Of the One Month Report
Millions of apologies to my friends and the readers of this blog for my absence.As many of you guys already know,i was forced to join the army a month's time back.Oh well,that was a pain in the ass.I had a couple of book out days amidst the screwed up timetable,but never really the mood to blog.Most of the free time i had was spent on eating,sleeping and hanging out with family and friends.Suddenly,blogging dropped out of the top five spot on the "Priority List",falling behind the activities mentioned above.

So how was the army like you ask?Lets put it this way.Before i entered,i expected a whole tub of poop being thrown on me.However,i recieved only a bucket of it.My point is,i expected much worse.I probably expected myself to pick option E on my "NS Questionaire".And that is,to kill myself.Oh well,things werent too bad.I love my platoon mates.They are a great bunch of people i must say.The call to CMPB from my mother was comforting,especially after she told me that the people in my platoon would consist of predominently.That was a relief on my part,because that meant that frequency wouldnt be a problem.Come to think about it,the worst day of army life from day one till now,was day one itself.Im not too sure why,but i hated the first day.The master sergent actually screamed at the recruits on the first day.But he really is a pretty nice guy and so full of bull.The first taste of NS life was when Platoon Sergent of Platoon 3 screamed at the recruits for not being able to differentiate between left and right.That particular scream was followed by a string of hokkien vulgarities.Then it was the oath taking session in the auditorium,which started off in an awful mood because of the screaming above,as well as the expected trainings coming up.Of course,since our parents were present the video shown was full of propaganda bull."Unforgettable and Memorable experience" it said.As Platoon Sergent of Platoon 1(David Song)later confirmed,it is a whole lot of bullshit.I remember how my dad waved to me as he walked towards his seat.But i pulled a long face,and was in an awful mood.I forgot what went through my mind.Fear,perhaps a little bit of sadness mingled amongst a whole lot of emotions.It was a emotion generating session,and i felt so alone.The lunch that followed didnt cheer me up at all.

The first night was far from good as well.As expected,none of us could sleep that night.Personally,i kept rolling around on the extremely uncomfortable pillow,and staring out into the cold night sky outside the window.Thoughts swirled,and i didnt have someone to talk to back then.Slowly,i started to write in my notebook.Poems and short phrases over the two weeks.I slowly got to know my bunkmates,and they are great people as well.This is how the recruits are distributed on Tekong.We are divided into companies,and i am from Orion.Basically the order runs alphabetically ,excluding some letters like "Q" and "X"(Probably because they were too stupid to come up with cool company names for those letters).Then each company is divided into four platoons,and i am in platoon four.Then each platoon is then divided into sections,and then beds.Each section should consist about 10 to 13 recruits.But because i am in the last section(Section 4),we only have seven.

Bed one is Christopher(Or Ho Wah).He has a baby face,and is commonly known throughout the platoon as "Ho Wah" or "Baby".Always the target for us to bully,and a might set a tad bit too innocent for a 18 year old.When asked some personal questions about girls,he couldnt answer them all.When asked about the people in his school,he knew none.He is a nice guy,but acting cute has a limit Christopher!Bed three is Varun(Or Varun the Great as he likes to call himself).This Indian man from Sri Lanka has a screwed up attitude.He is a nice guy ultimately,but he can get very cranky sometimes.Almost too grumpy,and sometimes very naggy.A little too old for his age,and i am not talking about maturity here.Pushing responsibilities is what he does best,and can be really lazy when it comes to personal trainings.Surprisingly,despite being the laziest recruit in my bunk he managed to improve on his pullup counts.That pissed me off a little bit,but i guess his record is not going to hold for too long.He is the toilet IC,and due to that he made a couple of enemies here and there every morning when he locks the toilet to prepare it for area cleaning.Especially the more urgent cases of bladder movements.Bed four is Ravi.He is the man.On first look,you wouldnt expect him to be too wild or friendl.He has a stern face,and the physique to match it.He was in the NCC,and the he naturally had a rough idea of what to expect in camp."The sergents here are peanuts compared to the ones at my school".Oh well,perhaps.Anyway,he is a nice guy.Definitely somebody you can count on.Next would be NingShan,the all too serious man of the bunk.I respect this guy to a certain expect,because of his clear mind and knowledge.After all,he was from Raffles' Institution(But screwed up and went to CJC).If we are able to elect a leader of each section,it wouldve been him.But for some reason he seems to be the leader of himself,and not the crowd as a whole.He commands,but never forceful.Being the serious guy of the platoon can be both beneficial and detrimental to his road to OCS.Bed six is Gary,the Mr Nice Guy.Very quiet,and always in thoughts with himself.He is somebody whom you would consider to be a nerd back in school,but in the army nobody cares about your history.Not too much anyway.Very organised he is,and never fails to help.Bed seven is Adrian,probably the guy who clicks the most with myself.He is a nice guy,and a nice girlfriend Trisha to match up.Our bunk has twelve beds,and six on each side.He is the seventh person of the bunk and thus,he sleeps on one side of the room while everybody else sleeps on the other.It can get a little creepy and lonely in the middle of the night if you place yourself in his shoes(Or bed).He would drag his mattress in between myself and Varun and spend the night talking to me.Of course,i would usually initiate the "Go to Sleep" command towards the end of our D&M(Or Deep and Meaningful Conversations).He is a nice guy as well,and probably somebody i can rely on(Hopefully).But please try harder not to delay everybody by being the last guy out of the bunk everytime alright?

