with pride we lead, sispec! wow.. the feeling of POP, and the feeling of being a CPL. cool sia... but yea.. this time's POP wasnt easy. especially when we POP immediately after the 28km route march.
28km. sounds easy lah.. only 4 more cliques after our BMT route march. but we marched from 9 - 5. not 9am to 5pm. but from 9pm to 5am. yups we marched throughout the night. marched until the zea monster (zzZ zzZ zzZ) attacked us and some of us were even sleeping as we walked along the roads of NTU.. amazing huh. in retrospect i wonder how i actually managed to finish the route march. it's really thanks to the indomitable fighting spirit that we have..
our graduation march kicked off at 9pm on fri after the warm up. for many of us, our spirits were low... we just groaned and moaned and we didnt want to move. but thanks to the background music of matsuri and the flames around the chevron square, our spirits were boosted. the start of the march was always the hardest - it's hard to take the 1st step. but once we make the 1st step everything seemed ok alr.. our platoon was quiet throughout the march. i think we sang songs for less than 1/2 of the march.. so pathetic right. and for me who needs to sing alot during the marches.. this march was a TORTURE to me.. imagine EUGENE LIM cant talk and sing at all! argh.. esp when we marched along the roads of NTU and we couldnt sing as we would be disturbing those who are
to sidetrack. NTU IS DAMN BIG.. wtf more than 4km to walk the whole NTU..
back to main content. thanks to not singing and talking i got so sian during the route march and nothing much could be done to distract me from my march. and then fatigue + the zea monster came in.. zzZ. that was around my 20th clique. my shoulder was aching and my feet felt heavy.. practically i was dragging my feet along the tar roads by that time. owell.. at least we got 100 plus during our break after marching for 16km! that's shiok man.. and we had bananas too.. wah sugar high alr. after finsihing our 24km we took a rest that was shorter tahn usual.. around 10 min liddat and we cheonged back to coyline! WOOHOO! morale was super high already.. we were singing army songs like no one else's business and basically everyone was super motivated to walk back and complete the march even though we are drained both physically and mentally.
no one in our platoon fell out. good job platoon 3!
after the long march we went up to bunk. bathed and prepared for the POP. it was a simple yet signficant one for me, esp when one has just finished overcoming all odds to emerge victorious. blah im exaggerating but to me the feeling was simply great to stand hard on the ground of chevron square and waiting for PC to stick my CPL rank onto my shoulders. when warrant loke came and pasted the scenerio was pretty funny: i was the last to have my rank put on and i stood the longest -duh-. by the time PC came i was nearly dozing off. when he put the ranks on my shoulders, he purposely whacked my shoulders so hard that i jerked and nearly fell down on the floor. it was like so lame lah.. then he went saying that i can endure so long for 28km but yet when he PRESSED the chevrons on my shoulder i nearly pengsan? like HEY! U WHACK DAMN HARD LEH! (of course i didnt say taht to him lah)
after that we sang the school song TWICE. the excuse was to let us understand the true meaning of the school but actually the real reason was simply because we sang too softly le. lol.. the highlight of the day was actually the posting itself. miraculously no matter how fucked up i was in BSLC i didnt get posted to ASLC. i got AHHHHHHHHHHHHmour. like omg.. i think it's more jialat than infantry lah. sungei gedong camp.. in the middle of lim chu kang area. like WTF?! but owell. 16 more platoonmates going there with me. and 2 sectionmates too! kudos to my buddy, shaoqi and drug addict for making it into the PTI course. -envious sia- anyway only 3 guys went into ASLC and they are either malays or PRs. and they were like so sian loh.. sighs. well hope to meet up some time soon..
many of them are having course on monday while i have my 1 week block leave. better make good use of it sia.. :)