Curtains

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I moved into No 2 Air Divisional Headquarters on 06 Jan 10.

My predecesssor's office was still strewn with his outsanding bank statements and stacks of unattended military correspondence. The window looked out on the little uphill road that led to the air defence radar installation where some of my other mates worked. It had no blinds, and enquiring into this state of affairs I was to learn that Major Raymond was in the process of acquiring venetians. I sighed. I knew then that I would be out of the air force before that could materialise. Indeed, such remains the aspiration as such.

I would soon learn that much time in the division was spent on briefings. If only they were brief! But such is the nature of government machinations: that it is always cheaper to do things the more expensive way; that you cannot hasten a process without allowing for institutionalised retardation; that briefs were inevitably elaborate and coma inducing.

Then the best news of the year hit me.

The air force's top brass sustained a stroke of genius, as they would congratulate themselves, and came up with The Biggest Loser RMAF, a programme aimed at addressing their discomfort at personnel of a BMI above 26. Of course, moi was the prime candidate for this 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, 3 week course.

I can hear Ginger saying, "There are NO rooms, NO rest, NO weekends and NO electricity." Which inspires me to plot my escape in the same style as the claymation movie, except that I may have to play the part of Fowler too.

So beginning 18 Jan 10, I shall be incommunicado. Perhaps even incognito.

In the meantime, I see no reason why I have to endure the squalor my predecessor left the office in. Last Sunday I redecorated, with all the craftsmanship of the characters of The Lord Of The Flies, my office. Brenda's generosity saw me clamp discontinued curtains onto the office window's security grille using bookbinding rings. The Creative pc audio would be there for me to listen to Whsiperings Solo Piano Radio over the internet. Then a reading lamp in lieu of the glaring factory-grade fluorescents. For aroma, the coffee machine. And to suggest officialesce, a display of plaques from previous units I have served under blu-tacked onto the wall adjacent to my table.

It is too bad that I cannot nestle in here yet, and that I have to plunge into the very antithesis thereof when I get to Ipoh.

Till then I shall just shut my eyes and push forward. I know that I can hack it in Ipoh. I doubt that I need to.

Miffed that I have to.

So this is the view I will have as I work my last days in the air force. I can't say it looks so bad.