I have to say that my sergents are pretty nice.Coincidentally,four out of five of them have their names starting with "J".Platoon Sergent is Jude,and the rest of the sergents are Jonathan,Jasbir,Leonard and John who got transfered to Ninja just the day before yesterday.Leonard is a pain in the ass,and so is Jude.They are the unreasonable ones,though they always have the "I hate to be unreasonable" phrase lingering around their lips,it often contradicts to their actions.I mean,my section was late for fall in one day alongside a dozen other recruits,and we were forced to go for Guard Duty(Which turned out to be quite a fun experience later on).I mean,some others who were early that day,have been constantly late on the other days.I guess it all comes down to luck,and that is a very important factor to consider in the army.If you are lucky enough,you can escape without any serious scoldings or whatever.Leonard is the gay,supposingly.He is two-faced(Alongside Jude),and always pulling a face in front of us.The worst thing is,both their jokes are never funny.Not that i want to complain,but NS men really have to update their joke books and seriously consider seeking aid from their young cousins or sons,because they are not going to get many girlfriends(Or boyfriends)in the future with cheap jokes they are pulling.Seriously,stop trying.

Jonathan,Jasbir and John are great sergents.They get pissed off when needed to,and fun when needed to as well.I guess every sergents should look up to them.When not in training,Jasbir and John would come up to our bunks and talk to us personally about NS life and check out on our physical and mental health.And i thought that is the job of the platoon sergent?No wonder i have more respect for the other sergents as compared to Jude.He doesnt know how to control his mood,and when he is pissed he calls us "Idiots".Yeah,so that is the worst insult you can come up with?Grow some brains,go home and have a cup of coffee,calm yourself down and read the "1001 Insults" book before you book in again.Seriously,you dont have my respect and the authority you are supposed to have.What a shame.

Despite the immaturity,i have to say that my sergents are still decent as compared to the others.David Song,DeWei and other sergents can be crazy at times.They always have something up their sleeves to put you in the deepest pits of hell.Thank god i have no relations to them whatsoever,or else i wouldve been six feet under after a week or so(And that is being generous).

The trainings can be tough and demanding,but not as tough as i thought.I guess i over-estimated the toughness of the army.I guess partially,the reason for it is because this is a new system,and the sergents themselves are new to them.Moreover,they have placed more emphasis on welfare and the health of the recruits rather than the full emphasis they had on fitness a year ago(They never had chefs last year in the cookhouse).Due to that,i dont even think BMT(Basic Military Training)is going to be as hard as it used to be.Sergent Jonathan was saying how slack PTP is,when he himself went through PTP a year ago.Well,things clearly changed.And im pretty sure BMT is not going to be as tough as before.Im just going to face things with a smile and a joke.Dust myself off and walk on.Just like when i was in the march yesterday in the pouring rain with my field pack,SBO,helmet and rifle.I hate marches,and with the distance gradually increasing over the weeks i dread it even more.Thankfully(Sarcastically),it rained yesterday.We were drenched and cold,and the march was not cancelled.It didnt lighten my mood at all,but being the joker of the platoon i tried to cheer myself up by cheering up everybody else.So i led songs,and i joked along the way.And at the end of the day,the march didnt seem too long at all.Though i was drenched,and i was awfully cold,i actually felt good after the march.The first time that i actually felt good after one.Truly a good feeling to have.

On Tekong,everything is a tad bit too far away.Home is inside,with the planes taking off from the airport just across the channel.I can see the airport tower,only a tad bit bigger than the width of my pinky in the distance,and the planes soaring above the facility now and again.Reality never fails to detach,and you feel like you are in a different dimension all of a sudden.No televisions,and no newspapers.Nothing from the outside world,and the lot of us are usually ill-informed.Mr John Lim's death in New Zealand came as a shock only after a fellow recruit told me about it.Then there is the Tsunami that claimed over 100000 lives around Asia.All these sudden incidents just came upon me like the Tsunami itself.Too sudden,and a little difficult to handle.Too many things happening around the world,with a veil pulled over our eyes by the army.I was thinking about the difference between the army and the prison the other day,and you'd be surprised at the similarities.I guess the sergents are wardens without patons.Most importantly,i miss my family and friends.Well,i am handling the distance between me and my friends pretty well i must say.Better than i expected myself to.There's always the handphone to kill time,and they are just a scroll and a few buttons away on the phone.In army,i really realised that i have friends that are truly the building blocks of my life.I love my mom,and i love my dad.I love my sister,and all the concerns from my other friends.XinYu's kind supplies of food and drinks was touching,and i was dumbfounded on that rainy day.Everytime i open the drawer in my cupboard in camp,i see the clothes and the food prepared for me by my family and friends,a surge of warmth fills me up."A bit of home..." i always mutter to myself.

One great thing about Tekong is the night skies.The constellations are amazing in the morning.The lines you can draw,and the shapes you can form from the stars in the sky are endless.The variety of cloud formations you can see are astounding and breathtaking.Ive never seen such a beautiful sky in my life,and despite the cold mornings on Tekong and the blistering cold winds,i risk getting a flu just to take a look up into the sky.Amazing,i tell you.Simply amazing.

It is Sunday,and i will be booking in again later at 8pm.It's not going to be too bad for me,because ive made so many friends there.It sucks to leave everybody behind,but i guess it's all going to be fun.To learn something new i guess,and that's being optimistic.No point being pessimistic about things really,and just laugh things off when things take the 'wrong-est'turn.Until the next book out,this is me signing out.;)

A song to describe my feelings about my life right now.Very fitting,and very soothing.I love the tone of the song,and i hope you guys like it.My thoughts towards the numerous that died during the Tsunami,Mr John Lim and his wife,my detached life,my friends and family,and everything else...

Across the Universe
By Fiona Apple

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open ears inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
Million suns, it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Jai guru de va, jai guru de va
Jai guru de va, jai guru de va
Jai guru de va.

Jai guru de va, jai guru de va.

Song of the Moment---Across the Universe by Fiona Apple