Last burst.

Three more weeks.



The past week had been another normal week.
Already don't know this is the how many times I've said that already.
But I guess 'normal' will have a new definition soon.
Soon enough, hopefully.

Spent my energy carefully in the first three days of the week, went through platoon battle course with ease, then had two days of rest.
Nothing much to talk about for the training portion, yet Thursday had been a meaningful day.
Hahaha, talk about meaningful.

Took half day leave on Thursday to leave in the afternoon and went to Hilmi's house to play xbox.
This is just a midpoint to our destination though.
And when the time's come for us to go, we left his house towards Harbourfront.
Vivocity to be exact.
And to be more exact, towards Sentosa Cove.
First time visiting Sentosa Cove.
And it totally blew me away.
Really.

Made me felt so glad about having a new vehicle commander who just nice has his birthday falls on Thursday itself and that he's in our platoon.
But put that with the fact that he was from Scouts too and went on to air pistol in JC it really puts me wondering how can our lives have this much similarities yet are on two different worlds completely......

Well that doesn't matter, the thing is platoon 5 commanders all went to visit his lovely house.
And the entire place doesn't even remind me of Singapore anymore.
The waterway, bungalows, cars parked until there's no more space.
Wonderful place.
And for a moment I really thought that I ought to live there if given a chance.
Then again, I probably won't ever get to live in this kind of place, and I'll be contented enough with a smaller house too.

Had quite a bit of fun at his house, had a rich man styled BBQ with doesn't quite fill our stomachs enough, ordered pizzas, karaoke in the middle of the night.
Damn, rich man indeed.

The fun still had to end though.
And for us it ends when we all gotta get out at 4am since everyone else has to get back to camp except for me and Steven.
Three cabs came by to pick us up and before I knew it, I was at my doorstep already.
Back to home and reality.
Took leave on Friday so I didn't have to go for the Sports Day.
There would be nothing for me to do there anyways, except to so-called support the rest but even so, there's one whole company of men to do that so there isn't really any point for me to do so.

Didn't do much on Friday though.
Stayed at home as usual.
Same for Saturday too.
And compared to what I did on Thursday, Friday and Saturday seemed really wasted much.
Went to meet Chandan, Gorilla, Owl and GY to discuss on PLC Hike though.
A little bit disappointed that I couldn't help out much since it'll be during my Rot3.
Then again, after I ORD I'll have all the time I want but I can foresee myself not helping much anyway.
Sigh.
Shall see how things go, one step at a time.
Really don't know how life after ORD will be like, but no point thinking about it now unless I'm gonna do something about it immediately.

I only know that I should sleep soon, now that it's already 4.20am.
And this would probably be part of my life post-ORD; sleeping late way past midnight.

Shall end this here, and will be back again next week probably.
Or latest three weeks from now, if Rot3 is really gonna be so energy draining that I can't even blog weekly.
Because three weeks from now, is where the end begins.

The final countdown.

But for now, it's the last burst.











Byeall.

Less than that; but at the same time, more too.

Four more weeks of chiong sua, one week motorized platoon training, three weeks Rotation 3.

And that's it.
Is that all?
Suddenly it all become too fast.



But we're still looking forward to it.
If only we really get what we look forward to.
But reality always proves to be otherwise.

When we really think about it, it's not going to be that hard anyway.
At least this week's gonna be rather easy.
Just one day of outfield, few days of here and there training.
All seems to be too little in building up towards ROT3.
Then again when we think back about ROT1, ROT3 couldn't be much harder anyways.
MBOS training, platoon level training + missions.
Then it's company level training + missions, everything same with ROT1, just with terrex included.
And even if they only send us to startline using terrex, it just means that it'll be ROT1 all over again and I believe we can get through this easily.

The main concern is just the handing over.
It's never going to be easy.
Nothing's ever gonna be easy, but it's gonna be worth it.


Well really good luck to the new commanders.




One of my many many principles in dealing with people and doing things is always to 'put myself in their shoes'.
To understand what others are thinking, to see the rationale behind their actions, to know the reasons behind their decisions.
I believe this would help me to in turn make my own decision more correctly.
Then again, there's not such thing as right or wrong, only perceptions of people.

