National Service: The Food and Diet Programme

on the first day, my first impression on the food was VERY bad. i almost cried (yeh, i know, exagerating again) thinking that i'll have to eat such food for the next 3 months. however the food improve from day to day during the 1st week.

in fact, the food was not that bad really. sometimes it's even really good. except that
1. it's spicy. sometimes too spicy. and ironicly, the malay complain more than the chinese. i mean.. well, it's their everyday food, so they are supposed to be used to thay way of cooking right? one of my friends got upset stomach due to the spicy food.
2. almost everyday the food is cooked with coconut milk aka santan. no doubt it's nice. but too much coconut milk= not healthy. and if your food have the same taste all the time you get tired of the same taste. you get what i mean?
3. the vege is horrible. bless my soul and merlin's beard! i love and adore vege so much, and it's such a shame i cant take vege there!! i'm just not used to a few things like
a) the long beans/ sayur kacang is so tough coz it's half done. you may as well ask me to pluck the beans from my backyard and just eat them raw like that. even the selangorians complain. means that i'm not to be blame for being choosy!
b) the sayur sawi is another bad case. it's so damn bitter that it will leave my mouth the moment it enters my mouth! must be pesticides. and again, i'm not the only one complaining okay.
c) we take bean sprout/ tauge very often. not that it's bad, but i dont really like tauge. nevermind the fact that i was brainwashed about tauge and have a bad impression on that vege! but like it or not, just force it down your throat or you dont get enough fibre and end up with constipation.
d) the cabbage is always yellow. man.. whats with the kunyit? thank god it still taste good.
the rest of the vege are okay. normally i'll take more kangkung, spinach/ bayam and ladies fingers/ kacang lendir.
4. for the first few weeks, we take eggs almost everyday. the problem is that i cannot take too much eggs coz it will trigger my sinus.. sheesshh..
5. somtimes the rice is too tough.

on the bright side, we have syrup for all the 3 main meals and the chicken and fish taste good most of the time. so i'm happy with that =) plus we have fruits!! i love fruits!!

this continued on until one day when they just strike the syrup out of our menu and replaced it with warm water/ air suam. obviously the trainees were not happy with that. the reason they gave us was because too many people coughing and that it's the JLKN-kesihatan diet programme for us. so since then, we never had ANY cold drink(accept if you get from the lousy koperasi). and our food consumption is also being observed. no extra rice or dishes. even the size of the fish and chicken shrink. not that i mind, since i dont really eat a lot.

as a result of this funny diet programme, the trainees wrote funny remarks in the diet feedback book. such as...
1) air suam terlalu panas
2) kami mahu menu 2008 (no idea what's this)
3) kami mahu sirap!
4) boleh sediakan ais?
5) air suam terlalu tawar (funniest)
6) nak awek yang lebih cantik (to serve them. sheesh)
and many more

so what can i say? first they feed us like a boar then they make us go on diet. but hye, at least we have 6 meals a day!
0800 breakfast
1030 break
1230 lunch
1630 tea break
1830 dinner
2230 minum malam

i wonder how is it in the other camps..

National Service: The Facilities

now let's talk about the facilities in Kem Millennium, Beranang, Selangor.

let's start with the dormitories
in my camp, there 8 dorms for guys and 8 dorms for girls. dorm A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. each dorm i supposed can cater shelter for about 25+ people i guess? i'm lucky enough to be in dorm F, it's not that far away. we are provided with locker (so small), bed, mattress, 2 pillows, bedsheet, pillow case and blanket. of cause they provide us with broom and kuntau as well. however, my camp operator doesnt provide iron for the wirawatis. the pro: dont need to find time to iron your class uniform. con: it's so embarassing to go out with such scruffy clothes! especially when you go to church!

each dorm have 4 doors, but we are only using 1 main door, because there was a break in case at the end of 2nd week. so we put all the empty bed and lockers against the 3 unused doors. the dorm is very hot in the afternoon, so most of us nap on the floor at noon. the windows are fine, with netting, so no mosquitoes problems (for us girls).

each dorm have their own washroom and toilet. you can either shower or mandi with the air kolah. obviously i chose to shower, lol. we have to clean the kolah once in every 3 weeks. on top of that, we have cleaners, which does not fit any purpose from my point of view, coz i dont see much difference in the hygiene of the washroom or toilet. we have 3 'washing panel' with 6 water pipes for us to do our laundry. overall, the washroom is okay. except that dorm F have the lousiest washroom coz the tiles are full of cement. the water is clean enough, so we dont have skin problems. the only thing i hate about the washroom is the fact that there's always no water at the sink and washing panel. thank god there's water at the toilet and shower room, otherwise i dont know la!

moving on to the dining hall. we are seperated at the dining hall. wira, wirawati and ketua have different places to sit. each week the company-on-duty will have to clean up the dining hall after each meal. the thing we hate about the dining hall is the fact that
1. the running water is too slow. it takes ages for us to do our dishes.
2. always not enough washing detergent!! very geram!
3. not enough cup! initially we had more than enough cups, but as time goes by, the cup just evaporated into thin air. i suspect its because too many people broke the cups and the camp operator doesnt bother to replace those cups! so, siapa cepat, dia dapat!

