Friday, August 31, 2007
Finally the week has come to a close, and I felt that I've made some really stupid mistakes throughout the week, and although the week has ended, it's time to do that little bit of self checking and self-reflection. I felt that throughout the week, I've made several social-EQ errors, treading on toes that I would require later. Although I think they are really f***ed up, after deeper thinking, I realize that those toes are vital to a smooth journey for the last lap of my NS stint in unit
I ended up getting tips from a "man", but I should be really thankful that it is my own guys that are the ones making the extra effort to approach and socialize with me.
This is what he had to say, to build relationship with the specs and men, dun draw a line at the rank. That I have to be careful of the way I speak or say something... Because there are some thing people are saying about me. Well, things like they don't really like my tone when I speak to them about stuff. Do I? Maybe I do, maybe I don't, I never really thought about myself as some very high-ranking guy, just doing my job. I don't go around throwing my weight..!
I can sense that current batch of specs do show some concept for me, but they are really screwed up themselves, always only bothered with getting offs and leaves, holing up in their bunks sleeping or playing with their PSPs.
As what he has said, he knows honestly they don't really seem all that helpful. I don't really harp on this because they are going to ord soon.
Then come the problem with the officers. I always thought my colleague is f***ed up, he's really dumb and stupid sometimes, and in AFS I could tolerate him because we weren't directly working with each other, but now in unit, he seems to be always slacking and I always seem to be working so much harder than him, yet he's getting all the offs. So tell me, what way is that jerk better than me?
Here there is no rank, just NSF helping each other out, and... you will have to work with these ppl sooner or later. Well... this is the mentality to work with, however I shouldn't mean dun forget to exercise rank when really needed but honestly, we are all NSFs with different responsibilities, just that I get it a lot harder as an officer. However not all men/specs will sympathize with your position, but if you understand their position, they'll take effort to understand mine. Is that so?
I didn't really agree with this philosophy, but it still made sense. I can choose follow his view and lead an easier life in unit, or be authoritative as in a "military" organization and lose my guys later on in life. Somehow my personality inclines towards the second option, I can't be "soft" on my guys or they'll walk all over you, which is somehow what I am experiencing now, based on my NPCC experience, sometimes the "hard" way is the way to get things done. But now after 5 months in 3Da, I'm beginning to learn that that is the opposite of being true, people here are still unwilling conscripts and I am stuck in the center, I have got to approach them the soft- public relations method if I want to get things done without them alienating away from me or bearing grudges. I really hate this method but I have no choice. The people here want to be treated equally regardless of rank, which is really just for show if you are an NSF. Sigh. If I go the hard way, the guys will already be alienating and I will be burning bridges instead of building them, and even if that's the way I want it to go, I am only going to make things more difficult for myself. I can handle it myself, but why make things difficult? I have to swallow my face and pride as an officer in unit. It's really a screwed up place to work in.
I think after thinking through the weeks events, the first option is a better choice, I should start treating the specs as colleagues, open up your difficult position to them but dun sound needy, sound like you know what they are going through kinda thing, and even if they are ord-ing, there are some things they are quite willing to help you with if you ask nicely and focus on the trainees more for now, since they'll be with you a lot longer.
This week is a complete failure of my EQ... First I shouted at a fellow officer, yes he's a complete jerk and I can easy work without him, but that will be giving extra work for myself, and for what? As much as I want to fuck him and whack the shit out of him, it's only counter-productive and will give me extra headache in the long run, with temporal satisfaction.
I find it a tenacious balance of both EQ and IQ to be stuck in-between the Captains and regulars, at the same time maintain a working professional and social relationship with the NSF men and specs in my charge. How to be professional as a 2LT when you got to approach your men using the soft approach all the time? I know the military has just the same kind of office politics as the business world, but the nature of our job calls for decisive action that sometimes requires forceful orders, not molly-cuddling. It's hard to maintain that mask everyday, but that's 3Da, and that's my NS working life now. I am not that stupid ain't I? I like to think that way, but that would mean I have to refine my way and my methods of approaching the guys in Alpha from now on.
