Oh man.... Heaven!!! 
Hmm... Responding to Miss Penny's question, heh, i dun bring my camera outfield all the time, its just that when i happen to bring and the inspiration comes, i'll take a pic! In fact, we are allowed to bring during the training but its your own responsibility to take care of it, i love taking photos and i am honoured people like some of my photos, it means i am getting the stuffs right! Hope you guys like my blog and i promise to update it as often as i can! Oh, went to Brazil Churrascaria with Balota, Weithian, Grace, Bryan and Hongxu on Tuesday, fantastic place, the meat is so tender, sliced so perfectly onto your plate, the warm pineapples just seem to melt in your mouth, oh my god, perfect! Everyone should make it a point to go there, its at sixth avenue, try it, your heart will melt...
It’s a Tuesday afternoon and the clouds are dark, it just rained and the weather is cold but where am I? Seated in front of my computer screen with a Starbucks latte on my table, I take a sip… Ahhh, heaven… Yes I am back guys, I am back to civilisation. The 21 days in Brunei had been gruelling, both physically and mentally, both of these factors being put to the ultimate test over there, from day 1, we were also rushing around, from packing to lunch to dinner to listening for ops orders, man, what a workout!
The main training that I am going for this time in Brunei is well of course, Infantry training and another thing, to get my Jungle Confidence Badge which was really a huge learning experience for me. We started off with Ex. Nomad, which is a navigation exercise, which involved us climbing ridgelines and spurs like crazy people! The main objective is to pass this veto factor for the whole JCC (Jungle Confidence Course) which is to obtain at least 2 checkpoints, I midpoint and an endpoint. But haha, my team did fantastic, we achieved maximum points, 4check, I mid and a end which we heard from the instructors that it’s a first in 2 years since the area for the navigation has been changed, we are already the last OCS batch to take this course and now to be written into history as the first full marks group, man, what a honour! Though I must say, for the last checkpoint, we actually couldn’t find it but luckily for us, on the way, we got another team who confirmed with us where we were on the map and from there, we manage to successfully navigate ourselves to the checkpoint as we had gotten lost earlier. Yonghan was my inspirational leader, Suresh my pacer, Mingcai and Junyuan my plotters, Magness and Yizhen were so fit that they were carrying the signal sets all the while, we really gelled as a team i feel, and we created history! Yay!
Next up, Ex. Chillhermit, which was the one I really feared, this exercise, involved us having to survive alone in a jungle for 5 days with absolutely no food to eat. We had to build an A-frame (shelter), a fireplace, a smoke tepee, a 5m rope, utensils, fishing rod, spear, a bird trap and monitor lizard trap, all these to be done and get assessed for. During the lessons on how to build these stuffs, I had to endure watching a live rabbit getting killed and skinned also, oh my god, I carried the poor bunny to the instructor somemore, it was super cute lo, god bless the poor bunny’s soul. With no food! Well, not totally actually, on the third day, the instructors had a look at our stuffs to see how we were coping and we had two sweet potatoes, some ferns and because 5 points was awarded for killing a quail, we also had the quail to eat. I tell you, I never killed a quail with such speed before, and man the heart was still beating when I was pulling out the feathers and skin! I found some wild ginger which I used to boil soup with the quail bones, adding some salt for flavour, man I tell you, not eating is quite alright but when u start to eat, afterwards, u get super hungry! It rained on the 3rd night at 4.06am till about 5.30am, I will always remember, my shelter wasn’t up and I was drenched, cold and hungry, tian ah, bu yao zhe yang zhe muo wo ah! I was dreaming of every single food that I could think of, chicken rice, char kway teow, my mum’s cooked food, wah, I was having a mental bashing!!! On the fifth day of assessment, we were further given 2 sweet potatoes but because I caught a catfish (heh, damn small, 4-5 cm only), I had one extra tapioca. By then, I was really skinny, my body, not so my face, maybe a little…
The last part was Ex. Chillbone and this was the ultimate killer, 17km on the map transcended into over 30km on real ground walking and I was getting crazy, we were air-lifted into a area and we had to navigate back with only 3 packets of combat ration and for the first time, I was super excited to taste them because I hadn’t had real food in a long long time. This last test was a killer; we climbed up mountains, which was 60-70 degrees, elevated over 350m in height! Cliffhanger literally! Bt. Telugong had a ridgeline that spanned over 2km and it wasn’t straight all the way, it’s up and down and up and down… Arrgh, I was going crazy, and then on the last day where my team was leading (for your info, we were the last to get despatched), it rained, from 4-6pm, it rained cats and dogs and I didn’t have a dry pair of uniform, we harboured and started to make a fire and cook the last pack of combat rations but soon after we finished eating, it rained again, from 6plus to 7plus 8. Wah, we were already getting dry from the huge fire we had made but now, wet again, and then we started the fire after it stopped but guess what at 9pm, rained again! This time all the way till 12am, I tell you, I really felt like crying, wet, cold and tired, this badge was really difficult but luckily I was in a group otherwise I will die! But we endured through it and finished it off with a combat swim, 50m over a river and that was that. I really have to commend Balota, he is really a great navigator and his Chillhermit, he really build them with dedication and professionalism, Hongxu, my camp buddy Jonathan, Kiat Loon and Mingcai were really fit people who helped me and Yizhen when we were struggling at Bt. Telugong, kudos to them, they really are great pals!
I lost 6 kg when I weighed myself back in camp but luckily, canteen breaks were on hand! Fish and chips, fried rice, ice cream, ice longan, burgers, the works! But I had a terrible stomach-ache after that and in fact, I could eat a lot even though I thought so much about it, my stomach’s capacity had shrank, no joke, girls u should really go take this course, guaranteed results! But slowly and surely, I am getting my appetite back and hopefully I can get it to full potential again! Oh, there is a fabulous kueh in Brunei, utrimandee, heh, hope I got the name right, its little tapioca like balls with sweet minced brown sugar coconut toppings, oh my god, it’s a killer, really melts your heart, too bad I couldn’t bring some back, quite difficult to find, I only got to eat during a visit to the water village as part of my educational tour.
Well, I got the badge and I have a huge learning experience, which made this trip fruitful though it was tough and gruelling. A sentence learned from JCC…
For one to survive, one must die. The survivor’s own preservation takes precedence over humanitarian principles.
Sick or is it true? You judge for yourself guys…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)