Hello all, this is, as usual, another rushed post barely hours before I leave for camp once again. Isn't it fun how you expected this little spiel at the beginning of the post, making excuses about the hurried nature of the overall structure of the piece? Ok fine. I'll stop.

I only got home about 4pm yesterday, due partially to the general incompetency of my company, and also to the fact that we had sports day in the morning. Well, it was supposed to be in the morning. A thunderstorm and a thousand drenched trainees later, all 2 hours after lunchtime , said otherwise.

Anyway, this week in camp has been even more physically intensive than all the others so far, we had physical training sessions pretty much every day, aside from all the various other physically demanding activities which aren't quite as official. In short, very demanding.

The stupid thing is, and I've learnt this to be a trait of the company I'm currently in: we wasted a huge amount of time this week. Huge. Now normally, that wouldn't be such a bad thing at all, staying up in our bunks, doing nothing is almost a luxury in a military context, free time to do whatever we want. Except, with my company, you don't get that. Much. At all, really. Throughout the day, it's non-stop all the way from before dawn until well after dusk. If we're lucky, we get time to get a proper bath at night.

You must be wondering... How can so much time be wasted but we still not see a glimpse of elusive, precious admin time? Simple. Inefficiency. We rush around, getting to the next location for the next activity, only to end up sitting on the floor, in our files, with all our gear on (quite heavy actually), waiting. For something to happen. The situation varies slightly each time, but in essence it's the same thing: We rush to wait, then wait to rush. Repeated over from the day we book in until the day we book out. In this way, the company manages not only to get very little done, but even accomplish their secondary (primary?) aim of wasting all of our free time, spent idling in over 10kg of gear/in the sun/on scorching concrete/etc.

We have found this to be almost solely the fault of our OC (no significant proof here, not that it matters. Trainees don't get the luxury of proof, full stop.). He pulls the strings of the company, and is largely responsible for the horrendous time waste in general. Even the lesser commanders complain about him in the shadows, on occasion even loud enough for us trainees to overhear. Not very morale-conducive either. Snatches like this spread like wildfire in the context of military camps, especially one where any information about the state we're in is all but completely concealed from us, purposely or not.

I took up the habit of smuggling my book around with me as much as possible for non-physical activities, to much avail in the past week. Here is a rough gauge, based on the amount of reading I managed to do in the week. Overall, I read close to 300 pages from Monday. Not much you say? How about when I tell you that none of that was during our "free time". Not that we get any of course. Basically, I ninja-read 300 pages (and I like reading slowly) in the mind-numbing hours waiting.

From next week, the physical training cuts down significantly it seems, in favour or more military orientated training, such as field camps (fsck) and other outfield activities. Not looking forward to it at all. We have a navigation exercise in Lower Mandai (some god-forsaken heavily forested protected area in Singapore), on Tuesday I believe, and then our first of many field camps on Thursday. Don't know what to make of them so far, not actually having been outfield with this company before. Just going to trust God and pray.

My medicine application is still pending, however I will probably recieve word one way or another during the week of whether I have been selected to take the test/interview. Scared, worried, feeling everything associated with that really, but it's sort of all overshadowed by the alternate life I'm living at the moment in camp. This sort of lifestyle is NOT good for you, or your braincells. I'm personally losing them at a truly alarming rate.

I've really got to say, I'm quite glad for the company of my friends in Australia, probably David especially. Thanks to them, I've got something to look forward to every weekend when I book out, something that's sort of constant in my life amidst the chaotic state it's currently submerged in. It's a very powerful mental motivator, something to assauge the bleak hand life's dealt me.

I'm off, going to squeeze the little bit of leisure time I have left to do something useful. Get prepared for my essay and interview, for instance. It's hard studying for stuff when you don't know what to expect, or worse whether you'll have to do it at all. But I'm keeping the faith. It's all I have, really.

Bye.

Hello readers! I am proud to announce that I have finally broken the habit of posting just before I have to book back into camp. As of now, it's actually Saturday night! Yes, the earliest post ever for my standard weekends~! Why the sudden change... Wasn't any resolution on my part or anything lol. Just sort of ran out of stuff to do, have excuses not to do everything else really. So I turn to the blog. In short, don't expect this to happen much lol.

I had terribly much to post about, and everyday in camp tons of thoughts would pop into my head. Except, the week has been so hectic and crammed that I can remember almost nothing of anything I thought to mention at all.

So, now I will carry on to elaborate on the very fact why I'm unable to recall more than half the things I wanted to blog about. Frankly put, my company is, comparatively, hell. Nothing more to it. The amount of shit we're doing compared to other companies in my School is just mind-boggling, for lack of a better word. My section (bunk of 9 of us currently) recently got a new Sergeant, who just got back from a course. He told us straight (his intentions were good, and he's no doubt a nice person (by this company's standards anyway)), don't compare my company to other companies. Your morale will drop. Like a stone. To the ground. Through the ground. Below sea level. His near exact words.