One of my corporals mentioned now that he is helping out to take the trainees, he really wants to help take and instruct the trainees, and he now knows how a commander feels, on one hand, they are your men and you want the best for them by being really nice to them, on the other hand, you have no choice but to punish them when they fail to achieve certain important requirements and make serious mistakes. Yet, you can't bear to unleash that full bout of punishment because not only are they your men, you will be working with them professionally later on. If you are too soft, they'll walk all over you; if you are too harsh, they'll isolate themselves and you'll find it hard to get their cooperation later on. But a line has to be drawn.
Sigh.
It's teacher's day today, and almost the whole unit is going for a Cohesion day. But I didn't go, I have to stay back to conduct GPMG lessons for the trainees. So I was solo again, teaching the trainees everything about the GPMG solo, I am very comfortable with that weapon, one of my favorite weapons. So it was all fresh in my head, I taught them the stripping assembling, the 5 IA drills, followed by ending the day with a PT lesson by me.
I think I am overworking. Why am I working so hard when everyone else around me is so relaxed, is it just me? Or am I right to think that way?
Well... you are working hard probably that's the way you have usually been (whether due to ideals or fear of losing credibility to the people around you). When you are in unit, you will start to see that it is all a scam, you work hard but people rarely recognizes your hard work, since most stuff are behind the scene which half of it are unnecessary crap.
When it's finally time to book out, my brain was churning events throughout the whole journey back home. I've been thinking a lot, throughout the week, am I acting even worse than an unschooled and uncivilized person?
5:00 AM
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Turns out that I had to go for CES in the early morning, so I was quite pissed, I didn’t feel like going and I didn’t want to go, but F***ing colleague was incompetent and I have to end up covering his asshole for him when he screws up.
I heard that he fucked up yesterday by bringing the wrong equipment and because of that, the whole group couldn’t do anything for the first half of the day and BC wanted to punish him, yeah, serve him right! So now I have to go for CES.
But it was a smooth day, this time we were doing CES in the mounted role, everything was smooth, Cpt Ong came down for a look-see as well, but nothing much happened, after it all ended, I was completely in-charge of the cease-fire, and the V200 was a tight squeeze out of the CES dome, but it was a new experience even though I am an instructor, just that doing it for the first time was interesting. I bet the guys have never seen it done before as well.
The cease-fire was rushed, but in the end, everything ended smoothly and we all went back to camp.
Was I unhappy? Yes, maybe I was because I have a colleague who is F***ing stupid. Sometimes the things he really does is F***ing STUPID. I could tolerate him a little in AFS, but now in unit, he is one of my fellow immediate colleagues and he just doesn't F***ing use his brain, and I am quite unhappy that he is the one chosen to go to Wallaby instead of me, don't they choose who to go based on Merit? Are they telling me that he is BETTER THAN ME?
In What way is he F***ing Better than me?! He doesn't work half as hard as I do, isn't as fit as me or F***ing FIT at all, for F***, he can't even do 6 pull-ups! He's F***ing dumb shit, totally slow, totally intellectually challenged, doesn't have any academic accolades to even talk about, mediocre sub-standard 2 point GPA from Poly and just completely stupid, yet why is he getting more recognition than me?
Of course I am F***ing unhappy with colleague , a complete stupid dumbshit that I have to work with and I am completely ashamed to even acknowledge that he commissioned in the same batch as me. F***ing Dumbshit.
9:06 PM
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Exciting nightI ended up doing the paperwork the whole day today, and when my superior walked past to see what I was busy with, I showed him a glimpse of how my exercise monitoring system works, and he was duly impressed with what I've done and wants to nominate this for WITS! Hmm.. I thought it was just a mere assignment, now it's a WITs project?
