Whew i suppose i can't meet my saturday deadline now...partly because i was stoning about this morning and because i spent my entire afternoon out buying army stuff at beach road and eating sakae sushi and walking around parkway parade with my mum. Evening was spent at my "Ah Kong's House Version 2.0" with my maternal relatives (almost just like old times).
Quite fun...we didn't play much mahjong or cards at all but a whole bunch of us cousins played a game intro-ed to us by bjorn..."Polar Bear". Very fun hahaha. Like 1 of us is the narrator to regulate the game and the other is the polar bear, undercover, and he/she chooses to kill someone "when night falls". When "morning comes", everyone debates who's the polar bear and votes to eliminate someone..a.k.a. "throw" him/her off the cliff or "hang" him/her with a piece of string or "drown" him/her in a bucket of water or whatever not. Then "night falls" and it continues till either the polar bear is eliminated or is the last person standing.
Later on we added a Hunter who knows who's the polar bear but has to convince the rest to vote against the polar bear (failing which he/she would probably be killed by the polar bear the following night for revealing him/herself), as well as an accomplice. The accomplice is to help the polar bear, but the polar bear doesn't know who it is and might just kill him by accident. It all became super confusing from then on. Like the polar bear might, on purpose, not kill the Hunter, and the Hunter or accomplice might point to someone else in order to hide their identity. Did pretty damned well myself, thanks to some super acting skills (heh heh...) but i kinda preferred being the narrator anyways.
So i enjoyed myself in the end, although when i thought of all the work i had to do tomorrow before my book-in i became all depressed again (as usual..). Still, spending the day out was a risk well worth taking. I could've stayed at home and got more things done, but still, if i had spent the time doing my scrapbook page and played another 8games of dota i don't think i would've felt any much better. Family time IS important.
Anyway to continue my Army entry (where was i...oh yes right after field camp a.k.a. 11th Feb)..After field camp my hands and arms were all scarred and bruised from all the leopard crawling, but i still felt like going out during my bookout! So on the 11th i went out with my mum and uncle, aunt and 2 of my cousins (darren and jasmine) to eat at Moonfish - formerly known as Spagheddies - (at Millenia Walk...my family are like regulars there) where we ordered like a heck of stuff.
Then i went over to chinablack where they were having some post-JC party. Saw a few VJ dudes/dudettes and my sergeants and one of the platoon commanders. Felt so weird seeing them in clubbing attire. They looked like...normal people...so unlike back in camp. Some of my NS section-mates were there - Kelvin, Chris, Baorui and Wenhao. The rest of my platoon, except for Wilson and Joash, all said "K man, set!" or "Hmm...maybe i'll go" or "I want to go leh, but i'm not so sure..." or simply "No way Jose, i want to/need to do this/go there/sleep/pack bags/play comp then all pang seh us. Aiyoh. Like kelvin said; bo on then just say "no" lah. Sigh. Next up after POP is Lingerie Party at dunno-what-club. Better have more go sia.
So in the end, i just hung out with my section-mates and Joash. Quite sad. Then didn't dance also...like the dance floor looked so messy and sweaty and the people i went with all didn't want to dance (except baorui lol). Plus there weren't many girls there 'cos there was like a flood of NS dudes..not that i'd go jio the chiobus though..i'm like so super-shy. 0_o To top it all off, the music at one point was pretty..weird. The drinks at chinablack also not very consistent..although i guess it's to be expected at $2 a glass. I ordered a vodka-lime for example, and sometimes i could taste the vodka and sometimes i just tasted iced lime. Bought a whole jug of vodka-cranberry as well and shared a Long Island iced tea with joash. After that i grew really sleepy so i left the club at around 3am. Was drunk enough to fall asleep in the cab on the way back home. But i didn't drink much compared to my friends! I don't think i can really take much alcohol..like not a heavy drinker and personally i prefer light mixes to those strong "men's drinks" that i see people buy. If you take me to a club or bar you won't expect me to drink much. Same goes for functions; a glass of wine can last the whole night for me.
The next day it was non-stop packing and getting ready to book back in. As usual i got like super depressed just before leaving the house and it lasted till afternoon the next day. We then had SIT test, which included 1 day to march 12km to the campsite and set up camp and 2 days for the actual test. The test involved a reservist officer following a small group of recruits to different stations where we had "situational tests", basically like "you have to cross an acid river so what the **** do you do". Scouts kinda stuff. There were fast marches in the morning as well..i think it was all of that which ended up killing my knees.
