T-minus 1 week

This was the second last week of my recourse BMT and it went by pretty fast.

Took status on Tuesday after killing my feet during the 12km Route March by wearing new boots. The old ones were still wet and so were drying at home. Then, to counteract the blistering, I began to walk bow-legged which cramped my left thigh muscle and made my right knee hurt to high heaven.

I still took part in SOC though and was quite proud that I was able to complete every single obstacle. Skipped the IPPT though.

Went for a Dental Appt on Thursday but forgot to bring some stuff so the flirty dentist sent me back home early and I ended up slacking with Syed at Eastpoint, looking at the people and chatting the time away.

Friday had another 16click route march scheduled in the evening but I was still on status so I did not participate. Consequently, I was confined till the next morning whereas everyone who participated got to book out that night. But the confinees made the best of it by playing a spot of soccer and chatting the time away. Talked a lot with Samuel about life in general, friends and religion. Went to sleep past midnight and woke up at 5, dead tired.

Those who marched (and had gone back) were dead tired themselves anyway, completing 16 clicks in exactly 3.5 hours, inclusive of rest times. Crazy shit.

As usual, the confinees ran out of smokes and everyone turned to their regular "backups" to find spare smokes. I was Samuel's, Kok Xiong's and Poobalan's backup. Damn irritating.

Anyways, drove up to Malaysia the next evening with Ali, Md Nur and his gf where we makan-ed and lepaked, enjoying the Malaysian cigarettes. After sending Md Nur and his gf home, me and Syed headed over to ECP to slack with Syed's friend, Fadhil, where I got friggin wasted with the equivalent of a little over 6 shots of vodka in half an hour. I attributed this to the fact that I had not drunk ANY water since yesterday afternoon.

Outfield

So we had our field camp this week.

In terms of training and discipline, it was alright except for the stand-to exercises which were stupid, especially the one that we had to do for half an hour after changing into new uniforms. Smoke breaks were about the same as in camp, which it to say it was at any break or rest time, which was a lot. haha

In terms of the environment however, it was the worst I've ever seen or experienced in my life.

Day 1:
Had our 8 click route march where it began to rain very very heavily. We're talking about if I were driving, I-would-seriously-consider-slowing-my-car-down-for-safety kind of rain. How it rains on the main land, in the Tekong camp, and in the Tekong forests are all very different despite them being the same rain clouds. Within 10 minutes of the rain starting, my boots were flooded past my ankles and my field pack had gained an extra kg of water. I kid you not, it was a Cat 1 rain.

The field camp site was somewhat flooded and as we began to dig our drains and set up our bashas, we inadvertently brought up any remaining ground water to the surface. Light showers during this period. This is all I remember from day 1.

I slept less than 2 hours that night.

Day 2:
Light rain during reveille. Boots and socks were flooded to just below the ankles, despite my draining them and keeping them under shelter. Everyone was covered with erupting sores and mosquito bites. Did some lectures and some training and boots filled up to previous levels of water.

We were allowed to go back to shower within 1 hour. Everyone boarded the tonner with dry pairs of underwears and uniforms but the same wet boots.

It rained that night. Slept under an hour.

Day 3:
It rained at reveille. We proned in the mud in our stand to position for about 15 minutes. Went for our first lecture and training regime. A few minutes after it was finished, it began to rain very very heavily as the Cat 1 alarm sounded off. Everyone was confined to their rapidly flooding Bashas. Hansel and me began to sing loudly and enjoyed ourselves before Amos and Md Nur started joining in for a few of the songs, much to the chagrin of Bo who was actually able to doze off a few times.

Dinner was consumed and by 7pm it had started to rain even more badly than the first day. Even the admin tentage was flooding. Within half an hour, Hansel and Driver and Medic were running to the admin tentage complaining of swimming pool conditions. Poobs and Feisal did the same but all were shooed away within ten minutes of arriving at the shelter.

Under special medical conditions, I was able to sleep in the land rover that night (supposed to be under tentage but there was no space). I managed about 3 hours.

Day 4:
It rained about as badly as Day 1 in the morning so much so that the morning exercises were canceled. At about 8 we headed to an adjacent lot to dig our shell scrapes. I sneaked a can of red bull in to my system and found that it helped none whatsoever.

As expected, we were let off that afternoon.

Day 5:
We cleaned stores. It rained. We cleaned stores. Cougar recruits washed their mud from their stores onto our stores. Fuck.


