hey yall.
yes its me, the same old me.
nothing has changed much, except for the look i guess, with the hair (or the lack of) and all.
it feels good to be out. in fact its feels wonderful. i have a new appreciation for everything and anything.
before i get carried away with the more personal segment of this post, i'm sure all of you are waiting to know what shit i've been through right?
bloody hell, you guys are finding entertainment in my suffering.
nonetheless, i shall appease all you sickos out there.

said goodbye to cassie von and sam at pasir ris that morning on the seventh. it sucked saying bye to her. i was never going to see her again. ever again. in the bus i tried my darndest not to think about it. thank god for jeremy. went on board the ferry (stupidly christened the 'penguin express') that brought us to tekong. upon reaching the enlistees had to temporarily say goodbye to the folks while they took a tour of the facilities and all that shit. jer and i went to this other palce where we got our pink ic stripped and was presented with a new ic called the 11-b. its just like an ic but only for ns-men. and its green, surprise surprise.

we had this silly swearing in ceremony witnessed by our parents followed by some lunch stuff with our parents. then it was time to say goodbye. mum cried as expected. i felt horrible, i hate seeing her cry.

we were brought to this place and split into platoon and section levels. apparently all who came that morning were put into bravo company. unfortunately, jeremy is platoon one and i'm in two. but hey at least he's close by. the floor below to be exact. nothing much for the whole day, just collection of army items, shaving of heads (which i did prior to booking in), placing of items into cupboards, introduction to the buddy system, roles that people play in the platoon (i'm one of the armskote personnel aka i handle rifles)... basically there was a lot admin work going on.

for the first few days, life was kinda slack, nothing much. had to wake up at like 4 plus am though. on the second night, reality hit, i wont be seeing her ever again. i went down to seek solace with jeremy. i let everything all out and well i felt better but i still felt like crap. get it? i dont know if you do, but i'm just saying it like how it was.

life started getting harder soon enough, had weird lectures on how to handle the rifle and stuff, some other stupid lectures on shit like navy and airforce; sheesh like i care. also pt and all that activity started kicking in. had footdrills, route marches (just completed a 6k route march this morning, and oh my god, i couldnt feel my legs. who the hell goes to war with like 15kg of shit on your back? kudos to the army), water parades (this one is just bad. they make you drink so much you feel like barfing), stripping and assembling of weapons, weapon assembling, shooting (i've even been to a live firing range and heard gun shots! definitely cool but freaking scary), standard obstacle course (soc for short, the grown man's playground), ippt (the grown man's napfa test), swimming test and lessons (this one was just dumb. on the first lesson, we were taught how to get into and come out of the pool. talk about redundant).... i'm sure there are more but i just cannot remember much.

of course there are the usual pt training; like strength, weapon drills, endurance training, combat pt.

oh yes, there is bcct (basic close combat training). this one is the one to watch out for. this is so mentally and physically demanding that at the end of the first lesson one dislocated his shoulder and another one (from my platoon) mentally snapped so bad that he had to go to the hospital for some therapy or something like that. talk about scary shit right?

before i scare all the poor people reading this, the army is really not all bad (but it definitely aint all good either). i've made really good friends. my buddy's really nice and there's this person i can get along with extremely well (ian's his name). i can actually be my crazy stupid self in front of him and my section mates aka the people i share a room with. at least i have friends there.

i always looked forward to admin time (free time) when i get the chance to call some people up. to all of you out there that sent me sms-es or answered my calls thank you. even though it was for a short while, it seriously helped me along.
a special shout out to daph. thanks for telling me all that you did. i really needed to hear that at the particular time; immaculate timing.
and to the person i called every single day, you dont know how good it was to hear your voice before i turn in for the night, and you dont know how good it was to hear that you werent leaving on the 14th. i couldnt stop smiling, i even went to bed smiling. sure it must have looked pretty weird but what the hey, at least i have you here for one more day.

more from rec kishan soon...