''The world is built upon the perceptions of different people."

And that's what I always believed in, and a book I recently read just states a similar thinking that reality doesn't exist, only perceptions do, or something like that.

And by being able to gain different perception of a single situation, it allows me to think from the point of everyone else thus more easily gaining a common understanding.
There're still people who work without rationales though, or rather just doing things with reasons which I've yet to be good enough to find out or realize.

And while I'm so sure I'll still go on and major in Psychology in university, I'm also sure that I'll be reading a lot of psychology even if I don't do so.
The bad thing that I really dislike is however over-analyzing everything, 'cause I've already been doing it all the time, and that the study of humans just make everything sound so logical and systematic that emotions cease to exist anymore.
Emotions are triggered by circumstances, then a thought, followed through by an action, the chain of reactions can be broken down and explained by psychologists, psychiatrists and the like, explained into specific details, how everything happened due to certain chromosomes and changes in the human brain.
While all these helps us to understand people better potentially, it makes humans sound like a machine with a certain input giving a definite output all the time.
Of course I know that in the end, there's still so many things about human beings that we don't know of yet, and things can never be definite when humans are involved.
It's just that certain things like emotions, anger, love, happiness, and things we feel are so natural and in us, when explained through scientific means, makes us understand ourselves better, yet at the same time too much that we seem like we cannot behave as we are anymore, since we understood that at the same time we can always take control of ourselves.

I don't know ultimately if it will be good or bad, for people to take control of themselves completely, being able to get happy as they want to, and calming the anger in their hearts whenever needed, take away the sorrow when they have to and all.
It makes human beings sound like machine once they know how much control they can have with themselves, and instead of behaving the natural way as they should have, start to do actions which they think would favour their situations the most.

Then again, out of so many people in the world, who would really understand all these and be in control of themselves all the time?
While attaining control can be great, being in control is also one of the worst things that can happen.

Especially being forced into being control of a situation, or having too much control of one self or people in general.

Thankfully, there're so many fields of psychology and so many schools of thought too, that it's in fact quite flexible even if some of the theories do coincide with each other even through different schools of thought.

That being said, it does truly interest me how people think, and while I'm not sure how far I would go in psychology, taking it as a major in university is more or less a certainty for me.
It would really be amazing if I can go far in psychology and even carving out a career in a certain area of psychology.
I don't really see that happening as of now though, since the field of psychology is just too big.

Just to name a few off the head, clinical psychology, counselling psychology, forensic psychology, criminal psychology, child psychology, education psychology, consumer psychology, cognitive psychology, genetic psychology, biological psychology, sports psychology, so on and so forth.

Almost everything can be related to psychology, just as how things are all related to science.
And with every specific profession, occupation, or just group of people, there is an aspect of psychology to deal with them; just look at education psychology, child psychology, criminal psychology, sports psychology, which  deal with students, children, criminals and sportsman respectively.

Glad to say, I'm excited in a few of these, and at least interested in many of these aspects of psychology.
Not to say that I'll be able to go far in any of these though, since the programme offered in Singapore are usually too broad and general, usually with concentration on fundamentals and more commonly studied topics.



Really, four more weeks.
This is just next to impossible to get out from my head.

What I really gotta know though, is what will be happening after that.

And till now, it's still an uncertainty to me.

While I can almost smell freedom, I just feared that it will look so different from what I've ever imagined so far.

For now, it's 3.15am and I'm still not a bit tired.
Okay, maybe a bit, just a bit.
I think I'm quite in love with writing down my thoughts and stuff.
Really need to up the standard of both my English and Chinese language though.

Had wrote much of what I wanted to post, so long for now.









Byeall.

Connections.

Booked out on Wednesday night.

What a nice little pleasant surprise.

Thanks to some unforeseen circumstances, training ground not being able to be used by us on Thursday, we've been given an extra day away from camp.
A nice extended break that all of us need.

But not one that all of us deserved.


Still, I've once again managed to somehow fly through time and reached early Saturday morning without accomplishing much.
Went to SAFRA again yesterday, hopefully my second last time.
Didn't meet up with the rest of Thursday night, didn't expect so many people to turn up.
Wouldn't want to stay so late anyway with the shooting thing on Friday morning.

