doing a janus
i should explain janus - he's the two-faced roman god guy who looks both forward and back; that's why january's named after him. beginnings and endings, that sort of thing. so i'm looking back at the last couple of weeks and forward at the next 10 days or so.
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jan 10th enlistment. nothing major, lots of admin. dragging bags of army-issued stuff around the place, changing all my footwear cos they were all 1 size too small. the e-measure thing or whatever is obviously screwed.
jan 11th (day 2) was lectures, nothing major... orientating us to army life. next couple of days (days 3 and 4) we had foot drills and more lects, some PT as well if i'm not wrong. i'm still not quite getting the hang of marching, though it's improving... didn't help that our foot drills were in sunny 37deg heat - i look like a blackface golliwog cos of that lol. also some weapon handling lectures... drills and all that. also saw our platoon commander (PC) for interview, basically checked how i was coping and stuff like that, bit of stuff on adjusting to army life. nothing much except he's a pretty nice guy.
more lects on 14th, 15th and 16th (days 5-7). we had medical and dental lectures on 14th - naptime! fyi you officially get 7 hours of sleep (2230-0530) but in reality most wake up at 0500 if not earlier... cos of some idiots' alarms. we had IPPT on 15th which i passed with no difficulty; bodes well for my fitness i guess. coming in 9th in my half of the company (platoons 3 & 4) for 2.4 gave me a pretty nice sense of achievement. even though it was only 10:31. route march on 16th, 4km only so it was more or less song and dance all the way.
i was pretty homesick round about days 3-7 or so, wondering how my mom and dad were coping and stuff like that... was rather irrationally sad that my dad couldn't be there for enlistment lah. bit of emo there that i should have left behind. but got better after that. anyway...
17th and 18th (days 8 & 9) were spent at the rifle simulator... the Individual Marksmanship Trainer. my marksmanship sucks but the system sucks worse; it lost nearly all my shots the first day, and the second day afternoon. and the worst thing is everyone thought i was playing a fool and not aiming, damnit. the computer system is really bad.
19th was a 6km route march with our field packs, bit more strenuous than the previous time but still well within my limits. we had our rifle handling (THT/technical handling test) on 20th... PT on 21st, and vaccination (2 jabs SIMULTANEOUSLY thank goodness the medics didn't screw up)... some lectures on 21st and 22nd (national education and history of SAF bullshit).
23rd and 24th were spent at the live firing range for our marksmanship test which was boring as hell (all the waiting just to fire 6 magazines, and waiting some more for the night shoot and another 6 magazines). except the firing scared the crap out of me. not the recoil or the sound, but the thought of accidentally pulling the trigger or misfiring or anything. and of course of the rifle screwing up (like i heard from jon lee). had to do the IA drills 5 times. still i passed... not spectacularly, 20 or 21 shots i think. oh well. last day was spent entirely out in the field, lots of fieldcraft stuff.
a ferry ride never felt so good i think. got back on the 25th... went out to island creamery and crashed YO on 26th with jon. great to be back with friends and seeing my section (9 bassists wtf?) and playing bridge and everything.
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next week - field camp. mon some lectures and packing; and tues-sun will be hell. no phone, no updates. they'll be tekaning us outfield with all the noise discipline shit, move fast, make no noise, prone down on the ground. dirt mud sand soil in our faces. camo and all that. then CNY!
gtg now... reporting back at pasir ris at 2015 tonight. take care all... and i'll be leaving this blog in the safe hands of adam haha.
-----
jan 10th enlistment. nothing major, lots of admin. dragging bags of army-issued stuff around the place, changing all my footwear cos they were all 1 size too small. the e-measure thing or whatever is obviously screwed.
jan 11th (day 2) was lectures, nothing major... orientating us to army life. next couple of days (days 3 and 4) we had foot drills and more lects, some PT as well if i'm not wrong. i'm still not quite getting the hang of marching, though it's improving... didn't help that our foot drills were in sunny 37deg heat - i look like a blackface golliwog cos of that lol. also some weapon handling lectures... drills and all that. also saw our platoon commander (PC) for interview, basically checked how i was coping and stuff like that, bit of stuff on adjusting to army life. nothing much except he's a pretty nice guy.
more lects on 14th, 15th and 16th (days 5-7). we had medical and dental lectures on 14th - naptime! fyi you officially get 7 hours of sleep (2230-0530) but in reality most wake up at 0500 if not earlier... cos of some idiots' alarms. we had IPPT on 15th which i passed with no difficulty; bodes well for my fitness i guess. coming in 9th in my half of the company (platoons 3 & 4) for 2.4 gave me a pretty nice sense of achievement. even though it was only 10:31. route march on 16th, 4km only so it was more or less song and dance all the way.
i was pretty homesick round about days 3-7 or so, wondering how my mom and dad were coping and stuff like that... was rather irrationally sad that my dad couldn't be there for enlistment lah. bit of emo there that i should have left behind. but got better after that. anyway...
17th and 18th (days 8 & 9) were spent at the rifle simulator... the Individual Marksmanship Trainer. my marksmanship sucks but the system sucks worse; it lost nearly all my shots the first day, and the second day afternoon. and the worst thing is everyone thought i was playing a fool and not aiming, damnit. the computer system is really bad.
19th was a 6km route march with our field packs, bit more strenuous than the previous time but still well within my limits. we had our rifle handling (THT/technical handling test) on 20th... PT on 21st, and vaccination (2 jabs SIMULTANEOUSLY thank goodness the medics didn't screw up)... some lectures on 21st and 22nd (national education and history of SAF bullshit).
23rd and 24th were spent at the live firing range for our marksmanship test which was boring as hell (all the waiting just to fire 6 magazines, and waiting some more for the night shoot and another 6 magazines). except the firing scared the crap out of me. not the recoil or the sound, but the thought of accidentally pulling the trigger or misfiring or anything. and of course of the rifle screwing up (like i heard from jon lee). had to do the IA drills 5 times. still i passed... not spectacularly, 20 or 21 shots i think. oh well. last day was spent entirely out in the field, lots of fieldcraft stuff.
a ferry ride never felt so good i think. got back on the 25th... went out to island creamery and crashed YO on 26th with jon. great to be back with friends and seeing my section (9 bassists wtf?) and playing bridge and everything.
-----
next week - field camp. mon some lectures and packing; and tues-sun will be hell. no phone, no updates. they'll be tekaning us outfield with all the noise discipline shit, move fast, make no noise, prone down on the ground. dirt mud sand soil in our faces. camo and all that. then CNY!
gtg now... reporting back at pasir ris at 2015 tonight. take care all... and i'll be leaving this blog in the safe hands of adam haha.
Labels: Life
posted by Unknown at
6:47 pm
1 Comments:
First two weeks seem quite ok? Maybe you can write about horrible parts? ;)
Hello Adam! (But why aren't you in camp?)
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