finally, we got our corporal stripes this morning..but nt before we embarked on the hardest and longest walk of our lives ~ the 35km graduation march which started last night and spanned the entire night all the way from 9pm to 6am.

we started off at fort road in ecp, fresh and in high spirits..accompanied by many cheers, occasional jeers and also curious looks from beach goers at ecp. the supposedly slow pace tt our 2ic set was actually fucking fast, so fast tt by the end of 2 hrs..we were ald out of ecp and 14km thru our goal. all i can say is tt its damn shag, everyone literally collapsed at the rest pt, where most of us juz lay down and tried to recover our strength by catching a few winks.

next came the hardest part of our walk...the infamous stretch of coastal road tt lay just before changi ferry terminal. now i know why all the sergeants say it sucks, cos it really does; its neverending, and the terrain is essentially a muddy dirt trail full of sudden potholes in the ground..such tt it demoralised all of us who were walking and sapped our strength totally. changi airport lay juz across the road, lit up in all its glory at night, which served only to taunt us and make us more tired by looking at the neverending lights, the road ahead, and the bloody air control tower tt stayed in our views for all of the 1 and a half fucking hrs we took to walk tt bloody stretch of coastal road. many times i kept thinking i would not make it..and when we finally did finish tt part of our journey and reached the rest pt..i simply crumpled to the ground and knocked out for a good 15 mins before we were woken to continue our gruelling march.

the rest of the march, altho still tiring, was nth compared to coastal road..thru changi beach park we went, past the saf ferry terminal, walking across changi beach and back to changi village, where we saw some of the famous bapos of the place; some of whom were actually quite pretty, very pretty in fact, and looked more womanly than we had ever imagined. hah.

by this time, our bodily pains had been replaced by numbness and vice versa, so we juz pushed on..bypassed our future home ~ hendon camp and continued along loyang, all the way back to the car park at downtown east..where we had a final rest stop, and cans of 100 plus for everyone courtesy of our generous commanding officer.

after which, we made the final push all the way back to pasir ris camp, where we had an hr plus of much anticipated rest after finally completing the hardest and longest walk of our lives..and waking up later in the morning to prepare for our final 'mission', the parade tt would see us get our corporal and 3sg ranks. during the parade, many of us fell out due to sheer fatigue after a night of gruelling walking, and i myself almost did too, except for sheer will which managed to make me hang in there long enough without falling flat on my face..

parade done, we retreated to our bunks, showered, packed our things, and got in abt an hr of slp before booking out in the early afternn, still nt able to believe tt we had completed the 35km graduation march... next monday, we will be posting back to the battalion in hendon camp, the final destination..and im nt looking forward to it..esp the big 'welcome' party tt the our new csm had briefed us abt ald..hah.

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yesterday was exercise vhf for our course. actually juz a veri simple one day thing; with the morning part spent in camp and the rest of the day in the field, the aim of which was to let us familiarise and explore the prc 940 manpack radio set.

for the 'local' phase in the morning, we were dispatched all over slackmont camp in our five or six men detachments and all we had to do was set up comms and follow proper vp to send a bunch of code words to the rest, in all the different modes of operation available with the radio set. fucking easy, i'll say.

the afternn, outfield phase was the slackest outfield i've ever been to. haha. its the first time i carried an ALICE pack (all weather lightweight individual carrying equipment, the big ass rucksack tt only cdo carry), kindly lent to us by our sgt who's in our detachment. and it was filled to the brim. not with field equipment or ten-pack items, but with food! abt 20% std combat rations and the rest of which all civilian. we had chips, noodles, cornflakes, tuna, bread, cocktail sausages, blah blah..and even cans of nescafe..heh.

the moment we reached our destination in some ulu place called ama keng..there was cat 1 for 3 hrs. so we retreated to the nearby trg shed and had our picnic and afternn nap there after quickly setting up and establishing comms. late in the afternn when the weather cleared, we packed up and moved into the bushes..scouted out a clear patch, and repeated wad we did earlier. hah. we took turns to man the set and the rest of us played daidee, read comics, went ard catching fighting spiders or simply slept again.

by ard 1900, the exercise was all wrapped up and we returned to slackmont, sorted out our stores, had a small debrief and were home free by 2100. whee!! if only every outfield was like so. next week there's another one..and i'm ald thinking wad food and drinks to bring for it liao..hah.


as for the guard duty, it was actually on last sunday..an extra tt i had signed in prc but was serving here in slackmont. and its anythg but slack. 2 hokkien words. han bin. coz i've nv experienced guard duty like tt in all the 3 camps i've been to and done guard in. nv.