Field camp was over by day 6 and everyone was ecstatic about going home and technically "passing the course".

Our transport bus was driven by a former 3rd sergeant who was adamant on us 'not breaking the windows in his bus'.

Then Shakir, Syed and me(Shawn) shared a cab back to Simei that was driven by a crazy lady. She was like touching her hair and rubbing her face then touching the steering wheel every few seconds. She really looked maniacal.

A number of us were supposed to head down to Dbl 0 to celebrate our field camp success including Sgt Jonathan but many of them decided to fly their kites, including Sgt Jonathan. Hansel, Bo and Sam were absent as well. Syafiq lost his phone during the cab ride with Bernard so gave it a miss also, despite my obtaining his house number and calling him up.

I had a quick shower at home before rushing off to Dbl 0 and actually arrived 5 minutes before Ali did. Considering that he left before me and he's an insane driver I find it very commendable.

Met up with Syed's gang (who are all fun as fcuk) and we hit the bar almost immediately. In about 30 minutes, I was filled with about 5 shots of Tequila and 2 or 3 Jaeger bombs.

Jacky and his GF arrived somewhere in the middle of that and they ended up drinking my alcohol. Fadhil noticed that and sponsored a round for everyone to raise my BAC to illegal levels.

Some chicks started moving in on me, mostly because I was dancing like a man man. I was moving my feet like a man on speed but I moved away after a bit because, to be honest, I don't really give a rat's ass about having to play it cool anymore. I just want to do what I want to do. I don't really care about my image. It's just too troublesome. I guess I'm old.

I couldn't stand it though, when Ali started dancing on the top with his ancient but well executed moves and I burst out laughing every few minutes, setting Ahmad into laughter as well.

Once Joel arrived, we headed down to O bar, to support Jacky and his RnB habit. The place was seriously packed. It was no fun for me as I had to stop every few seconds to give someone room to walk past.

I headed out when it began to get too hot and me and Joel decided to go back upstairs. The re-rentry queue was damn long but it was entertaining because Syed had snagged himself some crazily drunk chicks. They were seriously past it.

Left at about 2.45 to find a summons on my car. I felt seriously fucked because all the indications were there. Like when I was arriving, there were riot police vehicles and patrol guys all around. I should have parked higher up the slope.

Played with Ali all the way to Simpang until Joel was convinced that Ali's car had a Ferrari engine inside. Ended up eating 2 Roti John's because I got it confused with Roti Prata.

Sent Jacky and his now ex gf home at about 5. In my haste to go to sleep, I left a burnt cigarette on the car seat which my dad found the next day.

Woohoo. Book in time.

Ignite & Kenneth's Birthday

This week was eventful as usual and I also ended up finding 2 former BMT mates in my section commanders. Then there was Samuel who was so sleepy that he actually fell asleep kneeling with his head on the bed and his arms dangling beside him... in the middle of the day.

So at night I went for Ignite's Birthday celebrations. Was a pretty mild affair. Met one of the priests who apparently goes fishing and used to be from an armour unit during his NS years. Talked a little and tried to make the best of the situation (Eugene could not make it at the last minute). Chatted a fair bit with Ian again over some fags. Nice guy.

Headed over to Dbl 0 at roughly 9.15 and found myself speeding to make time. I also found myself out of cigarettes by the time I had found a parking lot.

Met up with Wei Zhen and Song Wee in the queue before heading upstairs to find Mich, Sophie and Kenneth, the birthday boy.

Mich and me

Sophia and me

Mich, Sophia & Kenneth

Ended up reuniting with an old BMT mate, Kong Ee who also turned out to be the fren of a fren of the fren of a female fren of the birthday boy.

Kong Ee and me

The man's a playa! And a retro fanatic! Think I'll be bumping into him a good number of times in the near future as he's also a regular at Dbl 0.

Showed me a few of his magic tricks and was impressed enough to try and learn them. Nothing like Houdini but enough to garner interest in the viewer, with the intended viewer being a member of the opposite sex. heh.

Chris popped up out of nowhere at around midnight and started dancing almost immediately. For the most part I lazed around the couch, chatting with Kong Ee and his OCS friend. Mich was out dancing with Alex, yet another lover of hers. Song Wee was semi passed out on the couch (a situation he would find himself in many times that night). Kenneth had puked in front of the sofa (ala me on my birthday) and his meaty but pretty target was mostly seated around the table because apparently she didn't dance.

