The Curious Incident of the Out-Processing
1. This will be entry number 1, because this is the first time I am writing like this and 1 is a prime number, and the first one that I know. The next entry will be number 3 and not number 2, because it is also a prime number but I do not know many prime numbers like Christopher does, who knows all the prime numbers up to 7,057.
3. Today was the last day of my In-Camp Training, which is also known as ICT because it is easier to say “ICT” than “In-Camp Training”, and people here prefer using acronyms because they are easier to say. But sometimes acronyms confuse me because in the army there a lot of acronyms and they make my head hurt. Examples of acronyms are 2WO, 3SG, COL, SAR and these are the some of the ones I know. I know plenty more but I will not write them all down because Siobhan says not everyone cares about the acronyms the army uses.
I agree with her.
5. In-Camp Training is sometimes nice but sometimes it is also not nice. It is nice when I do not have to wear a smelly shirt and pants (it is called a uniform) and boots which are in camouflage colours, except for the boots, which are black and must be shiny black, like polished. It is also nice when I am in bed and reading a book, which makes me feel calm and safe. What is also nice is when I am leaning on the railing outside my bunk and looking at the moon and clouds, which makes me feel like I am the only person in the world. A bunk is like a bedroom, except that a bunk is a bedroom for many people who are not your siblings.
7. Because today was the last day of my In-Camp Training, we had to go through something called out-processing, which most of the people here call outpro. This just means most people are lazy. Even though out-processing meant there had to be a lot of people around me I was happy and there was no need for me to do groaning like Christopher does (this is because he does not like crowds), it meant I no longer had to wear my uniform, and I could go home to my computer and play computer games and go onto the Internet and wear whatever I liked.
But out-processing today was not nice.
11. Before out-processing, we had to go through something called clearance, which means the bunks and vehicles and weapons had to be cleaned and accounted for so the next In-Camp Training could go on properly. However not many people cared about clearance, which made things not so nice. So I had to help my bunk-mates (these are the people who stay in your bunk) clean the parade square and it was really hot and I started sweating and my shoes got wet. So my face looked like this
And I know this because I looked in a mirror and my face looked something like the face in the picture above.
13. For lunch I had to walk to the cookhouse, which is where a lot of people gather and line up to collect their food to eat. We have to go there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Today we had ice cream which was nice. Our lunch was called a Cohesion Lunch, which does not make sense to me, because all we do is eat lunch like we always do. We do not talk when we are chewing because Mother says it is bad manners to do so. And the officers always sit at the nice tables with flowers and cut fruits which is nice, but also not nice because I am not allowed to sit at those tables.
I also like breakfast because there is coffee, which is my favourite drink in the morning even though it is brown.
Christopher does not like coffee because it is brown and reminds him of poo but I ignore him when he says that.
17. After lunch we had to go upstairs to the hall because the Music and Drama Company (the acronym for them is MDC) were performing for us, but this was not nice for a lot of people because we wanted to go for out-processing. So we were made to sit on the dusty floor which was also not nice as I had made my boots a shiny black colour.
When I saw LTA Vijaya (LTA means Lieutenant), he said, “Man, who wants to watch the gay boys dance?”
But I did not really understand what he meant. However, the dancers did look quite happy on the stage.
19. Qingkai (he is a 3rd Sergeant, or 3SG, like myself) who is one of my bunk-mates was frightened by one of the dancers because she was taller than anyone else on stage and probably taller than us. She had frizzy hair.
He said, “I don’t know if she’s a woman or really a man.”
I looked at the tall woman and I said, “She is quite obviously a woman.”
And he said, “Well, in any case, their dancing is rubbish. When in hell can we can outpro?”
I did not reply as it was a rhetorical question. Siobhan said that “rubbish” is a metaphor for Very Bad.
Then I agree with Qingkai. Their dancing was rubbish.
23. We began waiting for our out-processing at 2PM, and more and more people starting coming into the stadium area which made me afraid I would have to wait very far behind in the queue. So I went to a quiet spot where there was less people and took out the last book I had not finished during my In-Camp Training, which was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It is about a shepherd boy who herds sheep because he wanted to travel on great adventures but he meets a beautiful raven-haired girl with beautiful eyes who made him forget about wanting to travel.
I wished I could be like the boy and travel while herding sheep, but this is not possible as there are no shepherd boys in Singapore.
29. I read my book and walked around the stadium a bit and people kept coming in to wait for out-processing. It was not nice as I realised that I had waited for three hours before I was allowed to out-process. The Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) was angry because a lot of people did not
1) Clean their bunks or vehicle sheds
2) Complete their statements
But a lot of people were angry because we had cleaned our bunk, cleared the rubbish and finished everything the day before but we had to wait so long to be out-processed. So this was not nice.
31. Shaohao and Dennis came to fetch me from my camp, which is Sungei Gedong Camp, and very far from “civilization”. It was nice to leave camp and go for dinner, which was crabs at Upper Serangoon Road. Crabs are red so there was no need for food colouring.
Then I come home and when I think about what book to read, I flip open Mark Haddon‘s book again and read it again even though I finished it on Thursday night. It is my favourite book from all the books I read during my In-Camp Training but only by a bit (because I also read books by my favourite author, Haruki Murakami, who is Japanese and writes sad stories).
