damian + turion

[270107] Be punctual my friends...

Punctuality is defined as the quality or state of being punctual or strict observance in keeping engagements; promptness. I've realised of late that i've begining to lose track of time more and more for reasons known or unknown... i used (note the bolded and underlined word) to pride myself on being a punctual person to the point of being at least 15 minutes early for any appointments or engagements.

BUT the thing is... i hate to wait for people and unfortunately, my circle of close friends often test my patience to the limits with their own troubles with time management... and over time, i've allowed myself to fall into this habit of purposely arriving late so as to counteract against their usual lateness and i guess the habit has caught on...

HABITs... are hard to get rid of... take away the H you're still left with ABIT, u take away the A and you find yourself looking at BIT when you finally decide to kick away the B, you realise you're still stuck with IT! So ladies and gents... habits are nasty little critters that cling onto you... Moving on...

In the blink of an eye, my first intake of recruits is going to pass out in 4 more weeks... life as an instructor passes by pretty fast... People look to my life as an instructor as being slack and easy... yes to a certain extend, i do agree with them that being an instructor is pretty straight forward and at times, not very demanding... both physically and mentally... but they only see the times when we come and go as we like to the canteen, the tekan-ing of the recruits, us scolding and shouting at them... they dont see the seemingly repetitive life we lead, the miserable allowance we get for work that we never get rewarded with and overall being stuck in a vocation which is pretty much thankless... we are the sai kang warriors of BRTC, the underpaid, the underappreciated, the underqualified and the overworked...

Had a small gathering with some former workmates from tcc on wedneday, to tie in with Liyana's so called farewell dinner/gathering/party... had a simple dinner at Sakura and i guess that's probably the last time im ever going to Sakura for food of any kind... it's decent and edible but for the same prices, i am sure that i can get better tasting, looking and fulfilling dishes elsewhere... moved on to DOME at Shaw House where once again, the Iced Chocolate with Gelato did not disappoint... took some time to reminisce about times working in tcc and generally just catch up... possible job opening at MARCHE for me... heh... back to F n B again... left orchard around 1125 and by the time i reached Boon Lay, i knew i was screwed...

The reason why being punctual and able to manage time properly helps - i arrived at the gate at 0010 hrs... 10 minutes after the gates closed... normally, the guards would just quickly usher in those late comers but unfortunately they were under audit that night and they had to strictlty adhere to protocol... so i was stuck outside of camp at 0010 on a thursday morning... picked my sorry ass over to the bus stop and started the longest 4 hours of my life... i just sat there listening to songs for 4 hours, tried to sleep but couldnt, thought of scaling the fence but thought better of it and abandoned the idea as soon as it appeared... seconds, minutes ticked painfully by... finally managed to book into camp at 0400 hrs... quickly went back to bunk and caught 3 hours of sleep... see how being punctual would have saved me the agony and riducule of being stuck outside of my own camp for 4 hours?

Be Punctual my friends....

Yesterday's memories