I'm taking some time to look over December's events and my, my...it doesn't look too pretty, despite the fact that my block leave begins on the 3rd week and carries till after the New Year. You can't always enjoy the good stuff without having a price to pay, do you?

Let's see, I've got deployments (out-of-camp activities like parades, performances, etc.) on:

30/11 (Sunday) - Turf Club performance
01/12 (Monday) - Corp of Drums for COC (OIL, if any, for 30/11 is forgone and accumulated)
02/12 (Tuesday) - GOH for Costa Rica minister
04/12 (Thursday) - Rehearsal for COC
05/12 (Friday) - ACPC Dining In (Night gone)
09/12 (Tuesday) - COC Actual
12/12 (Friday) - Ex-Cope Tiger parade (Morning or afternoon?)
19/12 (Friday) - Tan Tock Seng Hospital - Art of Healing performance (Night gone?)

And the very next day...the 20th, I'll be in M'sia for my rather poorly timed holiday. God damn it. I finally get some respite from my deployments and then I've gotta hop on over to the Motherland and forcibly socialize with the English-impaired. Pardon the insult...I'm known to be brutally honest.

As you can see I've got deployments on 4 out of 5 days next week...including a precious Friday night. Seems I'll miss another Friday evening on the 19th too. Losing two Friday nights in a row is kinda upsetting. No no, actually...it's VERY upsetting. God damn it.

I do hope the ex-Cope Tiger parade is in the morning. I'll be damned if it's in the afternoon. I do hate afternoon parades...

Just this morning I had a GOH at the Istana for some Belgian visitors...royalty, apparently. Didn't really notice who was royalty and who wasn't. It was the same as any other GOH. Mundane, boring, incredibly moist inside my uniform, and cursing my gloves for their lack of grip on my drumsticks.

Everytime I think of how tired I'm going to be I smack myself for even thinking of complaining because I'm very much living the good life right now. For those of you who had the thought of me being a selfish, lazy bastard while reading whatever was before this paragraph, well, you can swallow your words, because I'm not complaining. I'm just thankful I'm not in some jungle making friends with the insects and wild animals...I made my choice.

I guess next week is due punishment for a week of laid back living which started monday this week. It's because my band director is only coming back from O/L tomorrow. And it's going to be ACPC pieces all over again...being in here has really improved my sight reading, because that's what we're usually doing. Nobody actually really practices the pieces, honestly. They're simple enough to sight read anyway.

It's going to be a loooooooooooong week...but better things will come. I know it.