I'm back from field camp, and I survived!! :) -applause- :p Okayy, maybe it's not the toughest camp that I'll go for in this period of NS, but hey, it was my di4 yi1 ci4 wat... Just imagine, a spoilt city kid like me going for this: 7 days of cheong suah-ing, of bashing through thick Tekong undergrowth, of lugging a big clumsy dirty rifle everywhere I went, of sleeping in a hastily constructed basha (or simply out in the open, for the last 2 nights), of wearing smelly sweaty long fatigues day in day out, of going to the field toilet which was just a deep hole in the ground for emptying whatever we had to empty, of not bathing at all throughout, of digging a shellscrape then a fire trench that took a straight 4 hours of digging, of hitting rocky and chalky ground when digging and nearly collapsing after that, of route marches in the morning, midday and middle of night with loads of up to 30kg, of face camouflage paint that had to be on our faces, hands and neck through all 7 days, of crawling for my life through nettles and mimosa that tore up my hands and face, of letting my head bake in the chunky helmet most of the time, of performing enemy fire contact drills repeatedly, of experiencing exhaustion and fatigue like I've never once imagined. That was field camp for me. But, but, but... Something good came out of it too. I was thankful for the long fatigues during training. Though they trapped heat and sweat, the long sleeves and bottoms protected the rest of my tender skin from tearing whenever I hit the dirt during contact drills. Was thankful for having a chance to go to a field toilet: hehe, quite an experience to have flies buzzing around an open backside. Was thankful for sleeping out in the open on the reclaimed land where we marched to in the last few days. As I lay on my groundsheet and looked up into the night sky, the stars were so clear and bright! I'd never knew that I could see stars in all their brightness in Singapore! And by turning my head to both sides, fireflies glowed in their multitudes in the rustling of surrounding leaves. Blinking on. Off. On. Off. Just like night lights cradling me to sleep after a tiring day. And was thankful for the chance to get to know my buddy, Kendrew, so much better. It's so true that in the army, your buddy will be the one whom you'll really depend on. :)

There were many many memorable happenings in these 7 days, and I can't really remember everything now as I write, but I'll try my best to convey whatever I can recall. I remember how I used to read books by this author, Willard Price, when I was young, and there was this story in which the protagonist had a scorpion in his deep sea diving helmet. Well... Haha I can claim now to have had the same experience! As I was falling in with helmet, SBO and rifle on the 2nd morning, I saw an insect-like creature crawling down my left eye from the inside of my helmet. The people around me said it was a bug, so I sorta ignored it. Then it started crawling down further and over my spectacles, and lo and behold, I saw a tail stinger right in front of my eye. Anyone can imagine what I did. I screamed bloody murder, threw off my helmet, and scraped the baby scorpion, all of 10cm, to the ground. What an experience! Another funny thing that happened time and again was when we were cheong-ing through vegetation during contact drills. Bcos the ground was pretty uneven due to trench digging by previous batches, and also bcos we couldn't see the ground due to the thick green undergrowth, it wasn't uncommon to see people screaming 'Charge!!' as they ran, and suddenly disappear from sight when they fell into a pothole. So in the end, a charging line of 7 people would have only 3 to 4 people left at the end of the charge, heh. Powder parades were also quite unique. We stripped to underwear in front of our bashas at night and sergeants would come round inspecting us to see that we were absolutely ghostly white from head to toe, and I mean really head to toe. The underwear check was a routine that we did by snapping our underwear against our skin and having a cloud of powder exploding in front of us. :p Neat! And finally, there was the Officer Commanding (OC) evening on the last night, where each platoon performed an item. Led by Nicholas, Lucas, Darren and me, Leopard 2 did a choral rendition of one of our army songs, and it was wonderful... :) I love the Leopard 2 cheer too! :)

When I say Leopard you say 2, Leopard 2, Leopard 2
When I say kilat you say toe, kilatoe, kilatoe
When I say yan dao you say guys, yan dao guys, yan dao guys
Leopard 2 (in a cocked up accent)
Yes Sgt!
Leopard 2 (cocked up accent)
Permission to keep fit Sgt!
Half left down
-clap clap- Leopard!

Ah, and fyi, the word 'kilatoe' was something we picked up from our platoon sgts. It means skilled. And 'permission to keep fit' is just a misnomer for punishments by pumping. 'Half left down' is the position for pumping. Yup.

I've really learned to cherish the simplest of pleasures in life, even more so after outfield... :) Hmm, Mum's birthday is coming up on Monday. What should I do?