Training to soldiers fight for our land,
Once in our lives, 2 years of our time.
Have you ever wondered why must we serve?
Because we have no choice,
and we lan lan have to serve, have to serve.

Stand up, be on your guard.
Come on everybody, do your part.
Come on every soldier, so damn hard.
To it for our nation, do it for our Singapore.

Looking all around us, people everywhere.
Children having fun, while we are holding guns.
Have you ever wondered why must we serve?
Because we love our land,
And we want it to be free, to be free.

Listened to the OC talk that day, and he said something pretty good. He asked us whether most of us felt we had no choice but to serve NS. He commented that in everything we have a choice. We could have left Singapore forever and not go back, thereby bypassing the need to serve. By choosing to stay, we had to pay the price. There's no such thing as free lunch. In this respect, defense in S'pore does not suffer from the free-rider problem. True true, we always have a choice in everything we do. Too often, we think our hands are tied and options restricted, when the options are always there, available to any of whom who care to look.
Despite that fact, I do not think I'll be too taken with life in NS, which is extremely fast paced. Finally now I understand why I hardly complete exams. Its because I like a slow pace of life. Why move things so fast? They say its for discipline and regimentation. Sigh. Time is simultaneously excruciatingly slow, and breathlessly fast here... get the feeling of being stretched on both ends..

Following Rules and Disobedience

If everyday you were conditioned to follow orders and rules, sooner or later, you stop thinking. When you stop thinking, you are liable to make stupid mistakes. Commanders make you follow their orders to the letter, then punish you when you mistakes. In such a system of only disincentives, and no incentives given to perform, the system is encouraging not a thinking soldier, but one robotic soldier. Disincentives serve to discourage us from making undesirable decisions, but it does nothing to encourage us to do better. And because you have to follow their decisions unquestioningly, your maximum performance can only be up to a certain point. And commanders make mistakes. Soldiers also make mistakes. Because the chain of command can be fairly long, the message is bound to get garbled somewhere. And thats where stupid mistakes appear.

Funnily, it takes only a few somebody to be a maverick and start disobeying orders, and for the system to become better. Certainly when you disobey, you are taking a risk that your disobedience could be a wrong decision. But there's always a chance that you have come up with a better idea. And this is what Singapore needs. A creative person, is one that does not always follow orders to the letter, but start deviating from the normal path. Deviants are a tricky thing to take care off. You cannot have too many deviants in your group, or else there is no discipline. The masses would be unruly, and there will no law and order. But having no deviants is a bad thing too, because you have on your hands a group of people with no initiative.

It is actually quite easy to correct that 'tame sheep' phenomenon. Just reward people who have followed the orders, and give even better reward for people who have taken the initiative to do something better. Punish when those people who disobeyed resulted in bad results on the overall.

A system with only punishments is definitely not enough. Rewards will also need to be sufficiently attractive.

First Bookout

Looks like I'm lucky, due to the various public hols, i get to bookout on these hols. So here I am at home, finally in the comfort of my home. With computer, TV, handphone, mp3.. and luxury of time.. Training can be quite shag yea, but at least I survived these few days.. not looking forward to standard obstacle course, or field camp though.. but for now, i just need to concentrate on passing my napfa.

Its a love-hate kinda thing. Love when you are sharing your pain with your friends. Love when the commander is supposed to scold you, but he closed one eye and let you off. Love is when you survived the training that you thought might kill you. Love when you thought the food will absolutely suck, but turns out to be quite ok after all. And on somedays, they will cater especially good food too. Hate it when the commander rushes you around the clock 24 hrs, not giving you any time to pause and rest, and do stuff like washing clothes and bathing..Hate is when you learn they got new physical excercises thats difficult and tricky. Hate when there's so much protocol around..

Well, walk one step at a time.. and we'll see.

Self-service/Service to nation

My last post here... until a very long time later.. NS in 2 days time. Surprisingly calm about it. Though I have one last thing to gripe about before I go. Was reading through the little propaganda booklet they gave us just after the medical checkup. And then I realized one of the things they test you is the proficiency in camouflage. By this I think they mean, applying the correct dye on your face, wearing leaves in your armor, so that you blend into the forest.

This is the correct camouflage and strategy to take, if we are still fighting in the forests of Southeast Asia. But we no longer have any forest in Singapore. We have some Nature reserves..but that is hardly crucial, because if they are invaders, they are likely to march through the urban areas of S'pore. So, unless you want to dress in stone grey, to camouflage with the concrete you're standing on.. I dun really see the point in camouflage. There exists still forests in other parts of Southeast Asia, but as we are unlikely to carry out any invasion with military force, camouflage is once again unnecessary. Surprise tactics, come with appropriate terrain, so.. Well, we'll see. Surprise tactics is really good if we want defend, or attack. What we are doing neither, for we are maintaining an army for the purpose of warning off would-be attackers. IN this case, we dont want to surprise, we want to show off. Professional suits, with really good technology backup, as well as good formation, would be the way to go. But we'll see, we'll see.

Yet another goodbye.

With the end of yesterday's NJC prom nite, I guess, this is it. Its like all the other goodbyes, that I've said, and somehow, I just dont feel like letting go at all. Its this same reluctance to leave it to fate, a stubborn-ness to clutch at falling sands, absolutely refusing to leave it just like that.

Funny how this is another aspect of life: inevitability. Best way to meet it, is to accept it. Wierd though, how we just accept negative aspects of inevitability, and refuse to accept of the positive aspects of inevitability. I suppose there are some things that can be changed. Well, not everything, just some. But which one? Now, I dunno, you dunno, no one knows. But we can try. They say the smart is good at riding the times, and taking opportunities as they come. But the really really smart, will be able to create opportunities. And I've seen just how jaw-dropping that can be.

I vividly remember the first day the old S18 met together. Everybody was so shy! Silent too. I also remember the first tutorials that the old S18 had together. At least the Bio section of the class. I also remember the day, when the the first-3-month-ers received that O lvls results, and had to separate. That was another goodbye.

Is it any more different with the new S18? Same. The first day of contact session in Bio lab for the new S18 was silent, full of unsure people. Tutorials with the new S18 was never the same again, partly because the new S18 people came in and inserted themselves into the class, and hence never properly sat down together in unison to face 'the challenges'. Not like we were given enough time to do that.

Was it any more different with the goodbyes in secondary school, in primary school? No different. The same old scene. The difference was the people, and whther the initiative to meet up was there. Well, should be easier nowadays. There's Facebook, Friendster, and lots of other social networking systems.

I guess its the same old chapter, we just keep rewriting over it.

Finally gt a Facebook account. So.. lets see what the big hype over it about.

And can everyone send their photos on the class, to choo? Compile into CD can?