It's seemingly just two months away from us now.
Just two short months.
To accomplish this much.
Not impossible.
A lot of effort have to be put in once again.


Two more weeks of training.
Three more weeks of Rotation.
And I even started wondering why the hell they call it Rotation anyways....

Not like it affects much though.
Whatever the name is.



Been talking to my mum just now.
And one of the conclusion is that I've realized how much I've read from the Internet.
From savants to scientist trying to attain immortality, to movies and films, to how Facebook can potentially revolutionalize the world (even more), and I spoke so much I can't even remember what topics did I really touched on.
But I just know that it's a lot a lot, like a lot.

Not sure if this amount of weird readings on various topics would help me later on in my life though.
It has indeed helped to keep me from boredom to varying degree of success, and allow me to view myself as someone knowledgeable.

Still, knowledge, is only knowledge when it's useful to you in the field you're in.
Not many people would find usefulness in knowing in details about savants, how ever-changing technology would one day be ready to take on the world, the standards in measurement of interior design, that and many other facts stuff and information people would normally not read about.

I somehow always would want to take them in though.
To give myself this little more knowledge which I might not even have any use of, just so that I know that I know about this certain thing.


And I'm not even sure if that's because I actually like reading or I'm just curious.


Well the thing about savants is really special and thought provoking though, and it might be worth a read for anyone, especially the part on acquired savant or sudden savant.




That apart, and that is just one of the many articles I'll come across week in week out, life's been normal except that we're a completed motorized battalion now, with the vehicle commanders and terrex operators in.
Just not a truly fully motorized battalion, with training still on-going within commanders and have yet started for the men.
Soon though, soon.
And then we'll all hand over nicely to the next batch of guys who will do a great job from then on.


Suddenly don't see the reason for continuing to stay up now.
It's Friday night/Saturday morning, but what else more interesting/meaningful can I do other than just staring at my computer screen in my room hoping to come across something that can interest me....?











Byeall.

Soon for the fire to burn the brightest.

Good that I'm continuing my weekly posts...
Must try to maintain this after I ORD too, or even increase the post count.
Good way to record my life for the future me to look back on.


Well anyways, shall start to recount about my NS life (again) for the past week.
.
.
.
.
Okay I paused for like an hour already to settle other stuff and now it's 1.20am and I should be sleeping soon 'cause I gotta wake up in less than 6hours' time to book in for COS duty.
But finishing this post and visiting tumblr is still relatively important.

So we started off the week with a cadence run, and the run ended with me having a knee pain for the rest of the week.
It seems to have subsided now, glad to see that it's not any screwed up long term injury or whatever.

Couldn't remember much for the rest of the day, probably because we didn't do much anyway too.

Had terrex camo drill on Tuesday, waited quite a bit before my section did it in the late afternoon.
And that's about all that we did on Tuesday.

Had nothing much on Wednesday too, and we went for an overnight night navigation lesson at Asrama, also for an AAR for our platoon assault during the platoon proficiency test.
There was the Lions' Knowledge Day in the afternoon but I missed it after going for shooting at Safra Yishun.
It was quite fun/interesting though, able to learn again acting somewhat like a cadet.
And that was without the pressure of men under us, PS PC CSM OC above us, stress of a mission etc.
It was just a year ago when we were still cadets and even mission during then was not even half as stressful or tiring as now since all of us were trained to be specialists and not just sectcomds leading men kind of thing.

Anyway it finally ended in the morning and we got back at around 7plus.
Did nothing much, showered slept and booked out before 12.
Went for lunch with Hilmi and Ser Kiat at North Point, ate and chatted quite a bit before heading home.

Did nothing much for the past two days, had a BBQ session with 2309 guys just now.
And when I said guys, there were really just guys.
Somehow it turned out that no girls came at all since they were all busy studying and all that.
Had quite a successful BBQ which was hastily planned but still carried out anyway, drank a bit after quite a while of not drinking.
Great meeting up again after this period of time, and many times that I couldn't meet them due to guard duty/COS or other shit.
Freddy fetched me home again at around 10, thanks to my COS duty tomorrow.
If not it'll probably be fun to stay over at ZY's house.
It's a penthouse after all.... :O

Okay it's almost 2am and I shall be going off soon.
6 more weeks till the end... almost the end.
And it's just this 6 crucial weeks which I'll have to endure and make the very best out of it.
That'll mark the end of my NS life beautifully, hopefully.










