Open your eyes and look outside, find the reasons why.
You've been rejected, and now you can't find what you left behind.
Be strong, be strong now.
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.
Her feelings she hides.
Her dreams she can't find.
She's losing her mind.
She's fallen behind.
She can't find her place.
She's losing her faith.
She's fallen from grace.
She's all over the place.
Yeah, oh.
You've been rejected, and now you can't find what you left behind.
Be strong, be strong now.
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.
Her feelings she hides.
Her dreams she can't find.
She's losing her mind.
She's fallen behind.
She can't find her place.
She's losing her faith.
She's fallen from grace.
She's all over the place.
Yeah, oh.
--------------------
Hello guys. I've put off posting this again (as has been my usual habit). So now I have about half an hour? Terrible. But what can be done about it? My mind has taken enough punishment by the end of the week usually to find the freedom a little too hard to deny, and procrastination thereof. In other words, sometimes it feels good just to procrastinate again, remember what it feels like.
Well, as you can see, there wasn't a confinement period for my new camp. Good? Perhaps. But there are too many negatives for me to be happy.
The good news is, unlike Officer cadets, Specialist trainees don't get demoted from Recruit to Cadet. We keep our Private rank, and therefore have a few more rights than recruits do. For example, I doubt there'll be another time during my training where I'll be confined for field camp and stuff like that. Even if there is, we'll be repaid fairly with extra days off. Privates don't get confined for any stupid reason like recruits and cadets do... (the guys over at OCS are still confined, and will be for another 2 weeks >.>). At most, we get 1 day less, booking out Satuday and back on Sunday. Otherwise, it's Friday night.
Now, the bad. I had the ill luck of being posted to what's widely accepted as the worst company in SISPEC. No names, of course. And damn, after a week in there I understand why. Firstly, unlike BMT, almost all my superiors here are regulars. Which pretty much means that the army is their job. Makes life a whole lot different for those people under them, compared to BMT, where almost everyone was serving their NS like ourselves.
As is the case with regulars, the NCOs aren't exactly very educated, simply put. If anyone with decent qualifications signed on, they would have gone straight to OCS, to become commissioned officers. The problem is, there are no commissioned officers in my company. The whole thing is run by NCOs, and you can probably tell what that means in terms of the intelligence levels of *some* of my commanders. I noticed a strange pattern in this company, probably applicable across SISPEC. The higher the rank in the company, the less educated. Which seems to hold true at least. The trainees ourselves, most of us have GCE 'A' level qualifications or equivalents. And yes, we do feel out of place. Those who don't have those qualifications are probably extremely fit, to be able to come to command school with say a diploma. Since mine was the JC batch, only those with A levels and were physically the fittest made it to OCS. SISPEC took those with either one. The rest were posted to ordinary units as privates.
Anyway, back to the topic. The sergeants immediately over us aren't so bad themselves. At least they have some degree of intelligence, probably holding some form of diploma at least, if not A level qualifications. Most of them signed on after finishing their diplomas due to various reasons such as financial circumstances. I can understand that. They'll probably leave and find a proper job once their term is done. Then come those above them. The platoon commanders are where it starts to get sad. These people are old, or getting there. They finished their initial sign-on term, but decided to carry on serving in the army. It is these people who truly have no lives, and no educational qualifications to speak of really. Having nowhere to go, guess where they ended up.
On to the saddest part of this topic. We have to take lessons from people like our platoon commanders. This week was one of the most trying for myself, and i'm sure at least a few others who feel as scandalised and disgusted as I do. The poor PC has to conduct lessons like Team Building and other things, and he doesn't even understand simple words. The word "discretion" is a perfect example, among others. On top of that, his rank and proud attitude create a situation where he's not humble enough to ask when we present words that he doens't know, instead berating us for not questioning the speaker to clarify any speculation of the various meanings of words we used for things like visions (not his exact words, of course). Did I mention he has no sense of grammer or spelling either?
In this sense, the week has been mentally trying. Humbling myself to take lessons from him, then brunt his anger at us because he, himself, did not know what we mean, then tank some more anger for not asking questions of a lesson he found challenging (which should have been, in fact, easy for a year 6/primary 6 student) to get his non-existent brain around. I'm rambling, I realise. You get the point.
The physical aspects of training are no better. We've been running a lot, 2km, 4km, runs at speeds impossble to catch, with little or no recovery between the current and the next physical activities. My legs turned to jelly after our very first run, about 4km long on day 1, and up until now has not improved much. Training resumes tomorrow morning. 2km and static exercises every morning, before the training regime even begins.
Privates occasionally get "nights off", but our company sucks so much we don't get any.
Oh, by the way. This 6 months of training is in fact broken down into 2 parts: BSLC, the first 2 months, and then ASLC, another 3 months+. After BSLC, there's a chance we'll get posted straight out of SISPEC to units. Hopefully this happens, in the event my medicine application does not make it. ASLC with this company (they do conduct ASLC too) would be hell, if this isn't it already.