It was flattering and I was pleased with my own work for now, with all the new formulas that I've been writing in excel, =) I believe this is actually my first time writing such a complex EXCEL program, the first attempt at producing what Cpt Eugene suggested wasn't very viable, so I decided to come up with the ATR myself.
I was the BDO today, and here I am in the Ops Room after dinner doing paperwork, working on my solo-written program for that battery I was feeling good about the program because of it's complexity and the fact that I wrote everything from scratch! Using functions I never used before, yeah.
What made the night exciting was that one of the bunks at the upper levels had a damaged lock and as a result, the occupants were both locked in and out! They couldn't open it from the inside and neither could they open it from the outside, so I went up and after accessing the situation and trying various ways of prying open the door, I got permission from HQ BSM to break open the door by force! So it was my chance of a lifetime, to really force open a door, so I got to kick open the door! It surprisingly managed to withstand 2-3 of my kicks, but those were half-hearted because I thought the door was relatively weak, so I focused a little more and then BAM! The door broke open and the lock flew apart. It was very exciting! And they even suggested using a door breaking tool...
The duty officer for the day did his job, talk about all the bizarre things that occur in camp when you are on duty, it's not very often that you get to use violence and brute force for real and actual purposes! =) Who says NS is boring?
-MK
8:44 PM
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
I caught the "The Bourne Ultimatum" today and it's a very satisfying thriller. I give it 4/5!!! Excellent! A must-watch.
Matt Damon returns as the trained assassin Jason Bourne for the latest showdown in The Bourne Ultimatum. In the follow-up to 2002's The Bourne Identity and 2004's The Bourne Supremacy - the smash hits that have earned over $500 million at the global box office.
The film's running time was a breathless 115 minutes, and it's a superbly kinetic action picture "The Bourne Ultimatum" treats its own narrative almost abstractly, as a series of hurdles to be knocked over quickly, casually, en route to the next futile attempt on Jason Bourne's life.
This is the most satisfying thriller of the year, Ultimatum is the most relentlessly-paced entry in the frenetic series, starting off in mid-action just weeks after The Bourne Supremacy left off. An injured Jason Bourne, a.k.a. David Webb (Damon), escapes from Russia and is making his way through Europe when he reads an article about himself in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.
Seeking out the article's author, reporter Simon Ross (Paddy Considine), Bourne knows Ross' source had to be a high-ranking CIA official. He wants to meet Ross' source not to kill him, but to find out more about his true identity and who made him what he is today. Ross' article threatens to expose the super-secret Blackbriar operation, a clandestine ops group within the CIA that makes the previous films' Treadstone group look like the Watergate burglars. The CIA, obviously, doesn't want the bloody truth about what Blackbriar is doing exposed, so they send a team to snatch Ross. The reporter's surprise savior turns out to be Bourne, whom the CIA mistakenly believe is aiding Ross and wants to expose Blackbriar. This leaves Blackbriar boss Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) one option: kill Bourne and anyone else in order to protect the agency.
Once again on the run from the CIA and their "assets," Bourne receives aid from two unlikely sources: CIA personnel Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), both of whom have their own reasons for helping Bourne. Bourne's pursuit of Blackbriar leads him from Madrid to New York City, with lots of action and a high body count ensuing. What Bourne learns in Manhattan answers many of the series' biggest riddles, but also helps bring the films full circle.
Stripped of Treadstone and all of its double agent machinations, The Bourne Ultimatum is the easiest of the three films to follow. The premise is simple: The good guy wants to know information the bad guys have, and the bad guys simply want to kill the hero before he can expose them. That clarity is especially helpful since this sequel also utilizes numerous flashbacks to the first two films in order to bring viewers up to speed. These flashbacks are judiciously chosen and seamlessly integrated; their inclusion doesn't stink of "Previously, on Bourne" exposition.
Result is a breathless doozy that sends Bourne from Moscow to Turin, Paris, London, Madrid and Tangier, Morocco, before alighting in New York, from where the CIA's extra-legal assassination org has been tracking his movements with the most sophisticated and instantaneous of high-tech equipment. But Bourne continually beats the agency at its own game, outwitting and tricking its surveillance ploys and besting the toughest killers the company can throw at him.