Byeall.

State of confusion

And so concluded the week I did two guard duties and one COS.
Guard duty on Sunday was fine.
Think it's been quite a while since I've slept so little in 24hours.
Only slept less than an hour in the afternoon and that's all.
But it's not like I've done a lot anyway.
Great to do guard duty with the two best comds. (:
A lot of reading was done, and I've finally finished my 'UnderstandPsychology' on Thursday's guard duty.
I should probably buy it's companion book, 'UnderstandAppliedPsychology' soon to continue to learn more about psychology.
Still unsure if it's something I'd really like to study for university.
And I've learnt more about Shafiq's life story during the guard duty too.
Don't understand how can he still be like that with a family background like this.

Didn't do much throughout the week, probably because I had so-called guard rest on Monday then COS on Wednesday followed by guard duty again on Thursday.
Then it's air weapons time again on Friday.
And didn't feel like doing anything at all too.
The time without the other guys felt so peaceful, but demoralizing at the same time.
Only the few of us to do everything, and not all of us had the same thinking.
Adding on to it, what some people say is really true.

When people are taking your efforts for granted, what can really push you on to continue put in more effort?

And when people stop trying, that's when things go wrong and nothing will ever be the same again.



Finished watching 'Sherlock'.
Amazing series, can't wait for series 3 to come out next year.
Started watching 'Liar Game' again, half of the first series completed.

Finally met up with Chandan they all again last night, even if it's just for a short while.
Chandan went with 5SIR to Wallaby this morning.
Well good luck to 5SIR for their ATEC.
Hope that next year when it's time for 2SIR's ATEC, we can do well too.
I won't be there with them anymore though, and it's just two and a half months more for me and the rest now.

The rest of them who were on course will be back next week.
And it's time for motorization to hit 2SIR as the commanders embark on two weeks of motorized training, with the men getting to slack and got a total of three days off in these two weeks.
Another two weeks down will be spent on motorization efforts for everyone else.
And following that it's finally gonna be Rot 3.
Three weeks of Rot 3, and that's it.
That is it.
A last month to be spent in and out of camp all the time, to finally end our journey at last.

Ohh and it's only last night that I remembered again the PLC Hike will be so-called under my charge.
Haven't done anything about it for a while already.
Hope that in time to come I'll be able to do something up soon.


Can't really think of much to write down now, that's why I'd been putting in random things from the past week up till now.

Since this is the case, the post shall be ended here, till next week, unless something interesting happens tomorrow.











Byeall.

Same old rhythm.

Guard duty tomorrow.
Why do I feel like I'm having a short weekend for every alternate weekend.
Sigh.

The ORD mood is seriously getting into many of us.
Not to me though, but I've still got to fight my laziness to get things done.
Yes, I don't ever think the ORD mood will get to me, if there's anything stopping me from doing my work, it'll probably just be my own laziness, as usual, as always.

Then again, it's refreshing to see number slowly dropping by one every time we book out.
And from counting down by weeks, we would soon start our countdown by days.
People should really use this as a form of motivation for them to make even more full use of their remaining time in army to do something meaningful, than to see it as an excuse to stop putting in effort at all.
Really though trying to just motivate the men, and now we've got even greater problems when the commanders see no point in doing work as well.
Well I still believe that we are all here for a reason, and no matter how reluctant you can seem to be in doing work, I know the good in us naturally will push us on as long as we're still here.

Realized that I've haven't been out for ages.
Actually it's just more of haven't been to the theatres.
Haven't met up with Chandan they all for quite a while already.
And I don't even talk to them that much for all this time that we're not meeting up.
Should really catch up with some old friends to find out how they've been doing though.
And to me friends are not defined by how often you talk to them, hang out with them; but by the fact that they will be there for you whenever you need them.
There's this big bunch of people I've not talked to in ages, but I do still treat every single one of them as my friends and anytime they need me, I'll do my best to help.
Not sure if everyone sees this the same way as me, or treat me as a friend like I do to them, but it doesn't really matter as long as I carry on with this mindset I guess.

