What can i say, Monday i went to pulau tekong to do watermanship training which is basically crossing through a river, i did that a total of 6 times, wasnt allowed to change my clothes till tuesday morning which meant i was super duper cold, man oh man, it sure felt a little like hell. Then from tuesday to thursday, we had Castaway which was basically prep training for our upcoming Brunei trip. We had to learn jungle survival with no food at all and no place to live. We had to build A-frame shelters, fireplace, traps, weapons and smoke tepees to keep our food fresh, we also had to source for our own food if possible like edible fruits or plants. My group found coconuts and rambutans which helped me alot as it gave me that little bit more strength to go on and on. It was really interesting to live like this though you may feel like a ancient caveman, it was quite a challenge to see whether we humans could really survive in a scenario like this. On thursday, we had an assessment which sadly, i failed the fireplace and smoke teepee which mean i have till next wednesday to do it again and the worst part is, next wednesday was supposed to be the start of my week long holiday but the whole wing has confine because we didnt set up the dypo, a communications setup which was kinda stupid because that only needs to be set up if we cannot establish comms with the current comms set we had, i really hope the confinement would be cancelled as the platoon are planning a outing to the club and having some good clean fun. I then walked 32km from 9pm to 7am in the morning from thursday to friday which was a killer because the terrain is tough. i really wanted to give up at the 4km to 24km mark, sometimes the 4km for rest seemed so super long that i felt i walked more than 4km but luckily, my platoon mates pushed me on and on, namely Weithian, Kassim, Terry, Yoke Fatt, Jonathan, Bryan, Hongxu and Farid, they really never gave up on me and i thank God for them, thanks alot guys! I also thank God for giving the strength to fight on till the end and in the process, earing my Combat Skills Badge, my second badge after the IPPT gold badge, hurrah hurrah!
I am so super tired now, this week i have been sleeping like at 1-3am and waking up at 5-6am, we have been doing things like FIBUA which is actually fighting in built up areas or urban warfare. It is really like counter strike actually and its really fun for me as you can tell by te pictures, but we had a 16km route march after the 2 days of FIBUA which i fall out after 8km because i vomited, was sick on sunday, had a bad flu so i think that is why i didnt feel so good. I went to seletar camp yesterday to do coastal navigation and it was really fun, we took speed boats around the punggol area which i never knew had such a beautiful coastline, we did our practise on a island called coney island which was very clean and free of mosquitos, can u believe it? haha, but the end if the day was really tiring, we had to carry those boats that weighed a ton back to their sheds, 18 people at least to carry, can u imagine the weight now? Next week its hell week, jungle survival with no food in tekong for 3 days before i go for a 32km route march to get my cSB badge, its like a proficiency badge to see how well i know my army stuff before i get to book out and rest finally before i leave for Brunei in 2 weeks time!
Its been a rollercoaster week so far, i was involved in the 400m trials for the Chain of Command race, a rare honour for me and finally i get to sit a helicopter!!! It was a really fun time taking the helicopter though i really wish i could be the one flying it, i tried to sign on as a pilot, WISO(asst. pilot) and C3(helicopter crew) but to no avail. Well, i could always try a few years later. However the highlight of the week so far has got to be the killing of a live quail! Actually, i just did it a hour earlier before i started blogging, so well, the smell of the blood is still on my hands. Was so excited to blog that down and share it with everyone, will put up photos if i can get some, enjoy your week people!