Having settled certain scores in "Supremacy" three years ago, Bourne (Matt Damon) is determined to retrieve his memory this time around, so as to learn the identity he had before placing his skills at the service of the agency. Spurring this opportunity are articles by a London journo (Paddy Considine) in which revelatory details of Bourne's career were obviously provided by a highly knowledgeable source.
After a hair-raising pursuit of Bourne and the scribe at London's Waterloo Station, Bourne tracks the source to Spain, where he once again meets CIA op Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), and then to Tangier, where a CIA "asset," or hitman, is lying in wait. An amazing chase through the port city's twisty, hilly streets and the teeming passages of the old Medina, then over rooftops and through windows, and finally to a gasping, slashing, hand-to-hand combat scene in a cramped bathroom, is a marvel of technique and sheer logistics, and one that makes marvelous use of a legendary city rarely seen in Western cinema.
Along the way, it becomes clear the CIA has replaced its former black-ops program, Treadstone, with a new one called Blackbriar, which under stern topper Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) displays a propensity for rogue action and killing as a ready solution to all problems. As they listen in on phone calls and observe Bourne's movements their secret Manhattan HQ (never before has a feature film so well documented London's pervasive surveillance cameras), Vosen and colleague Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) argue over what to do with Bourne. Landy, who developed a certain affinity for the lone wolf in Berlin three years back, wants to keep him alive, while Vosen repeatedly insists upon whacking him. Latter's increasing frustration over the mounting failures to do so amply contributes to the very pure audience pleasure the picture generates.
Greengrass stages one spectacular set piece after another, virtually all of them in crowded public places -- train stations, airports, cafes, bottlenecked city streets -- that lend the action scenes an unsurpassed sense of verisimilitude. Bourne walks away from more than one auto crash that would have finished off lesser men, but he and we know that nothing is going to stop him before he comes face to face with his own Dr. Frankenstein, a man whose image periodically flashes through his mind.
Greengrass hasn't just topped the previous Bourne movies in every way, he's raised the bar for the spy and action genres for years to come, and he's done it in a movie without very little dialogue. This is Matt Damon's Cast Away except without a volley ball sidekick and with minute after minute of pulse pounding peril and violence instead of slow starvation. Damon plows through The Bourne Ultimatum like a force of nature; a silent, a living weapon on a mission of determined, unstoppable discovery. That's right, discovery. In The Bourne Supremacy Bourne made the bad guys pay. This time he's had enough and wants to know who he is. Bourne simply wants to be done with everything and he's not the kind of guy that takes no for an answer.
The action scenes are breathtaking and they include some of the best foot and car chases ever filmed. Bourne's prolonged bout with CIA asset Desh (Joey Ansah) in Madrid is arguably the most brutal hand-to-hand fight yet in the series, while the car chase between Bourne and another asset, Paz (Edgar Ramirez), is like The French Connection on steroids. Bourne's superhuman-like ability to shake off almost any injury, blow or crash is utterly ridiculous, although it proves to be a key source of sly humor in the films and for the character's undeniable coolness.
Every second, every moment of The Bourne Ultimatum is jammed with danger, pounding and pounding against the screen in unstoppable waves of energy and intensity. Bourne never lets up, not even for a second. His cameras keep rolling and Matt Damon keeps moving, putting plans together on the fly and eliminating obstacles one by one as he moves in a steady, straight line towards his final goal in a complicated, rhythmic dance of controlled destruction.
What is perhaps even more amazing than the movie's ability to do things that'll make your jaw drop, is the way it manages to do character development in the middle of all those car crashes and explosions, and does it without words. So much of the credit for that has to go to Damon, who even though he's not talking says volumes with what's going on behind that stoic, no-nonsense expression Bourne keeps wearing. Without saying a word, Damon puts together a complete picture of what his now familiar character is going through, not just externally but internally as well. Bourne is a living weapon, but a suffering, breathing, feeling weapon who, more than ever you'll find yourself rooting for.
