X-Men

Not entirely in the mood to blog but I might as well, seeing that I've exhausted all other possible activities I could do for the day.

Well, I could study and all, but guess what!? I'm not in the mood for that either!

Hmmm, I didn't realise that it has almost been two weeks since I last blogged. Kinda pathetic, I know .. but hey! I do try ... =P

I think a lot of people have been getting tired of all this blogging stuff. Can't say that I'm not cause I am. The whole idea of having to type everything up constantly is a bit strenuous, especially ... yup, when you're not in the mood. lol

Training wise, nothing much has been happening. Literally, nothing much has happened. I think during the one week of training I have, I'd actually train for half a week. And by train, that includes classes and other stuff put together. Like yesterday and today - if it wasn't for how we had PT in the morning, I'll be sleeping, playing CS and watching movies the whole day. I basically didn't have anything scheduled for these past two days and hey! It's not like I'm complaining or anything. In fact, I'd rather do this than to have to go to class and fight fatigue in front of the lecturer. It's embarrassing I tell you; to have to flip my eyes open when I know that his voice is coming towards me or has suddenly gotten louder because he has turned around to face the class to explain some law stuff. Comparatively, I'd say I'm quite ok. I know I'm awake during class. My friends ... well, does drawing a map on the table say it enough? If it doesn't, let's just say that they didn't quite use ink. It's liquid, just not ink. lol

Last week was just as relaxing for me. The reason why I don't attend as many classes as my other squad mates is because we upgraders have been exempted from attending lessons that we have already done like dojo training, shooting and swimming. So while my squadmates are off having a wonderful day getting pumped, you can say that I'm back at the bunk pumping lead into some bot in CS.

Anyway, as I was saying, last week it wasn't as 'full-on' as it would normally be because we were heavily affected from the Asean Summit event held in Singapore. A lot of police officers would be returning back to our Coy (company) as well as another one after a hards day work of protecting some VVIPs. And as a result, many classes were cancelled and I, being Head Provost, enjoyed the luxury of just sleeping in and waking up for breakfast before class actually started at 10:30am; provided I'm not on duty that is. We did that for the whole of last week and boy was it wonderful - not to mention the special food they served because of them. Us OCTs were 'allowed' to eat the food they gave the other officers and boy was it yummy. I was really sad when it was all over. It made life at the PA a whole lot more interesting XP hehe

Well, Amoz is going back in a couple months time and I have to say ... I'm happy and sad that he is. The only reason why I'm happy he's leaving is that by his departure, it means my ORD date is only getting closer. But if he's here, it means I have a long way to go and I don't like that. Oh, and I'm sure he doesn't like how I kick him off the computer at home whenever I come back during the weekends because I'm only there for those few days. hehe, but hopefully when he gets his own laptop, that won't be a problem.

And of course, I'll be sad when he leaves because I'll really miss the company of my brother. I mean we've been separated so much as of late and it doesn't help that we only see each other during the weekends for a couple of hours before we go off and do our own stuff. And now that he'll be going back, I'll miss another year together with him all over again.

And I'm sure by the time I go back, we'll both have our own world and will probably see each other every now and then; not like how it was when we were kids. Ah well, all a part of growing up I guess. It was bound to happen. Just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

Anyway, I really can't think of anything else to blog about so I'll just end here. I've got a full day of class tomorrow and I don't know how I'll possibly stay awake for most of it.

P.S: I really hope nothing happens to Rafael Benitez at Liverpool. (Just a side for me to note)

Toy Story

It's a bit weird.

I feel a bit at a lost to be honest. I thought my training days were over. Guess not.

But facts are facts. I'm going to become a trainee all over again. The thoughts of having to wake up at 5:30am all over again are a bit troubling. The thoughts of having to eat mess food all over again are a bit troubling. The thoughts of becoming a trainee all over again are a bit troubling.

I promised that I would blog once more before going in and so this is that blog. Tomorrow is the first day of my officer cadet course and I'm not very confident about it all actually. The only thoughts that comfort me are the hopes that being an officer will be a lot better in the sense that our barracks will be luxurious and our timetables will bit a lot more less packed. I've heard a lot of things which we officers will go through. None of which I can confirm right now but at least these things keep me slightly excited about what we are gonna do in there.

For now, I will have to wait and see if they are true or not.