i chose prowler thinking it would be slack but it turned out the worst. we had to prowl for 2 hrs, rest 2 hrs. for the whole day. 24 hrs. its really fucking shack lor. somemore the camp didn't have e scan thingy tt i was used to..we had to actually walk up to the checkpt and write in the timing we were there and sign against it. fuck.

and the cb malay rp sgt. fucking fat shit terrorized us fr morning until late at night. only after 12 when he go slp were we safe. words cant describe wad we experienced..muz be actually there to kenna his shit to noe. fucker was damn guai lan..even more than me. (and i tot i veri guai lan liao) and he's a fucking gay.
he actually asked our friend to go watch a movie with him one on one when he barely noe the guy. fucking yalam piece of shit.

guard duty aside, the rats finally came into our bunk this week, and we saw it coming in. wtf. tried to catch and kill it, but to no avail..guess its too quick for us. im guessing there's more tt have ald been into our bunk in the middle of the night, juz tt we were all slping like logs and didn't noe. ha. anyway, its only one more week in this bloody shithole of a camp and its back to dear old prc. whew.

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nothing much here. mayb juz blogging for the sake of doing sth. ha.

anyways, its my second week at slackmont camp, and its unbelievably even more slack. coz by now, we ald figured out how to work ard the timings scheduled for us to get more slp in the day since we every nite also talk cock until late late den slp. morning all wake up like zombies..do the warm up 5bx, breakfast, den zip back to bed for another hr before the first lesson of the day.

and we are always so bored while doing the courseware in the CAI lab tt we started to keep ourselves entertained and sane by playing solitaire, minesweeper and the like. lol.

last week, i wrote abt the food there, which i tot was pretty good. no more. coz for the last 2 weeks, we've been eating the spicy muslim food for every meal. even breakfast also curry. and we are now so sick of it, literally; some ppl even start to diarrhoea due to eating too much spicy stuff, tt we have requested to change our ration indent to non-muslim. coz, somehow, the grass on the other side is starting to look slightly greener..contrary to wad we've been told by all the lao jiaos ard the camp.

and rats! altho there's been no massive invasion yet, as i have feared for some time..i finally saw one of the vermins after nights out on wednesday. fucking thing was scurrying along the darkened corridor while i watched, and i can only say im amazed at its abilities..damn.

and i aint the only one..got ppl talking abt other rats when i entered the bunk. apparently the whole camp IS really infested with them like wad nich said. fuck. now i gotta be extra careful when it comes to keeping food and eating to make sure tt i dun give the greedy bastards any excuse to visit my bunk.

i think i've also figured out how come there hasnt been any major attack by mosquitoes yet..seems like they've all been eaten up by the frogs and birds that are making noise croaking and chirping all night long and in the early morning. ha. small price to pay in my point of view. coz i rather listen to the birds and the frogs than get turned out by mosquitoes every nite. in fact, its quite soothing at times..kind of makes me slpy juz listening. haha.

oh yar..this week we had only one pt. nt very shiong considering our normal standards back in prc but was still quite shack. think due to too long nv do proper pt liao. got ppl hin somemore..wtf..siao liao, like tt we go back to hendon sure die one.

there. done. time really flies..even while slacking away. ha.

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yeah, ttz wad we are calling stagmont camp. coz life there is so slack, its almost like gg back to school. having juz moved in on monday this week, we had quite a culture shock.

for one, there's no morning pt at all..the daily 5bx consists of only some stretching, and like abt 20 pushups, crunches and some other stuff..which takes like all of 5 min to complete. to us, it was more a warm up than anything else. and the worse thing is tt trainees such as ourselves are nt allowed to run and do pt on our own..nt without a safety vehicle and officer ard.

the fact tt none of the warrants there are willing to do the safety means tt we get no pt, no runs at all. zip. except for 2 short 1 hr sessions per week. if this carries on, we are definitely fucked when we go back to hendon. and the word is, it will nt change..even if our own course cmdr go talk to the oc there..so..either way, we're still fucked. hah.

and this is the first time since i returned to a combat vocation tt i actually get to spend the whole day in air con lecture rooms and labs..gg thru tons of lecture material and computer courseware on signals stuff. machiam like go back to oeti lidat. no, i think even oeti had less of such sessions and more hands on in the workshop. (-_-;)

but well, at least the food here is better than fucking pasir ris camp ones. first time since airborne course tt i'm actually looking forward to meal times, even tho the lunch break is really too short for comfort.. since the 'trg' schedule is packed too tightly.

and no. i haven't encountered any of the notorious rats that nic warned me abt prior to my coming here. think i shld count myself lucky, since nic said his fren kenna hit on the first day ald. i hope they dun come at all. dun wan rats fucking chewing up my stuff all over the place. and definitely nt my food. but ttz rare i guess..if the rats are all they are made out to be..sooner or later we're bound to get invaded. hah.

ttz all for the time being. will be back with updates on further slackness but hopefully nt rats next week. heh.