Damon once again masterfully underplays Bourne, simmering with intensity that is only fully unleashed when he kicks ass and takes names (literally, since he wants information). Allen finds the humanity in Landy, while Stiles hints at the internal turmoil inside Nicky. Strathairn is like a bullet leaving the chamber: He will find his target no matter what. His casting as Voss is a brilliant subversion of the "man of integrity" persona he's become known for.
Live Free or Die Hard was great fun, but there's really nothing else quite like The Bourne Ultimatum in theaters this summer. That alone is reason enough to go see it. The fact that it's such a well-made film and wraps up the trilogy's loose ends with such style. The Bourne Ultimatum is easily the best movie of the summer and probably the best action movie of the year.
6:24 AM
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Today is actually a nice day, and a rainy weather that will normally dampen moods only served to cool the sweltering heat. But I can't help feeling quite fucked up. My tech stuff is failing, and that really lowers morale. My $30 cheap china-branded Mp3 player failed. It "died" showing the equivalent mp3 blue-screen of death.
That sucks. Moreover, for the past 2 weeks, my storage computer can't boot! Something wrong with the OS or the hard drive, I don't think I will lose any data, but still, it can't boot. With this minor setback, I am seriously considering vista installation to be the new OS instead of the old XP that I am running.
I don't feel sad over just one thing, it's an accumulation of negative events or thoughts running through my mind, like it's already mid-August and up till now I still don't have any university applications for the states, when the deadline is at the end of this year? What am I doing about it?!
My battery is quite screwed up, I keep worrying about unfinished work every day and that affects my mood, and in the end, I can't sleep properly at the end of the day. Just as I finish one set of paperwork and send it out in the email, a new email pops up and demands my attention. It's very frustrating because damn Alpha Battery is very "geh jua", in hokkien that means "doing extra things that no one else does", because the upper management that is totally screwed up, the heads up there hardly bloody know anything that's happening on the ground yet make unreasonable demands that is extremely taxing and laborious, requiring time-consuming paperwork and unnecessary tedious changes and instructions for the smallest of events and monitoring of the minutest of details that works everyone to death on a daily basis, they demand reports to be submitted of the highest quality, yet they only spend several minutes browsing through it. But it takes up a lot of time to generate that one report! Then once they are done piling up all that work on us with a simple sentence from their mouths, they take leave... off... MC... emergency leave....
wtf..
Sigh, I feel completely jaded at work. Don't get me wrong, I have no qualms serving in NS, and I don't mind taking up arms to train hard in defending our country. I don't mind going outfield on exercises. But what I mind is an incompetent head that piles his work on you and demands unnecessary time-consuming laborious reports that serve no purpose whatsoever when they are constantly absent. The rank structure is an immense flaw in the military organization during peace-time.
Then I've survived the last kind of tough training in BMT, survived the toughest Wing in OCS, and now serving in an active unit, so when I return home jaded and exhausted, nevermind, I can endure all that.
But I still have to put up with immature privates and other NSFs alike bitching, whining and complaining how tough their job is. There was this guy I once knew in Primary school and he was *$%^& COMPLAINING TO ME HIS JOB IS TOO TOUGH?
He's a $%^* RP PRIVATE!!!
*^&@!%!!!
6:09 AM
Sunday, August 19, 2007
I went for Singapore Fireworks Festival 2007 today, despite the rain, got a good spot and attempted to take the hardest kinds of photos to take, Fireworks. Here are my efforts with a compact digital camera, a $120 tripod and some photo-editing touch up. =)
I know these are amateurish pictures, but i was limited by my equipment as well, my FX processing time was too long, it needed 3 seconds for every snap, and i will lose 5 photographic chances. I need a DSLR! Someone care to give me a Canon 350D?
Courtesy of MK-FX Enjoy!