Meanwhile, I've been occupying myself with lots of church activities. On Friday, I was asked to play for the evening service. Seeing that I could make time for it, I shrugged off the fatigue from the night shift which ended that morning to attend the rehearsal at 7pm. The service finally ended at around 10:30pm, allowing me to get back at around 12am.

Yesterday (Saturday), I left at 10am for my grandma's house for lunch before heading off to church again for the Sunday service practice. Got to church at around 1pm where we practiced till around 4pm when the second part of Friday's service continued. That ended at around 7pm. By then, dinner was beckoning so we headed off to one of the near coffee shops when we were given a sight from the heavens on a dual television screen as the Everton V Liverpool match featured live from Goodison Park. It was like a gift from heaven when one of my friends spotted the game about to start. My plans were to rush back to watch the game which I thought was at 9-10. Obviously I didn't check properly cause the game was already starting.

Having no other choice, we watched the game which ended with Liverpool winning on a pair of penalties; the second one being in injury time. About time Liverpool won again. =)

When I got back, it was around 10:30pm. Enough time for me to get ready for me to sleep at 11pm.

Today, I had to leave the house at 7:30am for the early morning run-through of the songs. Got there a few minutes late because I found a new interesting game on Facebook XP It involves using a Rocket Launcher and blasting the helpless lives of opponents on Facebook. Whole lotta fun till I die. =(

So yeah, that's my weekend. A lot more interesting than my last few weekends which usually involves me working for 12 hours then going back to sleep. It was good to be back at church and playing too. And it felt like I never really left. =D

Anyway, I don't really have much else to say - just that I'm not all that excited about going back to the PA. Who knows, maybe at the end of next week, you'll hear me saying I don't wanna be out here. lol, you never know. hehe

I'll keep this one short so I can prepare some other things for tomorrow (in other words - mental preparation; blasting more helpless people on facebook XP).

The Truman Show

Yes, I've been lazy with my blog posts.

And I do pity you guys who keep coming back here to see if I've updated but instead, get an eye-full of a picture of the Teletubbies! haha ... I pity me for coming back to see if I've updated too! Yet somehow, by some great unsolved mystery of science in our world today, I too get an eye-full of 4 different coloured Teletubbies.

Nothing's picked up as of late. Every thing's all a routine basically. The reason why I don't update so regularly is because since it's a 4 day week, every time I aim to finish the final night shift to get those 2 days off, I'm confronted with this need to sleep and by the time that's done, it's the 2nd day of my day off. Now, would I want to spend it on a day of blogging or! A day of mindless internet surfing activities such as looking up videos of Whose Line Is It Anyway? on youtube. I think I'd rather be watching Whose Line Is It Anyway?

But really, nowadays, the days are finally picking up. I always look forward to the end of the night shift. It just means I have 2 days off to R&R. By the time I realise my 2 days are done, it's back to work. Then I just work again, looking forward to another night shift, when it's time to have another 2 days of R&R. It just goes like that. So having to check when was the last time I updated my blog doesn't take long for me to realise that the last time I blogged was last week. Still, I pity those who had to look at those 4 very colourful combination of colours I had as my last blog post title poster. XD

Last Sunday, I was the maintenance officer for that day. It just meant I was the one who had to issue and disassemble the PR sets for our team and the returning team respectively. So that day, I was in-charge. I was the one with the key to the maintenance room.
However, as the maintenance officer, we aren't always in the room all the time. After issuing out and retrieving the sets, we are 'required' to aid the charge office downstairs. So that meant we had leave the room locked. This meant the key would go into our pockets. This would mean, someone like me would forget about the key.

This has happened many times before. Even when I was still in the process of learning how to do maintenance, my senior forgot to hand over the key to the taking over officer. So he had to return all the way back to the station to hand the key over to him.
But me being me. I had to be special. I had to be smart. I had to be forgetful. I had to be me.
Unlike my senior, I left the key in my locker. So when I went home that night, my friend gave me a call 2 hours after my shift asking me, "Hey, where did you put the key? Did you hang it somewhere?"

It was there that I realised that I had left the key in my uniform pocket. And that was back at the station. If only my lock were number locked, but it wasn't. It was key locked. And the only set I had were the 2 keys with me and the spare key in my uniform. And having locked the uniform in the locker, it would mean I had to go down. Argh.

