mission impossible.

have u ever wondered if its possible to go for a ntu interview with just 3hrs of sleep, prepare for it in just 1hr on the bus ride there, buy leather shoes in half a day just for it, search out my prom clothes, do 6 times of section leap and bound for section live firing, dig until ur nuts crack with only 3hrs of sleep in 3 days, watch mission impossible 3 at 7.50bux,
go out shopping for 2 consecutive days, go to serangoon gardens mac and camp until midnight, play pool for 2 hours, eat famous amos, play soccer in the early morning, all in one week?
well i did it.

the week kicked off for me most surprisingly on sunday, when i was alr in camp preparing for e day's section live firing. everyone of us were secretly afraid of the danger this activity will pose to our lives, though it was already tot to be very very safe. i still had a tingling fear in me about the possibility of my detail ppl shooting me from behind, or me releasing one bullet that will make me eat up my life, my everything. anyways, it proceeded quite smoothly, but with fatigue slowly tearing me and the rest down. by nightfall, waiting for our night movement shoot, we were alr quite zombie-ish, just wanting to get over with it. just when the night crawled past, and it was time for declaration and moving off, did we realise in our wildest dreams that we were going to route march back in the weeeeee hours of the damn night. gosh. the site was just beside ntu's compound, and it was a feeling of so near yet so far. dragging my lazy legs, i had to walk back e not-even-lit and rocky road inside e live firing area that connected all e way back to pasir laba camp. cool. we reached camp at about 2am, and still had to clean arms, send arms, which lasted some hours and i finally got to bed by 4, after some washing up and stuff. sighs, so much for thinking i wud haf a good sleep for the interview tmr.

interview time. i must give it up for my navigation skill in urban singapore. heh, the office of admissions was hell hard to find, i swear, but i managed to get there jsut by asking 1 person, calling up e office to ask for minimal directions. anyways wad is ntu to me, i have alr been there like 20+ times :). eh, ok, enough of crap. e place was void of ppl like me, and i was e 2nd to be interviewed for the day, since my appt was at 945 in the morning, and i was alr there by 9. i sat on the waiting chair outside e door of the meeting room, fidgetting a lil but also most notably, falling asleep and having e runner to wake me up :p hope he doesnt tell on my 'nonchalance'. soon i was in the room, and was greeted by 3 towering figures that seemed really 'close' to me. i just felt that way. casually and somehow, cautiously, i responded quite candidly and actively to many of their questions, but most notably i fumbled on few, and also was caught and picked upon about my leadership credentials. sighs. lets hope i do get the scholarship still man! haha. anyways, no love lost, i tot it was alr a good try, and leave it to fate.
-> there was still time left after my interview, so i went shopping around in jurong point, since the movie timings were not at all in conjunction with my book in timing of 1330. ate kfc quite heartedly, before making my way back to camp. i realised that 16km was cancelled, much to our delight, since we are actually lacking lotsa sleep to even talk about marching without dying along e way. and another surprise that we wud be having a nights out on a monday night. haha. luckily i did not watch any movie in the morning.
-> ok, time flew quite briskly and nights out came. me and khairul rushed down to jurong point, this time to make sure we haf a good movie timing that can enable us to get back to camp without being late. mi3 at 7. gd timing, luckily we made it, given that we were outside e cinema at about 7.13, and the movie started exactly when we were just in our seats. i cant say anything more about mi3 being a great movie. it has e balance of action and plot, humour and wit. though a different genre from pirates of e carribbean, my fav, it is definitely one of the best action movies i have come across. well done tom cruise!