Now I also begin to wonder how many friends from army would I have after we all go separate ways after our ORD.
The guys in 2SIR are the ones I spent the most time with, the guys from BMT and Foundation are the ones I started my army life with, and there're still many from Pro Term which I've gone through shit with and at least had a good talk, spent great times with before.
Would really be a pity if I've just stop talking to them for life, considering that we had all once gone through the same shit with each other before.
And talking to ZH last night with her mentioning something like this allow me to realize that it's normal to think this way.
Still, spending too much time to think about the past isn't a very wise thing to do all the time since there's even more to consider about in the future.
It doesn't hurt that once in a while we put ourselves back into our past to reminiscence the times we had though.

Sometimes, it's not the places, but the people.
And even at other times, it's not the people, but the memories.

Slept the first half of the day today away.
Always same thing happen, always regret not waking up.
Why the hell do I even need more than 9, 10 hours of sleep every weekend?
Even if it's to make up for lack of sleep during weekdays, it's too much isn't it.
Especially since I'm booking in tonight, I've gotta learn to cherish the daytime at home even more.
Though it's not like I've got any plans for the day too....
Perhaps I should finish my last two episodes of Sherlock and get started with Alcatraz.
And then there's still the Arsenal match tonight which I'm still considering to watch or not.
I guess life after army will be pretty much spent on watching shows, reading and such, seeing how much I hate to spend my time on these thinking that I would be able to invest my time in a more meaningful way, yet finally realizing how untrue that is.

1708hours.
Less than 8 hours to booking in.
That's a lot of shit I can do now if I would just end my post here at this point.













Byeall.

From the past, to the future.

Army Half Marathon today.
Well our battalion ran only 5km though.
And that's why I might as well not run at all, simply ran quite a bit before walking for the rest of the 'race'.
The 'race' which I didn't even complete.

Anyway was just waiting for the whole event to end so that I can meet my section mates from BMT and SCS Foundation.

Highlight of the day.

After such a long period of time in army, the time I spent with them seemed so insignificant and short compared to other phases of my army life.
However, it's the quality and not the quantity that matters and the times we had would never be forgotten, at least not by me.

To me, having such a fantastic section just after enlistment is like a gift from heaven.
And at that time I seriously thought very highly of our section, even if now it does not seem that everyone has accomplished as much.
Still, it was a section filled with fun, joy and laughter, helpful people, and friends you would definitely want in your first nine weeks in army.
We had all grown so much, even more so in each of our own specific areas that we were posted to.
And we were all from everywhere in Singapore.
Yet come this date, 10th Feb 2011, and we were all the same, gathered together to live with one another for nine weeks and some for even longer before we were split.
2SIR might have been the place I've stayed the longest in my NS, SCS might have been where I went through the most, especially in Pro Term.
But BMT brought me into army, changed my life completely, and allowed me to meet these bunch of people.
We might not have always meet up, hang out, talk with one another.
But we share the same memories starting out in the army and I believe these are the memories that will still stay with me forever.

Thank you army, thank you Viper, Viper Platoon 3 Section 2.
Hope that we can all meet up together again, every single one from the section.



All these aside, we're really less than three months to our ORD.
And the topic which would followed that should be university.
Nice that Kelvin and YG are both in FASS with me.
I might change my choice next year, but I doubt I'll really do that though.
Would be cool if all three of us major in psychology too, since YG's already set his mind on that as well.
At least I know I'll still somehow be able to keep in contact with my army friends even in uni thanks to them.
And yes, ORD will definitely make me feel lost once more.
Just like how army came and took over my life, gave me a complete different lifestyle, ORD is gonna do the same thing to us once more.
And after living in such a regimental, army life for two years, I always believed it'll be hard to live like how I did in the past.
This will be true no matter how much you tell yourself that you just want to get out of army and live as a civilian.
Well, at least this will be true for me, and anyone who spent time in army meaningfully instead of constantly trying to chaokeng do nothing be a loser and so on.

