Physical Conditioning Phase

IT STARTS NOW. PCP HERE WE COME, HOOYAH!

the very last, of block leave

hello hello, here's basically a(very!) summed up version of what happened during block leave.

monday - ndu 31st batch bbq

tuesday - shopping with jared

wednesday - beach vball at sentosa!

thursday - bedok reservoir run

friday - ndu appreciation day, 31st batch lan, swimming at night

saturday - caught terminator with sec sch peeps. great show. dinner together.

SUNDAY (TODAY) - the very last day of block leave omg. tomorrow marks the start of a new phase -> PCP. God help the 31st Batch.

Stuff packed and ready to go! Going to have lunch with my family before maybe meeting some peeps at safra. More later! (if i have the time) See ya!

HOOYAH

beach volleyball at sentosa!

First of all, sorry to songhon, samfoo and jared for being late! (but hey at least i wasn't the latest. hehe) After angus and yvonne arrived we headed to Siloso Beach to sweat it out with some beach volleyball. Daryl and arron joined us midway and of course it was the more the merrier! The only experienced player present was jared, but we picked it up pretty quick and had fun along the way.

The drinks at sentosa are obscenely pricey. 3.20 for a 500ml Coke? You must be kidding. Lucky they had offers across the road with stuff like 3.50 for 2 bottles, if not i'd have drank the seawater. By the end of the day, everybody was cooked till our skin turned gleaming red. I couldn't resist the chance to cool down so i grabbed the ball for flotation and swam a moderate distance away from shore. And i just lay there in the water, soaking up the evening sun with the seawater cooling my body, ah, the life.

Dinner was settled at Central, a Hongkong style restaurant at Vivocity which had surprisingly reasonably-priced dishes. Such that me and jared had 2 servings. Hooya. After which, me, jared and angus headed down to Tampines for some supper while the rest headed home. Daryl joined us again and we had a chat. Stuff about camp, how we couldn't sleep on the first day, the sometimes eerie thoughts that surfaced in our minds during camp, etc.

What a day! Tiring but fun fun fun. Time to rest, bye!

Of 31 BBQ and shopping

31 had a BBQ at East Coast Park Pit 31, coincidentally. Food was plentiful, enough to satisfy every stomach present. Warrant Tan, Master Teo and Instructors Jason, Seow, BK and Puy turned up. So we had fun, talked and ate. Some guys brought their girls along to enjoy the atmosphere. Lots of photos taken as well.

Halfway through, songhon me and shern hit the arcade for Time Crisis 4. Probably due to the abysmal frequency of customer visits, the credits for each game were significantly cheaper. That was kinda good, and bad. Good, because it was cheap to play. Bad, because I kept changing new tokens after each death, thinking it was cheap so it was okay. I died the most out of the three of us, and the final toll on my wallet amounted to 3.50, in comparison to shern's 1 dollar spent. Jialat la. After we got back the bbq was almost done, so we left shortly.

Well, that was for Monday.

Today was scheduled for shopping since my wardrobe is in dire need of fresh apparel. I had actually planned to go alone but Jared was free so we met and had a look around Tampines. Thank god it was a weekday and the usual crowds in Tampines 1 and the surrounding malls were missing. I got my stuff and Jared got his. Spent a (nuclear)bomb. Kinda satisfied but that familiar sense of guilt kicked in yet again. Eek.

Something that kept bugging me today was the constant URGE to shit. First thought that came to mind : the bbq. 2 times today already and i can feel the 3rd itching to come out. Argh.

What else. Hmm. Rainy day, guilty of not exercising, and oh, i need a new beanie!

Thats all for now!

The Black Hole

Cool. Aha.

(Temporary) ORD LO!

Okay, actually it's just POP. So......POP LO!!!!

Block leave here i come. More, later!


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POP day. Phew. Last, yes the very last day of a 10-week long BMT.

Got the ball rolling by a PT run in the morning. Nothing much took place in the day until route march was due. Instructor Koh had us do a pasar malam - laying out of fieldpack items - at the basketball court.

" I don't care how you do it, 30 secs camou on. Now! "

I squeeze the semi-liquid paste onto my palms and creamed up Angus' face, with him doing the same to mine.

