Basket.

And so the first week of the new year is over without major incident, and for that I can and shall be content. Yet it has not gone by without any little reminders from they who pull the strings that life, or people, rather, can be seriously irritating.

There is one particular battery (the SingaporeArtillery's company equivalent) in my unit that is honestly getting on my nerves, for one. Let's see how exactly:

a) Why are the documents you send down to me to get signed always "VERY URGENT MUST GET SIGNED BY (INSERT TIME THAT IS WELL, FUCKING SOON)"? I am getting extremely suspicious because almost no one elses' documents are ever (and I mean, ever) this urgent. And look here, it does not really make sense, because the only way that things are always this urgent is 1) you are incompetent and failed to prepare it in time or 2) the person who sent it to you to forward was incompetent and failed to prepare it in time. I would very much like to think you lot a bunch of incapable idiots, but I honestly doubt this to be the case. I think you lot are just a bunch of assholes who enjoy demanding top priority for your shit despite the fact that you have no right to.

b) Ok, so your document is VERY URGENT AND IF NOT SIGNED BY 2PM WILL RESULT IN THE END OF THE WORLD BY FIRE, BRIMSTONE AND LOCUSTS. Fine, I can accept that. But, fucking hell, there is absolutely no need to call me twice within an hour to badger me about it. Twice within the lunch hour to boot. Here's news to you: I am not paid enough to work during my lunch break of 12pm-1.30pm. It is my entitlement and I will take it. Not that CO sir is around anyway. Not that there is a bloody need to badger me at all, because I will get your stupid document signed for sure and I will return it to you after that. Just be patient and for fuck's sake, understand that I do not work during my lunch break which I am fully entitled to and never will.

c) BC (OC to the rest of you lot) sir, your sucking up to CO is extremely obvious and nauseating.

But that is all that went wrong with my week, and this means that it was a very uneventful week indeed. Which means, keep it up, 2006!

Things could only get better in the weekend, and they did. The long-awaited crab outing finally materialised (it never happened in 2005, and strangely, although Jieqi first suggested it way back in early 2004, this was the first time she went with us lot), although before it I had a forgettable mahjong session in which I won not a single game and contributed to a stirring streak of others' victories to boot.

I eventually ended up back home only at midnight, to type this post then get ready for a silly week where I am going to book into camp one day and book back out the next - then book back in the day after. It's a wild world.