2 days after that was our IPPT (something like NAPFA) and 16km route march after that. And of course i didn't take part in either 'cos i went to the medical officer a.k.a. MO for my knee pains. He kinda swivelled my knee about for a bit and gave me 7 days of "Excused RMJ" - excused running, marching and jumping. SAF just loves using short forms, don't they.
So here i was, expecting to use my new-found free time to do laundry and pack my cupboard, but as i was walking with my section-mates back to the buck, POOF! Out pops a Ninja sergeant. One section-mate is excused from boots and the other had a back injury, so in the end i was the only one chosen to be conscripted into the saigang (err..hokkien for "shit-work") army.
There was a platoon 1 guy who went as well, and 3 platoon 4 dudes who went down thinking they were there to load up jerry cans onto the tonner (a sort of truck) but instead loaded THEMSELVES up onto the tonner. So we went about setting up water points for the marching folks and came back to BMTC school 2 as late as them AND i almost got punished with guard duty WHILE the rest of the injured squad (which numbered almost 20) got to sleep for an extra 4hrs. Damn. Next time if i'm injured i'll try being a little more discrete. Maybe then i'll get the rest time that i..er..deserve.
The next day we had our really-real live grenade throwing event. Nothing much to talk about, to be honest. Just a lot of waiting. The grenade throwing itself wasn't THAT spectacular too. Couldn't see much from the viewing window as a spectator, and as a thrower i had to hide behind some stone structure when i threw the grenade so all i could really register was a really really loud "boom".
Confinement was next; the OC (a.k.a. the guy in charge of our company) had locked us up for a total of about 18 extra hours (including sleep time) to clean up our bunks, toilets, etc. So we had a late bookout...again. After bookout it was yet another big rush; i had to do so many write-ups AND go shopping AND do some chatting AND eat with my parents AND watch my anime AND whoop a few people at DotA AND take a nap all in 12 bloody hours. That really stinks. I was still super exhausted when i booked back in on the same day.
The following week wasn't very memorable...just a lot of setting up of waterpoints and loosening sand for the obstacle course for OTHERS to use. When i had any free time, i'd stay in bunk to re-do my packs (err..how to explain what fieldpack packs are...), come up with cheers for Games Day (I'm in the Cheers Comitee..still dunno why i "volunteered" for it) and write this super-long entry. Was a bit..wiser..after past experiences, so i managed to balance manual labour with a healthy dose of sleep. All in all i spent a lot of my week with Edwin and Guoyin...they were like my saigang/slacking companions lol.
The last day was the one with the most activities...after Battle Assault Course in the morning - where we used our basic close-combat training on some dummies...all those battle-cries were quite embarrassing to be honest - we had our SOC (Standard Obstacle Course). For most it was their actual test; for the injured/sick squad it was only our diagnostic. Still, i wanted to go for a good score, so i aimed for a 9min 30sec timing. Missed it by a total of 1 minute...the obstacles aren't a problem for me; all the climbing and jumping is like playground stuff...but my stamina kinda sucks after such a long period of inactivity; it wasn't that great to begin with anyway. I'll try to get a better timing when i go back during block-leave for my actual test. At least i'm in Category A now.
Right after that we rushed off for dinner and then it was our one and only FRIDAY BOOK-OUT...Woohoo! Well...and i'm done! That's 3weeks of army crap for you! Next week will sorta be my last week in BMT...Passing Out Parade (POP in short) is on 7th March, and after that it's my block leave till the 20th, when i'll have to report at my assigned unit for duty again. I'll know where i'm assigned to on the 17th of March. Hopefully i'll get something easy...like a desk job in particular heheheh...although that kinda needs a PES downgrade. I can still go to Commmand School, but my attendance record kinda sucks, what with lung infection and knee injury and all, and i haven't been very enthusiastic about army stuff at all since Day 1, so i can probably say goodbye to OCS (Officer Cadet School). I smell a SISPEC (School of Infantry Specialists) appointment coming along for some reason though. Whatever it is, i just hope i'll survive.
Anyway, back to the present! It's 2.30am already; long past my sleep time. I've got a lunch appointment with friends at 12pm and i've gotta rush and start AND finish my scrapbook page and packing by 8pm tomorrow! So good day to all you readers...for the VJ people, i hope i can catch up with all of you on wednesday! Good luck for the A level results! :):):)