There is a training schedule released every week, which has a rough timetable for the activities that will take place each day for that week. This is certified by the Commanding Officer in charge of the entire school itself. The thing is, our OC has little or no regard for the training schedule whatsoever. There are certain things in it, such as admin time (free time), that simply disappear from the schedule. As it stands, we have done about 5+ times as many endurance runs as some companies (Honestly. We have done about 6+ runs while other companies have done as few as 1.) We did every single weapon technical handling lecture in one day flat. One day was assigned to each of the 4 weapons we're going to be tested on. EACH. And then, the following days nights were all consumed testing us on each weapon we barely had time/energy to absorb or study for.

These are just a few examples. You may ask, if we're rushing the schedule, what's happening to all the extra time we should be having for going through the schedule faster? Simple, they make it disappear. Longer lectures. Longer training. When all else fails, make everyone fall in with everything on (Long sleeved combat uniform, helmet, weapon, load bearing vest), and send them to "practice" their drills etc. We then go sit in the training shed. With everything on. And wait. Then they send us up when it's time for the next period.

The last week, we had pretty much a total of about an hour of admin time across the entire week, including time between meals, lessons, everything. Not including the little bit of time before lights out, since that's all consumed for things like showering etc. This allotted time itself can go down to as little as 15 minutes. Do note there are limited showers. sinks, and cubicles to be shared among whoever's on your level, using that toilet. Just to draw a little comparison, another company in which quite a few of my BMT platoon mates ended up, they are averaging well over an hour of admin time a day minimum, and even nights off on at least 1 day a week. Nights off are days when there's basically nothing between dinner and light's out, and trainees are allowed to go out of camp for some time, go socialise, walk around, eat, have fun.

We have been told, by both official and unofficial sources, not to expect any nights off. At all. Ever, for the duration of the course. They also lol'd at the notion of admin time. As you would expect, this has been really draining for me, both mentally and physically. The running is picking up, this week's already been a near-death experience for me. I walk with a limp now, seriously. Next week there's even a 6km run. In boots. In step. /RAGE. Probably about another 4 runs or so just to screw us over, and for the hell of it. Navigation was terrible too, throw us into some random 150m by 150m patch of what I swear was MOUNTAINOUS terrain. Look for checkpoints with nothing but a compass and directions from one checkpoint to the next, in the form of an azimuth and an estimated ground distance. And then we repeated it. At night. Everything on, of course, except weapon (we had to hold the compass and direction slip).

To top it all off. We were supposed to book out of camp on Friday night. But on a last minute whim by our PMSing Sergeant Major, he confined the whole company for the night in one fell swoop, quoting excuses like untidy bunks. Seriously. If your social life is screwed up, don't rage at us about it. If you don't feel like going home because your wife is cheating on you and your children hate you, I suggest you get to a church, or maybe go kill yourself or something and do the world a favour. there's no need to unleash all the pent up anger on those you have been charged with to take care of. It's honestly downright disgusting. It was an irate bunch of dishonoured, shattered trainees who went up that night after hearing there would be no book out on Friday night.

Ok sorry. But I had to let it out somewhere. The higher ups in the company are simply bastards. No other way to put it. I'll end it there. You get the idea.

There have been clashes with appointments I have to make with NUS for my medicine application, and major events in the course. Dealing with the higher ups again to sort out a date. Damn them.

On a ligher note. I found that in general, my bunk-mates, and probably a lot of the platoon are actually really smart. Their grades are well above average. Much more so than my bunk-mates in BMT. I get the feeling that a lot of people who ended up here are those who just missed OCS, probably due to fitness reasons. We got government scholars, medicine applicants (not just me), whole lot of other scholarship recipients etc. And a lot of them are "international". Studied/lived/were born in some other country than Singapore. 8/9 in my bunk to be exact. China, India, Canada, Australia (Perth), Taiwan, Hong Kong, some of the countries represent in my bunk alone.

I finally figured out the reason why I've been unescapably drawn to music genres like symphonic/melodic rock/metal. I realised this during the week. These genres actually achieved the unique blend of classical and metal genres into a new sort of tree altogether. I happen to favour these particular genres, if not prefer them. I feel that for the most part, and for the better bands in these genres, the fusion has been impressively executed. The result is a metal piece primarily, with classical symphonic, even operatic themes permeating throughout, vocals to match. Definitely managed to hook me.

Just finished watching FLCL, relatively short anime OVA (6 episodes) just earlier today. Don't know what to make of it yet, it's quite unlike any genre/style of anime I've ever encountered. Won't recommend or anything yet, but having been pushed by David to watch it even before I left, I figured now's as good a time as any. But yeah, it's an odd one. Jumps out at you, the sort that makes you think, question etc. I'll sleep over it =P.

I'll wrap it up here, been writing for an hour lol. Hope I live through this next week, all I can say.

Bye.