When I enlisted for my National Service, there was serious talk about bringing me back to Ngee Ann Polytechnic Strings (NPS/NP Strings). I attended a series of meetings discussing my possible return.
But it soon became evident to me that coming back, in any form, would be difficult.
The school would require written permission from my Commanding Officer (CO) for me to return to my teaching duties. (It is illegal for full-time National Servicemen to moonlight, unless they have the express written consent from the Ministry of Defence.)
Then there were discussions of finding loopholes for me to return.
“How about instead of paying you a teaching fee, we pay you a transport fee?” One person suggested.
This would circumvent the ‘moonlighting’ rule. But it was clearly a grey area.
After a series of exhaustive meetings, I decided to save the committee any further trouble. “Find a replacement for me,” I ordered. And that ended my involvement with NP Strings.
In hindsight, the decision was correct. After my basic military training (BMT), I would be posted to MINDEF Public Affairs. I would constantly be ‘on-call’ and my uncertain schedule would deprive me of any opportunity of participating in the classical guitar community.
This would also prevent me from teaching privately.
I was surprised that I would still receive offers to teach privately. I did not have a blog then, and I assumed that my teaching career was too short to have established any sort of reputation. But the offers still came in. I flatly refused all of them.
During my service, I kept my skills sharp. I briefly returned to study under Ernest Kwok, but my national service (NS) vocation promptly put this to an end.
Prior to enlisting, I almost never missed a lesson with Ernest. I could go for months, sometimes up to a year, of attending classes with Ernest, all the while never missing a single one.
This is quite impressive when you consider that this took place during a time when the North-East MRT line was not yet built.
It was a 1-hour commute to Ernest’s location. In total, I would have to commute for 2 hours for a 30-minute lesson. But I was passionate and determined.
My NS vocation caused me to miss almost 50% of all my classes. After several months, I stopped classes with Ernest.
My uncertain schedule would also deprive me of meeting Alex. I struggled to find the time to meet him. During my service, I met him several times before we would gradually lose touch.
During an early instance of my NS, I managed to meet him during my BMT. Alex got quite a kick out of meeting a very ‘botak’ (bald) Recruit Dedrick Koh. That would be the only instance where Alex would have more hair than me.
After months of refusing offers to teach, requests would slowly die down. I would perish the thought of any career involving classical guitar as I wondered what to do with myself at the end of my NS.
To be continued.
