In retrospect

July 10, 2007, that's the date of my last post...

A myriad of events have happened since that unremarkable day...
In my opinion, few would have actually foresee what would be the series of events that i would go through for the rest of my army life. From my last posting... I was still at cmpb waiting for my bslc course in sispec, waiting to go to an advance course and become a spec somewhere(hopefully in airforce)... In summary, this was how things went:
24Sept: sispec 'b' coy
26 Sept: out of course after injury in SOC and reporting sick(MOs....)
27 Sept: posted to signals institute and failed to pass the relevant FFI to enter the course
Early Oct: posted to 6SIR as a rifleman...
Jan: turned operational...
Mar: appointment changed from 2LAW to OC linesman

Things haven't really been bright as i expected from my last post...
A JC student in a rifle coy as a rifleman is not as easy as one may think. There are only 2 'A' levels riflemen in my coy. I got quite a big culture shock when i entered platoon 18 of my coy.
1st, the chinese, malay split... there isn't any real conflict going on but as a saying goes 'like with like' Didn't have to deal with these kind of things up till well... 6SIR. I rather mix freely
2nd, really different culture from that of a JC batch... you strive for your best because you need to, because you want to... or just because you don't want to disappoint yourself, be it past failures or just because you don't want to drop below your past standards. Here in my platoon... why suffer and chiong when you just serve and f off.... why do you need to do extra work when you still get the same pay?
3rd, different values we hold? I will not smoke... have sex.... curse and swear.... gamble..... yet well... there's a significant proportion of my platoon doing that and to them, it is 'okay'. Imagine... my bmt platoon only had 1 smoker. But that aside, I'm truthfully glad that they have such blunt honesty... only a pity they see these vices as a norm of their lives. A different side of society i guess?
4th, spiritually, it is EXTREMELY taxing... there's a bunch of backsliders... moral values are seen as something which is impractical to uphold. Due to deployment, i can hardly go to church... or cell group. Help! I need someone to be accountable to... I want to listen to sermons... I want to go for praise and worship... holy communion... argh! Really miss church alot.

Nonetheless... I have grown to like... even love my platoon for who they are... though i must still admit there are still things I loathe about my platoon, a love-hate relationship in an unrefined form. I do love my section indefinitely... fun bunch of crazy dudes.

Well, from march i got the new appointment as a OC linesman which is basically more or less a company runner... less sleep at company line but also much less work at deployment. I used to think that I'm a task-orientated person... seriously, this appointment has really made me realise that i'm really more of a people-orientated person; Social butterfly perhaps?

A blog is somewhere where one is able to express.Yet like all forms of publications, the whole raw story can't be told, there's only limited space in print and there's censorship too; be it the writer or the laws he is subjected to. Subjugated freedom of speech i guess?

1st post in more than 1/2 a year. Cheers!