3:04 AM
Monday, August 13, 2007
Monday comes something really exciting that we have all been looking forward to! Today we were having Helicopter raining, and it was very fun! It is my first time riding in a helicopter and training as if it was a real wartime activation. The helicopter we were going to ride today is a Super Puma AS-332.
Imagine a a 4 blade rotor chopping 1 meter above your head, a small screaming engine behind you and rock solid ground 3000 feet below you. What really made that impression were the screaming engines, and the heat from the engine exhaust, just being several metres away, you will be greeted by a blast of heated air and imagine 2 crazed women screaming at the top of their lungs beside your ears, that's what a helicopter's engines sound like.
We were finally seated down and belted down and all our equipment and gear secured, the puma lifted off effortlessly, I didn't even feel the acceleration, and by the time we knew it, we were staring at the ground several thousand feet away. And I spent the time staring at the lush landscape passing us below throughout the 12 min ride.
The Aircrew specialist that attended to us displayed negative attitude, but I couldn’t blame him, imagine doing this everyday day in and day out, you’re bound to get bored and frustrated. Yeah, the first few times can be a very interesting experience, but as a long-time career, you’re bound to get bored and irritated.
When we landed, everyone was never so serious before, I never felt so serious before and I helped to unload all the equipment off the helicopter in the fastest possible time. It was like a real war, with our battle-orders, life-vests and goggles, I felt like I was in a movie like "Black Hawk Down" and the down-force of the helicopter rotor-wash was really immensely powerful, blowing sand-particles everywhere in a maelstrom of sand.
Then when the helicopter lifted off, the blast of air was so powerful I was literally blown back. As the IC, I was the last one to de-bus the helicopter and the helicopter lifted off a mere meter or two away from me! Very exciting experience in a blast of wind, sand and engine exhaust heat.
We deployed, then hung around waiting for the next helicopter to pick us up at night, and we deployed many cyalume sticks so that the helicopter could see us and when it did, it was another smooth eventful 12-min ride back to the base, where we could see all the lights lighting up the Singapore's skyline and all the cars running about through the expressways. The whole of Singapore looks like one big living creature with every spot of light a cell and all the cars on the expressways and roads very similar to that of blood cells hurrying through blood vessels. Singapore looked so alive at night with all that activity.
It was totally like a war-time experience. Very exciting, and a very memorable experience.
2:32 AM
Saturday, August 11, 2007
I was at home the whole day, but subsequently at night, went out to catch up with some friends, they were planning to meet in town, but since I was driving, we then to go to Holland Road for a meal. The whole night was full of uncertainties, but when we finally found a place to eat, it was nearly 9pm, and we ate at Breko’s Holland Village.
The place wasn’t too bad, service was tolerable, but just bad. But the food was pleasant, we had beef pizza and chicken coutre and the iced mocha latte was pleasantly rich. =)
2:18 AM
Friday, August 10, 2007
Today is Friday! I was forced to wake early because of some cock-up that had nothing to do with me whatsoever. I was still exhausted from yesterday. Then everyone went for ADOC celebration at 9am, but I stayed in camp to take the trainees, it was yet another Friday, where I am one of the few officers left in camp when everyone has left for some enjoyment.
I spent the time to rush with overdue paperwork, then at 4.30pm, went for a PT run with the trainees and finally book out at 7pm. Sigh, I feel quite jaded. I am seriously underpaid and overworked man, I am not paid enough given the work I do. Why? Then why am I working so hard?
2:16 AM
Thursday, August 09, 2007
HAPPY NATIONAL DAY 2007 SINGAPORE!The pictures speak alot for themselves.
Arrival of our funky MCs
RSAF Super Puma dropping our red lions.
Commando GOH
25-pounder gun salute
The F-16s performing the bomb-burst
State Flag fly-by. One CH-47D Chinook with 4 AH-64 Apache helicopters
Last but not least, the Fireworks segment!
Photos courtesy of ClubSNAP and SGsights and their respective owners.
6:35 PM
