Spent a whole evening packing. My bro wasn't of much help since he'd only seen reservists at his Air Force camp, but he did tell me a few useful things.
Now I've got most of the things for my field pack and an incredibly heavy bag for the rest of the stuff. The clothes and other necessities aren't heavy - the SBO (standard battle order) and helmet are.
Since the stuff in the field pack are mainly for show, I've used a few items that I can't use, like a pair of PT shorts that too small for me, because I don't have enough of them. All I have are 2 PT shorts that fit and I have IPPT during the week-long in-camp training. I need one pair as my pajamas.
There were surprisingly few problems with the packing. I had expected worse but the only thing that is unexpected missing is my own field pack aka backpack.
It's GONE!
I'd always thought it was above my cupboard but when I pulled down everything from there, all I got was the camouflaged bottle and my SBO.
Fortunately my bro's field pack is still easily found with all the dangling straps neatly taped, and the straps fit me too.
He had also packed everything nicely due to some sort of field pack packing competition back in his unit before he left, but I didn't need those.
The most major thing that's missing is the torch but I can probably buy one tomorrow.
My in-camp reservist training aka ICT begins tomorrow and ends on Friday, so obviously I won't be blogging for some time.
Phone's mostly prepared too. I've to switch to another phone because I can't bring a camera phone to camp. I've got most of the important (ie work) contacts transferred to my shitty non-camera phone but I'm too lazy to add my friends. If they call, I can probably tell from the voice anyway.
The uniforms are terrible though. Whoever did the measurements, he/she was so damn bad at estimating the length increments for each size. Either that or our body sizes vary too much for him/her to handle.
Either way, the uniforms were badly designed, such that pants that fit my waist are too damn long and shirts that barely fit my torso have sleeves that are too large and too long.
My uniform looks baggy on me now, except it's not. The pants fit my waist nicely but it can cover half my sole if I stand barefooted. My shirt can fit my torso snugly but the sleeves cover half my palm and can probably hold two of each of my arms.
I'm whining so much about this because I handle such design problems in my job. Manufactories don't automatically know how large your sleeves should be or how slim your waists are. That's where the designer comes in and that's part of my jobscope.
As a matter of fact, handling this was one of the first things I was taught when I joined this business.
The pants, in this case, isn't as huge a problem as the shirts, because when we put on our boots, we have garters to tied the bottom of the pants to keep them above our boots.
The shirts, on the other hand, are pure shittiness. The designer was probably not even Asian. If he was, he either didn't know much about Singaporean body shapes or he was told to make sure everyone can wear the sizes they're supposed to wear regardless of any irregularities in body shape so that nobody has to order custom-made uniforms.
In the latter case, it would mean making everything excessively large, which also fits my observations.
I bet if I used my measuring tape on this set of uniform in front of me, my mind would be blown even if I compare it with the standards for thick jackets.
As for my work, I think my bro's prepared. I've given him instructions, photos, keys and phone numbers. As long as I have access to my phone once in a while during office hours everyday, he should be able handle everything.
Quite a bit is happening at work in the coming week though, so I expect him to call me about something I have yet to speak to him about.
I can't teach him everything in a few days; I don't even know what I missed.
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