[Mood: Excellent] [Mentally: Great] [Physically: Need To Work Out] [State of Mind: Relaxed]
So it has been close to 2 weeks that I have not updated my Blogger. Have I been busy? Yes, of course. Ever since I POP, I started doing things I don't have time for while I was in camp. Playing games, going out, reformat my PCs. But let's continue my blog from where I left off previously: Games Day and Recruits' Night.
Games Day was an absolute morale booster. It was one of the few times you can actually see the whole company coming together and cheering for their respective company. Doesn't matter which platoon you are from, as long as you are in the same company, you won't get clobbered. I participated in the games, only the Combat Race. My sergeant asked me to join while we were at the Range doing shooting, and I said yes. But ever since I failed my SOC, I was so low on morale that I pulled out of the team two days before Games Day. Unfortunately, they were having trouble finding a replacement, so after much persuasion from my platoon mates and sergeants (with incentives), I finally joined back the team. And somehow, I never regretted it.
As Scorpion Company made its way to the stadium, morale was high as our Drill Competition team swept the title and the Best Drill Sergeant. We were looking to add Games Day to our scalp count. We walked to the stadium, participants in front, the rest behind, holding on to garbage cans, sticks, mess tins, helmets, whistles, anything that can make a whole lot of noise. And noise did they make. We taunted Whiskey (who was just opposite us), and arriving at the stadium, our mascot (yes, we have a scorpion held up like a lion dance) went around taunting other companies. They retaliated, but the five Companies (Scorpion, Taurus, Ulysses, Viper, Whiskey) were waiting for the real enemy: Ninja Company. The day before, their Tug-of-War team cheated through the match by sitting down and pulling, and the referees didn't see it. Unfortunately, Scorpion Company was at the losing end. Losing was not a problem for us, losing to cheaters was a major pain in the butt. That was why Ninja Company became our arch enemy, and majority of us were wearing T-Shirts bearing the 'N' and a slash across it.
Soon, Ninja Company came in, and the 5 companies wasted no time and blocked their path, taunting the whole company. It was an incredible sight. It was bigger than the World Cup finals, more aggressive than Brazillian riots, in a vocal sense. A funny sight was a group of Ninja recruits, dressed in tight black singlets and shorts, and holding pom-poms, running around cheering for their company. My first thought was,
That is so gay! I mean, the OC for Ninja Company is a 2-bar commando, but look at what had become of the recruits. Lolz.
Anyway, Games Day consists of around 6 races, if I remember correctly, and we won 2 of them, came 2nd for one of them. The heart-breaking part was when it came to the last race, which was Chain of Command. This race, the commanders had to run too (meaning OCs, PCs, sergeants). Unfortunately, since we are a warrant officer company, our OC and PC are 40-50 years old. No match for the 23-25 years old OC and PC of other companies. And we lost the race, came in second place behind Raven. Some already had tears in their eyes, I held back mine. It was that familliar 'tears-about-to-come-out' feeling I felt in secondary school when I received my 'O' levels results, except this was one of defeat. Nevertheless, everyone worked hard, everyone cheered hard, everyone played hard. We are all winners (except those damn cheaters from ninja Company!).
Later that night, we had Recruits' Night, which was basically like a concert, and we get to wear civvie. My platoon had just received our platoon t-shirt, and we wore it to the concert. It was cool! Lolz... One whole platoon wearing the same attire... As for the performances, it was male dominated, even the Superstars who were on stage are males. As the time approached 10pm, recruits were seen leaving the area to return to their bunks, when suddenly, the SAF Music and Drama team came on stage (lots of ladies!) and began dancing wildly. Two wonderful things happened then. One, everyone who was halfway leaving, or at the back of the crowd, rushed to the edge of the stage (presumably trying to get a good look at the dancers in skirts), and two, they were so overly excited, some of them went on stage and jumped onto the crowd, for a body surf! This is better than Zouk Out! At the end of it all, the majority of us came back with very sore throats.
The very next day, we had our 24km route march. I won't go into details, but it was mentally and physically tough. Everyone was drained from the partying the night before, and the graduation rehearsal held in the morning didn't help with our rest. To counter that, I started leading army songs to bring the morale up high, and as my throat got worse, I pulled in more people to lead the song. I was known as the 'Marathon Singer' during route marches, because when I start leading, no one else gets to lead, as I keep on singing, and singing, and singing until I ran out of songs. The longest I went through without stopping was for 4 km. By then, I was out of steam, and low on morale. But kudos to the rest who led the songs, and pushed me forward.
After the 24km march, nothing else mattered. We were all preparing for our Passing Out Parade. Some of the guys even went through major sabotaging in the night before the parade. Pouring powder on people's shorts while they are sleeping, in their jockey caps, in their helmet, on SBOs, on the beds, everywhere imaginable. One of my bunk mate's bed was pulled out into the lift lobby at 3am, and he was still sleeping very soundly on it all the way until 5am! It was great fun, and it was obvious it will be missed after we passed out.
Now 10 days have passed since I POP, and I looked back at some of the 'tradition' I stuck to while I was in camp. One of them is preparing my torchlight and a roll of toilet paper on my bed before I sleep, for ease of going to toilet. I also have a full water bottle (mineral bottle) tucked beside my right arm under the blanket. Why? Because I was afraid of people disturbing me while I sleep, and I plan to throw the full water bottle in the face of anyone who disturbs me. I nearly had to use it once, but the guy was too obvious that I didn't care. I also have a habit of buying a pack of 10 toilet rolls every 2 weeks or so, not only for my needs, but for the bunk (and sometimes platoon) needs. It was a common sight seeing people in front of my bed asking for toilet paper, that they dubbed me as 'Toilet Paper Man'. I have a feeling if I ever ran out of toilet paper, the platoon will die due to the inability to constipate without toilet paper. Lolz. And one major thing I dutifully do whenever I draw my rifle and clearing it, was kissing it on its handguard. Since the first time I had my rifle, I was told to treat it like my wife, care for it, neevr leaving it out of sight, cleaning it. So I kissed it too. Nothing wrong there, right?
Posting for my unit will be out tomorrow at 10AM. I seriously don't know what I will get. But whatever it is, I will try my best.
Since I got out of camp, I have installed new games (NFS: Most Wanted is GREAT!), watched a couple of movies, clean up my room (a bit), and read books. The momentum of my life has definitely picked up since POP.
If only it will stay that way.