So me being me, I had to pay for the consequences as I have many times before. Usually for my careless mistakes, I would find some way to rectify the situation. In this case, the only way I saw to rectify this situation would be to go all the way down in the middle of the night to the station to retrieve the key in my locker. Which I did.

If there is one thing I am grateful for, it would be the fact that home is not that far from where my station is. The fact that my other squad mate's house is literally a few minutes walk-away is irrelevant to my point. The point is, I'm grateful for the fact that I am only 30 minutes away from the station and not somewhere insane like 1.5hrs away, like my bro XP
Comparing it with the travel times back in Australia, I could travel all the way from Geelong to Melbourne and still have time to order a cup of coffee and drink it before Amoz reaches his camp. That's how insanely 'efficient' our transport system is. So really, 30 minutes for me to reach my station is great!

If I had to go to the PA, it would take me around one hour plus to reach there. Compared with my 30 minutes travel time, that's nothing, really. I'd much rather be traveling 30 minutes each day than to have to travel 1hr+ to some camp weekly. That way, if I forgot anything, the consequences of having to pay for my forgetfulness wouldn't be so bad. That's how I see it any way.

Yesterday, I was called back from my leave. They were short of manpower and needed people to work. So I got a message from my OC Ops that she wants me to come back to work and I can take leave next time. Having not much of a choice, I fork-lifted myself off my bed at 6am to shower. We've concluded that getting a message from OC Ops in the early morning can only mean one thing - disaster. It would mean that our leave has been cancelled due to some wise guys MC. So that's when I had another one of my leave cancelled. Twice it's happened already. I just hope they don't call me back again when I take my next leave..

Anyway, she mentioned in the message that I would be in lock-up - possibly one of the worst stations to be posted in during your shift. It's boring. It's tiring. And it's a lot of time wasted to just sitting there. I've attempted bringing in my Bible and a book, but after a couple of hours of reading, it hasn't been pleasant trying to fight fatigue with my head constantly looking downwards. Gravity generally pull the eyelids down.

So this time, I've decided enough is enough. I will give in to my urges to try to draw the room I'm in. Don't ask me why. I'm not much of a natural artist, but I just had this urge to wanna replicate what I saw on paper.

After 3 hours of drawing and interruptions, I managed my first drawing piece at work!

This is the general view of which I see for 12 hours! So now you guys have an idea of what I have to stare at hour after hour. I dunno if I'm breaking some sorta law by posting this. Maybe a law that conflicts with the prevention of the possibility that a terrorist would want an insight of the lock-up room of one particular police station to where hundreds of police officers work and has resulted to 'studying' my picutre so where he'd know how to not get lost if he happens to break his way into a police station ...... ok .....

Anyway, by then, the time was 12pm, and I had run out of things to draw. It was either drawing the other side of the room, drawing the lock-up hallway where we're 'supposed to' prowl every 5 minutes, or ... something I imagined in my head and just felt like drawing.

I had several attempts at the hallway before deciding I didn't like being restricted to reality. I'd much rather draw something from the imaginary than something people can judge upon in our working environment. I even got criticism for the accuracy of the first drawing! It was just a dry run and didn't care much for it. For all I care, I wanted something to do, and that was it. Stuff accuracy. Lol. So... after hours of much boredom, I came up with something like this ...

It isn't much. I didn't even know I could handle something like this till yesterday. To be honest, I've never even pictured myself as much of an artist. Don't think I have the hand for the precision cause I'd stuff up a lot of lines.

Oh, and if you're saying it's very detailed, it just tells you how much time I have at work. Sadly, after several hours, the 'can't be bothered' attitude came in and a lot of detail went out the window. hehehe, anyway, it's just one for the records I guess. I'll see what other things I'll end up discovering about myself in that room.

Just Follow Law

This week, I was on course for my new temporary posting as a PIC officer.

PIC stands for Person-In-Custody which basically translates into police officers taking care of people in police custody, may they be accused persons or people seeking police protection. So this is where we come in. We take care of people in our lock-up.

But of course, this means there is the possibility of unpredictable 'human danger'. The accused can at any time attack the police officer on duty with whatever they could get their hands on. This just means we have to be more careful with what we do and stuff. But then again, I will not be doing this for long.

As I said above, this is only temporary. This will only go until September because ...

... I got into the OCT course. =D

The OCT course doesn't start till September so they had to give us something to do and this just happened to be it.

