:: Live in Fear ::
There is one flaw in the way the army is run that does not seem right to me. And that is the fact that everyone lives in the fear of consequences of their actions and that fear is used to control them.
Every training exercise we conduct has a safety brief and in the safety brief phrases like "better not _______, or else you going to answer for it" and "if you _______, you'd better watch out". Pretty standard threats but the thing is that once you hear them so many times, you grow immune to them. To me, warnings about breaches in SOP should be rationalised. We should be allowed to know the reason why something is not done in this manner instead of another way.
For example, weapons training. We live in constant fear of our rifles. Words like "chamber explosion", "weapon jam" etc are used to remind us about the killing power we have in our hands. No doubt I agree that a certain amount of healthy respect has to be given to the fact that the inanimate metal object in our hands has the power to take the life of someone else and our own if we are not careful. But the one thing that I don't quite agree on is the inbred FEAR of the weapon. Technical handling lessons on the weapon should not just consist of the immediate actions to be taken when the weapon jams but more onto the mechanical functioning of the weapon. Once someone knows what exactly each part of the rifle does and how to maintain the rifle, I'm sure that accidents will be more infrequent. Right now, I believe that weapon maintenance by each soldier is not taken seriously.

I must apologise that of late most, in fact probably all, of my posts have been about the army. I can't help it. Unfortunately that's the only thing that I have time for in my life right now. There isn't an awful lot of time that is spent outside of camp so I don't really do much. It's seriously painful how much the army has taken away from my normal life and how I miss civilian lifestyle. hah... Now I'm even calling it CIVILIAN. A few months ago, it wouldn't be called civilian. It would be called normal.

080208. That is a date to be remembered. ORD. and back to normal life... whew.
countdown: 565 days to ORD.

:: Fuck the Army ::
Yes I'm saying it and I'm saying it again.... Balls to the army....
fuck sia. We did everything perfect today and we still booked out at fucking 10pm... Then what's the point of doing everything nicely.... Perfect or fucked standard we still get the same thing. So why bother to put in the effort.
I'm using VERY VERY mild language right now... It's amazing I've had the control not to smash anything cuz I so deeply want to.
fucking hell... We finished everything at abt 7 pm and though the other platoons still had to send arms, they i.e. the sgts took their own sweet time to get everything done. I swear things could be done a lot more smoother if they let us take some fucking initiative. But if we do, we get fucked for not waiting for instructions. And at times when we don't, we get fucked for not being pro-active enough... What the fuck is that all about?? Two totally conflicting points set by them.
to me, I don't see the point in doing anything well for them. They are a bunch of worthless, incompetent dumbfucks who are just put into this dumping ground of a vocation. Trust me. I have many more adjectives that I wanna use but many of them are way too vulgar to use on the internet [there might be kids reading this and I've already used too many Fs]. I don't care anymore. Balls to the army. I'm just going to do the bare minimum required and I'm going to do my best to get out of everything and anything possible. Wasting fucking two years of my life.

to those out there who still hold fantasies of the army as this mega-cool, ultra-mundo place with state-of-the-art facilities and tools, high tech defense capabilities and maximised efficiency. Wake up before I go over and slap you.

:: Dreamless Nights and Endless Days ::
it's strange that in camp I never dream at all.... One moment I close my eyes and fall asleep and the next it's 0530h and time to wake up.... There's nothing in between. I guess it's because I'm just too tired. Days are passing very slowly as well. Time seems to slow in that camp. Bookout day always seems to be so far away but when it finally comes, the time spent out of camp whirls by so quickly. haha.. The only time in the army that passes quickly is bookout time and admin time [that's what they call the free time given to us at night]. Other than that, the clock just ticks slowly by.

I have decided that I'm not going to waste any time that I am given in camp. We do get quite a lot of free time at night after our last activity so I want to use that time to learn something. My first objective is to learn a new language. I was actually considering Spanish or German but I decided on Portuguese instead since my grandma was Portuguese Eurasian. Later in my ns life, I'll be also getting some physics textbooks so that I can keep my mind up to standard so I won't be so far behind when I finally ord and get back to studying. Hopefully by the end of the ns phase in my life, I'll be able to say that I have done something useful instead of wasting the two years of my life.

it used to be just an ache after a long run, but now my back is constantly in pain. I can't stand or sit in one position for very long cuz it'll start hurting like mad. I went to the specialist that dad recommended and he wrote in his diagnosis that it could be either a muscle strain or a disc prolapse. I'm going for a scan and xray at the end of the month to try and confirm his diagnosis. Hopefully it's nothing too costly but so far everything has been covered by my NSF status. Free medical care... woohoo!! But still. I hope it's not too serious cuz I'm still young and I have a lot of things that I wanna do with my life. I don't want to be limited by something like a back injury. And if worse comes to worse, I wanna remain surgery-free for as long as possible or better yet for my entire lifespan. But we'll just have to see how things go eh?