So this is it. Probably the final promotion I will get in my whole NSF (and probably NS) life unless somehow I go for the PS course, which will in turn open up the door to possible extra shit that can come my way as a NSMan (read CSM appointments).

(OK Picture’s bad. Camera wasn’t focusing on the object and I snapped the picture anyway)

Let’s take a look at the “milestones” of my NSF life so far:

Jan 9 2008 – RECRUIT
Dedicated my life to SAF for the next one year and ten months.

March 11 2008 – PRIVATE
End of BMT and posted to SISPEC to undergo BSLC.

May 17 2008 – CORPORAL
There begins my longer than others life as a CPL after BSLC ended on 17 May. Posted to 1 SIR as an Infantry Recce. Tough luck. Sent for Class 3 driving course form 12 June to 14 July. Recce (or RSTA) Commander Course began on 18 August. Since this is my penultimate high-key course (the last would be CCC ) before I ORD, unless some lightning struck, I will probably write something about it more below.

First week consisted mainly of lectures and two fast marches – 6 and 9 km. Almost died.
Second week had more lectures and 12 km fast march. Near Death.
Third week was 60 km long walk. Died. And swimming across dirty swamp water in S/FBO sucked.
Fourth week was four-day field camp. Sucked.
Fifth week was starving in forest. Hungry.
Sixth week was Summary Exercise. 5-day field camp.

AND from approximately 1700 hours on 24 Sep 2008 to 0500 hours on 25 Sep 2008, I went through hell – Resistance To Interrogation. It was amusing in some ways and annoying in others. A worthwhile experience.

Seventh week was good. A public holiday right smack in the middle of the week.
Eighth week did nothing.

October 7 2008 – THIRD SERGEANT
Went back to 1 SIR after a ceremony that lasted half an hour maximum. And received lots of shit.
Clearing leave from 16th till tomorrow.
Prowler duty on Tuesday.
Cool. NOT.

Cooler.

Tags: national service

A random post here. I have nothing I wish to blog about lately. Either I am too lazy or I am restricted in what I can write anyway.

The world is smaller than you think. Look at the friend wheel below, courtesy of Friend Wheel, an application of Facebook.

So many people I know are linked to each other, and sometimes the connections surprise me as well.

And in case you were wondering why I am able to post this, I am clearing my leave from today till Monday.

Tags: Friends, national service

It will be soon before long.

Tags: national service

This week has been both tiring and slack at the same time. I know it sounds contradicting.

Had my final fast march and boy I ended up with a horrible blister on the soles of my right feet which I hope would heal quickly because I have to walk 60 km on Monday within 48 hours lest I fail the course.

And it just so happens that I had to be down with fever on Friday.

On a side note, the official timing for the run I did last Sunday was apparently 02:07:11.11 taking into the account the time I took to reach the start point. Not bad at all. If I am going for the same run again next year, let’s hope I’ll clock something slightly less than two hours this time.

Tags: national service

Today marks one of my achievements: finishing a 21km run for the first time. I signed up for this back in May for $25 and now it has kind of paid off.

I was supposed to wake up at around 4 am this morning and I set the alarm on my phone to sound at 4 am. It seems like I woke up and turned the alarm off though I don’t have any recollection of every doing that. As usual, I woke up automatically at around 5.40 am (I seem to have the syndrome of waking up automatically at 5 am in the morning these days) and realized that I am late. I changed, grabbed what was necessary and took a cab down to the starting point to meet Gerald and Jia Xu for the run.

Cab fare was ridiculous with its 50% midnight surcharge.

The crowd was numerous. I estimated that I took 7 minutes from where I was to WALK to the starting line to start the run. The first half of the run was relatively easy. Benjamin Shears bridge wasn’t all that bad. The slope wasn’t as deadly as I had thought. The sights were fine. Nothing fanciful as the organisers claim (quote the Marina Barrage).

The water points were rather interestingly manned with all the various formations taking charge. At around 16 km I started to falter. I could sense dehydration setting in with passing vertigo and the lack of sweating. And damn, I could feel both of my thighs start to cramp at around 100m to the end point.

I finished the whole run in about 2 hours 11 minutes including the time I took to “GET” to the start line.

I know I haven’t been blogging for a while. I do have a lot of things to rant about: Ex King Cup and RCC. Find me elsewhere and I will rant openly about it.

But anyway, because I’m such a huge fan of lost, I’m going to put this:

Tags: lost, national service

Posted by mobile phone:
This is probably one of the worst weeks.

I was supposed to have a half day this friday and suddenly, i was told that i have guard duty this saturday! This totally devastated my plans.

And there’s nothing to look forward to next week, for now. I know there’s no point being angry but i just had to waste a few cents to post this through broadband on mobile.

I caught two movies this weekend: The Dark Knight and The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I must say that the former totally blew the latter off.

In other words, Dark Knight was excellent. Probably the best movie I’ve seen in a while. Actions aside, there were lots of issues raised, moral and philosophical. Of course, we have the intelligent and cunning Joker to add to the fun.

In order to avoid having the same problem of not being able to get tickets again, I went over the cinema on my way home yesterday night to grab the tickets for today. I was able to get excellent seats: third row from the back!

ICCT next week. Hopefully it’s going to be a better week.

Remember the pair of shoes I mentioned last week? I finally found a shop that has a pair of my size and I bought it. Time to change the pair of shoes I bought more than a year ago. (It is still in a wearable condition but you can see age catching up.)

With this, I have ended my shopping for summer 2008, albeit with some stuff I would have wished to buy. But alas, money is a scarce resource.

$75 (pair of jeans after 15% discount) + $49 (shirt) + $149 (shoes) + $9 (belt) = $282

With this I have spent $282 and this is pretty much more than enough.

Need to catch The Dark Knight next week. I heard it was pretty good. Too bad all the tickets are sold out for the cinemas I went to this week. I couldn’t believe it when we couldn’t even get seats in the first row.

And I can’t believe Wall E only premiers in Singapore on 28 Aug, TWO MONTHS after its premier in the US.

Tags: shopping

I ended my jeep course and went back to the dearie old place this week and immediately, was swept back into action by some motorisation training meant for their “3G Army Transformation” at Sungei Gedong.

Details aside, I managed to meet quite a lot of familiar faces at the camp including those who were posted there as tankees and engineers.

Life back in camp isn’t that pleasant. Well, what am I expecting…

Timo is right – NS life is so boring that there is practically nothing much to blog about.

Tags: national service