So I’m filing medical certificates and letters from parents, and I come across a document which a student passed to me some time back as proof of her/his absence from school.

This document is an important one; it marks a point in the life of someone the student knew.

I hold the document up to the light, to differentiate between fine print and photocopied smudges.

I read the document, and then I read the document again.

I do some calculations, then it hits me: said student’s life story is contained within the digits that have been inked on the document.

I wonder what the limits of professionalism will allow me to ask said student.

I remember that it is not within the limits of the job to wonder.

The document returns home, slipping into its plastic folder like a late night out at the clubs.

The folder, like its compatriots, is crinkled. Each bears its owner’s name, scribbled with a marker on a white sticker, pasted on the top right-hand corner of each clear sheet.

I carry on sorting the stack of papers that sit on my desk, sheaf after sheaf a demonstration of  presence, of absence, slotted into its assigned vault.

The bell is going to go in a few minutes. There is marking to be done when I go home from work. There will be papers looking for lodging tomorrow.

Strongly-worded statement about real-life issue that matters a lot to me.

Provision of radical solution which, although controversial, is commonsense.

Acknowledgement that current society is not ready for radical solution, for one reason or another.

Resignation – or desensitised dismay.

~

This award encourages employees to adopt best practices at work in order to achieve a work-life balance. The criteria for this award are as follows:

1. 8-8-8
   Employee actively makes spending an equal amount of time at work, engaging in leisure and getting sufficient rest (i.e. 8 hours each, hence 8-8-8) one of their Key Performance Indicators.
2. Fastest Finger First.
   Employee is consistently one of the first to ‘clock out’ from work after the stipulated working time.
3. 80-20 Rules!
   Employee consistently innovates new ways to achieve the greatest output with the least amount of effort.

What they want/why they are searching for me.

And why they don’t just say hi.

The aftermath:

As though I had never been there at all!

I feel an immense sense of guilt every time I kill a cockroach. That’s because I don’t like the idea of killing another living being.

But with cockroaches, I decided a long time ago that:

• even though these buggers have been around a long, long year,
• and will continue to be around for many a long year to come,

between me and them, I’ll be damned if I let them win while I’m still alive.

Damn you, cockroaches. Damn you, he thought to himself as he imagined himself shaking his fist in a display of defiance at arthropods that were lurking around, somewhere.

Or: Why I have stopped adding people I know as friends on Facebook.

1. Hey, many updates in my ‘Live Feed’!
2. Hey, that’s a funny comment on someone’s status message/picture/video/etc!
3. Hey, that name/face sounds/looks familiar!
4. Hey, it’s a person I know/used to know!
5. Hey, let’s add that person as a friend!
6. Hey, perhaps I should ‘Add a personal message’ to let the person know who I am in case she/he has forgotten me!
7. Hey, perhaps I should let said person know how I found her/his profile in case she/he thinks I actively went to search for her/him!
8. Hey… The message looks over-explained, over-apologetic and hence, extremely creepy.
9. Hey, er… Delete.

I don’t add students either, though I approve friend requests from students. But that’s another story for another time.

Perhaps it’s symptomatic of age. More likely it is because I am too afraid to name the beast.

Why? For context:

1. I think most people should know by now that I have a keen interest in issues that deal with the Singapore military and with National Service.
2. I’ve also been reading David Boey’s blog quite a bit.
3. Mr Wang’s latest post provided the impetus to write about something close to my heart.

So I was once a PIONEER writer too.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn’t happen during a posting while I was serving my NSF. I managed to score an internship with PIONEER under the Singapore Civil Service Internship Programme in the ‘summer’ of 2006.

According to Edgar Lee, one of the Senior Editors then, the choice was between myself and another girl. We weren’t shortlisted; we were just two kukubirds who were interested (or silly) enough to apply for that position.

Well, I thought I got it because I sounded earnest enough during the telephone interview. Actually, I got the gig because the other girl didn’t pick up her phone.

Oh, well.

The internship was one of the best things to ever happen in my life. I had just finished my second year of University, and was somewhere between being willing to write well and being able to write well.

I thought I was destined for academic mediocrity, but the stint at PIONEER was the turning point.

Being forced to write coherently – and consistently – helped me to see what I was doing wrong before, and provided me with more self-awareness when it came to improvement.

You can check out a list of the articles I wrote here. There is a distinct immaturity in each article but I improved at a very rapid pace.

To illustrate: this is the first article I wrote, this is an article from the second month of my internship, and this is the last article I wrote. See the difference?

Anyway, unlike many other people, I haven’t cancelled my PIONEER subscription.

I still read the magazine every month with a fervour: ripping open the plastic sheet that PIONEER comes wrapped in; devouring the publication from page to page.

Is it because I am a military nut? No. I follow what the SAF does  “out of a desire to ensure the system is accountable for the lives of Singaporeans who step forward to serve in uniform”.

That is my only motivation, and PIONEER provides me with one of the few links that I have to a military system that has much room for improvement.

In fact, PIONEER magazine itself provides the most apt example of the change that needs to happen.

The publication is a symbol of how the Singapore Armed Forces wants to portray itself – a glossy, polished, professional entity.

But silences speak the loudest words, and the features that are missing from PIONEER are the very same ills that plague the SAF.

For example, there are no critical commentaries from learned individuals that analyse and evaluate military policy. Neither is there a forum page for soldiers and citizens to air their views.

In spite of this, I will continue to subscribe to PIONEER.

I believe the day will come when more citizen/soldier involvement and engagement takes place. PIONEER, like Singapore and the SAF, has evolved slowly, but surely over the last few decades.

This evolution isn’t going to stop – unless something happens to derail progress, of course.

Change will happen, and I look forward to being able to thumb through an issue of PIONEER and feeling like it’s worth more than the forty cents per issue I’m paying now.