? It seems no matter what, u're always stepping closer to the "end" where "things work out" or at least " things stop bugging you ". Then i concluded that, the only reason why i can safely feel that things WILL get better, its not cos i'm a useless passive optimistic well-wisher but i'm actually constantly trying to solve my problems and make things work out . As such, things always do get better, not only because it is "how things go about" but also because i. am. simply. TRYING.
If only this rule applied to other aspects of mi life. haha.
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