Went to dance with Kong Ee and co for a bit sometime after Chris arrived but found myself woefully inadequate when comparing my moves to those veterans so went out for a smoke before heading back to the couch. Came back to find Mich on the couch with none of her lovers with her. After a while of sitting on a backless stool, I moved over to Mich and proceeded to make out with her passionately for a good hour before we decided to make a move to my car for a quickie. Oh wait, that was just in my head. haha. What really happened was I went to sit next to her, she leaned on me, I put my arms around her and we both started killing time by staring at anything that moved. I was too tired to dance and she was too self-conscious to dance.

One by one, her different lovers (all which she had 'personally' and 'individually' invited by the way) began to filter back to the table, presumably from the dance floor. I chuckled to myself each time one of them came back with a slight frown on their faces as they noticed Mich and me slacking together, and I realised that none of them really knew who they were chasing after.

Song Wee and Chris (who had now become his minder) began to frequently repeat the cycle of hitting the dancefloor and coming back to the table as Song Wee began to lose it each time. That was till they started playing all my favourite "rock" hits. Once that happened, I literally pulled them to the dancefloor and began to dance like the "rocker" I am. Kenneth's colleague was there also though we both left the floor once Song Wee and Chris started chasing after skirts again. Young, hormonal kids.

It was short lived but it was fun.

By now, Kenneth had puked a second time near the exit sign and the place was beginning to smell like the 0 Bar.

Wanted to leave at around 1.30 as I was growing increasingly tired. But ended up staying till about 2.30 as Chris was adamant about chasing after this particular skirt that was really into him except for the fact that some of Kenneth's friends were constantly chasing her off.

Hit the dancefloor somewhere around 2 with Michelle as the company at the table was growing incredibly boring. Began laughing while we were dancing to which I was prompty slapped by Michelle. Apologised and started laughing again not more than a minute after that. She didn't know what I was laughing about but I knew she assumed it was her so she stormed off the dancefloor, to the table and dragged Kenneth's target back to the floor while I retook my seat back at the table.

For people who don't really know her, Mich is crazy and incredibly insecure. Save for her self-conscious nature and near non-existant Christian values (at least that's what I figure), she could have been characterised by a single common 4 letter word.

Despite this being Singapore, a small country, I've randomly met enough acquaintances of hers to be convinced that she has some serious issues, if you know what I mean. Both Chris and me do care for her somewhat like family but recently, we've both realised that there really is nothing much we can do, save for kidnapping her and slapping some sense into her with an MG242. The problem with her is that she's probably done too many bad things to bother listening to people for advice. She's pretty stubborn yet weak willed at the same time.

Anyway, Chris eventually came back to the table, having given up on the girl he was chasing after and we left for home. As I've always noticed recently, he, like all my passengers were all pretty nervous regarding my sobriety despite me being totally legal at that point in time.

It was raining pretty bad by the time we hit the highway and the white lines were all but invisible. It was like driving down a Need For Speed: Underground 2 road with the 'reflection detail' at maximum. The road was mirror like. Nevertheless, I travelled at fast but legal speeds on the empty roads.

We were driving down the PIE somewhere behind Bedok Reservoir Road when I hit a puddle going at 90. It slowed me down to about 20 almost instantly despite my foot still being on the gas. The car started to lift of the road and I had to turn the wheel almost 90 degrees in both directions just to keep it straight.

Before I could even recover the car, I hit another puddle which almost stopped me dead before I filtered to the left most lane and engaged the car's "Hold mode". There were 2 taxis on either end of me. One was 10 metres in front and another was 20 metres back. Both of them were caught in the same situation as me. The guy in front of me was so rattled that he began to drive with his hazard lights on.

Finally reached Chris' house and we had a short but interesting talk under his void deck as I puffed away. Talked mostly about that night and some about Mich. Made our conclusions and agreed that she was pretty much a non-issue in our lives anymore. Said our goodbyes and I left.

I was exiting his carpark and about to make a right turn to the road when all of a sudden I swerved left as I noticed I was too close to the centre divider but it was too late. The car flew over the curb violently at about 30 kph. I composed myself quickly and pulled over to the nearest bus stop to check for damage. There were scratches all over the underside of the car but under than that, everything else seemed fine.

The curb was totally invisible and I only pulled away at the last minute only from noticing the dark green fence being too close to me. In spite of the rain, I rolled down the window and slowly puffed my way back home.

As with every weekend out, it was very eventful. I wouldn't say the music was good, hell they were playing backstreet boys' songs. But it was definitely a fun night though somewhat unnerving what with all the dangers I experienced that night.

lol.

