14th - 16th June

day 3 of the week, another a week plus left in Lumut. can't wait to get back to UPNM. throughout the whole month here, i seldom have time to put on my compression wear and go for a jog. schedule has been real tight and we officers under training are given so many tasks to do. whatever it is, make good use of this few weeks to learn as much as i can.

thought of Damage Control and Fire Fighting when i was day dreaming in class. in the modern navy, ships are well equipped with electronic systems and powerful ship propulsion. warships are designed for battle, and the crews are trained for Damage control and fire fighting. we have a pump called the electric powered submersible pump on board every ships. flooding will cause short circuit, so when the compartment is flooded, power supply need to be cut off. without power supply nearby the flooded area, it'll restrict crews to stop flooding. as a solution, we need an independent power plant, portable enough, light and easy to be carried, small enough so that movement from compartment to the other compartment can be done much faster. the next alternative is the Lombargini diesel pump, but this extremely heavy yet bulky pump can be considered as out dated. i have an idea to solve, when i'm done with it, i'll publish in blog.

yesterday the PLB was Lt Saifullah bin Idris. he mustered all of us at the volleyball court and start asking technical questions. lucky enough, my intake answered most of the questions.
he explained very well the difference between engineer and technician.

engineer is engineer.
techician is near-engine

today after cleaning up class bestari, all of us went into an empty classroom to rest. after 30 minutes, Lt Halim caught us resting inside and he wasn't happy with it and called me. i defended my men. we did our tasks, and why not let us rest? then i also questioned why we have to 5S everyday, then he said because we didn't have other things to do.

sigh.. being obedient doesn't mean we have no suggestion what we want to do. we want to learn, but if we keep doing 5 s everyday, itz a waste of time. all this while we've been following orders, we didn't complain at all. so the best solution is, i proposed evening gunnery class being taught by Lt Cdr Kamisdan. i'm avoiding trouble and look for better solution.

realised that the cadets here refuse to salute our midshipmen. later i found out that the Subbies told them not to salute us. for whatever reason it is, the subbies are higher rank than us, so i assume they're FOLLOWing the rules and have their own reason for it. man make rules and man rebels. may be they wrote the PETAL themselves.
this tiny issue doesn't bother me at all, because it is really too minor. salute or not, it won't make any difference to the modernization of our armada. disciplinary problems occurred since day one navy was born. i would rather improve knowledge and maximize my time to learn. let the instructors do the job.