Sunday, March 28, 2004

   A-a-a-a-r-r-r-r-r-g-g-g-g-g-h-h-h-h-h-h........ !! as i try to stretch myself after my one hour afternoon nap. the previous night of guard duty i hadn't slept much. less than five hours in fact. the incredulous thing was that i had tried to restrict myself from sleeping! reluctantly, i had succumbed to the temptation of an afternoon nap. but still i set my handphone alarm clock for just an hour. no more no less.. i juz couldn't bear "wasting" my sunday away by sleeping. i always feel that that i have more worthwhile stuff to do...

   the past week's platoon ic was JiLin. this guy.. i just couldn't believe the desperado smoker he n alvin are.. for that puff, they're willing to do extra pumping etc.. always being fooled around like ... like... YES.. a FOOL!! Training was tough but the results reaped are so satisfying... My newest SOC timing (taken on Wed) was 8 minutes 44 seconds!! yes, i'm very happy with that score but i couldn't quite bring myself to believe it to be so. i had felt that i had gone slower in my first run down (on purpose though) and had felt really really shagged and walked pretty a lot in between stations.. but i believe my final run in was perhaps much better than my usual speed. my endurance had improved i guess.. i even had to baby-hug my SAR21 weapon all the way for the final run in coz the rifle sling was somehow entangled n had too small a gap for me to side sling it. in my haste, i had decided to baby-hug it all the for the run in so as not to waste too much time sorting out the rifle sling entanglement.

   feeling that i might have flunked coz of the numerous walking in between stations, i went to check my raw timing. 12 min 44 sec. being in detail 3, i have to minus the time delay of 2 minutes or 4 minutes for the delay i had to wait for the first two detail to go first. i did a quick mental calculation. 12:44 minus 4 min is 08:44... incredible!! i didn't believe i had done well.. so i thought that the interval in between details must have been a min for each detail which would mean 12:44 minus 2 min is 10:44... i failed! arrghhh.. i felt realli bad.

   it wasn't until platoon sergeant vincent had fooled me too over my timing before i knew i had pass the soc test well.. PS Vincent called my name from downstairs.. i answered n he chided me saying i had failed.. thinking i had known better, i asked whether i had failed by 44 seconds. he replied a yahlor... however, he and platoon sergeant called me again soon after to announced that i had realli did what i felt was impossible which was to clear the 9 minute barrier.. sergeant allen's impressed remark left me with much pride n joy!! heh.. i still cannot believe i did so.. haha.. thanks for everything, sergeants who have taught me well... (including a certain eerie sgt who insisted that i take off my gloves to do low rope..)

   we did 2 journal writing last week. i had let slip something which i might regret. penning my thoughts about camp, training etc ain't hard for me. afterall i do my whole weekly round-up on my blog too.. it's become a habit actually... having someone to listen to ur woes, ur thoughts is healthy too. no pent up feelings etc... like i said, my regret is that i fear to be named a PS pet. it's good to have a relationship throughout the 2 years with the PS of coz.. it's important n essential.. but it's not good to be isolated from the platoon too..

   An incident in the week which was pretty memorable was the 350 pushups we shared as a platoon one night after RO. We were given a very strict water parade check. PS wanted our water level to be at the rim. we all filled it to the brim. but the opening and closing and drill caused some spillage n he found 7 caught wanting. for every one person, we owe him 50 push ups. all half left down. the right marker in the first row would do his share of pushups... then pass on to the next person. it started off as each person 20. then when it reached eeping, he did 50. not wanting to be outdone, i also wanted to contribute 50 for the platoon. 49 was easy n perfect as i did my usual standard pushups. my 50th was a scare. i had been stuck! i couldn't get up. previously PS had warned that if we had miscounted or if one person had touch the ground, the whole thing would be restart from zero. eventually i did the 50th.. i was pretty stressed coz i couldn't imagine letting the whole platoon down.. Prasad who was after me miscounted the count n we had another shocker. prasad blamed it partially on me coz i had created a furore.. luckily PS oni backtracked the counter to 130. the whole platoon was half-left downed all this while and i was starting to sweat profusely as sweat droplets trickled down my chest drainage system.. haha.. eventually the 13 of us completed the 350 pushups as punishment for something we deemed overly extra.. but, there were the fun moments.. it'll be some experience.

   mighty long week ah.. saturday guard duty made it worse. lucky me was selected by the sergeant as fire piquet. main job was checking for the various contraband items brought into n outta camp by military personnels.. heh... for example, camera phone, camera, all forms of ROMs, pirated CDs, pornography etc... i was pretty relaxed in my searching though. i dun wanna touch n smell those stinky socks n clothes either. if it were a female personnel, then it would make things even worse. we juz let them go basically.. haha.. coz imagine if i had dug around n forked out a soiled bra? or worse still a dildo? hahahaha... that'll surely be the laughing stock of the guard room...

   I also had to do the flag lowering n flag raising. mind you, this is serious business.. once the flag touch the ground, 7 years Detention Barracks(DB) as punishment. An upside-down flag raised up is also 7 years DB. wrong flag on wrong pole is also 7 years DB. pressure cooker right? however the sergeant seemed more stressed up than me.. haha.. we did it fine though... ok after the 20 hours of guard duty was endured, i booked out in smart 4 and went to apple house. we had breakfast in her neighbourhood area. i had prata n she wantan mee.. then i went home surfed, check email, friendster, throw my clothes into the washing machine, played gba, chitchat on msn n icq, timed a nap and finally blogged.

   Haiz... forever so rushed. booking in soon liao.. so little time. i still dread army life.. haiz... LL lah... must look forward to better stuff like batallion long weekend, company long weekend, good friday long long weekend and maybe wishful hoping of a platoon long weekend and a section long weekend.. haha... ok,... here's looking forward to emart visiting next week n the unsuccessful sign on attempt by daniel. Ciaoz!
Blabbered bean @ 18:58 //