Taken from Bash.

<evilada>: Best suicide plan ever
<mcm310>: what is it?
<evilada>: you go up to the top of a roof
<evilada>: string piano wire tight across the front edge at neck level
<evilada>: tie a cord to your foot and the other end to the building so that you'll be above sidewalk level when its fully stretched
<evilada>: then you put super glue on your hands
<evilada>: and put your arms around the front of the wire and then back to touch your head
<evilada>: then you lean forward, so the piano wire cuts your neck but not your elbows
<evilada>: when the cord goes taut, youll be hanging upside down with no head....except your head will be in your outstretched arms thanks to gravity and the glue, staring at someone upside down and spewing blood everywhere.
<evilada>: And some poor bastard will be traumatized for LIFE.
<mcm310>: i dont think i can be your friend anymore

21 + 14

Did a lot of stupid things again in camp.

Had a challenge with Bo (Clive) on the chin up bars. First it was who could do more chin ups. Then it was who could hang on the longest with one hand. Then it progressed to trying to kick each other off the bars before becoming chin up bar humping, with him being the bitch. haha.

Before long we trying to see who could swing to the other's bar first, who could take off their shoes with only their feet first and who could take off their shoes and socks first. I won the shoe thing hands down but Bo won the shoes and socks thing without breaking a sweat. From the way he spoke about his past, I'm not surprised. ;-)

Then there was the thursday where I was sleepy as fcuk for some reason and began laughing at random intervals for no particular reason. It could just be a simple conversation and I would start laughing at simple things like how the words were pronounced or how the guy was sitting when he spoke. At one point, I ran out from the smoking point to the compound and shouted for everyone to keep still there. Of course, as luck would have it, there was no one there. But it felt good. haha

Made some pretty good friends there. Everyone is a laojiao (experienced [soldier]) to some degree.

There's Hansel who's a crazy bastard who is as funny as he is insane.

Then there's Bo who's from Burma and Syed who's unphased by anything, speaks freely and always wakes up late.

There's Talos who's a bit weird with his Wicca practices but quite smart in my opinion and gives great massages. He used to steal my food after certain meals but I put a stop to it once I had him figured out. Thank God He protects me.

There's also Samuel who's a semi-worldly Christian who's quite placid in that he's trying to figure everyone and everything out.

'Medic's a blur and miserly but funny-in-his-own-way kind of guy. 'Driver' (Desmond) is another blur one but still relatively street savvy.

Then there's Jacky who's quite honestly one of the nicest and open guys I've known. You can't tell if you are friends with him but if you take a step back and analyse him, you'll see it.

There's Bernard, the Yankee storeman who with me, will most of the time walk around in our underwears.

Santos is a Filipina who considers me Malay because I can't speak Chinese. Then there's Joel with a really colourful history but he's a good guy, but still has some of his past on his shoulders.

And that's just my section, who all happen to be smokers by the way. All in all, we're all mostly quite close to one another with the exception of a few bad apples. 'Orchard Road' is an ass who is a blatant follower and compulsive liar. Most of us have given up on him. And of course there's Thiban who's probably going to be charged soon.

There are really too many friends to fit into this post though. And oh yea, Richard and Ryan are Catholics too. Both are relatively insane, just like me. Then there's Amos who's thinking of converting to Christianity. Whether Catholicism or Protestanism is still on the debate table for him.

We all go through the same shit together. Like almost all of us had scratches all over our body due to the stupid Battle Innoculation Course. The course was damn short but the soil was damn soft so leopard crawling was very tough. Amos who was behind me was cheering me on sporadically but my arms had never felt such pain before and my legs, well I couldn't really feel them.

Then there was the live grenade throw where there were 2 nades that didn't explode, both belonging to persons from section 4, a section notorious for having a very bad discipline record. We planned to celebrate their 'birthdays' but alas we were short on time with the training schedule so tight this week.

Had a great debate with Talos on a few subjects which I now forget and an exchange of opinions on the topic of homosexuality and evolution and Darwin's theory of evolution. I came out with my points at first but as it was just an exchange, I prodded him for his own points. Found that it was not quite as straight forward as it usually was with him and I found myself arguing for the legalisation of homosexual marriages and etc for a while. I finished the remaining sticks in my half full pack of smokes while talking to him. Sometimes though, he takes his debates too personally for me to enjoy learning from each other. I don't always want a winner in a debate between friends, i much prefer the sharing of opinions. Bbut for the most part, we both share some very unique opinions and positions.