But before these three months' time is up, I must really try to plan my schedule nicely and keep myself occupied well so that I can continue to live meaningfully after ORD.
Make use of all the time I could have before going university, so that I'll continue to improve much as well.
This is always what I said, and to make a list of to-do things after ORD is always the best way to start.

However, maybe I still don't feel it yet like how some others are in the mood already.
Perhaps when the day comes even nearer, I'll be pushed to really start working out how my life after ORD should be like.
And the day I breathe freedom once more, shall mark the day I start working hard for myself.










Byeall.

Outfield Week, out of so many weeks.

The so-called tough week is over.
Toughest week in many many weeks.

But still not comparable to other days and training phases.

ATP on Monday, actually quite an easy day since we just have to go and shoot and not do anything else.
Still, it's relatively tiring after weeks of not going outfield.
Didn't feel too well in the morning though, possibly because of my lack of sleep the night before.
Grabbed the chance to have a good nap before lunch and felt just okay after that.
Went back to camp at around 2plus and only managed to settle down, shower, eat and finally sleep at 4.30am.
Intended to wake up at 8am to clean arms, but failed to in the end since I never really wanted to clean arms anyway.
Only woke up hours later, had lunch, went to CO dialogue and then blah blah blah random stuff and that's all for the day.
Force preped myself a little for the following day, Platoon Prof Test, then tried to have an early night.

And so it's finally Prof Test day.
Did the usual stuff, headed out and started to dig our shellscrapes.
Didn't really think much of the Prof Test even though we had not been out in the field for so long.
Well but I actually quite miss outfield just before we went out, and felt a little bit excited too.
So the typical routine started, and I just went around making sure things are right before resting a little here and there.
The day went on and the night came, so damn dark and I took the chance to rest more since I thought that nothing much would happen at night.
Finally came the time to break conc, I started much earlier than the stipulated time and by the time most other people started to break conc, I was pretty much done and so was my section.
Had around an hour to spare and with my section's bottles even filled already too, I went on to take an hour's nap before getting woke up by the movements of other sections.

It's movement time and I was pretty much just thinking about how we would be back in camp in 12hours' time.
Never did I realized how shagged this movement phase can be and how desperate I was to see the sunlight upon us.
After reaching Charade and a little further, we got semulah-ed and walked all the way back to Datsun, the Startline.
Worse still, the H-Hour is still the same so it means that we'd probably miss it already.
PC seemed kinda stressed with OC nagging by his side all the time, and within an hour's time I was so tired out to even try and help him anymore.
Seriously I would say the toughest movement phase of any training I've done in army.
So much wanted to just give up sigh.
But luckily I didn't.
No one would let me anyway.

Somehow horlan here and there everywhere then somehow managed to got close to the objective at 5plus.
Managed to walk till 100m to enemy objective and PC briefed us about the plans.
50m in, we stopped by and after the final briefing we finally crept in and lined out.
We somehow met the H-Hour by the way.
The attack commence and due to us assualting from the back, the enemies were wiped out in an instant.
Still, it wasn't supposed to be like that and even though PC changed the direction of assault we somehow still just continue with the mission.
Re-org, received instructions, and carried with the next mission across the road.
Finally done, and it was just 8plus.
Wondered what will happened next and who could've guessed that we were done already.
Finally headed to camp after one of the most shagged training I've been through.

The rest of the day were pretty much spent for recovery and nothing else.

Friday, woke up just in time to pack my stuff and booked out to SAFRA Yishun for air weapons training.
Really feel kinda tired of going there since I'm not there to train myself.
Still, it's a chance to allow me to book out early so it's not that bad.
Wonder if I can book out early though if the men were to book in back even after the training...

Wasted today away.
First by finally getting out of bed at 4pm.
Then doing nothing but sitting here staring at my computer for the past who knows how many hours.
Hope that tomorrow would be spent more meaningfully though, with AHM in the morning then meeting up with SCS Foundation's section after that for a meal and possibly more.
Monday too, should be spent nicely.
Would be good to play ball some time.
There should be time in camp next week though.
And this shall mark the start of a new phase of training, motorization will begin in 2SIR soon.









Byeall.