nothing can be more contrasting that having a good nights out the night b4 with book in timing at 2230 and the next day, ur whisked into the depths of tp5 - army's marsiling training ground, and left to dig for the rest of ur brainjuice remains. ah haha, but it was fun though. we reached there, got briefed by pc about the ardous road ahead, and that we must motivate each other to pull thru, and not sleep, stay vigilant. ok, we started digging wad we need to do at about 6, and it stretched all the way to about 8 at night, when our shellscrapes were almost done. it was darn shag for me, simply becuase i was digging on a maiden ground, while otehrs had spots which shellcrapes had been previously dug. damn. but anyway i finished it :) achievement. ah, ok the digging cut at about 8 thanks to a wonderful thunderstorm that completely drenched us. snugged into the trianing shed, we had our dinner and cold drinks which was really gulped down by us. OC was particularly nice, when he actually offered us cups to contain e drinks. ah haha, welfare golf. about 930, the rain stopped and lightning warning lifted, we headed back to begin the digging of no return. i have never dug until so shag before, not even comparable to that of my shellscrape. me and mervin were paired to dig the same fire trench. it was a fast start for us as the ground was wet and dug before, but the shag thing was to remove the damn soil from teh hole. it was both hruting to the back and to the knees. ah, soon when the trench hole was about year knee deep, we sat down on the sides of the hole, dug, and removed soil so ingeniously by just pivoting our body. hah, while the rest of the dudes were so completely shagged out. by about 12am, our firetrench was alr slightly above waist level, and many of us started falling asleep, same to my partner, mervin. haha, but i was still sober and kept digging. by now, i had to stand in the hole to dig and the sitting method no longer worked. shagged, but i pushed on. mervin woke up periodically to take over from the shagged me, and soon by 2am our firetrench hit stomach level, with both sides almost reaching chest level. amazed by our performance, pc and sergeant baghowe did tell us that we are on the right track and to keep it up. then, i remember this time when i took a break and went around surveying what the rest were doing. aiksiang and khairul were having the toughest time of their lives, so demoralised with the speed of their digging, john/kaisheng/andy were alr quite done with theirs, and were dozing off in the most amazing and hilarious position that i will never forget in my life. i told my section mates the next day to their roaring laughter and i will still be telling ppl this story from the famous nutcracker exercise in sispec. kaisheng was crouching, facing left, in the firetrench sleeping, and andy and john were standing up beside him, on the right side. both of them were also facing left, dozing off. coincidentally, they were swaying forward in synchronisation simultaneously that was so funny when i first saw it. by that time too, i was beginning to doze off. taking turns to dig, mervin, with his great strength and chunkol wielding technique quickly managed to get us to chest level on one side of the trench, and i took over to settle the other. when i was done, he was alr hugging himself to sleep. i cudnt take it anymore, and went to bed, lying in the fire trench so comfortably, like a person finally seeing his fatigue lie in his coffin. the only bad thing was the mosquitoes and insects. i woke up with hands i cud never recognise.
at around 5am, we were woken up by our PC who was making his rounds and caught andy/kaisheng/john sleeping haha. he was fuming. and later, we started hearing about 6 thunderflashes in a distance, which we tot would spell problems. andy sheepishly den came to each firetrench to tell us to prepare our field packs and stuff, to fall in in full battle order, a punishment most used in sispec for field activities. but it din happen, and daylight came.
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next day was dominated by touching up of the firetrench, and all the other technicalities that wud be irrelevant here. we had a brisk lunch at the top of the knool, some open space, which was considered a luxury and a reward for our efforts. as by right, we had to eat at our section allocated area. then, we found out that while we have alr completed the fire trench, the other platoons were still digging to chest level at 12noon, and the OC was particulary pleased with our platoon's perf. no wonder we werent disturbed :)
next up, missions for assessment. i had a fighting patrol mission, which was, luckily nothing much as there was no contacted incidents.
we wrapped up the day, and were briefed to cover up our firetrenches and shellscrapes by first light the next day after our dinner.
the shag times came back, as we had to 'transport' the soil we dug up, to fill it into the holes we created. as shag as when we had to remove them. but it was short misery, and me and mervin soon finished it about 2-3am. shagged, he just laid this sandbag on the floor and hugged his rifle to sleep. i cudnt sleep well with the mosquitoes around, and moved to aiksiang and khairul's spot, and went to sleep alright. we were all sprawled on the floor, just with our rifles slinged onto us, all dead beat. pc didnt failed to not disturb us as he came again to warn us to cover our holes properly. i was utterly shagged and when he went away, i just fell back to sleep. the rest still did abit of touch up before all dropped dead one by one. the morning that appraoched was terrible. it was extremely cold when i woke up at about 6 and cudnt get to sleep anymore.
the 3rd day ended really quickly as it was just clearing up of stores and going back to camp for our lunch. ahhh, shag shag shag.
we booked out later that day at 6pm, watching delta coy march into our coyline area for their 16click and mocking at them. hah. golf life.
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book outs are always great stuff. this long weekend is epitome to that statement.
had a gd day out shopping, den made my way to gardens mac, where i took the same bus as albert, my platoon's pwo -.- so coincidently. talked cock there with few frens until midnight and went home. met clarence along e way home, and found out he re-bmt because of high fever during fieldcamp.
next day was soccer in the morning, partly marred by the lack of playing opportunity, and not of the time allocated... my bad. den we went out to town, shopped for clothes again, played pool at k-ball, ate at ps foodcourt, met terrence, met desmond and gang, before heading home for liverpool match. so eventful!
today's a rest day as it always wud be. to prepare for the next week's activities. operation grandslam is coming up, i hope it wudnt be as shag as nutcracker. its the last summary exercise, and im alr on my way out of bslc. well done yc! pull thru one more xiong week, and everything's over. hah.
yes, over!
corporal in 2 weeks time.
i cant wait.