finally, it's the Passing Out Parade for me!!! hehehe... 15 weeks in Tekong comes to conclusion in about 30 minutes of parade at the Tekong Parade Square...

i recall the time when i first got enlisted on 8th December... that feeling SUCKED!!! because it was only 2 weeks after the A levels and i have no time to rest and enjoy with my friends and classmates... so, i dragged myself to tekong, while everyone else is still high party-ing back on mainland...

and all that initial worry that army life would be horrible, that BMT is the worst phrase of a serviceman's life... and all those haunting stories about saddistic sargeants... are both proven to be untrue and absolutely EXTRA... but i am not feeling the slightest tinge of anger over all these stories told to me... because they have prepared me for the worst; and when it didn't turn out that bad, it appears great...

and BMT has done quite a lot on me... from shirt size XL to size M, from waist 39 to waist 32, from half a pull-up to my peak pull-up count of 12 (now i can only do about 8 - thanks to slacking excessively during the last few weeks of BMT), from 150cm for standing broad jump to 198cm (still failed though, but it's a 48cm leap), from 15+ minutes for 2.4km run to around 12.01 minutes... plus i get paid $350 a month... actually it's $349.20... 80 cents goes to some donation to some organisation... plus i got to learn military stuff... like handling a rifle and a little "combat" moves... to think of it, it's actually quite nice cos in singapore you don't get to touch a weapon... so to actually hold a rifle and to shoot it, makes it a very interesting experience...

but yes, blended in between these plus-points, there are stuff that has to be sacrificed for BMT... time out with friends was the most severely affected one for me... being in tekong, even when i have free time, i can't go out with friends... so my relationship with friends suffer... and quite badly too... i realise i've lost touch with most of my classmates... and that is very bad... and you can see all the character of people showing up (and these affect your mood too)... like some people who simply can't be bothered and does things slowly and make others suffer (usually only by waiting for a long long long long time, but sometimes the consequences can be quite bad)... and others who put in their 100% mental effort to make sure their physical effort is reduced to the minimum (i'm talking about the chao-kengs)... gRRR... if only they made national service voluntary... then there won't be uninterested people like these... but then again, if they really made it voluntary, i won't be in the army in the first place... lol... crap talk...

and all these comes to an end today.. at the end of BMT...

will be posting out to the new unit this coming monday... and guess what, my officer said that those BMI below 25 qualify for combat vocations... that mean we get to go into the forest, take our rifles and run everyday... YUCKS!!! right then, i was thinking "gosh, please give me an hour, i'll go to the canteen and have 10 burgers, then you can take my weight again"... i don't wanna do all those running about, i want to simply retire in an office typing and slacking... and of course, those vocations give me time off to meet up with friends and to enjoy myself...

but think of it on the bright side, at least i'll get to keep fit during the next 2 years... so that i can maintain wearing size M shirts and not grow back to XL... and well, time will pass much more quickly since i'll be busy everyday...

so much for looking on the bright side eh... but i just hope i don't get into combat vocations... if i really don't, it'll be a bonus... but i'm prepared for the worst... i hope so...