" Whole lot, take a dip in divepool "

I thought it was actually fun. 31 batch ran to the pool and jumped in at the shallow end, with no.4 and boots and camou on, leaving the water slightly murky with runny camou off our faces.

And so, we started the 12-klick march with runny camou, waterlogged boots and being drenched to the skin.

POP-ed at Kranji War Cemetery, got our berets and we secured for the night.

But that wasn't all. Back at 29, it was a rush to get into our bookout-rig and then we had 9 mins to run all the way to the main gate to book out before it gets too late. And we did. Abrasions kicking in and all, we ran like it was another route march. Except that this one led to home and freedom.

Final Week

Artist's Comments

Perhaps you're being told that the army is amazingly brilliant. well if ya don't like gettin dirty then don't bother joining up. A british army cadet helpfully posed by the puddle with his rifle as i snapped away.

Came back from IFC with energy level almost at zero percent. Running a fever as well. All i can remember about field camp is mud, camo, rain, sandy tent, basically nothing pleasant. Oh. Except for the part where i got to throw a smoke grenade :) hehe.

Had a heap of dirty laundry to clear so i got the ball rolling by soaking the clothes, round after round, to get rid of the mud that has caked on the no.4s after so much time spent cooped up in the ziplocs. Gore-tex boots needed a rinse as well, along with those socks with a killer stench. All in all the toilet became slightly muddy after my attempt to clean my stuff, so yes, i had to clean the toilet too.

The fever didn't get better. What started out on 2nd last night of field camp, was around 37.8 deg. Friday morning was 38 plus. Saturday afternoon it skyrocketed to 39.8 deg. I conducted periodic water parades myself and took temperature regularly to ensure that it went down. Luckily it did. I went to the doc and got an MC. Damn. My zero report sick record is gone (five, ych). So yeah, i'll return to camp on Mon instead.

Phew. 9 weeks have really flown. The final week is looming up ahead. One more evolution to clear - the 12 klick route march. Hope i've recovered by then, can't afford to miss this last one before block leave comes! And yes, i think this upcoming friday is going to be unforgettable. Unforgettable.

Alright then, see you!

Introduction to PCP

Friday, 8th of May 2009.


Today's bookout was surprisingly(or should i say not)early. We FO-ed at 2pm. Sounds like an easy day? Nonono. There's always a catch. Haha.

Started the morning with a water parade, full bottle as usual. Ran to grinder, warmed up, mustered on road and got ready for a run.

Now's where the 'fun' starts. I can't really give exact details of our evolutions, but basically, we ran at a bloody fast pace, bear-crawled till our hands became paws, with slender strands of saliva dripping from our mouth as we inched forward. Then it was on and off, run to bear-crawl, bear-crawl to run, a tedious cycle. Following that, thank the heavens it rained, but the fun just got started. Back to the grinder and we started PT. The entire evolution started at around 8, and ended at 12 noon.

Looks like PCP is going to be 'fun'.

Changing parade

This time, short week.

Friday was Labour Day so we had a nice long weekend ( about 3 days and 3 nights ? ). Adding to that was 30th Batch Graduation on Thursday. Seniors' Big Day. 31st Batch became saikang warriors. Saikang better than Bokang (no work) right? Hooya!

Parents, girlfriends, sisters and brothers came to NDU, injecting certain life into the place which aged back to the colonial times. Seniors did their Terror Jump in No.3s, receiving roaring applause from their friends and family. 31st summed it up with a Hooya to the 30th, and they Hooya-ed back. Go Seniors! (although we don't know you guys very well)

However the highlight of the day(to us 31st), was the afternoon changing parade. Haha. Mainly smart-4, pt-rig, pt-rig-with-boots. And then....came the KINKY RIG. I wonder if other units practise this. We mustered in trunks and boots, other than that, bare skin. Later on we had to powder down with Prickly Heat so it got very COOLING(emphasis intended). That alone got us quite high and we ran up yelling during the course of the changing. Honestly, it was strangely enjoyable.

Wolverine was a disappointment. Alright maybe because i actually follow Marvel Comics last time. But even some parts the CGI was mediocre. Sigh. X 1,2,3 still outshine this so-called prequel.

Uh, i lost my train of thought all of a sudden. Maybe it's fatigue. Alright then, shall end here for now.

I must wake up early tomorrow! I must!