ramblings: 03/01/2008

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Dissent is as severe as assault. Discuss.

Quite a bit has gone on since I’ve last posted. I’ve completed my ns liability (read: ORDed), injured my knee, found a job.

Well, I don’t think I can speak in complete honesty and transparency about my NS stint. At least not here. But I have to say that ORD’s not been as liberating as it promised to be. Army may have been tough at times, irritating sometimes, and stifling. But it did provide some good times, good friends and good memories. I think that’s about as sentimental as I can allow myself to be about the army. Because really, the way some people choose to behave there (and I’m talking NSFs AS WELL AS regulars here …) do not agree with my constitution and the way I’ve been raised. But they’ve made me grow up, wake up, and realise that even though you can make a lot of friends out there, ooh baby baby it’s a wild world.

I never thought I would loathe being a couch potato, not being able to run, so much. Well even though I feel crap, this bodes well, I guess. At least it shows that I have some of that keep fit urge. I don’t nearly play as much football as I should or as I would like to, and you need a passion to help you keep fit, you know? I was doing exactly that when I injured my knee. It was quite a bad one, I wasn’t able to walk for a week. Yes so the orthopaedic dude says it’s an anterior cruciate injury, and says I might even need to go for surgery. Suck balls. Hope it can recover on its own without surgery, perhaps physiotherapy will do the trick. In case you didn’t know, the anterior cruciate ligament is located deep in the knee and is apparently injuries to it are tricky to deal with.

On a more lucrative note, I got a job at STB! Ok the job ain’t lucrative; it pays normal rates for A-Level temps. But I have to thank Weiqi, Jessica and John for helping me land a job at a stage where I wasn’t even actively looking for one yet. I met Jessica in my two-week attachment with Curriculum Planning Division, and she kinda convinced my direct boss to wait two weeks until I ORDed, instead of hiring the other dude. Weiqi, is, of course, my classmate for all four years in SJI. And John, now the Director of Education Services, was my History and English teacher in SJI, also ex-Assistant Principal.

I came in at a time where the division was preparing for the Singapore Education awards, and my induction into the department was a whirlwind one. Immediately I was given an intimate introduction to the work that would occupy my first week. If you think it’s easy coming up with those programme booklet thingies, you’re wrong! I was in charge of writing the citations for the award nominees, and trust me, it’s no easy feat sifting through all that lengthy and self-aggrandising submissions to capture the gist of their work and explain how they deserve that award. And then there’s your boss, true to his (previous) role as the fastidious English teacher. Try getting anything that has letters in it past him. =) Ok I’m just kidding, it’s not wise to slag your boss off online, yes?

Well, the awards went well. There were no noticeable hitches, it was a full house. Oh and I was working backstage and the host was Denise Keller! And there were two hot models! And the stage manager was female and she was kinda cute! And I was the only dude backstage. Haw haw haw! =)

There’s something that really caught my eye at work though. The urinals, apparently, do not need to be flushed. It’s not that which caught my eye, but rather the rather smarmy sign which proclaims “ Waterless Urinals. Flushing not required”.

I simply don’t see what the big fuss is about.

After all, we had urinals and toilet bowls that were never flushed back in camp.