Nevertheless, before the POP, my OC informed me during our graduation dinner that I had passed the final interview and am in for the OCT course. The final hurdle will be a final of the final interview at the Central Manpower Base (CMPB) sometime later. Not too sure what we have to do there but he told me that if you manage to get to the CMPB stage, it means you're pretty much through. So praise God. All obstacles were cleared!

By right, a lot of things should not have happened.

Because I volunteered for NS (before turning 18), I was 'not suppose' to have done many things. Mainly these:-

• Wear the ever respected dark blue uniform for the Singapore's Special Constable (SC) as I was supposed to be a Vigilante Corps (VC).




• Hold a gun




• Shoot a gun




• Be with the ITE squad (by right, I was suppose to be in the VC squad but in actual fact, I was suppose to be in the A-Level squad)




• Wear the Corporal rank




• Receive the PNS award




• Get into OCT

And so who do we blame for all this? I believe we referred to this phenomenal as an 'Admin Muck-Up'. Don't ask me how all this happened. All I know is that there was an admin muck-up (or at least I'd like to think so XD) and when they discovered that I had made it to the final 4 OCT selection and the top-5 for the PNS award, they realised that I was not even 18 yet. Unfortunately for them, it was too late and now I realise that big organisations can make major mistakes as to see me defy all policies that states people like me aren't allowed to do such things.

In any case, it was a wonderful muck-up and I loved how it all happened. Looking back, it's all so funny.

I even remembered the day I went for the NS registration. It stated on the sheet that I should be a 'VC' and not 'SC'. Yet on the enlistment day, I was automatically placed into a ITE group with me being the only 'A-Level' in the squad. They only recognized that I had an A-Level qualification weeks before I passed out, so that couldn't explain why I was upgraded from VC to SC on the first day.

Nevertheless, what was even more amazing was how I managed to pull through all the way into the OCT course. Actually, I am not allowed to even get nominated because by right, I am 'under aged', yet there was no ruling that said specifically that I was not allowed for this course. So to look at all this now, we really have to thank and praise God for all that has happened thus far.

I say that because I believe that the amazing stuff has not yet been completed. I got this far and I believe that there are much more to come! If God could get me into this very exciting course, surely the course itself will be even more crazy! I will be stressed out to the bone with all my work but I'm sure great results will come of it! Be it something that might praise God or not. Either way, how fun! Can't wait for the real fun to begin!

So I will return back to the Police Academy in September for the officer training. In the mean time, I will be posted to the PIC course. This whole week has been course training for this posting and I have to say, it has been great!

Not the course itself but rather the way the course has been conducted.

The course was suppose to start at 8:30am and finish at 6pm.

But our very cool OC goes, "Ok boys, we'll start at 9am and finish around ... oh, I dunno ... 4:30pm? Sound good?" The first time he said that, we were ecstatic! We were expecting something like 9am to 5pm but to cut an extra 30mins of the lesson, that's even better! But that's the least of it.

Like how he said the lesson would start at 9am sharp; our very cool OC actually rocks up between 9:25am to 9:55am for class. So what do we do before that?

Sleep!

As soon as class began, which usually started moving at 10am, he'd comment that we'll be soon be going on a short break. By 10:30am, he would finally decide that it was appropriate for a class break which will go till 10:50am. At first, we were not aware of what we were getting into. We simply agreed that a 20min break would be great but that wasn't it! We were allowed to relax even more because he would rock up at the classroom (because he would go off to his office to eat something) between 11:00am to 11:15am. What do we do during that time? We would either ..

Sleep!

Or stand outside in the corridor terrorising trainees with our Corporal rank and boy is it fun!

Resuming part two of our morning class, our OC then states that we shall leave for lunch at 12pm, no later. Obviously, this kinda motivation keeps us going and we listen. After all, we have been sleeping many times during the day already. Keeping awake in that mightily cold air-con room was not too awfully difficult at this stage.

By 12pm, we would be walking out for our 2 hour lunch break.

But how long can lunch go for? Taking my own sweet time walking, ordering, eating, clearing, walking, all that can take roughly 40mins. So what do I, and the rest of the gang, do for the rest of the time?

Sleep!

I'd usually sleep for an hour or so. Amazed? Yeah! I am too! Especially even after getting 9 hours of sleep every night! But there is something about that room that makes me so sleepy! I think it's the fridge-like air-con.

