Monthly Archives: January 2004

Singapore men are the new women

So says my pla­toon mate Dil­bert Chua, 433rd Bat­tal­ion Sin­ga­pore Armoured Reg­i­ment Bravo Tac­ti­cal Team Seven Sec­tion One Sec­ond Light Anti-Tank Weapon Gun­ner and jour­nal­ist. He makes that sweep­ing state­ment while we clean our new SAR21 rifle after a day at the fir­ing range, and after receiv­ing a phone call from his girl­friend, who has

Welcome to Buangkok, a million miles from care. In fact, a million miles from anywhere

Today, I man­aged to see other peo­ple apart from my fam­ily, by vis­it­ing my pla­toon mate’s new flat in a new hous­ing estate called Buangkok. I went only because I was curi­ous to see what Buangkok looked like. It is very far. You can see Johor from the upper floors. It was a very nicely

Symptoms of fire

Symp­toms of fire Last week dur­ing ICT, we were treated to the usual round of lec­tures, done by instruc­tors in an army of the 21st cen­tury — pow­er­point slides, flash ani­ma­tions, the works. Lec­tures usu­ally pre­cede prac­ti­cal field train­ing, and despite our snig­ger­ing, they usu­ally help in our under­stand­ing of what we’re sup­posed to do

A breakfast menu

A break­fast menu Once upon a time, not too long ago, but long enough to feel sen­ti­men­tal about, I cooked up to three meals a day for the girl­friend. We lived off Anzac Parade, on Lenthall Street in Kens­ing­ton. Just the two of us. In the sum­mer, she had a job at the Hyatt Regency which

Absolute discomfort

When we’re not sick, we for­get the aches, the drowsi­ness, the strug­gle to have con­trol over our fac­ul­ties. I think I am talk­ing about what it will be like in the next week dur­ing in-camp. No mat­ter how much I pre­pare myself men­tally for the train­ing, it never seems ade­quate for the grad­ual shock of

Men wish they were from Mars

Men wish they were from Mars I wish B and I were in the same city. That way, I can track every woman he falls in love with, and see for myself how he gets him­self into such strife, and nip the next crush in the bud before it becomes the next crash. I can

Ai yo ai yo oh

my nephew’s ver­sion of Old MacDonald’s Farm, which is stuck in my head: Old Mac­Don­ald had a farm, ai yo ai yo oh. Quack quack here, quack quack here, quack quack quack quack, bo woo woof, bo woo woof, Old Mac­Don­ald had a farm, ai yo ai yo oh.