from bmt to pop, till now

BMT

in a blink of an eye, bmt is history. all guys in singapore go through bmt, and only once. so my turn is over, i'll never have to go through bmt again. great! oh well, what can i say about bmt, it's been a really enriching experience. quite an unimaginable experience for those who haven't experienced army life. Living together with 12 other people in the same room, going for meals, training and returning to bunk feeling totally exhausted with the same old bunch of people. i still remember the first few days of bmt, when everyone couldn't get to sleep. and how we tried so hard to remember each other's names. how we always rushed up n down the stairs from our bunk to the company line. how we got so used to the army jargons even though we weren't really taught. terms like "admin time", "coy line", "double up", "RO" etc etc were just driven into our brains cuz we use them almost every day. field camp was another interesting experience, even though most of us would probably not like to go through it again. how we lived in the jungles for 7 days, how we survived on combat rations, digging shitholes, trenches. how we slept in basha tents, how we carried our rifles wherever we went, how the helmet and SBO became part of our body throughout the field camp. and there were long tortuous route marches, where we had a heavy fieldpack on our backs as we marched and sang songs along the way. and all the army songs will be stuck in our heads forever. oh well, 2 months of bmt have passed me by. what awaits me is my new posting, and beyond that is the continuation of my NS life.

POP
on the day of pop, all of us were in high spirits, cuz we knew we were going to be promoted from lowly recruits to the "not-very-low-but-still-lowly" privates. but nevertheless, we have been through thick and thin together, so i'm sure we will miss those days we fool around in bunk, during training, and after training. my bunkmates were really fantastic; they made my bmt life a really memorable and unforgettable one. and it's really a strange feeling how we shook each other's hands, hugged each other, and as we drag our duffel bags out of tekong, we realize that a few hours on, we won't be seeing each other anymore. we weren't be seeing thiswhole bunch of people who slept with me, ate with me, trained with me for the past 2 months.

and NOW
i still find it quite saddening that there's no one to go out withduring this bloc leave! and no one to watch the world cup with! wad a waste! everyone's in camp. grr. and my bloc leave's left with 4 more days only. anywayy, i've gone out with robin, and robin and jonfang on two ocassions. hmm my first time seeing robin in quite a while, and i must say that he's changed a lot! or rather, army has changed him a lot! hahaha his mouth's full of vulgarities now n it's quite amusing listening to him speak now. hahaha. and it's only my second time seeing jonfang since we enlisted. quite sad eh... 2 times in 2 months. oh well well...

and just today, i went out with iwakiri-san! so cool! my first time going out with a japanese, who is actually many many years older than me. haha (in fact she's already a mother!) and something interesting happened before that. we agreed to meet at isetan (shawhouse) at 1pm. then i waited from 1245 to 1350 and she was nowhere to be seen! and without a handphone, we couldn't contact each other. so i could only wait and wait. and finally a phonecall came. she had gone home cuz i was nowhere to be seen. so we discussed and figured out that she was actually at the other side of isetan which was near macdonalds too (i was at the mac cafe). oh manz, both of us waited for more than 40 minutes. and i didn't know that there were so many mc cafes at shawhouse! (btw she only came to singapore end of last year so she doesn't know the places well)

grrr... but anyway she came back and we went for lunch at this super super high class japanese restaurant called "aoki". oh my goodness, the moment i entered the restaurant, i felt out of place. haha the design was exquisite, unique and really impressive. and there were many small rooms so we took the first one. (apparently this restaurant's opened by iwakiri's friend, wow) then when i opened the menu, i was stunned by the prices. haha the cheapest thing there was $35. not knowing what to order, she suggested we eat sushi as it's famous for sushi. so we started eating and talking. after that, i showed her the way to orchard station and we proceeded to wisma atria, takashimaya and then to cineleisure (since she hasn't been there before). there, we had ice kacang! haha and she said it had a unthinkable and unique taste. haha, and how she was surprised how singapore's chicken rice is different from japan's chicken rice. and she told me that the sushi in singapore's "sakae sushi etc" is not the real sushi. wad i ate at aoki was the real one. hmm i couldn't tell the difference though. haha.

anywayyyy i'm going to meet her and her daughters this saturday again! so exciting! okie dokie. oh yes, i'm so goign to watch japan thrash croatia this sunday! grrrr.... watching japan lose to australia was such a heartwrench. i nearly wanted to cry, as i see all the japanese around me sulking as australia struck 3 goals mercilessly past japan in the last 6 minutes. sigh sigh sigh sigh.... japan should never have lost that game. it was THE game to win, and to bring us through to the next round. now we can only hope that a miracle happens we go through. GO JAPAN! SHOW CROATIA, AUSTRALIA, BRAZIL AND THE WHOLE WORLD WHAT WE ARE MADE OF! WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS OF ASIA!