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it has been 3 weeks since airborne course. and i have returned to pasir ris camp awaiting my signal course to start all this while. during which time, i haven't been doing anything much except for morning pt, den eat, slp, eat slp, the whole day..with the occasional saikang here and there.

recently tho, i have started to find tt life is really getting meaningless. i seemed to have lost my direction for life; goals, dreams, fr before all seem to have evaporated into thin air..i really dunno what i want. im lost.

when i first entered army, i was full of enthusiasm. i wanted to be an officer, and mayb sign on if i did get to be one. however, my first bmt was screwed up by dengue. i went on to become a weapon technician for 4 months. and when i got posted back to commandos, i was full of hope once again, but then again, i did not make the cut to leaders course, much less ocs. instead, im in signals. seems im really nt a leader. nvm tt. time and again, i have thought abt signing on, but now, i have decided nt to, coz i've come to hate the regimentation and all the infighting in the saf. i juz want to serve and fuck off, and go back to my civilian life after my ns term.

now, with one year left to ord, im still lost on wad i want for my future. with the army career dream gone, i'm left with stepping out into the society and joining the rat race. something tt i aint really looking forward to either. as for uni, i cant get into nus, ntu, or smu..not with my fucked up grades. sim is my only other option, but i dun have the money for it..nt even if i start saving my cdo pay from now. perhaps enough for one semester, but nth more. and even if i did get to uni, i still dunno wad course of study i wan to take up. the logical choice would be to continue in mktg, my major in poly. but after 3 years in poly, and without anything really fantastic to show for my mktg studies..it is once again a qn mark.

really, im lost. i dunno wad i want to do. even if i do, i dun have the means to accomplish it. till now, i haven't found my polestar yet. ken once said tt im a late bloomer, and such ppl are bound to be the successful ones, once they find their polestars. however, im beginning to doubt tt also. haiz.

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this was the biggest week in the history of pasir ris camp since the cdo trg institute was set up there. coz ytd chief of army~ mg desmond quek visited the camp and officially inauguarated the cdo trg institute. before tt, earlier in the afternn, the annual cdo workplan seminar was also held in prc, a first..since up till last year, it was always held at hendon.

prior to this huge event, we spent the entire week preparing for it, cleaning up here and there, moving stuff and such..the std kinds of sai kang la..which is also wad i've been doing for the past 2 weeks since i came back fr airborne course. basically juz morning pt, b/f, den wait in my bunk for the saikang to come; its really damn boring. hah.

and ytd, after the coa and his entourage were done with the tour and unveiling of the cdo ti logo and stuff, there was a happy hr in the officers' mess. myself and a bunch of other lobos got chosen to work as temporary servers in the mess, helping to serve drinks and clear up after the officers. gawd, i've never before seen so many crabs and chocolate bars congregated under one roof at a single time, so last nite was quite an eye opener.

tt said, the officers were all happily partying away all the way till after midnite. there was ktv there, so many of them took turns singing, mostly oldies..tho some of them, like my bmt pc, could actually sing quite well, which we were surprised to find out. needless to say, chicken little was there too, and singing away enthusiastically most of the time. but sad to say, his singing sucked, really sucked..looking at him crooning away in his seat, probably halfway marbo after many drinks, we tried hard nt to laugh out loud, but just snicker among ourselves when we were out of his line of sight.

coa and the other big shots actually left quite early.. with the exception of the chief cdo officer and our ti cmdr, who stayed damn late to ard 1130..by which time, most had left, and those still hanging ard were our own instructors, namely the warrants of our camp..and i think some of them were pissed drunk also, coz they kept pushing us drink after drink and making us 'tar' on the spot. haha. towards the end, after everything was cleared up and we were juz waiting for the greenlight to pack up and go home, it was down to the bunch of us juz sitting ard the bar and ourselves crooning away on the mikes, since the my pc, who was surprisingly still sober, choosed a few songs and sang together with us..haha.

well, it was a fun night. perhaps even a once in a lifetime one. coz nt everyday do u get to serve drinks to a two star and all the three crabs hanging ard him, right?

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