Went out with my church friends on Satuday, went for cell group (which I haven't been to for a long time) with this new group in Singapore. Went alright, then went out for dinner and this "Board Games Cafe". New idea, but not a bad one. They have tons of board games, hundreds in fact, most you've never seen/heard of. The waiters know every game, and even introduce new ones when you don't know where to start/what to do. Not bad. Had Kimchi fried rice for dinner, which was really nice. Reminded me a lot of back home, Chris and Ji-yoon especially, and eating Kimchi with them T.T.
Well it's late, and I have to finish (start) my packing, as well as shower etc. get ready to leave. My camp is on the other side of Singapore, as I mentioned... Going to take a while getting there =(. 'Til next week.
Adios.
Well, as you can see, there wasn't a confinement period for my new camp. Good? Perhaps. But there are too many negatives for me to be happy.
The good news is, unlike Officer cadets, Specialist trainees don't get demoted from Recruit to Cadet. We keep our Private rank, and therefore have a few more rights than recruits do. For example, I doubt there'll be another time during my training where I'll be confined for field camp and stuff like that. Even if there is, we'll be repaid fairly with extra days off. Privates don't get confined for any stupid reason like recruits and cadets do... (the guys over at OCS are still confined, and will be for another 2 weeks >.>). At most, we get 1 day less, booking out Satuday and back on Sunday. Otherwise, it's Friday night.
Now, the bad. I had the ill luck of being posted to what's widely accepted as the worst company in SISPEC. No names, of course. And damn, after a week in there I understand why. Firstly, unlike BMT, almost all my superiors here are regulars. Which pretty much means that the army is their job. Makes life a whole lot different for those people under them, compared to BMT, where almost everyone was serving their NS like ourselves.
As is the case with regulars, the NCOs aren't exactly very educated, simply put. If anyone with decent qualifications signed on, they would have gone straight to OCS, to become commissioned officers. The problem is, there are no commissioned officers in my company. The whole thing is run by NCOs, and you can probably tell what that means in terms of the intelligence levels of *some* of my commanders. I noticed a strange pattern in this company, probably applicable across SISPEC. The higher the rank in the company, the less educated. Which seems to hold true at least. The trainees ourselves, most of us have GCE 'A' level qualifications or equivalents. And yes, we do feel out of place. Those who don't have those qualifications are probably extremely fit, to be able to come to command school with say a diploma. Since mine was the JC batch, only those with A levels and were physically the fittest made it to OCS. SISPEC took those with either one. The rest were posted to ordinary units as privates.
Anyway, back to the topic. The sergeants immediately over us aren't so bad themselves. At least they have some degree of intelligence, probably holding some form of diploma at least, if not A level qualifications. Most of them signed on after finishing their diplomas due to various reasons such as financial circumstances. I can understand that. They'll probably leave and find a proper job once their term is done. Then come those above them. The platoon commanders are where it starts to get sad. These people are old, or getting there. They finished their initial sign-on term, but decided to carry on serving in the army. It is these people who truly have no lives, and no educational qualifications to speak of really. Having nowhere to go, guess where they ended up.
On to the saddest part of this topic. We have to take lessons from people like our platoon commanders. This week was one of the most trying for myself, and i'm sure at least a few others who feel as scandalised and disgusted as I do. The poor PC has to conduct lessons like Team Building and other things, and he doesn't even understand simple words. The word "discretion" is a perfect example, among others. On top of that, his rank and proud attitude create a situation where he's not humble enough to ask when we present words that he doens't know, instead berating us for not questioning the speaker to clarify any speculation of the various meanings of words we used for things like visions (not his exact words, of course). Did I mention he has no sense of grammer or spelling either?
In this sense, the week has been mentally trying. Humbling myself to take lessons from him, then brunt his anger at us because he, himself, did not know what we mean, then tank some more anger for not asking questions of a lesson he found challenging (which should have been, in fact, easy for a year 6/primary 6 student) to get his non-existent brain around. I'm rambling, I realise. You get the point.
The physical aspects of training are no better. We've been running a lot, 2km, 4km, runs at speeds impossble to catch, with little or no recovery between the current and the next physical activities. My legs turned to jelly after our very first run, about 4km long on day 1, and up until now has not improved much. Training resumes tomorrow morning. 2km and static exercises every morning, before the training regime even begins.
Privates occasionally get "nights off", but our company sucks so much we don't get any.
Oh, by the way. This 6 months of training is in fact broken down into 2 parts: BSLC, the first 2 months, and then ASLC, another 3 months+. After BSLC, there's a chance we'll get posted straight out of SISPEC to units. Hopefully this happens, in the event my medicine application does not make it. ASLC with this company (they do conduct ASLC too) would be hell, if this isn't it already.
Went out with my church friends on Satuday, went for cell group (which I haven't been to for a long time) with this new group in Singapore. Went alright, then went out for dinner and this "Board Games Cafe". New idea, but not a bad one. They have tons of board games, hundreds in fact, most you've never seen/heard of. The waiters know every game, and even introduce new ones when you don't know where to start/what to do. Not bad. Had Kimchi fried rice for dinner, which was really nice. Reminded me a lot of back home, Chris and Ji-yoon especially, and eating Kimchi with them T.T.
Well it's late, and I have to finish (start) my packing, as well as shower etc. get ready to leave. My camp is on the other side of Singapore, as I mentioned... Going to take a while getting there =(. 'Til next week.
Adios.
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