next we have the most lousiest koperasi! of all the facilities in the camp, this is the worst! just a small pail cost me RM8. i bet i can get that for RM 4 or RM 5 in sabah! bloodsuckers! but i had no choice, so i just buy la and complain. haha. even the pen there cost RM1.50 (i heard). to tell you the truth, i dont know, because i hate to go to the koperasi. why? cause..
1. too expensive
2. only 1 person running the koperasi
3. the person doesnt know how to count (one day i gave him RM 10, he returned me RM 13 =.=)
4. the place is always packed with people, although the things are expensive!
5. the person is soooooo slow. he gives you all the things you want + plastic, and when you want to pay, he wont entertain you. sheesssssshhhh!!!

other than that, we have dobi from outside. the dobi service is okay. except that there's one time when our clothes came back very dirty. but i'll give a 7.5/10 for the dobi la. if they continue giving us clean clothes back it would be nice.

we also have a camp clinic aka RSAT (rumah sakit angkatan tentera). but i hate to go to that place as much as i hate to go to any clinic. plus i've always hate to go and see the doctor. it seems that the med they give us are qute strong. i thought i was the only one facing that prob, but others complain too. we become dizzy after consuming the med. the doc even overdose me with cough syrup and flue med until i had to stay in the RSAT. sheesh. but we try to avoid from going to that place, we dont want to end up getting tangguh! so when i get headache, stomachache and cough, i just shut up and pretend nothing happen. at least at home you can go to the pharmacy. sheeshh..

other facilities includes lombong- where we do our water sports-, tower for flying fox and the rest of the facilities i havent seen yet, coz its out of camp. we also have padang kawad, gelanggang bola jaring, futsal, sepak takraw, bola tampar and ping pong table for aktiviti riadah.
overall, i think the facilities are okay, just need to coverup the loop holes. maybe i'll give them 6.5/10 now. i hope it will go up to 8/10 by the time i leave the camp!

National Service: The First Day

to be honest, there's so much to write. i cant make up my mind where to start. so i've decided to start with the first day simply because it is the FIRST.

the first day arriving at the camp at about 5pm or so, i was kinda tired and we had to walk for what seems like a thousand miles. we were brought to the bilik kuliah 1 (PK1 to register and PK2 to check our belongings) the registration was fine, and the 1st person to register in my mind was Cg Nagadevi. why? coz she said terima kasih wirawati! she had loud voice and was the only one bother to have some manners. lol! that was what i think back then.

moving on to PK2 to check our belongings, my hair dryer was confisticated! how dare you!!! not that i care, just that i was like die la, no hair dryer, sure headache! anyway, the jurulatih(JL) were nice enough to make me feel comfortable. they even joke around, though i cant remember what was their joke. in fact, at that point of time, i didnt even know they were the JLs!

after that i was like a lost sheep, looking for my dorm, i had no idea where on earth is it, so i just walk until one of the JL shouted from behind

JL :wirawati! dorm mana?
Me : dorm F.
JL : tau tak dorm kamu di mana?
Me : tak.
JL : ok ikut saya. pergi makan dulu di dewan makan baru pergi dorm

well, at least i was heading the right direction! so i just dumped my luggage with the other luggage, get my metal plate -the kind that they use in the prison- and headed for the food. while taking the food, i asked for cutleries, and i was told to eat with my hand. i thought they were joking! seriously!! for the next few days we had to eat with our hand because the camp operator didnt provide us with cutlery. however, for the past one month i havent use the cutlery for more than 10 times, coz i'm too lazy to walk back to my dorm to take the cutleries. since we've been 'trained' to eat with our hand for the first few days, we just go on doing that. until the JL ask us (my chinese friends and i) why are we using our hands.

ethel and i were looking for a place to sit when suddenly one of the JL shouted (well, called with a loud voice) at us. well, i THINK it was US la. so we went and sat next to the JL and at the opposite direction, there was a ROW of chinese girls, all smiling, i cant help it but laughed! cause i thought they were doing some kind of toothpaste advertisement. Then, my chinese pop out of my mouth and it sounded horrible coz i havent been speaking in chinese for a long time. hehe *innocent* so we sat down, eat and chingchong. the JL was very friendly, and her name is Cg Ziela (we call the JLs 'cikgu').

however, at the same time, i was like god, this food is... omg, how am i to eat this kind of food for the next 3 months? im gonna loose weight la if like this. seriously, the food on the 1st day was intolerable, but like it or not, you just have to push it down your throat. it's called survival.

after dinner, i went to the dorm. the chinese girls were nice enough to help me with my luggage :) my dorm is on the hill, so there's staircase. then i had my shower, scary also la 1st day showering at a new and weird environment. after that we went from dorm to dorm, because cg ziela made a deal with us. she say she will denda us if we dont visit all the other dorms. cheahh!!
my dormates were nice, but it took me like 5 days to remember all of their names. huhu.

then i dont remember what happened for the rest of the night..