Took 6 sticks from Murali after he bought a new pack from my friend from the office because his gang and him finished up a significant portion of my last pack because none of them had the sense to buy more packs, despite this being the 6th week of training.

Ended up going to dbl 0 that night with Syed, him driving his car and me driving my own. His people are crazy bastards who had the skill and energy to make that night one of the most fun nights of my life.

Happened to meet Ben and Sophie there and the latter introduced me to Maple. Quite a cute girl but she was very young and looked pretty naive in terms of relationships. She was clinging on to her ex (who's name I forget) as if they were still together.

Syed is damn power with his pickup skills, from my observations with him and Maple. I was wowed by the stunts he pulled but he refrained from doing too much mainly because by extension, Maple was my friend. I swear I gotta learn from him.

I tell you, the longer you serve in NS, the more fun (but tiring and routine) it gets because everyone stops giving a shit to a certain point and we start filling our time with other more entertaining pursuits.

21 + 7

I had planned to book out on friday but that was cancelled due to RT - 6km route march. So basically my halloween plans were ruined. Not that I had any concrete plans but I planned to go out la. I mean, cmon. We're all lao jiaos to some degree. 6km is nothing but a waste of time for us. Some of us have been on 62 route marches (or 64 or 68, I forget) before.

The crazy ones among us decided to compensate for this change of fortunes with a camo-on parade but it was shelved after everyone got tired and just fell asleep... at like 10.30pm.

I wolfed down 2 durian flavoured potong ice creams before I turned in and finished my last pack of smokes.

Woke up the next day and dude the standard routine stuff and finally headed out for the damn march. I volunteered myself to be the rear scout but alas there was no smoking or fooling around because the safety vehicle was trailing us all the way.

Ended up booking out at 11ish. Headed to the nearest mac and bought a McSpicy meal and took the bus home.

Took a nice drag on my newly bought smokes at the stairwell of my block before I began to realise that my pockets felt lighter than usual. Did a quick change and found my house keys were missing. Did a quick call to the Ops room to get the number of my coy and asked the COS to keep my keys for me, which were left on my locker.

It was a good thing my bro was home so he opened up the door. Finished up my unwatched tv episodes on the ipod while laying in my comfy bed while eating the damn McSpicy.

It took only about half an hour before I began to feel sharp pains in my gut. So as usual, I took a sip of my McMilo, which expectedly, only made the fucking thing worse. It was beginning to feel like my insides were coated with napalm.

Tahaned the pain all the way as I brought my family to eat at Pagi Sore (which I incorrectly pronounced as 'sore' in the pain sense. It's pronounced `saw-ray`). We didn't end up eating there though because my sister was not fond of spicy foods. So we ended up eating at the unmaintained hawker centre where Oyaku Don meals were only $2.80. Halfway through the meal I began to feel my large intestine began to disintegrate so I rushed off to the disgusting toilet.

Through to it's outward appearance and location, the toilet was filthy and the only squatting-toilet-bowl-equipped cubicle was at the corner which was only slightly bigger than the width of my shoulders. This did not include the fact that there was a fucking pillar at the entrance of the cubicle and that whole thing narrowed towards the back of the stall.

About 2 minutes into the all out assault on the bowl, I decided that killing my lungs with the smell was just not worth it. So I took out a pack of smokes and puffed away. Finally called a cease-fire just under 10 minutes into the exercise, decided the stench was still in my nose hairs and headed out to the nearest parking lot to clear my lungs of the stench. So I lit another cigarette.

Directed my dad on how to get to the place where I was gonna collect my co2 canister before deciding that it was too much for me to bear but I remembered the training that they thought me in the SAF and somehow managed to hold it all in.

Finally reached home and using the SAF method of holding in my waste materials, I managed to set up my co2 canister for my tank before finally going for another offensive operation on the toilet bowl.

Drove out to meet shahryl for a drink but decided that I still needed to make another bombing run so went up to his office and decimated his bowl. The best part was that it could not flush a second time. So there were still remnants of my activities floating around.

Headed over to a nearby coffeeshop as we drank about a quarter of the night away, talking about old times and catching up. Went back home at about 3ish-4 (if I rmb correctly) and woke up unprepared to book in.

Luckily, my dad was willing to send me because his badminton game was cancelled so I reached there just as they were about to board the bus.

So that's how my weekened went, a week after my 21st. Not too interesting but not too dull.