Series of unfortunate events

I booked in on Wednesday morning in jeans and a polo shirt. Walked to my bunk and proceeded to change to my uniform. Took out 2 pieces of No.4 from my bag .. stripped off my jeans, and realised .. both were shirts. Had to borrow a pair of pants from this guy whom I'm not particulary fond of, but since he was the nearest and I didn't fancy walking around pantless, I asked him for a pair.

Duty in the day was unremarkable.

Night duty was supposed to start at 2am for me, running all the way to 7am. I went to bed at 10pm or so..and set my alarm at 1:20am. I jumped awake to see one of my sergeant standing by my bedside, asking me what time my duty was supposed to start. One glance at my watch told me that it was 2:17. I was already 17mins late. Rushed like mad .. and reached my duty checkpoint at 2:45am.

No problem, apologised profusely to the guy I was supposed to take over and agreed that the next day I would come earlier to take over his duty - 12pm instead of 1pm. Ok, problem solved.

Come Thursday. I jumped awake yet again, this time to find my platoon mate telling me that .. I'm late. Again. Guess the time? 12:17pm. Rushed like mad, again, and arrived, again, at 12:45pm. Sigh, I didn't know what to say to my poor friend, so agreed to take over him earlier at night, and buy him a packet of Nasi Lemak when the opportunity presents itself.

Thursday night. I was supposed to take over him at 1130pm, half an hour earlier from the scheduled 12am. Stressed as I was, I couldn't sleep properly, and woke up early to take over his duty at 11pm instead. That eased my guilt a little.

Sigh, so much for being late for duties. Unforunately, that's not the end of my troubles. I was listening to Power 98 on my portable receiver, balancing it on the 1-inch ledge inside the guardhouse when for no apparent reason the receiver fell off the ledge and smashed on the floor. No problem, I thought, I'd dropped it several times before, and it still came out ok. Sadly though that was not to be the case this time. The connector between the speaker and the receiver kinda broke loose, and is now dangling by the wires. At least it's still working though.

Also on Thursday afternoon, I was stoning at the checkpoint, thinking about how the heck I slept through my phone alarms and not even remember turning it off, when the Base Commander drove past my check point, and well, saluted me. He was so accustomed to RPs saluting him as he drives pass the checkpoints that he assumed I was doing the same. Well, apparently I wasn't, and I just stared blankly while he saluted me. Sigh.

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ANYWAY. Today means Booze Party at home, followed by a night's out at Zouk - Jasmin's 21st birthday party. 6 months of student exchange in Denmark transformed my innocent cousin into a booze monster. Hrms. Not that I particulary mind. Haha. Free booze!

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Try too hard to look innocent and you'll only end up reeking of guilt. Beware of too-innocent expressions. One of the few things I learnt in camp. Very, very few things.

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Christmas songs playing over the radio stirs a warm little fire in my heart. Strangely though, the feeling's slighly melancholic; a loneliness sets in as the music softly plays, as if christmas is not meant to be spent alone, but with someone you love.

Reminds me of the song by Ben Folds Five, Lonely Christmas Eve.

I'm not so bad
I just hate to see a good time had
By everyone but me.
On this lonely Christmas Eve
I hear them up and down
And up and down the street.

They're making
Noise noise noise noise.
How I hate their happy noise.
There's only one thing I hate more
Come to think of it.
And that's the people who keep
Making it.

Feast feast feast feast.
They'll have more than anyone could ever eat.
Me, I'm stuck here with my cream of wheat.
There's no one here to feast with me
On this lonely Christmas Eve.

Don't they know I'm up here all alone
In my cave up in the hills?
How I wish that this would go away,
This dreadful holiday
That they call Christmas day.

When they're done with all their Christmas noise
And they've had their Christmas feast
Just when I think that I might finally
Get a moments peace they start to

Sing sing sing sing.
Now I'll never get no sleep.
I'm screaming out the window
But it don't do no good.
They sing and sing and sing
All through the neighborhood.
Sing sing sing.

They take their little break and then
They do it all again.

It's a lonely Christmas Eve.