Would you be shocked if our OC came back at 2pm?

I would be if he did. That's what so great about this guy! He rocks up late all the time so we would usually begin our afternoon session between 2:30pm to 3:00pm. And yes, at 3:30pm, we would usually take a break which would go till 4pm.

But does it start at 4pm sharp? Hardly! As much as we hate him coming back late this time round (cause we wanna go home), he'd usually enter into the classroom around 4:05pm to 4:15pm. So what do we do for the last 15mins of class?

No no, we don't sleep. Not this time. Just endure the final few minutes as he talks about his experiences in the police force. Not too bad I guess. We just have to sit impatiently as we dwell on the thought of running free in the next few minutes. It can get pretty clear that we would be thinking about that because whenever he would pose the question, "Any question?" Everyone would answer, "Nooo."

And that's what I've been doing for this whole week and I'm sad to say that tomorrow is our last day. It's been so much fun, I'm gonna miss it. What's even more cool is that we don't have to march as we walk around the PA. That's so cool! And what's even more cool than that is that we are allowed to eat at the cafe during office hours. So we'd just go downstairs and grab some food during any one of our breaks. Why? Just because we can. Some of them would order Wanton Mee, Chicken Cutlet, Fried Rice, whatever is available. I'd go down for the hot paus (buns) and a cup of ice milo or horlicks.

Oh yes, life as a Singaporean Policeman. The Americans got their donuts. We have our sweet sweet cafe XD

Doom

I just realised that I had failed to elaborate on something that I said I would do in my previous post. Not sure why but I guess I forgot. In any case, the scenario based test involves us trainee police officers to answer to any of the four given non-seizable cases dispatched to us.

But yes, what are 'non-seizable' cases? This is just one of the many technical terms that we trainees have to understand inside-out for the exam. So in short, non-seizable cases are cases where police officers are not allowed to arrest without a warrant. One example would be punching someone in the face, or voluntarily causing hurt. Without having personally witnessing the attack, we are not allowed to arrest without a warrant.

With that in mind, we as police officers have to understand the basic procedures as to what to do when situations like this arise. We have to attend to the case with full knowledge of what our powers of action are. I'd guess that this would be the hardest part.

To be perfectly honest, I too was a bit scared about this because it really is a lot harder than it seems. But after having a go with our OC last week, I feel much more confident and am ready to take on the case next week! I hope I can handle the case without any problems which I can't solve during those few minutes.

What's really interesting about this test is that it will all be held in the Academy's 'Training Village'. In there, there are 'avenues' which duplicate the outside world. We were told that there was an MRT train, a MacDonald's, a bank, and many more which I don't know if I can name here or not XP But after hearing all these things which are inside the Training Village, it was amazing as to where they could possibly hold all these under one roof without us knowing where it is. We started to wonder where the Village could possibly be, and so far, we've only pin pointed one large building which seems to be somewhat heavily guarded somewhere away from where we usually train.

I really can't wait to get in there. I just wanna see all these things under one roof! Oh! I just wanna scream like a little girl! XD lol hehe

For me, this week has been considerably fast.

Nothing too interesting has happened. I guess the only possible 'excitement that came out of this week was the fact that the new intake came strolling in last Tuesday; ultimately making us 'seniors'. They were the new 'Prep-course' intake. Basically, these are the bunch of fat/unfit/lazy people who failed or didn't go for their NAPFA test prior to enlistment. They have to do an extra month or two of training just to get fit again. So every morning, while we are having breakfast in the wee hours of the morning, we see these prep-course trainees running. I'm just glad I passed my NAPFA test when I had the chance.

But besides being able to witness a whole bunch of people go through what we went through during the first 10 days of confinement (and may I add they are still being confined now XD), nothing too significant to blog about occurred this past week.

So let me blog about something other than the academy.

My bro and I just came back from watching the new Fantastic Four movie and I have to say that it is so many times much more interesting than Shrek 3. I don't mean to upset anyone or anything if you liked Shrek 3, but personally, I found Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer a whole lot better with a much more interesting story line. I'll leave the analysis to whatever else website you may read but for me, I really enjoyed it. It was a good few bucks well spent.

So now for me, the next movie on the 'must watch' list is Transformers. With my oh-already-so-low-and-tight-budget, I think I have to try to cut back on the number of shows that I watch. But definitely, Transformers is a must see for me.